Bombs and Bomshells

Somebody asked me yesterday what I would wish for if I had three wishes. Outside of the obvious (health, happiness, and prosperity for my children), I couldn't really think of anything that didn't make me sound shallow and just a tad self-involved. When you have spent the better part of the week hosting your very own pity party while you wait for antibiotics to work their magic on some mysterious infection, you find yourself not giving much of a shit about the greater good or making the world a better place. You aim low, and you go even lower.

It seems a lifetime ago that I dubbed this, 2018, the year of "chai" -- not the tea, but the Hebrew number "18," the symbol of life. I was filled with optimism, determined to seek out and derive full enjoyment of all the good things life had tossed my way. Nothing like a few minor setbacks in a row to suck the Pollyanna right out of you. To the extent that there was any Pollyanna in you in the first place.

Back in bed for the umpteenth time this week -- exhausted after finally washing my hair -- I cannot decide whether the bright spring sun streaming through my blinds is making me feel joyful or just bitchier. That's a lie; there's no contest. What good is sunshine if you can't be out enjoying it. It's just making me squint.

In keeping with my mood, I was thinking this morning about how ridiculous it is that we got rid of Al Franken. As if on cue, the Dems' sacrificial lamb emerged today, to call out the hypocrisy of Jeff Sessions -- the poster child for selective amnesia -- for firing the person investigating him for lack of candor. Yay! Such an intelligent perspective! But so what? Jeff Sessions' job is extra secure now, and our entire country remains at the mercy of an incompetent and corrupt buffoon and his shrinking but shameless band of sycophants.

So Al Franken, comedian, went down for a silly and somewhat lecherous but not at all secret picture. Now, our best hopes -- if there is any hope at all -- for bringing down our president, who has done nothing but compromise our security and pretty much undermine the very foundation of our democracy, are a porn star, a Playboy bunny, and an aspiring apprentice. I mean no disrespect to any of those women -- although I wanted to ask the bunny what possible reason she could have had for having sex with such a vile creature if it wasn't money. It's just fascinating to me that it's the bombshells -- not the nuclear bombs -- that get our collective attention.

If I am, indeed, as shallow as I think I am sometimes, I apparently have plenty of company.

Let's Hear it for the Girls!

When the going gets tough, you sometimes realize you're not as tough as you like to think you are. So when the going gets tough, the not-so-tough crumble into the arms of the wonderful women in their life -- typically the mothers and the girlfriends. And they are there, willing and able to serve, always.

And then, there are the daughters. It should be no surprise, I suppose, that the miraculous beings who once brought indescribable joy with just a smile -- you know, the whole body smile with arms and legs flailing and cheeks looking as though they might actually burst, the kind of smile we tend to unlearn all too quickly -- are there to lift you up. They are there, even though you have promised yourself over and over that you would never become a burden to them, that you would always remember that it is your job (a labor of love, of course) to be there for them. It's a slippery slope, I think. Let them take care of you once, and it's only a matter of time before they're taking away your car keys and changing your diapers. I come by it honestly; my own mother swats me away if I try to hold onto her when we cross the street.

I remember, once, long ago, a friend -- already a seasoned mother with two toddlers -- reminded me that I did not always have to like my child; all I had to do was love her. It was one of those days, the kind of day when a young, overtired mother begins to understand why some animals eat their young. I recall being horrified by the advice, determined to like my screaming, inconsolable, tyrannical baby no matter what she did, though I certainly tucked the wisdom away for future reference. It has come in handy, more than a few times.

My adult daughters -- beautiful, bright and, as I had always hoped, pursuing their own lives with determination and passion -- never cease to amaze. Like my girlfriends, the ones who, like me, have endured so many more years of the odd brew of experiences and emotions that prepare us to cope with the ravages and gifts of time, my daughters are wise and loving and always there when I just cannot help but need them, even when I insist I do not.

