Lost in America, Redux

 

Paris, November 2016

Four years and a handful of weeks ago, I wrote a post titled "Lost in America." 

November 9, 2016. I had woken up with the covers still pulled over my head, hanging on to a last gasp of hope that the projected election results of the night before had been nothing more than a really bad dream. Little did I know, that morning, that the nightmare was real, and would far exceed even my own dire expectations. 

Though I had tossed my illusions earlier in the day, realized that Trump's path to victory was not quite as narrow as the pundits had said, I was devastated all the same. And baffled. I wrote about a white woman somewhere in Michigan explaining why she had voted for this man:

She babbled about American values, about getting our country back. Like her candidate, she was vague and adamant in her repetition. For a moment, she even looked confused, as if she realized the words she spoke had no meaning. The moment passed.

For about 1500 days since then, I have watched the vague and adamant babble, spread and reinforced by the vague and adamant babble of those with the imprimatur of public office, those who knew and know better but simply didn't and still don't care. Though I've become somewhat numb, I remain as devastated as I was that morning, the mortal wounds to my country confirmed. I was heartbroken, I wrote. "For me, for my children. For what I thought were American values. For what I thought was my country."

I despaired, but I convinced myself to have faith in our resilience. I even allowed myself some optimism, certain that the white woman in Michigan (who had inspired me to turn off the television) and all the others would eventually come to their senses. I was even generous about it: "I take no pleasure in knowing these angry people will, at some point, figure out they made a terrible mistake." I was less generous about those who were complicit in allowing the catastrophe to play out; I wondered if they had any souls worth searching. 

Fast forward to December 30, 2020. We have somehow managed, by the skin of our teeth, to stanch four years of profuse bleeding, but can we heal? Seventy-five million people are still drinking the Kool-Aid, and our far-from-representative democracy turns even a lead of seven and a half million into a slim margin. Four years later, over three hundred thousand unnecessary deaths later, countless unemployed and hungry later, with lord knows how many vile and treasonous grifters yet to be pardoned and with the future of our planet hanging in the balance, our country is no less racist, angry, and ignorant. By a slim minority, maybe, but we remain at the mercy of minority rule. 

Cautious optimism is all I got, and even that is a bit of a stretch. The grifter in chief will be gone, but the mess that brought him to us remains. 

This Claim About Election Fraud is Disputed

 This claim about election fraud is disputed. This is how Twitter takes a stand, in a pale robin's egg blue, underneath the bold faced lie, in prominent black font. Oh, sure, there's a little > to the right of it, just in case any Kool-Aid consuming guzzler of Trump tweets is also inclined to read more than 280 characters, lower case. Two barely connected circles on a Venn diagram, I'd guess. 

I've heard that a lie travels around the globe while the truth is putting on its shoes. Especially when the truth is an afterthought, in pale robin's egg blue. I'd suggest an all caps THIS IS BULLSHIT at the top, but that's about as likely as an elected GOP'er doing the right thing, including his or her job.  

The Supreme Court has spoken, without much elaboration to be sure, but at least it has done what, in times gone by, would have been a no-brainer, even though these days it had a lot of us on edge. But still, the next morning, with even the most zealous of the Supremes on board with the truth, there it was, a tiny footnote to a Trump tweet: This claim about election fraud is disputed. > The lie is on a whirlwind tour, and the truth is still barefoot. 

I flipped on CNN, and there was some GOP congressman, one of the seditious amicus signatories, responding to a question about proof. I'm paraphrasing, but he indicated he has no proof that anyone ever landed on the moon either, because he wasn't there. Good one. I'm willing to bet this doubting Thomas believes in virgin births and the resurrection and ascension of a carpenter's son, whose message of peace and love reasonably translates into a message of hate and division, but I suppose we're all entitled to our own leaps of faith. 

So, speaking of the media (and religion), Jesus Christ, stop it! Stop letting these elected "leaders" come on the air and suggest that the only way to convince their moronic constituents that Trump lost is by promoting baseless claims and conspiracy theories and chalking up each smackdown to an ever growing list of deep-staters. If they're too cowardly and corrupt to speak truth to their constituents, why give them any more oxygen? 

And speaking of oxygen, we can't breathe. While the grifters and their minions get designer treatments on the taxpayers' dime, people are dying. While the grifters and their minions get out of jail free, regular people are starving. While the outgoing leader of the free world is feverishly trying to figure out how to avoid accountability for all his crimes, the investigation of Hunter Biden's taxes is a headline? Hunter Biden, the new Benghazi.

Here's an idea. Focus on the newly minted Persons of the Year. The Guardians of the Year. The President Elect and Madame Vice President Elect, Dr. Fauci, the frontline health care workers. The folks who do their jobs, speak truth, and ignore the noise because they're actually too busy. It's not as sexy as reality TV, but reality will be a refreshing change of pace, at least for most of us. 

Thanksgiving in a Bubble

 

There's good news for turkeys this year. Lots of pardons in the works, I hear. And lots of birdless Thanksgiving menus, as we gather in our small bubbles and forego traditions, the ones we like and the ones we don't. 

For as long as I can remember, my family has gathered somewhere in Connecticut for Thanksgiving. Happily, the births and marriages have outpaced the deaths and divorces, and the walls in my cousins' dining room have appeared to inch ever closer to the edges of the growing table. The staples remain, with an annual fluctuation in side dishes and activities. The fried pickles, once a novelty, have become permanent. I can barely remember when we didn't spend hours watching the tortured progress, most of us from inside, of the deep fried turkey. The morning after run with my cousin is a thing of the past, as is the Friday shopping spree in a local boutique. The morning after indigestion is eternal.

I suppose we should be thankful for small favors this year. The weary travelers won't have to be weary. The exhausted hosts won't have to be exhausted -- or at least they will share the burden. We have all managed to survive 2020, so far, far flung as we are across the country and, yes, across the globe. We will still talk loudly over each other this year, but on a Zoom call. When we are together, there is no mute button. 

There will likely be no turkey in my Thanksgiving bubble, though I am certain there will be lots of calories. I am bargaining with cousins for my favorite recipes, recipes that, apparently, are kept secret simply because the keepers don't wish to reveal the heart clogging ingredients that make them so good. My cousins did send me a frozen version of my favorite Thanksgiving treat, and I have been warned that I must share with my bubble. How well they know me, after all these years. 

Pandemic Thanksgiving, I suppose, will remind us of all that should make us thankful. That the usual suspects are well, and that we are able to toast each other from our satellite bubbles. That somehow, despite wildly divergent time zones and nap times (including mine, as my cousin pointed out), we will still be together. That my almost 90 year old mother is figuring out Zoom. That my favorite delicacies await, in the freezer. That at a time when pardons are becoming all the rage, turkeys will be the beneficiaries. 

That we will, hopefully, convene next year in person, if only for a day, and share war stories from a blissfully distant 2020. 

