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. 

The Kids are All Right

Most mornings and many evenings last summer, we'd walk by them, the elderly couple outside their small corner townhouse. By then, Eli had had his fill of fetching and sniffing and the occasional laser focused sprints back and forth across some imaginary finish line. I'd had my fill of idle conversation, but I never tire of watching the pure joy of dogs at play. 

They were always outside, the elderly couple, drinking what I assume was coffee in the morning, and something a bit stronger in the evening. Sometimes, they sat together at a small round table; sometimes, one or the other would be up and about, tending to the flower beds that lined the curb. We would wave. I often wondered what they could possibly have to talk about after so many years, so many hours, but they seemed surprisingly content. 

The place seemed locked up a few weeks ago when Eli and I walked by, something we do far less often now that the weather has turned cold. A tarp covered their table, held down by bricks. I imagined they were somewhere south now, drinking whatever the hour called for and chatting and tending to other flowers. 

My kids are all in Chicago now for the holidays. I never tire of watching the three of them together. It is far more complicated than the pure joy of dogs at play, but it is, nevertheless, a marvel. They have the secret language of siblings, borne of a shared upbringing that somehow seeps to the surface when they are together, eclipsing the divergent paths they have taken. In their adult faces I cannot help but see the plump cheeks, the uncertain toddles, the neediness that made me so relevant back in the day. 

This year, for the first time, I have no spare bedroom. My life has been downsized, which works for me. I have my new routines, and I have my coffee in the morning, something stronger in the evening, sometimes just with Eli, sometimes with others. Sometimes I chat, sometimes I don't, but I am content. I am certain that my kids wonder at the seeming sameness of my days. When they are here, I am reminded of how boring I am. All right, that's not fair; I am far more multi-dimensional than that, at least to them. I am ridiculous, occasionally helpful, often incredibly annoying. 

Soon, we will all return to the lives we live, by some combination of choice and happenstance. It's easier in a lot of ways, but I will miss the joyful albeit fraught interruption of their presence, as a group. I will miss watching the three of them together, overhearing their shared sibling language. I will have to settle in, again, to marveling at the pure joyfulness of dogs, and enjoying my seemingly mundane existence. When spring arrives, I will look forward to that secret feeling of superiority that overcomes me when I walk past the elderly couple and marvel at the tedium of their contentedness. 

Let's Hear it for the Girls!

I’ve imagined all week they’ve been feigning excitement, the girlfriends who have chosen to celebrate by milestone birthday with me in Vegas. Not that anybody needs an excuse to leave Chicago for a few days in a November that already feels a bit like February. But it was summer when we cooked up the idea, and I still can’t help but feel a little self-conscious that they are making this trip for me.

Excitement, gratitude, an occasional twinge of anxiety, a fear that nobody will have fun. That twinge evaporated by last night though, lost in a crescendo of emojis -- party hats and champagne popping and clouds of confetti, texts about packing (with even the more holier than thou among us – namely me – finally succumbing to the need to check a bag),  and sordid and self-deprecating texts that only women of a certain age would find amusing.  I abandoned my laptop, made myself a dirty martini in my new shaker, and rummaged through my closets and tried on all sorts of things I know I’ll never wear out in public but what better way to get in the mood. Turquoise cowboy boots and khaki shorts; a tame prelude to what I imagine will happen – and stay – in Vegas.

The guy who took my bag at the airport told me to have fun, and reminded me not to tell. There’s a certain appeal to that, the notion that you can transport yourself somewhere and transform yourself, if only for a moment. I doubt I can shake 59 years, 363 days of relative self-restraint, but then again I’ve never been to Vegas with the girls. At least my daughters will be there to roll their eyes at me before I do anything silly. Or after.

I am giddy this morning. Excited and grateful, and free of anxiety. I cannot wait to greet them all as they drift in, hand them their drinks, settle comfortably into the cozy cocoon they have woven over all these years, the women in my life. My friends, who know me better than anybody possibly could and still hang around. My daughters, who have no choice but to hang around, who remind me every day of the good I have contributed, in spite of myself. They are, all of the women in my life, the icing on my birthday cake, the blue cheese in my olives, the dirty in my martini.

I am about to land in Sin City, on the precipice of yet another chapter. Sixty, all of a sudden, does not seem so bad.

A Bagel With a Schmear

It's never left me, my love of Sunday mornings.

It was my time with my father, just the two of us. In my mind it was always sunny, although, oddly, I can still hear the sound of the windshield wipers. We'd head off in his Cadillac -- always a two-door coupe, not a sedan, on the off chance my brother or I might lean against a door and fly out. We didn't wear seat belts back then, but flying through the windshield was never on my father's worry radar. Why would it be, as long as he was at the wheel?