When I look at my peers, I don't see wrinkles or sagging breasts or arm flaps. To me, they look just as good as they always did -- even better -- because, to me, they are forever beautiful. When I look at my daughters, I sometimes see the babies they once were, doing the full body smile, and I forget to see the beautiful women they have become. I was reminded of that last night -- not just of the beautiful women that they are, but of how their beauty will only become richer as time marches on.

Sometimes, I sit back and enjoy the show. Sometimes, when I'm not so tough, I let them step in to recreate the joy I always felt, just when they smiled.

Ladies' Night Out

I had dinner last night with two ladies -- one, a decade or so younger than I but a relatively old friend, the other almost a decade older than I, a new acquaintance.

The three of us lead different lives with considerable overlap. The ages of our kids, the stages of our lives, our fluctuating levels of contentment and discontent and, for the most part, some ill-defined place in between. My younger friend and I had taken the traditional route. We had postponed our "swingin' adult singlehood," had raised kids and let our marriages fail first. Our new acquaintance did things in reverse, which leaves her with a startlingly rose colored memory of carefree dating days that neither of the other of us can quite understand.

Three women, shaped by our own unique choices -- good and bad -- and a lifetime of stuff that was beyond our control. Two of us ordered stick to your ribs, man-sized meals, the third ordered boiled chicken. She is determined to be thin at her daughters' college graduations.

Thin is overrated, I told her, shoveling in another hunk of bread slathered with butter.

You say that because you're thin, she responded, picking at some crumbs.

Of course, like any red-blooded woman, I don't consider myself thin, but that's beside the point. We agreed that thin may not be a bad thing, but it certainly doesn't guarantee happiness. Certainly not the way a huge plate of chicken Parmesan does. Or personal fulfillment or true love, I'd imagine, though I can only speak of what I know.

We found ourselves to be on the same page on lots of things. Trump -- tragic. Fox News -- unwatchable. My new acquaintance was a bit taken aback when she discovered that MSNBC was my perennial background noise -- she's a CNN addict -- but she was okay with it, because they're on her side. When did we all take sides? We had talked, earlier, about how we yearn for the days of George Bush. He was a dope, but a relatively harmless dope. I hated the way he pronounced "nuclear" ("nucular") but at least he wasn't treating the button as if it were attached to a pinball machine.

We have not only taken sides, but we have even begun to isolate ourselves within our own camps. We are, all three of us, unintentionally nocturnal. We cozy up with our pets to binge watch whatever we choose, and we find ourselves resenting intrusions by actual people during the day. We all made a great show of tucking our phones away when we sat down to dinner, but the sense of relief was palpable when we were able to retrieve them -- on the pretense of adding our new acquaintance to our virtual spheres. The phones stayed on the table, after that. Phew.

I supported my new friend's quest for thinness, mostly because she rejected my offer to share my chicken Parmesan. We scurried off to our respective cocoons, with promises to make this a regular "thing." It was lots of fun, but I don't know that any of us is capable of that kind of commitment.

No Place Like Home!

A friend asked me, the other day, if I have a bucket list.

I don't. There are lots of things I'd like to do before I "kick the bucket" -- am I the only one who just recently discovered that was the root of the phrase? -- but I also know I can die happy without doing most of them. Well, not happy to die, but certainly not feeling my time here was a complete waste.

This weekend my daughter and her husband are moving to Chicago from New York. From my home town and their adopted home town, to my adopted hometown and her home town and his soon to be home town because, for them, home is sweet as long as the other one is there too. (As long as he remains a Cubs fan.) This move is certainly a wish list item for me, since I have no bucket list. Semantics aside, my bucket runneth over.

They've been together in New York City for about four years. It never seemed all that far away to me, since I've never completely let it go. When I left, more than thirty years ago, I was terrified. I had spent time away before -- in college, in law school -- but I always assumed I would be back. So did my parents. The 800 miles was bad enough; add to it the gentile waiting for me at the other end of my journey, and, well, let's just say we had a bit of patching up to do over the next few months. Okay, years.