Days of Reckoning

    I tried hard, at first, to turn off the news, but I couldn't do it. It's as if it had become my cross to bear, my penance for settling happily into my insulated corner of the universe, refusing to believe there were so many "others" out there. I flipped channels, checked on Twitter, responded to the incessant beeps from friends texting their despair. As if sharing it would somehow make it go away. 

    In the wee hours, when the news broke of Biden eking ahead in Wisconsin, I finally closed my eyes. Briefly anyway. I hung on to the encouraging words of pundits, comforted myself with my firmly held notion that Biden's campaign crew had been making all sorts of good decisions, and this would be okay. I even hold out hope, now, that Biden can win, but my despair is palpable. Millions of Americans cast a vote for a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human who had devoted the past four years to revealing himself (to anyone who hadn't noticed) as a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human. 

    The finger pointing has begun. The pollsters screwed up. We didn't pick an exciting candidate. Biden said a stupid thing at the last debate. We forgot about the Cubans. Well, sure the pollsters screwed up, but that didn't cause the mess; it only enhanced the crushing disappointment. It's why I'm such a big fan of low expectations. An exciting candidate? Because progressives were too bored to vote for our only alternative to fascism? Shame on them, if that's true. Biden said a stupid thing? Has he incited violence, given the nod to gun-toting American terrorists, caged children, denied climate change, disparaged the entire medical profession, lied about, well, everything? And we knew damn well what the Cubans were thinking. We didn't forget; we just brushed aside. They are, after all, brown people, and we assumed they would know better.

    I woke up yesterday feeling optimistic. It was a beautiful day, I had finally convinced my conscientiously objecting Republican friend that he needed to cast his vote, even if it wouldn't matter in Illinois. I remembered my theory that RBG had chosen to leave us on the eve of the Jewish High Holidays so she could guide us from a heavenly bench. I put on my brand new Kamala-esque Chucks and even had a spring in my step.

    The counting continues and we just don't know. We don't know when we'll know. But what we do know is that an astounding number of people who live in the clearly inaptly named shining city on a hill cast their precious votes for, well, a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human who had devoted the past four years to revealing himself as a cruel, corrupt, criminal, and incompetent poor excuse for a human. 

    We have our work cut out for us. The problem isn't the pollsters or Joe or fracking or even our forgetting about the Cubans, though that's the closest. It's about the messaging. We knew what message the Cubans were being fed, and we left it alone. And we've known what messages all the folks are being fed out there, outside our bubbles, by propaganda spreading news empires that have cornered those far-flung markets. While we were sleeping. Or seeking self-affirmation. Or calling people stupid and racist and greedy. I'm as guilty as anybody. 

    The work starts now, even if Biden pulls through. There's a whole country, out there and right here, that needs fixing. 

The Hail Handmaid Pass

There is a difference between smart and judicious. They are not mutually exclusive, but by no means do they always walk hand in hand. 

Before RBG was even buried, the tainted wheels of the Senate GOP began a particularly unseemly and jubilant roll toward erasing her legacy and staining her well-earned and well-occupied seat. Worse still, a woman -- a woman -- willingly accepted the high honor that she, smart as she is, had to know was bestowed upon her only for ideological expediency. Her nomination was unprincipled, her confirmation hearing a sham, her swearing in a fait accompli. 

I would venture to say I am not as nearly as smart as our brand new justice, certainly not as ambitious. I also admit I have not always been judicious, but, for that, I have been exceedingly apologetic and overly plagued by regret. Who would turn down a nomination to the Supreme Court? someone asked me the other day. I'd like to think I would, if it were so obviously and publicly ill-gotten. Premised on utter hypocrisy that will forever stain her credibility and reputation, at the very least she should be ashamed. 

But, more importantly, smart and accomplished as she may be, she has shown herself to be decidedly non-judicious. Not "having, showing, or done with good judgment or sense," to put a finer point on it. Maskless at a Rose Garden tea party, proudly accompanying the vile man who nominated her -- a man whose life itself is anathema to her own extreme views -- on a Mussolini-esque balcony to celebrate her (and his) illegitimate rise to power. 

There are plenty of really smart people out there, but judiciousness, that's what really matters, isn't it, when you're about to spend the rest of your life on the once revered highest court in the land? 

I have yet to see anyone willingly turn down a nomination to the Supreme Court, but I have seen, in the past few years, many "lesser" beings risk their careers -- and their safety -- for a greater good. Many of these woefully unsung heroes have faded from public view and have suffered for their righteousness. For their "judiciousness." But history will, and should, treat them kindly, and they, unlike our newly minted justice, have a right to hold their heads high, and to never feel shame. She clearly does not feel any shame, but she should. 

I hold out a faint hope that the weight of her new seat, RBG's seat, will guide her as she holds the fate of so many in her hands. If precedent is any indication, I'm not optimistic. Just read Justice Beer-Brain's Trump-licking opinion on counting ballots in Wisconsin. 

Hope springs eternal, but, direspectfully, I dissent. 

Life Behind the Mask

Over the past seven months, I've stopped torturing myself with the pros and cons of fillers and Botox and other costly promises of feigned youth. Masks do have their perks. I'm afraid, sometimes, of once again living unveiled; sure, I'd like to keep the wrinkles under wraps, but I've also become quite accustomed to relying only upon my eyes to convey what I'm really thinking. The windows to my soul have become ambiguous, and I like it that way. 

I live in one of those "Democrat-run" cities (redundant, I know), where people either mask up or give you an extra wide berth when they pass. I ran back up to my apartment this morning, a fistful of sweatshirt pulled over my mouth and nose, mortified that I had forgotten my mask. It rests under my chin when I dine out, doubling as a crumb catcher until someone approaches and it rises up to do its day job. We queue up for the elevator, cognizant of the two per ride limit yet still asking if someone minds if we join. Oddly, we've become increasingly polite while we treat others as if they have the plague. 

Twice this month I had intended to finally go east and see my mother, pandemic be damned. Twice, my trip has been cancelled, first due to forces beyond my control, and more recently because it just didn't seem right -- for me, for my mother, for all of us, really, who have tried so hard to follow the rules and don't want to make things worse for everyone else. One  inadvertent slip-up; a chance encounter; a missed hand wash; a lurking droplet. I'm angry that so many have been reckless, and I don't want to relinquish my right to self-righteousness. 

Through two or three degrees of separation, I know of people who have been sick, and I know of people who have died. It's difficult to believe it's real, though, when it hasn't hit home, but still, I can't erase the images of body bags stacked up in the streets of New York. Governor Cuomo and renowned scientists have slipped off the radar, and we are bombarded with images of a president who preaches to an adoring audience that can't quite grasp the concept of a common good. 

Come to think of it, as the circus continues in full swing and the virus spikes, the president and his enablers have removed their masks while their endless misdeeds have slipped beneath the radar. The rampant corruption, like the rule-abiders and community-minded among us, has become veiled, masked. What of the overt lies? What of the grifting? What of the damning tax returns we know about, and the lord-knows-how-damning tax returns we have yet to see? What of the voter suppression and the racism and the stories that Jeffrey Epstein neglected to take to his grave? What about, what about, what about? Out of sight. Like my wrinkles. 

