Collateral Damage

The memes were funny, at first.

There were no mushroom clouds, no pictures of gaunt Jews pressed against chain link fences, no live images of burning towers on the Southern tip of Manhattan, of thousands of regular folks trying to outrun the two million tons of concrete, metal, and human remains. Rubble, they call it. 

It has occurred to me that even after a cushion of decades, nobody laughs about 9/11, or the Holocaust, or about bombs vaporizing entire cities in Japan. More than a half century later, I made a tasteless pun while walking down a street in Hiroshima. My son was appalled, and I was appropriately chastised. This was before I went into the museum, before I saw the bench that had survived, along with the dim shadow of the person who had just been sitting there. Still, there was no excuse. 

We cannot see a virus, and those of us who are not medical professionals in hot spot emergency rooms cannot really imagine what it looks like, death on a ventilator, just days after a toilet paper shortage may have been somebody's biggest concern. 

The memes have kept us laughing, while we wonder when -- or if --- we will return to our favorite bars or restaurants, or go to a gym, or have a reason to shower before late in the afternoon. As horrific as the pandemic is, most of us will likely not know somebody who dies. 100,000 people is a lot of people, but in a country of 330 million, a world of billions, our odds are pretty good. And there's no volcano of human remains to remind us, in the starkest of terms, of the tragedy. 

The economic pain is a reality check, but the toll goes much deeper. What of all the people who die alone, now, whether of the virus or old age or some other "normal" disease? What of the ones who are left behind, haunted by the notion that they couldn't be there, to squeeze a hand, to whisper I love you. What of our elderly parents, holed up alone, wondering when we will allow them to see us again.

When my father died, 22 years ago, I had just arrived back in Chicago, not really believing that when I said goodbye to him that morning in Brooklyn, I would never see him again. He waited for me to call. I know he did; he wasn't about to let go until he knew I was home, safe. I called, and he began to die, with my mother there, holding his hand, and placing the phone to his ear so I could tell him I love him.  

The covid 19 memes were funny at first. I admit, some of them continue to make me laugh. But most of us will not escape the rubble.

Life Without Hugs

A friend had a birthday, so we gathered, Covid style. In her driveway, each of us six feet away from the nearest other, each of us holding our own miniature Prosecco. We even left extra space between our cars as we parked. 

I haven't seen my friends in what seems like ages. Weeks, probably, but the isolation has made the days run together, periods of gray punctuated by stretches of darkness, with an occasional glimpse of sunlight to remind us of what used to be. A sliver of false optimism, as we wonder when it will matter again whether it is Saturday or Monday. 

It was good to see my friends again, even though we couldn't hug. Still better than the group texts that ping in the distant perimeter of my solitude while I try to work. Work alone, at home, as I often do, but it feels so different now. 

Mind you, it's not all bad. I am trying my hand at cooking and baking. I apologized to my son yesterday, for not trying all that sooner, like, say, when he and his siblings might have enjoyed coming home to a house that smelled like cookies just out of the oven. I've been concocting Bloody Mary's, convincing myself it's just a salad in a glass. I have found a reason for celery; I have binged on pickled asparagus. 

I crave my mother's wisdom. Not the thinness wisdom (the best exercise is pushing yourself away from the table) that has always amused my friends, but the trite wisdom that I have always waved away, as my children do when I tell them everything will work out. This too shall pass, she has always told me. I believe it when she says it, though I still hold my breath every morning until I know she is all right. 

We have relied for so long now upon virtual connection; now, it is all we have. It's something, more than something. We check on our friends and our family, certainly more than we used to. But no hugging. That's a tough one for me. 

Until the curve flattens, virtual will have to do. Virtual exercise classes with my daughters while we amuse ourselves on FaceTime with our genetic lack of coordination; virtual cocktail hours with my girlfriends, without clinking; daily family wellness checks; an uncanny urge to tell all the people in my life to stay safe, having had a taste of what life might be without them. 

This too shall pass, and, I expect, not without some valuable lessons for all of us. 

Lock Him Down!