I assumed my father would never let anything bad happen to me. I counted on it. In my mind I was always happy, although, oddly, I can still taste some tears. But Sunday mornings, I believe, were perfect. Off we went, in search of breakfast. My brother had no interest in going; he had his own special times with our father (or so he says), but Sunday mornings were mine. My father's comfort behind the wheel was contagious, and I'd settle in to the passenger seat beside him, content to go wherever he took me, content to listen to him talk.

The "appetizing store." I've tried, with little success, to explain what that is to my Midwestern friends, how "appetizing" was not really an adjective. Wikipedia has given it a stab: it is best understood as a store that sells "the foods one eats with bagels." That sounds about right, but it doesn't do it justice. For me, it is the claustrophobic shop on the corner of Avenue J and East 14th Street, where ornery men in stained white aprons tossed fish on wooden cutting boards and sliced them with delicate and painstaking precision, oblivious to the waiting mob of impatient customers while they catered to the whims of old ladies who ordered things like a half of a quarter of a pound of nova or demanded a redo when the slices were too thick. My father would steam, until it was his turn. He relished his turn, content to kick back into slow motion. All of a sudden, we needed boxes of "Tam Tams" and anything else that needed to be plucked off the packed ceiling-high shelves with a "grabber." I was happy just to have more time with him. This was before I could imagine that my time with him would end some day.

I thought about all of this, last Sunday morning, as I made my way through the crowds watching the Chicago Marathon, trying to catch a glimpse of the leaders as they rounded the final turn before the finish. The air was crisp and the sun was bright, and I felt almost the way I did back in those days, straining to see over the heads in front of me while everyone waited. I craved a bagel with a schmear. A ride with my father, the sound of his voice. The feeling of a perfect Sunday morning, rain or shine.

This coming weekend we will celebrate what would have been my father's 100th birthday. He has been gone for 21 years, but I remember everything about him, as if it were yesterday. Not just our Sunday mornings, but waiting for him to walk in the door every evening at six; doing the New York Times crossword puzzle with him; hearing him remind me I could do anything as long as I "applied myself;" reading obituaries with him so -- according to him -- he could make sure he was still alive. Our private jokes. The sweet smell of his cigars.

I will always love Sunday mornings, no matter how bittersweet. I still wish I could ask his advice -- even if I might ignore it. And, still, there is no better way to start a day than with a bagel with a schmear and a little bit of nova.

The Ring

It was a coincidental cluster, but a cluster all the same, the rash of departures of mothers. Chronologically elderly mothers, the generation of mothers that bore my generation, mothers who, to their own daughters and sons, always seemed larger than life and immortal. 

With each departure I was struck with grief and a pang of fear. Grief for my friends' losses and my own, particularly for those moms with whom I had spent so much time over the years. And fear that my own mother's immortality would prove, one day, to be nothing more than a sham. I know that's unlikely, but one should always be prepared for such things. 

As my friend and her sister have spent considerable time bonding, these past few months, going through their mother's things, I have sat on the sidelines, still not believing I would never again have lunch with Ann, or celebrate a holiday with her, or grieve together, or even serve as nothing more than a buffer between her and her daughter. We do that for each other, we daughters, able to spin what might appear to be a mother's unrelenting critique into nothing more than inartful expressions of unconditional love. It's cheaper than therapy. 

The clean-up helped my friend and her sister grieve, and it helped me know more about the woman I really only knew as their mom. I would never have expected the fastidious Ann to have expired food in her fridge and pantry. I would never have expected the methodical Ann to have dozens of half empty tissue packets buried in every jacket pocket. I would never have expected the sensible Ann to have too many pairs of the same kind of pants, or to waste her time with fake flowers. The tissues were unceremoniously bequeathed to me, by her daughters, since I never seem to have any. The fake flowers adorn what used to be a large empty vase by my front door. 

I loved Ann's whimsical teapot collection, though I hate tea. I know I am getting one, and I hope it's the polka-dotted rooster, but beggars (and merely honorary daughters) cannot be choosers. 

What I never expected though, never would have asked for, was the ring. I had forgotten about this ring, the wide one with intertwined ribbons of metal, the one she always wore and I always admired. After everything was packed away, her daughters surprised me with it. I felt unworthy, as if maybe we should have gotten Ann's permission. Deep down, though, I knew she would have been okay with it, and it made me smile. 

After so many years of being daughters and mothers together, my friends and I have managed to blur the boundaries between family and friendship, and we have woven together an intergenerational tapestry that keeps us from becoming unglued, not just from each other but from ourselves. 

A wide band of intertwined ribbons, without beginning and without end.