Distractions and Smears

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Remembering Adam

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Place for the Table

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

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

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

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

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

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

Knee Jerking

Two things I know about myself: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Year of Alchemy

From there to here, from here to there. 

I rang in 2018 anticipating all good things.  I dubbed it the year of life. The number eighteen in Hebrew means life. Numerology becomes a little less mysterious when the letters are numbers and the numbers are words.  From that to this, from this to that.

It turns out 2018 was indeed a year of life, at least in the sense that I am still alive, which is far better than the alternative. From there to here. I'm trying to take stock today, to see what else I have to show for 2018, other than breathing. I need to figure out where I've been before I figure out where I'm going, no? 

No. The year was a blur, and 2019 started out not much better, after I rang in the New Year with a mind numbing combination of, well, lots of stuff. I wonder what to dub this new year, so I Google the meaning of 19, in Hebrew. Nineteen, the combining of ten and nine, "denotes God's perfect order in regard to his judgment in the Bible." I don't know what that means, so I read on. "The names Job and Eve, if we substitute letters for numbers, add up to 19." Two imperfect people adding up to perfect order? Shit, who knows? 

2019. The year of creating perfect order out of imperfection. It's a mouthful, but I've got plenty of imperfection to go around, so it's a start. 

From here to there. Somehow, I need to figure out what to do with all this before I get to the next "there," to 2020, which, according to my sources, might very well be dubbed the year of redemption.  From "palm" -- an open hand. Well that kinda makes sense. 

Alexa, how do I create perfect order out of imperfection? My "Echo" cheat sheet told me I could ask Alexa anything. Alexa, tell me what I want to hear. Oddly, Alexa took that to mean "play some seventies music." Freebird came up first. If I leave here tomorrow. . . I'm as free as a bird now. . . And this bird you cannot change. In other words, you can run away, but you have to take yourself with you. Shit. 

From here to there. If I have any chance of taking flight, I need to lighten my load. I will stop watching MSNBC. I will block the contacts who stoke my imperfectness. I will give away the clothes that I never wear. I will eat less gluten, drink more water. I will be a better friend, a better daughter, a better mother. 

Last year, breathing. This year, a bit of alchemy, tinged with unrealistic aspiration. Next year, no matter what happens, an open palm. 

Ghosts of Christmas Past, Redux

It seemed clever but familiar to me, to call this post something like "Ghosts of Christmas Past." I was correct, at least about the familiar piece. Seven years ago, a year before my divorce, but my second year back into the world of Jewish Christmas, I used that exact title. I was still getting accustomed to the notion that I was no longer a part of something.

I suppose you never really get accustomed to not being a part of something when you were once a part of it, even when it's just a small something that comes and goes quickly, once a year. When I was little, my father used to drive us by the single block on Ocean Avenue (not to be confused with Ocean Parkway, my street) where a row of large single family homes (unusual in and of itself on a main drag in Brooklyn) was lit up like, well, a Christmas tree. An essential part of our holiday tradition, I suppose, along with Chinese food and a movie. In my mind, those houses are still lit up, the same families still inside.

Back in those days, it seemed that very little was expected of me except that I go to an Ivy League school and one day marry a Jew. In that order. It seemed reasonable, just as it seemed reasonable that I would have the attention span or the drive to meet my own expectations of myself and eventually go to medical school and become a doctor and go into practice somewhere on Park Avenue with my brother, who really would have liked to be an architect but there is, after all, a hierarchy of expectations and some are simply not optional.  He is a doctor.

So I married a Gentile, which never struck me as a viable option but somehow I got away with it and my mother eventually pulled her head out of the oven, if only because grandchildren (Jewish grandchildren, to boot) are irresistible. I had always known that the world wasn't really like where I grew up, where my father had to put us in the car and drive for 15 minutes so we could see a bunch of houses lit up like Christmas trees. But becoming a part of that world, that was different.

I enjoyed my years of celebrating Christmas, even the years when I would trudge off to Midnight Mass with my in-laws and choke on the incense and feel a little out of place when everybody was kneeling (I thought those things were foot rests). I liked being a part of their holiday, and the music was so pretty. I liked the last minute Christmas Eve day shopping. I liked ripping open presents I didn't need, and watching my kids do the same. I liked the smell of bacon frying in the morning, loved the taste even more. I liked my runs through the snowy and eerily quiet neighborhood. I liked sitting around in a food coma watching an endless loop of "A Christmas Story," the movie that has forever saved me from the agonizing pain of licking an icy cold flagpole.

It's been almost a decade since I was a part of Christmas, and a lifetime since I marveled at the lit up houses. The ghosts of all of it haunt me but still make me smile, as I struggle to create future ghosts.

A Wandering Jew

As a traveler, a friend told me recently, I could be described as a flaneuse. Everything sounds better in French, and this is no exception. Flaneuse makes me sound far less haphazard than, say, aimless wanderer. It's "a thing," flaneuse. "Un chose." A meanderer with a purpose.

In travel, as in life, I have always been content to let others do the meticulous planning, perfectly happy to stumble around without an itinerary. I have been known to wile away the endless hours on a plane ride home poring through tour books, reading about what I have already seen. It may seem ass backwards to some, but I love the "eureka" moments. Ah yes, I've been there. Now the sights have  context, and the memory seems richer. If I am lucky enough to revisit, even better.

A few months ago, I traveled to Japan, for the fifth time. My friend, Ellen, came with me, well warned that, despite the long journey, my visit was more about spending time with my son than sightseeing. Tokyo was out of the question for our brief stay, but I guaranteed plenty of wandering and a smorgasbord of shrines and some good eats in Kyoto and Kobe.  Ellen is the opposite of a flaneuse; she researches beforehand. We walked together, the accidental and the purposeful tourist, through a Kobe neighborhood where I had wandered countless times. I had never known about the Jewish temple sitting so comfortably within the Japanese cityscape. Were it not for Ellen's research, I would never have experienced the odd sensation of standing before a bima flanked by a Japanese flag on one side and an Israeli flag on the other. Flaneusing isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Since that visit, thanks to my son, I have learned a little more about Jews and Japan and, I suppose, wanderings. He had just traveled to a small port town, Tsuraga, where there is a museum commemorating the arrival of thousands of Jews escaping the Nazis in 1939. They arrived there, after an arduous journey from Lithuania through Siberia, thanks to a largely unsung Japanese hero who defied orders and hand-wrote thousands of visas. They arrived there, entire families, hungry and filthy, and ethnically different from the towns' residents, and they were taken in. Their caravan was the Trans-Siberian railroad and then a boat. There were no walls. Nobody told them they should not have risked their childrens' lives to make the journey. Thousands of Jews are alive today, thanks to the humanity of one man and the people of a small port town.

Another friend is heading to Japan tomorrow with her family. Everything has been mapped out, and she just called to see if I had any last minute tips. What to wear, what to see, whether to bring an adaptor. I told her to just enjoy the sights and sounds, take it all in without sweating the details. To be a flaneuse. But I also told her about Tsuraga, a town I have never seen, would not have heard about had it not been for my son's curiosity. Flaneusing aside, I will just have to stumble over there,  accidentally on purpose, the next time I go.