I've been chatting with an old friend lately, catching up on 40 years as if it were just a brief hiatus. Lots of stuff has happened to each of us during that "middle" chapter, a big chunk of life lived completely oblivious to what the other was doing.
It's kind of like falling asleep during a movie. They say the devil is in the details for some things, but for me, in a dark theatre, the details are the devil; the middle is when I doze. I can fill in the minutiae on my own, as long as I know how it all begins and how it ends.
So, here we are. Not the end, I hope, but as we approach 60, far closer than we were when. When. When we thought we knew who we were and where we'd be going and nobody clued us in that we really had no idea. Each of us, in the mind of the other, is still forever young. Grainy Facebook pictures don't change that.
Life has thrown my old friend some curves lately, curves that make my own struggles seem, well, like a hill of beans. Years ago, I had a good friend who was dying. Not dying in the sense that we are all dying with each tick of the clock, but in the real way that most of us cannot fathom, when you know your days are seriously numbered. She used to call me to entertain her with stories of my petty problems, though she never so much as insinuated they were petty. She liked when I took her out of her head, even for a moment, to let her forget about all that she was destined to miss. I wish, all these years later, I could fill her in on the details, on the stuff that seems as inconsequential as the middle of a movie while it's happening, the stuff that somehow led me from there to here. It would be nice to pick up where we left off.
It's been easy, somehow, to pick up with my old friend where we left off, despite the 40 year gap. He thinks I'm taking him out of his head, for a moment here and there, but the truth is he's doing the same for me. There's something about the ones who knew you before you were fully formed, especially when you have the sense, all of sudden, that you are. If I am, indeed, fully formed, it seems just a little less frightening when I talk to somebody who knew me, or at least thought he did, when.
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Monday, February 11, 2019
Zero Tolerance = False Equivalencies
A few premises:
1. Racism is bad.
2. Sexual Assault is bad.
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is bad.
A few other premises:
1. Dressing up in black face 35 years ago does not, in and of itself, make one a racist; nor does it make one incapable of governance; the possibility that one was in a picture of somebody in black face standing with somebody dressed as a Klansman, and the fact that he could tell his constituents two diametrically opposed stories, makes the issue a bit more thorny.
2. An allegation of unwanted sex, 15 or 20 years after the alleged occurrence, first brought to light only when the alleged perpetrator can be pushed to a precipitous fall that might, coincidentally, be politically expedient for somebody else, does not make that accused person a sexual predator; nor does it make him incapable of governance.
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is always bad.
One more premise:
We flit, and flitting is bad.
I don't know whether Virginia's governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's lieutenant governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's attorney general should resign. I do know that each situation is unique, and that a rush to judgment in any direction for any of these men is a bad precedent to set.
I do know that we need conversations rather than knee-jerk reactions. About race, and about gender. As to corruption, the kind of corruption that affects us as a nation, that threatens to chip away irrevocably at our common good, the kind of corruption that plainly and overtly pervades our current administration (and I include, here, those who hold their noses and look the other way), we have already begun the conversation at the ballot box, and we will, I hope, continue the conversation when the next election rolls around. For that, as an electorate, we should have zero tolerance.
As to the rest, there are nuances. I have known not only of powerful men, but of young men in college, who can be and have been taken down by uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault or harassment. Is that where we want to be? And, unless Mother Theresa comes back to life, we will be hard pressed to find somebody who has not been guilty, in his or her past, in word or in deed, of some form of intolerance or apparent ignorance. We are all, last time I checked, human, inherently flawed. We should not be so eager to cast stones.
The most any of us can do is acknowledge our errors and try to do better. And keep the conversation going, and allow for redemption, when it is possible.
1. Racism is bad.
2. Sexual Assault is bad.
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is bad.
A few other premises:
1. Dressing up in black face 35 years ago does not, in and of itself, make one a racist; nor does it make one incapable of governance; the possibility that one was in a picture of somebody in black face standing with somebody dressed as a Klansman, and the fact that he could tell his constituents two diametrically opposed stories, makes the issue a bit more thorny.
2. An allegation of unwanted sex, 15 or 20 years after the alleged occurrence, first brought to light only when the alleged perpetrator can be pushed to a precipitous fall that might, coincidentally, be politically expedient for somebody else, does not make that accused person a sexual predator; nor does it make him incapable of governance.
3. A lifetime of unabashed corruption is always bad.
One more premise:
We flit, and flitting is bad.
I don't know whether Virginia's governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's lieutenant governor should resign. I don't know whether Virginia's attorney general should resign. I do know that each situation is unique, and that a rush to judgment in any direction for any of these men is a bad precedent to set.
I do know that we need conversations rather than knee-jerk reactions. About race, and about gender. As to corruption, the kind of corruption that affects us as a nation, that threatens to chip away irrevocably at our common good, the kind of corruption that plainly and overtly pervades our current administration (and I include, here, those who hold their noses and look the other way), we have already begun the conversation at the ballot box, and we will, I hope, continue the conversation when the next election rolls around. For that, as an electorate, we should have zero tolerance.
As to the rest, there are nuances. I have known not only of powerful men, but of young men in college, who can be and have been taken down by uncorroborated allegations of sexual assault or harassment. Is that where we want to be? And, unless Mother Theresa comes back to life, we will be hard pressed to find somebody who has not been guilty, in his or her past, in word or in deed, of some form of intolerance or apparent ignorance. We are all, last time I checked, human, inherently flawed. We should not be so eager to cast stones.
The most any of us can do is acknowledge our errors and try to do better. And keep the conversation going, and allow for redemption, when it is possible.
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Distractions and Smears
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?
Monday, January 28, 2019
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.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
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.
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.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
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.
(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.
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
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.
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