There is so much wrong right now, and as much as I mask up and keep my distance and wash my hands, there is no end in sight. But the seemingly forgotten treachery, like my wrinkles, will out again. 

Tzadek, Tzadek, Karma

I am not generally in the habit of wishing ill upon people, but I'm not gonna lie. I find it hard to feel anything resembling compassion for the newly infected POTUS and FLOTUS. They are vile. 

This is not to say the news made me happy. My first thought went to Joe Biden who, as it turns out, not only had to listen to 90 minutes of spewing bile but may also have been on the literal receiving end of the venomous spew. I was appalled when I watched the entire grifter clan remove their masks as they sat down, despite the guidelines set forth by the hospital hosting them. Little did I know they were doing far more damage than merely setting a poor example. 

I'm feeling a tad bit of pity for the rally-goers, the ignorant ones at least, the lemmings who have bought into the cries of hoax and the propaganda spread by Fox News. For the greedy ones and the haters, not so much. 

My new mask arrived yesterday, the one that says -- in Hebrew and English -- Tzadek, Tzedek, Tirdof. Justice, justice, shall you pursue. I ordered it after hearing that RBG had these words hanging on the wall in her chambers. Injustice. It's what keeps me awake at night, especially as November grows closer and the desperate corruption has reached a fever pitch. Masks are, in and of themselves, a statement. My new one adds an exclamation point.

Tzadik. It's another Hebrew term, another form of the word, really, that's been bandied about since RBG died on the eve of the Days of Awe. A title in Judaism given to people considered righteous. A person saved by God until the last minute, because we on earth needed her. NPR legal affairs correspondent and close friend of RBG Nina Totenberg tweeted just after midnight on that day: “And so it was that RBG died as the sun was setting last night marking the beginning of Rosh Hashanah.” But why take her when we needed her to hang on for just a few more weeks? 

RBG was indeed a Tzadik, a righteous woman, a dedicated pursuer of justice for the rest of us. Tzadik may be righteous, but karma is a bitch, and I'm starting to believe in both. 

My hope is that the president does not die this way. I would much rather see him, and his lackeys, prosecuted and imprisoned. I want to see those whose lives he has destroyed merely because they persisted, or spoke truth, made whole. I don't want anyone to die really. But I do want them to suffer the way far more than 200,000 Americans have suffered, not only the ones who succumbed but the ones who struggled and continue to struggle with the still unpredictable affects of this strange virus. And I want them to be exposed, to all those who have gulped down the Kool-Aid to the detriment of the rest of us.

Karma, because I'm feeling bitchy, and tzadek, because I'm honoring the righteousness that most of us can only dream about. My thoughts and prayers are real, but complicated. 

Never Ruth-less

"Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow." Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  

    A quiet and unassuming Jewish girl from Brooklyn, a Cornell graduate. The similarities between me and the notorious, brilliant, and indomitable RBG end there. It's a bit presumptuous of me to feel as if a piece of me has died, but, hey, without notorious, brilliant, and indomitable, that's all I got. 

    We had just clinked our wine glasses together to toast this already strange Jewish new year when the text came through on my watch. (I had tucked my phone away in my purse, but my watch bucked my efforts at decorum). We had just bidden good riddance to the old year, each of us expressing some sentiment of desperate hope for better things to come. RBG had chosen this moment to leave us. I gasped. 

    On these Days of Awe*, our celebration was, by design, small and quiet, without hugs. But we were together, at least some of us, and we had matzoh balls and brisket and kugel and challah, the comforting and familiar trappings of holiday dinners past. And wine. If nothing else, our gastronomic traditions would remind us that all is not lost. 

    But Ruth is gone. The woman upon whose shoulders so many of us have stood, often without a thought for the tremendous burden she has carried. We have enjoyed the fruits of her years of labor, felt entitled to the hard-fought gifts she bestowed upon us as we coasted. We ascended through her dissent, and we begged her to stay through our descent, and she did, as long as she could, without protest. 

    She is gone, and she has left us to do what we will with her legacy. Talk about an inflection point. At the very beginning of the Days of Awe, she has let us know it is time for us to take up the mantle, to step off her fragile shoulders and fight our own battles without her, to dissent and dissent and dissent. Sure, we owe it to ourselves, but more than anything, we owe it to her. To feel awe for this small but mighty daughter of Brooklyn is natural; to do something about it is, well, divine. I am not a very religious person, but I am convinced her death, at this moment, is the work of some higher power. A celestial kick in the behind. 

    Rest in peace, notorious RGB, daughter of Brooklyn, warrior queen for so many of us, and know that we will fight to make your memory a blessing. We will buck the evil, the power-grabbers, the mockers of democracy, and we will not let them take from us the gifts you worked so hard to bestow. "So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune," said Ruth. May her passing spur us on. 

*The Days of Awe: A delicate blend of joy and solemnity, feasting and fasting, prayer and inspiration make up the spiritually charged head of the Jewish year.  www.chabad.org. 

Take a Trumper to Lunch

For some of us, a bridge too far appeared the day he rode down the escalator. It was unfathomable, this loathsome, good-for-nothing crook, seeking the reins of this country. 

I've already given a pass to anyone with a brain who thought it might be okay, even though I'll never get it. Maybe it was greed, maybe it was true conservatism, maybe just years of brainwashing and a touch of subliminal misogyny. 

Over the course of almost 2000 miserable days, I've become increasingly horrified by his vile behavior, but even more horrified by those who enable him. As he has set the Bar(r) lower and lower, the goal posts have moved, been jettisoned really, to the point where nothing he does surprises us. Well me, anyway. 

What surprises me though, each time, is what it takes for the bridge to be too far; it seems to happen only when it lands in folks' backyards. I marvel that, only now, is he in trouble in military polls. I marvel that, only a few months ago, did many of us march alongside our black neighbors and raise our voices. I marvel that only now are many corporations and even drug companies standing up, or at least appearing to, after almost 200,000 people have died. I marvel that the media still allows him to speak without real time fact checks, that they still address him as Mr. President, that they show up and let Kayleigh spew. I stopped watching CNN early on, back in the days when I thought it was absurd to even think somebody not on the payroll would actually buy into this crap. 

Yet here we are, and I lie awake nights, thinking that for whatever reason, despite all those who have finally seen the light, despite the daily barrage of corruption, he may somehow steal another four years. And then what? His impeachment had no consequence, other than to make democrats seem like whiny witch hunters; it empowered him even more. 

A friend told me about a friend who is still undecided. A reasonable and wonderful salt-of-the-earth person, undecided. A friend's mother refuses to believe that what she hears on Fox is untrue. A salt-of-the-earth mother. 

Is it not our duty, as individuals, to talk to these people, one on one? Do some Trump-splaining? It might be our only hope. 

So...in the next few weeks, might I suggest, take a Trumper to lunch? 

Heil, RNC

Imagine Hitler, his left arm around a Jew, his Nazi salute arm stretched comfortably around a newly married gay couple. Eva smiles coyly nearby, in her "hers" uniform. 