I've been thinking a lot about that time, when I chose to uproot myself and begin a life where I knew nobody and had no job, knowing my father was just about the only thing standing in between my mother's angry head and a hot oven. On my last night as an official New Yorker, friends from work took me out for dinner. I can't even remember their names. They came back with me to my studio apartment to help me pack, and stayed with me until the movers came in the morning. On the plane, I set next to a little boy who was off to see his dad in Chicago for the summer. We were kind of in the same boat, that young boy and I. Brave faces, ambivalent hearts, scared to death.

It doesn't matter that I know this was their plan, my daughter and her husband, to move back, eventually, to the home town she loves. This week, I could not help but be a little wistful, as she told me about a farewell run with one friend, a final barre class at the gym, a goodbye bash at one of their favorite haunts. Four years may not be a long time, but there will be so much for them to remember, fondly, and much for me to remember on their behalf. The craziness, the commotion, the exhilaration. Their engagement in Central Park. Their weekly Sunday dinners with my mom and brother. Their first home together.

They are en route as I write this. I know they are excited, and, like I said, my bucket runneth over. I just can't stop thinking about that little boy on the plane so long ago, and that scared little twenty-five year old girl sitting next to him.

Nasty and Brutish

Don't know much about philosophy, but....

I have vague recollections of skimming the works of great thinkers, and most of what I remember comes to me in sound bites. He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. The ideas all seem pretty obvious; the brilliance lies, I think, in the pithy elegance of the phrases.

Without rules, without a sovereign to enforce those rules, Hobbes told us four hundred years ago, life would be solitary, nasty, brutish, and short. The pessimism always seemed a bit disheartening, but as I watch the accelerating and insidious fraying of our hard won social contract, I marvel at the ancient insight.

My tendency toward cynicism aside, I truly believe in the words of Anne Frank, a child, and a far more modern philosopher, extraordinary mostly for her ordinariness. I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I believe this, when I talk to my friends, when I live, every day, in my community -- both real and virtual. When I hear the stories of extraordinary ordinary school teachers and coaches. I believe more people know right from wrong than not, and try their level best to act in kind. And kindly.

Nasty, brutish, and short, if not in stature, then on just about everything else. Our new sovereign, and all those who enable him, for reasons somebody like Anne Frank, hiding in a cramped attic from an unspeakable reality, could never understand. I listen to folks talking about their own pocketbooks, their right to own guns, their God given right to possess America and keep others out. A greedy carnival barker speaking directly to them, the biggest "me-ist" to all the other "me-ists," social contract be damned.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command. Guess we messed up on that one. The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. Ah, if only.  

Anne Frank again: How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.I believe this, as I watch children from a high school in Florida rise up, find their voices, call out those who will turn a blind eye to just about anything if it serves them, personally. I believe this, as I watch these children, wise well beyond their years, painfully aware they cannot undo their own losses but finding, somehow, the strength to save others.

The old philosophers said some cool stuff, but it's the children who keep me cautiously optimistic. 

We Have All Dropped the Ball. We All Need to Grow a Pair.

A troubled boy, sporting a "make America great again" cap, spews hatred and murderous fantasies on social media. He boasts of his arsenal of guns, and shares pictures. There were warning signs everywhere, but now 17 young people are dead. The boy is in custody.

A troubled man, over a year ago, announced to the world that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and nobody would care. He promises to make America great again, and he tucks his bizarre orange hair into his signature cap. There were warning signs everywhere, but now our country has become a laughing stock. The man is in the Oval Office. Except when he is on the golf course.

The political finger pointing has begun in earnest, but the truth is we are all to blame, in varying degrees. Our attention spans are short, and we become desensitized all too quickly. Grainy videos of teenagers being led out of school like criminals, hands up over their heads. News reporters asking parents the most ridiculous questions -- how did it feel when you stopped receiving text messages from your child? Your child who was hiding in a closet with twenty-five schoolmates and a teacher who was supposed to know how to keep everyone safe and calm because she had done a few drills? Did you ever think it could happen here? Here. Where you are, precisely because bad things don't happen.

