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. 

Alone and Together, at the Bar

A young lady walked into a bar. Blew in, it seemed, with strands of hair escaping from her short pony tail and her jacket sliding down one shoulder. 

The seat next to me was open, and, as small as she was, it took her a while to get situated as she tried desperately not to disturb me with her large shoulder bag. I liked her for that, for all of it really -- her politeness, her adorable messiness. If she found the older man to her left at all creepy, she did not let on. 

I like this bar, a relatively cramped space in an otherwise spacious and popular restaurant. It reminds me of my old suburban haunt, where the bartenders know everybody and fill up your wine glass when you're not looking and have that sixth sense about when to chat and when to just go about their business while they pretend they're not listening. Everybody has a story, and I like to wonder what it is. The bartender knows, but would never tell. 

Like me, the young lady was from New York. An Ashkenazi Jew, like me. Odd that would come up, but it did. Messy, like me, and polite, as I like to think I am. Naturally, we discovered we knew some of the same people, Jewish geography in a bar in Chicago. She reminded me a little bit of my daughters, or maybe more than a little bit of a younger me, a bolder version though, treating herself to a nice dinner at a bar. 

She told me that she and her mother, when they get together, often go to help out at soup kitchens. She told me that, even at soup kitchens, there is a pecking order. A cool table, a wannabe table, and the ones who are content to be left alone. Everybody gravitates to a comfortable space. Like us, at this bar. 

My new young friend told me about her closet full of hideous bridesmaid dresses, how if her love life ever gets back on track she would make sure not to force her friends to buy dresses they could never possibly wear again. I imagined her closet, filled with lime green and lavender chiffon. I scrolled through my mental Rolodex, trying to locate some thirty-ish young man who might be worthy of this young lady, this young lady who reminds me of my daughters and the younger self I like to imagine I was. She'll be fine, though, either way.

We are all out there, I suppose, navigating a world that can seem daunting and unfamiliar, unrecognizable at times. A world where it seems the high road leads to nowhere and the line between truth and lies has become oddly blurred. But at the bar, the playing field is level -- no cool tables, no wannabe tables. We all sit in a row, in a comfortable space.