RNC, night two. A black ex-con gets a pardon, and five brown people get to bypass the cages and become citizens of a country whose passports are as good as toilet paper. I assume their ballots will be Fedex-ed. 

Yes, I watched, and yes, I woke up this morning with a nightmare hangover, though I cannot remember any dreams. Oddly, I only remember hearing one speech. Radical left. Socialists. Hunter Biden. Billions in taxes. China virus. God. God. God. And, of course, my father. Not to be confused with God. I could be wrong. 

Other than a sentimental reminiscence about the ravages of a pandemic from Larry Kudlow (is he back on coke?), there was no mention of the almost 200 thousand dead. No mention of the latest police atrocity in Kenosha. A lot of emphasis on the carnage from which we need to save the country, though that carnage (correct me if I'm wrong) seems to have occurred under 45's watch. 

I am terrified, frankly. In 2016 the excuse was "trying something new." So now what? As unfathomable as it is, this shit might work, again, even though the last three years, eight months has seemed like a lifetime, anything but "new." A president, backed by a silent party and a screaming cast of buffoons, is openly violating actual statutes and longstanding norms and basic government ethics, and the media is airing it in real time and giving it oxygen. Shame on me for watching, but curiosity got the best of me. 

The House is investigating. Whoop-de-doo. Most of the people I know are horrified, wringing their hands, shaking their heads. Two more nights of this horror flick to come, and then the real shit starts to fly. And who knows what Bill Barr (who reminds me of a poop emoji) is cooking up for October? 

We live in a country where freedom of religion and freedom of speech and "law and order" have asterisks. What would Republicans do? Dems, figure it out. 

It is What it Is

 I'm as much of a Michelle Obama admirer as anybody -- you might even call me a wannabe. Damn I wish I could've written that book, married that guy, had that soapbox. My reaction to her keynote speech last night? What she said. 

What we've all been saying, for four years, at least within the confines of what my daughter refers to as my "bublé." That he's unqualified. That he has soiled the office and our country. That we are better, but that this time around we need to work harder at it. 

I feel like a bit of an outsider, as unexcited as I was about Michelle's speech, as inspiring and true and articulate and from the heart as it was. I certainly hope that it maybe, got to a few folks outside my bublé, folks who hate him but might indeed settle into powerlessness and resignation. It is what it is. 

It was great shade, Michelle repeating his use of a once meaningless phrase that acquired a whole new heap of meaning when attached to over 160,000 deaths. But the point for us, going forward, is that it is what it never should have been, and it is going to be the opposite of what it is now. It had better be. 

Which was exactly my takeaway from night one of the Democratic Convention. I already know what Michelle Obama thinks, and that I -- and most people I associate with -- agree wholeheartedly. What I don't know is how many Republicans will come out and speak, and how loudly they will speak, and to whom. What I don't know is whether Bernie's steadfast followers heard -- or will heed -- his message, powerful and timely as it may be, this time around. What I don't know is whether, despite all our best efforts and intentions, corruption and cheating and in-your-face lawlessness will again win out. Whether we will settle for the promise to do no further harm from a postmaster general who knows he has to face Katie Porter next week. Whether  the Cowards (formerly known as Republicans in the Senate) will be able to convince people that the Intel Report finding Russian collusion with the Trump campaign actually found no collusion with the Trump campaign. Whether Bill Barr will abandon all pretense of ethics and deliver his teased October surprise. And whether the news media will continue to air uninterrupted lies, as if they are news. 

It is what it is, and it sucks. Bigly. The glossy production was all good, but the real work begins now. 

M.V.P. IT HAD TO BE YOU!

She's too pretty.

That's what somebody said to me back in the day, long before we knew how the Democratic primary would unfold. Had I thought the man saying it was sexist, I might have been offended, but I sort of got what he was saying. I've never heard anybody complain about a president being too handsome -- certainly not the current one -- but this is our culture. Handsome, good. Pretty, bad.  What is charismatic in a man is threatening in a woman, not just in the highest office in the land.

Well, things have certainly evolved since then. "Too pretty" has been replaced by "too ambitious." I admit I've had reservations about Kamala Harris, at least as a VP pick, but mostly because I think of her as a prosecutor, and I thought her talents could be better used elsewhere. I've watched in awe as she skewered the somehow un-skewerable powerful men who have come before her in the Senate. I soured on her during the campaign, but I soured on everybody during the campaign, particularly the ones who dared to expose any fissures in the party. Yes, my fear of another four years of hell is that great. 

Campaigns are like dating, sort of. People are much more likable when they're not angling for something. Politicians are always angling, but campaigns bring out angling on steroids. Still, even after Kamala threw her support to Joe, I liked her again but I had my reservations, thought she'd be far more useful as attorney general. With all the qualified woman in the "veepstakes," I thought there were plenty of fine alternatives. 

And then today arrived. And I heard today would be the day. And I took under advisement all the imminent lines of attack against all the others -- whether justified or not -- and I had my Kamala epiphany. Only moments before the news of the pick broke, I realized it had to be Kamala. She was the one and only right pick, the one who could excite people and check all the boxes and, perhaps most importantly, go on to skewer Pence in a debate and out-Teflon Teflon Don. He will throw all kinds of shit at her, and I am confident it will go splat, right back in his face. 

Shortly after the announcement, my friend texted to tell me she had opened a bottle of champagne and was toasting Kamala. Coincidentally, I had done the same. The news was more than a relief. It was cause for celebration. It was exciting. It gave me hope -- a thing in short supply these days. It gave me a glimmer of real light at the end of what has seemed like an endless dark tunnel. 

Yes, she is pretty. I admit it, I want my hair to look just like hers. Yes, she is ambitious. Duh. And she is smart, and she is tough, and she has proven that she can wipe the floor with some of the biggest shit-heads this administration has brought to bear on our country. And hopefully Maya Rudolph will revive her sultry Kamala on SNL. 

Here's to you Madame future Vice President, and to you, Mr. past Vice President, for making such a wise choice. Let's get this done.

Back to Earth

By the time I was fifteen years old, splashdowns had become a "thing." Maybe we'd hear about it, maybe we'd catch the the grainy and twitchy live footage on television. Manned space travel is about as old as I am; neither of us has ever known a world without the other. One of us never ceases to amaze, and I'm pretty sure it's not I.

Fast forward to the summer of 2020, when life on earth has become surreal, particularly in America, that hotbed of ingenuity that has somehow morphed into a cautionary tale of chaos born of complacency, a country at war with itself.  But splashdowns have come out of a decades long hiatus, and they could not have come at a better time. 

I flipped on the television and surfed through the channels, hoping for a little respite from handwringing pundits mulling over the latest unprecedented presidential outrages. Enter "SpaceX Dragon." I was transfixed. Transported, really, back to my childhood, watching with my father as the Dragon's precursors slipped out of the clouds and splashed down with precision, wondering each time how that was possible. I could imagine, back then, that a man (or woman) would walk on the moon, but I don't think I could have imagined what walking on earth would be like, in 2020. 