Two years ago, I met a lady whose grandchildren were at Sandy Hook Elementary School when twenty young children and six teachers were murdered. Life had gone on, for her, but she was forever changed. I vaguely remember the outrage, five years ago. I remember how certain we all were that something would would have to give, that rifles would no longer be as accessible as a carton of milk. I donated once, to a a charity set up in a dead Connecticut child's name, and I occasionally receive a new solicitation. The picture of the beautiful child haunts me, the frozen in time snapshot of a life's worth of lost promise. I ache for his parents. I wonder why nothing has changed, and I donate again. And I move on to wring my hands about something more immediate and petty. Desensitized.

Florida's governor, the guy who firmly stated, two years ago, that the Second Amendment doesn't kill people, said he would do what he could do to keep kids safe. "We cannot let this pass without making something happen that hopefully, and it's my goal that this will never happen again in my state." Whatever that sentence means. Not once would he acknowledge that gun control would be part of the solution. Nope, guns are not the problem. Apparently, as far as Governor Scott is concerned, the FBI director is the problem, because he actually admitted that somebody in the FBI dropped the ball. Aha! Guns don't kill people. The Second Amendment doesn't kill people. The FBI director kills people. Never mind that we will never know how many people are saved, every day, when the ball does not get dropped.

If this happens again, if another troubled individual with a legally acquired rifle manages to commit mass murder in a school or at a concert or in a nightclub or anywhere, we are all complicit. Just as we were complicit, by virtue of our sheer apathy, in allowing a big buffoon in a Make America Great Again cap to sit in the White House, the house that slaves built. Just as we are complicit, by virtue of our inaction, in allowing him to stay there, while a never ending laundry list of crimes and misdemeanors seem to roll off his Teflon hide. Enough is enough.

Roots and Wings

I recognized my old friend immediately when she walked into the chapel. Her face was as girlishly cute as it always had been, with freckles scattered around her little (especially by Brooklyn Jewish standards) nose. It still amuses me that she is so tiny -- she had towered over me in elementary school -- but I am no longer surprised by it.

It took my mother an additional moment or two, but she smiled quickly enough. I didn't recognize you at first, she told my old friend. I love your hair blond! I panicked. It's bad enough my mother is deaf; I am not prepared for her to be blind as well. My friend's hair is no longer brown, the way it always was, but it is certainly not blond. It is gray. A delicate light gray, so soft looking it almost begs to be touched. She has done what I have always promised myself I would do, let her hair go where nature takes it. I have kept my promise when it comes to wrinkles and fat pockets and all the other indignities that come with age, but I have been weak about the gray. The whitening of my hair started pretty late, but I cannot seem to give up on the battle, every six weeks, to conceal the truth.

Hours later, when my mother again mentioned how she had at first not recognized my friend with blond hair, I broke the news to her.  She was adamant. It's not gray. It's blond. It looked pretty. My mother is always right, except when she's not. Usually, I just let it go, but this was important.

I don't like it, she said, when she finally backed down. I reminded her she had said it looked pretty. Apparently, it did look pretty when it was blond. Not when it turned gray though. I don't like that my daughter's friends can be gray. 

I get it. I don't like that I was in New York for my other dear old friend's husband's funeral. At 60, he had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, a most deadly kind. Two years later, he was gone. My friend is far too young to have lost her husband, the love of her life for so many years. Her two beautiful daughters are far too young to have lost their father. As one of them said, during her eloquent eulogy, he had marveled once when, watching her do what she does, that she had "become her own thing." It's what's supposed to happen, that our kids become their own "things," but we are supposed to be able to stick around to enjoy it, and also to be there just in case they need a little bit of reassurance. With luck, we should be able to stick around to watch our children turn gray, whether they hide it or not, whether or not it reminds us how fleeting life is.

My friend's daughter also mentioned a saying that had always hung on the wall in their home, something about parents giving their children roots and wings. The roots grow out, and the wings sometimes take our children farther away than we'd like, but the roots are always there and the wings are a good thing. It's just that sometimes, if only to make ourselves feel better, we see things the way we want to see them.