Does anybody remember the helicopter pressers? So obviously ridiculous, an old lunatic screaming at a gaggle of invisible and inaudible reporters over the roar of propellers? They seem so quaint and harmless now, those sham news conferences, those facsimiles of transparency. 

As he did from the moment he staged the escalator ride that ushered in our descent into hell, he has availed himself of the media to spew whatever it is he spews, and the media has obliged. It's been infuriating, sometimes even hilarious, and, yes, dangerous. Now, it is lethal. 

With the imprimatur of American flags and medical experts and government officials standing mute behind him, he lies. About what has befallen us, about what might befall us, about all he has done and will do to save us. He responds to questions asked of others, and allows them to speak only if they kiss the ring, pay homage. With a straight face and a telltale sniff, he denies what he has said before, even though it has all been preserved. For anyone naive enough to still buy into it, caveat emptor. Most of us know better. 

But here's the thing. He attacks the press, he attacks free speech, and he shouts down any question bearing a hint of challenge. And the press continues to show up, continues to give voice to his lies, and continues to allow him to attack democracy while he misappropriates legitimacy from the flags behind him. He desecrates those flags, and he desecrates all of us. And now, people are dying. 

As I walked my dog yesterday, we ran into some old friends, a woman and her dog whom we had met at a neighborhood dog park last summer. The woman told me nothing much has changed for her, because she is retired, and she is home a lot anyway. Not much, except she had trouble finding things on the grocery shelves. I nodded. I had to go to three stores the other day to find an onion.

Not much has changed for me and Eli either, I suppose. I still work from home. He still does his business outside. I wash my hands more, but his hygiene remains the same, such as it is. Yet, as a mother, and a daughter, and a sister, and a friend, I worry more. One daughter is in lock down not far away in Chicago; my other daughter is in New York, ground zero; my son is in Japan. My mother lives alone in Brooklyn, and she is elderly. My brother is a doctor in a busy New York hospital. I have no control over their welfare, not that I ever did. But these days, it weighs heavily. 

The president's behavior weighs more heavily too, though I hadn't thought that possible. I still wonder why -- though a bit more desperately -- in a democracy, we have relinquished our control, our voice. He will do what he wants, and say what he wants, but should it be aired as news? With the trappings of truth standing at attention behind him? I think not. 

St. Pat's in Black and White

I'm one of the lucky ones. Other than having to make my own coffee (I will never again take building amenities for granted) and suddenly viewing everything I touch with suspicion, I have adjusted well to living in quasi-lockdown. Of course, it's only been a day. 

The skies were gray all day yesterday, occasionally spitting out  hybrid pellets of rain and snow. As I crossed the bridge over the river to pick up some "essentials" at Whole Foods, I glanced over at the parked tour boats, oddly colorless against the muddy gray water. It's how I've always imagined life in the pre-war thirties, a black and white newsreel, as if the sun had not yet been invented. The bare shelves only added to the gloom. 

I dusted off my yoga mat when I got home. My dog nudged me out of a child's pose, tried to flip me out of a downward dog. In the thirties they waited in line for food, and here I am, mourning the loss of my gym time. My dog just doesn't like to see me turned upside down, and I get it. If he only knew that flipping me over didn't fix anything. 

First world problems -- the coffee, the yoga, bare shelves at Whole Foods. One friend had to be out of town for her father's funeral, and nobody could come to the "shiva." A baby shower has been canceled, and an engagement party. A friend's surgery has been postponed. My 89 year old mother insists upon going about her business, and we scream at each other by text every morning. A friend reminded me I would be just as impossible as she is, at 89. My daughter reminded me that, at 60, I too am considered elderly. Turned upside down indeed. 

It is St. Patrick's Day, but I don't yet see any green. Even the grass outside my window looks gray. It's day two of quasi-lockdown, and there appears to be no end in sight. I will grab some Purell, go vote, and come back home to hunker down. My wine rack is full, and I have not yet finished the tequila I brought home from Mexico. I'm one of the lucky ones. 

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.