I watched as the capsule swayed beneath its four giant parachutes, seemingly suspended in place while it plunged with unimaginable speed toward the Gulf of Mexico. I could see the opaque haze of a hurricane staying fortuitously at bay in the distance. I watched as the rescue craft floated precariously close to the landing spot, thinking this was the mother of all trust exercises. I realized that, my own ambivalence about life on earth these days aside, the joy of return must have been unequivocal. I imagine these astronauts, like those before them, have the right stuff, the stuff they will need to cope with our earthly problems.  

Purity Tests and False Equivalencies, Redux

Standing in line for an ice cream cone on Wells Street the other day, I watched two young black men, who had been chatting amicably through a car window, begin to play wrestle. They were laughing, and it made me smile. Not so for a young white woman standing nearby, who turned even whiter and, with a look of abject terror on her face, scurried off with her cone. She glanced over her shoulder the entire time, at least until she was down the block and across the street and, frankly, I had lost interest. 

As a lifelong democrat and generally decent albeit flawed human, I am all about equality. I believe in our current reckonings, most of which were accelerated by the horrifying elevation of a misogynistic, racist, all-around abominable person to the highest office in the land. In the world, technically, before our fall from grace. 

I am not black, and cannot pretend to know what it feels like to walk in a black person's shoes. I cannot say, with certainty, that I would not have been tempted to scurry years ago, when my enlightenment may not have been in as advanced a stage as it is today. Five years from now, I may wonder whether I would have even noticed the men chatting on Wells Street, had they been white. 

I am a woman, and though, as a young attorney, I was called "honey" by a judge and even endured an occasional unwanted ass pat, I have never experienced the sort of vile and traumatic invasion of livelihood or personhood for which others seek -- and deserve -- an accounting. I am Jewish, but have never been a personal target of anti-Semitism. Though some Jews of a generation before mine found it difficult to buy a German car, I am inclined to forgive for the sins of the fathers, assuming lessons have been learned. When JFK protected black students entering the University of Alabama, he asked why a black man should have fewer rights than a white man. It did not occur to him, then, that the theory should apply to people of all genders, but that certainly does not undermine his legacy. 

So here we are, drowning in misguided notions of unattained ideals and unattainable purity. The well-intentioned @MeToo movement was immediately endangered by politically motivated false equivalencies. Exhibit A -- Al Franken. The long overdue @Blacklivesmatter movement was endangered by the carelessly worded "defund the police" slogan, hijacked by the usual suspects to suggest that we liberals are fighting for a lawless new world. Now, some are giving those same bad actors another gift, suggesting we topple monuments to founding fathers and cease to honor past leaders who lived long before civil rights legislation was even a thing. 

The time to honor the slave-owning founders of our imperfect union is past, wrote Lucian K. Truscott IV in an Op-Ed in the New York Times. Mr. Truscott is black, a great-grandson of a great-granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, whom he owned. 

As a child, Mr. Truscott spent much time at Monticello, Jefferson's ancestral home; he and his brother viewed it as their family playground, and was told he would be buried there, as his ancestors -- black and white -- have been. Now, with statues of brutal confederate leaders being removed from public spaces, Mr. Truscott advocates that Monticello is monument enough, that the Jefferson Memorial in D.C. be taken down, replaced with a memorial to Harriet Tubman. He went on to explain: It’s a shrine to a man who famously wrote that “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence that founded this nation — and yet never did much to make those words come true. 

Slave owning. Founders. Imperfect union. All men are created equal. Thomas Jefferson's slave-owning past has long been acknowledged. So have his accomplishments. I am not a historian, but this much I know: Jefferson was ahead of his time, an advocate for religious freedom and a loud and effective voice against tyranny. He was ahead of his time and a product of his time. He could not have imagined that "all men" would one day come to mean "all men and women, no matter their color, no matter their sexual orientation." Blacks were viewed as not fully human long after Jefferson died, and we have not yet come close to achieving full equality for all, no matter how far we think we have progressed. Our imperfect union continues to evolve, and remains far from perfect. 

Mr. Truscott, I get what you're saying, and I would love to see a monument to Harriet Tubman -- and countless other heroes and heroines -- standing prominently in our nation's capital. But we need to keep our eye on the prize, which is, right now, our collective soul. Which means honoring the visionaries of our past who have, in their inherently flawed human way, moved us forward. Which means getting rid of the forces of evil now in power, who seek to push us back. Creating a purity test, either for those who live now or those who lived long ago, does not serve us well. 

My Second City, though the Lens of Pandemic and Protest

LAKEFRONT.

I could see the sparkle of the water long before I pedaled up to the concrete underpass with the confirming inscription. The interlocking steel barriers were gone, but still, I glanced around to be sure I wasn't imagining it, that the beautiful shoreline I had fallen in love with 36 summers ago was again open for business. 

These days, I head south, a choice that might have seemed unthinkable to me years ago, when I first settled into life as a north-sider, and then migrated to the northern suburbs. As progressive a city as Chicago is, there is an invisible but overt north south segregation. 

Yes, the city is diverse, and the streets, to the north anyway, are a mosaic of color and foreign tongues. But on the south side, just south of where Soldier Field and football bring Cubs fans and Sox fans together for a brief season of unity, the whites are few and far between, tucked away in insulated pockets amidst large neighborhoods where many of Chicago's black lives are lived. 

Even in non-pandemic times, the south lakefront has little in common with its northern counterpart. It is largely unvisited by tourists, and its running and bike paths are relatively uncongested. There are spectacular views of the city, but little sense of its bustle or its commerce or its tourism. Instead, there is a pristine shoreline and broad swaths of prairie grass. At least I assume it's prairie grass, knowing as little as I do about gardening and botany. What I do know is it is beautiful in its wildness, its irregularity, its splotches of random color. But still, as I said, it's where the black lives are lived, too close for comfort, to many of us.

I confess to my ignorance. I had seen "Juneteenth" on my Google calendar for years, but I never wondered for more than a fleeting instant what it was. I don't remember anybody mentioning it, and I never bothered to ask. I never knew Fort Bragg was named for a Confederate general, I never knew the Mississippi flag included the Confederate battle flag, I never knew that slaves in Texas remained enslaved for two years after emancipation. I knew Aunt Jemima had racist connotations, but I never spent much time wondering why the syrup still bore the offensive picture. 

Since I moved back downtown last spring, I have biked all over my second city, the city I fell in love with so many years ago. It is progressive and smart, my adopted hometown. Almost everybody is wearing a mask, or at least has one close at hand. We smile at each other -- as best as we can -- with our eyes as we give each other wide berth on the sidewalks. The rules are enforced with signs that are both gentle and firm, and we comply without much complaint. We have collectively applauded the protests, we have collectively mourned the devastation done by the looters, and we watch, with hope, as the plywood boards covering so many of the storefronts are painted with colorful messages of peace, love, and understanding. Still, we shy away from the parts of the city where black lives are lived, where Covid-19 has selected so many victims, which makes me wonder how much those lives can really matter, even to those of us who like to think we have always done the right thing. 

I am reluctant to share the secret of the southern lakefront, uncrowded, peaceful, unspoiled by curiosity seekers. But, against my own self interest, might I recommend a spin through the prairie grasses, maybe even a detour into the majestic patchwork of neighborhoods south of our imaginary but insidious dividing line. We already share a lake; it's time to share the experience. 

Demings, Harris, Abrams, Rice. Pick One, Joe.

I admit it. I was wrong.

It bothered me, all this chatter about Biden needing to choose a black woman as his running mate. I wondered why we were again eating our own, we Democrats, holding our candidate's campaign hostage for petty identity politics. I will vote for Joe no matter what, no matter whom he chooses -- any gender, any color, even a tuna fish sandwich, as a reformed Republican claims in a recent ad. 

Shame on me. I cannot possibly know how important it is, knowing only, as I do, how unimportant it is to me to have a middle-aged Jewish woman on the ticket. My only connection to the kind of pain American blacks feel is historical -- pictures of gaunt and tortured Jews behind barbed wire fences, grainy videos of people, like me, being shot into mass graves. It happened there, not here. It happened then, not now.

The past few days have been catastrophic, and they have been enlightening. A white policeman squeezed the life out of defenseless black man as the world watched. While the only ones who could have stopped it not only remained silent but even leant a knee, to hold the doomed man's legs down while he gasped for air. We are, collectively, shocked, though we have no reason to be. It has happened before. Often. All too recently. Breonna Taylor. Freddie Gray.

I was not surprised by the ensuing violence, even the torching of a police station. A police station. I wanted to shake my finger at the rioters, remind them that not all cops are bad, and that killing and destruction are not the answers. Well what is, then. If a dying man's desperate cries -- I can't breathe -- are not enough. If each horrific news report is not enough. If a nation's grief is so palpable it draws long quarantined citizens out en masse, blows fears of a deadly pandemic away with the smoldering ashes of a community, will that be enough? I'm guessing not. 

An acquaintance, a casual acquaintance about whom I know very little, posted a letter on Facebook today. She was a teacher (I didn't know that). She had quit being a teacher (I didn't know that either). She had taught in the places we privileged people don't go, and had seen the despair, seen the seemingly endless cycle of oppression and poverty and misery that perpetuates itself and leaves an entire segment of the population stuck under our knee, unable to breathe. Having taught only three years, she listed the names of eight of her former students who are now dead. And those, she says, are only the ones she knows about. 

I think I empathize, but really, I cannot. I am ignorant, I have no idea what it feels like to live inside black skin. I have no idea what it is to worry, as a black mother worries, that her child will not make it home from school alive. That her teenaged son will be arrested for, well, breathing. Mostly, all I worried about was hurt feelings. Or a little anxiety about a test. Or that somebody else's kid was -- heaven forbid -- smarter than mine. 

I was wrong, wrong to think that when there are four eminently  qualified and impressive black women on the VP short list, there is some reason not to narrow the search. Pick one of them Joe. We need her ears, her voices, her wisdom. And we need the memories that live in her psyche, and hers alone. We need her to breathe life into a dying nation.

Distancing in the Dark

The lights went out last night. Right in the middle of an episode of Breaking Bad, my television screen went dark. Shame on me for becoming a Netflix junkie so late in the game, but I was despondent. Well, maybe just annoyed, but the pandemic tends to magnify. 

A push alert had warned me of flooding, but nobody had warned me my evening of binge watching, the thing I look forward to all day, would be interrupted. On a day I had decided to go wine-free, just to see if it was still possible. (It was. Barely.)

Zoom cocktail hours, walks to Whole Foods and Target and, yesterday, the somewhat guilty cheat of Sunday dinner in person with my kids (they have a large table) notwithstanding, the isolation has seemed overwhelming. Darkness didn't help. I heard commotion in the hallway and poked my head out, surprised to see everybody else had done the same thing. It was oddly tentative, the head poking, nobody daring to venture too much into the communal space. Some even wore masks, determined to ward off an unlikely onslaught of stray viral droplets. Though back-up generators kept the hallway lit, we all withdrew quickly into our own darkness, comforted to know we were at least, still, in the same boat. 

As power outages go, it really wasn't so bad. There's no heat wave, as there usually is when the power grid goes haywire, and the city lights outside helped. I rustled up every candle I could find, filling my small apartment with dancing shadows and a somewhat nauseating mix of scents, including something called "karma." I've discovered that karma is better felt than smelled. 

I crawled into bed with my phone and my Kindle, hoping the batteries would outlast the blackout. Feeling, for some reason, as if my suffering had just increased tenfold. A pandemic topped by darkness and no Netflix. And no wine. I wondered how much more I could bear. A lot, if what others are going through is any indication. 

The lights came on within 90 minutes, but I stayed in bed. I face-timed with my son, and talked about the world with him for a while. Politics, pandemics. As always, he gave me a bit of a history lesson, and I went to sleep, still discouraged about the state of things, still worried about all the unknowns, but content that I had seen all my kids that day, one way or another, and they are all fine, they had all made me laugh, and, at the end of the day, I knew more than I had when I woke that morning. 

This morning, I might know more than I knew yesterday, but still, the unknowns loom large. Tonight, though, there will be wine. And Netflix.

It's the Little Things

My mom wants me to take her to Target when this is all over. 

Tar-jhay, she said, remembering how I used to pronounce it, when she could hear. 

She read my assurance on her "caption phone" as seriously as she might have heard a promise a half century ago that I would clean my room. Or do my homework. I mean it, she said. Promise me we'll go. 

I promised. And I meant it. I had told her she would hate it, and she would have, before this. Even the new one on the tony Upper East Side. Before, before this, I might have had to take her into a Walmart first, so the Target would look good. Even if it doesn't carry Chanel. 

She's 89 now, still going strong after breaking her collar bone, some ribs, her pelvis, and her hip, all within the last decade. Throw in a little spinal collapse for good measure. She is not unfamiliar with confinement, certainly not unfamiliar with fear. The fear of never walking again, of losing her independence. But she fought once, and walked, and she fought a second time, and still walks. This is different, though. Being afraid to touch anything, go near anybody, breathe communal air. She has a will of steel, but that only works for things you can understand.  

A few weeks ago, I despaired when I realized by toes weren't as close as I had remembered, even after years of yoga. It had been a long time since I had to cut my own toenails. My mother's toes are woefully out of reach, even with her shortened spine. How did that not occur to me. I've sent her some long-handled clippers; I hope they arrive before things get out of hand. 

I had to watch my good friend's father's funeral on my laptop, couldn't give her a hug. Her mother, after more than 60 years of marriage, couldn't go. Couldn't say goodbye. My friend goes to see her, though a window. 

Another friend wonders when she will hold her new grandson. I marveled at the pictures, wanted so much for her to be able to touch his toes. 

My own children, at least two of them, are out of reach except for Zoom. It helps, but it's not the same. 

My apartment seems smaller, as my world shrinks. I think it's Sunday, but I'm not absolutely sure. There is tape on the elevator floors, marking out properly distanced squares in the corners. Like a hopscotch board, exploded.

I sent my mother pears, because her favorite fruit store finally shut its doors, at least for now. Even the beautiful fruit gave her pause. But mostly, she wished she could share them with one of us. She wonders, aloud, when -- or whether -- she will be able to spend time with her children, her grandchildren. 

She wants to go to Target. Tar-jhay. Even if they don't carry Chanel. 

Collateral Damage

The memes were funny, at first.

There were no mushroom clouds, no pictures of gaunt Jews pressed against chain link fences, no live images of burning towers on the Southern tip of Manhattan, of thousands of regular folks trying to outrun the two million tons of concrete, metal, and human remains. Rubble, they call it. 

It has occurred to me that even after a cushion of decades, nobody laughs about 9/11, or the Holocaust, or about bombs vaporizing entire cities in Japan. More than a half century later, I made a tasteless pun while walking down a street in Hiroshima. My son was appalled, and I was appropriately chastised. This was before I went into the museum, before I saw the bench that had survived, along with the dim shadow of the person who had just been sitting there. Still, there was no excuse. 

We cannot see a virus, and those of us who are not medical professionals in hot spot emergency rooms cannot really imagine what it looks like, death on a ventilator, just days after a toilet paper shortage may have been somebody's biggest concern. 

The memes have kept us laughing, while we wonder when -- or if --- we will return to our favorite bars or restaurants, or go to a gym, or have a reason to shower before late in the afternoon. As horrific as the pandemic is, most of us will likely not know somebody who dies. 100,000 people is a lot of people, but in a country of 330 million, a world of billions, our odds are pretty good. And there's no volcano of human remains to remind us, in the starkest of terms, of the tragedy. 

The economic pain is a reality check, but the toll goes much deeper. What of all the people who die alone, now, whether of the virus or old age or some other "normal" disease? What of the ones who are left behind, haunted by the notion that they couldn't be there, to squeeze a hand, to whisper I love you. What of our elderly parents, holed up alone, wondering when we will allow them to see us again.

When my father died, 22 years ago, I had just arrived back in Chicago, not really believing that when I said goodbye to him that morning in Brooklyn, I would never see him again. He waited for me to call. I know he did; he wasn't about to let go until he knew I was home, safe. I called, and he began to die, with my mother there, holding his hand, and placing the phone to his ear so I could tell him I love him.  

The covid 19 memes were funny at first. I admit, some of them continue to make me laugh. But most of us will not escape the rubble.

Life Without Hugs

A friend had a birthday, so we gathered, Covid style. In her driveway, each of us six feet away from the nearest other, each of us holding our own miniature Prosecco. We even left extra space between our cars as we parked. 

I haven't seen my friends in what seems like ages. Weeks, probably, but the isolation has made the days run together, periods of gray punctuated by stretches of darkness, with an occasional glimpse of sunlight to remind us of what used to be. A sliver of false optimism, as we wonder when it will matter again whether it is Saturday or Monday. 

It was good to see my friends again, even though we couldn't hug. Still better than the group texts that ping in the distant perimeter of my solitude while I try to work. Work alone, at home, as I often do, but it feels so different now. 

Mind you, it's not all bad. I am trying my hand at cooking and baking. I apologized to my son yesterday, for not trying all that sooner, like, say, when he and his siblings might have enjoyed coming home to a house that smelled like cookies just out of the oven. I've been concocting Bloody Mary's, convincing myself it's just a salad in a glass. I have found a reason for celery; I have binged on pickled asparagus. 

I crave my mother's wisdom. Not the thinness wisdom (the best exercise is pushing yourself away from the table) that has always amused my friends, but the trite wisdom that I have always waved away, as my children do when I tell them everything will work out. This too shall pass, she has always told me. I believe it when she says it, though I still hold my breath every morning until I know she is all right. 

We have relied for so long now upon virtual connection; now, it is all we have. It's something, more than something. We check on our friends and our family, certainly more than we used to. But no hugging. That's a tough one for me. 

Until the curve flattens, virtual will have to do. Virtual exercise classes with my daughters while we amuse ourselves on FaceTime with our genetic lack of coordination; virtual cocktail hours with my girlfriends, without clinking; daily family wellness checks; an uncanny urge to tell all the people in my life to stay safe, having had a taste of what life might be without them. 

This too shall pass, and, I expect, not without some valuable lessons for all of us. 

Lock Him Down!

Does anybody remember the helicopter pressers? So obviously ridiculous, an old lunatic screaming at a gaggle of invisible and inaudible reporters over the roar of propellers? They seem so quaint and harmless now, those sham news conferences, those facsimiles of transparency. 

As he did from the moment he staged the escalator ride that ushered in our descent into hell, he has availed himself of the media to spew whatever it is he spews, and the media has obliged. It's been infuriating, sometimes even hilarious, and, yes, dangerous. Now, it is lethal. 

With the imprimatur of American flags and medical experts and government officials standing mute behind him, he lies. About what has befallen us, about what might befall us, about all he has done and will do to save us. He responds to questions asked of others, and allows them to speak only if they kiss the ring, pay homage. With a straight face and a telltale sniff, he denies what he has said before, even though it has all been preserved. For anyone naive enough to still buy into it, caveat emptor. Most of us know better. 

But here's the thing. He attacks the press, he attacks free speech, and he shouts down any question bearing a hint of challenge. And the press continues to show up, continues to give voice to his lies, and continues to allow him to attack democracy while he misappropriates legitimacy from the flags behind him. He desecrates those flags, and he desecrates all of us. And now, people are dying. 

As I walked my dog yesterday, we ran into some old friends, a woman and her dog whom we had met at a neighborhood dog park last summer. The woman told me nothing much has changed for her, because she is retired, and she is home a lot anyway. Not much, except she had trouble finding things on the grocery shelves. I nodded. I had to go to three stores the other day to find an onion.

Not much has changed for me and Eli either, I suppose. I still work from home. He still does his business outside. I wash my hands more, but his hygiene remains the same, such as it is. Yet, as a mother, and a daughter, and a sister, and a friend, I worry more. One daughter is in lock down not far away in Chicago; my other daughter is in New York, ground zero; my son is in Japan. My mother lives alone in Brooklyn, and she is elderly. My brother is a doctor in a busy New York hospital. I have no control over their welfare, not that I ever did. But these days, it weighs heavily. 

The president's behavior weighs more heavily too, though I hadn't thought that possible. I still wonder why -- though a bit more desperately -- in a democracy, we have relinquished our control, our voice. He will do what he wants, and say what he wants, but should it be aired as news? With the trappings of truth standing at attention behind him? I think not. 

St. Pat's in Black and White

I'm one of the lucky ones. Other than having to make my own coffee (I will never again take building amenities for granted) and suddenly viewing everything I touch with suspicion, I have adjusted well to living in quasi-lockdown. Of course, it's only been a day. 

The skies were gray all day yesterday, occasionally spitting out  hybrid pellets of rain and snow. As I crossed the bridge over the river to pick up some "essentials" at Whole Foods, I glanced over at the parked tour boats, oddly colorless against the muddy gray water. It's how I've always imagined life in the pre-war thirties, a black and white newsreel, as if the sun had not yet been invented. The bare shelves only added to the gloom. 

I dusted off my yoga mat when I got home. My dog nudged me out of a child's pose, tried to flip me out of a downward dog. In the thirties they waited in line for food, and here I am, mourning the loss of my gym time. My dog just doesn't like to see me turned upside down, and I get it. If he only knew that flipping me over didn't fix anything. 

First world problems -- the coffee, the yoga, bare shelves at Whole Foods. One friend had to be out of town for her father's funeral, and nobody could come to the "shiva." A baby shower has been canceled, and an engagement party. A friend's surgery has been postponed. My 89 year old mother insists upon going about her business, and we scream at each other by text every morning. A friend reminded me I would be just as impossible as she is, at 89. My daughter reminded me that, at 60, I too am considered elderly. Turned upside down indeed. 

It is St. Patrick's Day, but I don't yet see any green. Even the grass outside my window looks gray. It's day two of quasi-lockdown, and there appears to be no end in sight. I will grab some Purell, go vote, and come back home to hunker down. My wine rack is full, and I have not yet finished the tequila I brought home from Mexico. I'm one of the lucky ones. 

Mega (Maga) Buzz Kill

I flinched at the sight of a crocodile gliding by, the curves of its scaly back giving it the look of a human skeleton. I was far less wary of the iguanas, perched at regular intervals, like statues, on the piled rocks lining the marina, each one shaded to blend meticulously into its background of the moment. I would not have noticed any of the creatures, had they not been pointed out to me. If they noticed me, they didn't let on. We all went about our business, whatever that might be. 

I flinched again when I returned to my chair at the pool, thinking I had left exotic and unfamiliar creatures behind. There was a pink MAGA 2020 hat on the chair next to mine, a thing as unfamiliar to me as an iguana or a crocodile, certainly less expected. I glanced around, wondering who had put it there, thinking (however irrationally) that it had to be a joke. Here in Mexico, I have left the stresses of home behind, except for occasionally checking the "tweets of interest" that mysteriously appear on my phone, filling me in on the latest outrages and confirming my seemingly endless capacity, these days, for disgust and disbelief. I have long ago ceased to blame 45 for his own excesses and lies and appalling and alarming behavior, having accepted that he is an unfortunate freak of nature. I focus, now, on his enablers, and by that I don't mean the overtly freakish sycophants but the silent ones. The once decent (ish) sorts who have opted for tacit acquiescence, as if this too shall pass and why raise a fuss when there appears to be some benefit to outweigh the tremendous costs. 

The pink MAGA hat was neither a joke nor, as I thought it should be, cause for some shame. The hat's owner wore it proudly over her sunburned cheeks, as certain of her "rightness" as, say, the predatory crocodile, or the iguana, who appears oblivious to the irony of existing just to stay still and blend in. Surely, I thought, she must be an anomaly, as certainly as she would be if she walked into my Chicago neighborhood. 

A couple walked by and stopped dead in their tracks. I thought maybe they would lash out, expose the woman's atrociousness, tell her such a hat did not belong here. They looked like a perfectly reasonable couple. 

We were just at a rally, you could feel the excitement, it was amazing. It was all I could do to keep down my guacamole. We were so lucky, he called us over, told us we were a great looking couple, took a picture with us. So exciting. What?

Only moments earlier, I had begun a new book by Erik Larson, In The Garden of Beasts, set in the early days of Hitler's Germany. The dawn of a very dark time, in Larson's words. A paragraph in the opening chapter caught my attention, an apt description of our own dawn of darkness:

I have always wondered what it would have been like for an outsider to have witnessed firsthand the gathering dark of [blank's] rule. How did the city look, what did one hear, see, and smell, and how did diplomats and other visitors interpret the events occurring around them? Hindsight tells us that during that fragile time the course of history could so easily have been changed. Why, then, did no one change it? Why did it take so long to recognize the real danger posed by [blank] and his regime?

Why, indeed. The problem, at least for now, is not that nobody recognizes the real danger; certainly outsiders and diplomats and, yes, Democrats and a smattering of fallen away Republicans are acutely aware. But only the ones who hold the rudders of power can change the course. Only the ones who have made their deals with this devil can begin to erase the rising stench. 

Crocodiles will glide on, and iguanas will continue to blend. There is no other way to be, no other course to take. We humans should know better. 

Sunday Morning Fever

Little has changed in the apartment I grew up in. Except that I am now a visitor. An increasingly rare visitor. There's an odd comfort in the sameness.

Where in Brooklyn? people often ask, assuming it must be someplace cool, chic, edgy, sought after. Assuming (I like to think) that I, too, must be cool, chic, edgy, sought after. I've never mastered the answer to that question, so I just name my street. Ocean Parkway. It conjures up, maybe, images of a grand boulevard spilling into a sparkling sea. I've always thought of it as neither here nor there, somewhere between the storied boardwalk of Coney Island and the highfalutin brownstones of Park Slope. South of Flatbush, Northeast of Bay Ridge. Stayin alive, staying alive.  

Last night, I lay awake on the sofa that long ago replaced the twin bed in my room, staring at the side by side wood paintings of a young girl and a young boy. The boy always appeared to be kicking an oversized soccer ball, really just a discolored knot of wood tucked into his ankle. I glanced over at the ornate oval mirror still hanging above my old dresser, where I used to sit in the mornings and get ready for school, drinking the coffee my mother had brought in for me. My mother doesn't believe in eating or drinking anywhere outside the kitchen or dining room, but she never balked at my transgression. Enabled it, even. 

I sit here with her now, in the small kitchen with the bright yellow cabinets and seat cushions, drinking coffee. She is unusually quiet, tired possibly from last night's celebration of her 89th birthday. Could she really be 89? The three framed rectangular pictures on the wall over the little round table are still there, a bit yellowed, still fascinating to me. One is a recipe for garlic bread. She hates garlic. One is instructions for flower arranging -- "Posing the Posie." I inherited my black thumb from her. Then there's the only one that ever seemed relevant: "Calories do Count." Perfect for the woman famous -- at least among my friends -- for the oft-quoted bit of wisdom: the best exercise is pushing yourself away from the table. 

New York seems to have changed considerably in the last few years. LaGuardia has a sparkling new terminal. Fifth Avenue looks a bit like Main Street U.S.A., with pricey versions of national chains lining streets once reserved for exclusive department stores. The faded lane dividers on the narrow winding highways linking Manhattan to Brooklyn have been given a facelift, painted bright white. Maybe, soon, you'll even be able to make a right on red. 

But here, in the apartment I grew up in, somewhere between Coney Island and Park Slope, little has changed. My mother and I sit in companionable silence drinking our coffee, and I can still see past the years, see vividly the young and formidable woman who raised me. Soon I will get ready for the day, my younger self gazing back at me from the ornate oval mirror, my second cup of coffee close at hand.