On being Ruthless

Aren't you tired? Don't you want to rest? Wouldn't it be wonderful to go a day without worry?

Doesn't it feel as though we've been running as fast as we can, spinning endless miles on a tiny hamster wheel? Why are we surprised we've gone backward?

Did you ever imagine that the death of a single person - say ... a petite jurist with tatted collars and a bead laser-focused on equal protection under the law - could endanger the health and well-being of millions of Americans?

Do you think I'm being hyperbolic? 

Do you remember norms and decency? Have you become numb to the constant wrangling, the grinding down of wills from the sheer exhaustion of trying to convince those who will not be convinced? 

Have you ever contemplated the idea that legislation the Grand Old Party couldn't manage to erase at the ballot box they could potentially rub out with an untold number of cynical and predictable 6-3 decisions?

Are you ready to let go of ideals and replace them with ideologues? 

What will become of ...

Your healthcare?

My healthcare?

Our children's healthcare?

Our children's education?

Equal rights?

Human rights?

Voting rights?

Our ability to assemble in peace and protest?

How much longer will we be able to keep a brave face? How much more pressure will it take to break us irreparably?

How did it go so wrong?

Have we been caught in this tit for tat loop going back generations?

When did the word "Democratic" become unspeakable in certain circles? 

How do you catch your breath when the so-called leader of the Free World said he wouldn't believe election results unless he wins? How do you hold your dinner down with his faithless trolls stir the pot?

Are face masks the armor of an ailing nation or the emblem of a failing state?

Will it matter?

How will we remove him if he can and will toss our ballots aside?

How do we live with ourselves?

How do we live with our neighbors?

How do we go on without them?

When did you realize you didn't want to know any of the answers?

How do we revive normal and still move beyond the status quo? Is that even possible?

Like why did RBG only have one black clerk in her 27-year tenure on the Supreme Court? 

Did you know Breonna Taylor would have been 27?   

Doesn't it seem like glaciers are moving at a swifter pace than American jurisprudence?

Does that sound like an indictment of a trailblazing scholar and icon? What's the saying about indictments and sandwiches?

Why do we think we shouldn't be ruthless at times like these? Why do we think nine is a magic number?

Why should we calm down and clam up?

Do you really need an exit plan?

Isn't this country, this democracy, this experiment in self-governance, worth the fight?

Could we be better citizens? Is such a thing possible?

Have you registered to vote? Do you know there's still time?

Can you stomach being ruthless for just a while longer? 

Uphill, both ways

Showered and dressed, he stood there looking like a different kid than he had in summer. Taller, broader, deeper of voice. More independent. He'd even packed his own bags while I looked on, skepticism written all over my face. 

"You don't really need to bring everything with you today, do you?"

I had used a tone that adults seem immune to, but that somehow drives kids wild with rage and indignation.

"I know what I'm doing," he barked in my direction, almost daring me to challenge him some more. "I need every binder, every notebook, and every single one of those mechanical pencils you said I didn't need."

Who would have thought you'd still need six, two-inch binders and thirty-seven-thousand tab dividers to go along with the school-issued Chromebook during a pandemic.

But here he is, trying to pack the equivalent of a Target aisle into his backpack.

There has never been a back-to-school preparation as fraught as this one. 

Of course, it had started months ago. All the planning, all the guidelines, everyone seemingly at each others' throat lumps trying to figure out best practices for a return to in-person education.

He had everything planned, too. 

Right down to the minute. He'd even taken trial runs.

He would leave the house at precisely 7 a.m., pedal his bike a mile and a half to a local breakfast joint and scarf down a buttered bagel before taking off once more. He'd wind his way north another mile and a half to reach his destination -- school. 

If his calculations were correct, it would take him exactly 32 minutes to get there. Thirty-five minutes if there was a car ahead of him in line at the "Drive-through."

And if my calculations were correct, he would be a sweaty mess once he arrived. His backpack would be heavy. The effort to get it from our house to the school complex, which is at a higher elevation and three miles away, would likely raise his internal temperature a few degrees.

Maybe he should leave at 6:45?

This would leave enough time for him to park his bike, lock it, and rest up a bit, maybe even fan himself gently, so as not to trip any of the heat-seeking devices school authorities would aim at his forehead before granting admission.

He looked at me like I was crazy: 6:45?

"If it takes me an HOUR to get to school, I might as well take the bus, which historically has seemed to circle the known universe twice before reaching its destination."

What was I thinking? Of course, it would be fine. Independence is the goal, and exaggeration is just a family trait. 

Everything would be fine. He'd get to school with butter on his shirt. He'd forget to text us his safe arrival, and we would worry until he got home, all red-faced and satisfied with himself.

He would complain about how hard it is to ride a bike all laden with books and binders. So hard that it seems like uphill both ways.

And how much he looked forward to doing it all again tomorrow.

De feet, on de fence

Running isn't for the faint of constitution. And no one needs the benefit of an iron gut more than the families of runners.

We may be able to endure the black toenails and the red chafe marks, but the people who love us, don't always see these marks as badges of honor.. 

Running a streak – a seemingly never-ending amount of consecutive days of running – takes a different kind of stamina of them, one that includes mastery over gag reflexes.

Case in point: A recent long run had left me with a blister the size of my foot … on my foot.

It was a spectacular spectacle that no one in their right mind would want to see even by accident, let alone on purpose. 

"OH my GOD, MOM! Put your feet away, they are disgusting," said a most alarmed Junior, when her elbow grazed my instep as we jostled on the couch fighting for the most comfortable spots for Movie Night.

But it's the kind of thing a person can't really hide under cover of a sock … or even under a throw blanket, since the weight of the thinnest of thin blankets could send me howling in misery.

Tomorrow, I hope it will be better, but tonight it's too painful for even the scrape of a slight breeze, let alone the giant sigh of revulsion that escapes from the girl. 

The sound of her displeasure follows me through the steps I take to treat my throbbing foot: first, when I apply a slathering of antiseptic cream and then as I wrestle a bandage from its packaging. She makes a retching sound when I switch on the sanding pumice and press it to the flesh.

"You do know how utterly disgusting that is, right?"

Little does she know, I'd be more chagrinned if she hadn't followed me into the bathroom, where I'd hoped to have enough peace and quiet to shave my calluses or pluck my newly emerging chin hairs.

I do believe you have a bathroom of your very own down at the end of the hall. If I recall correctly, I helped you paint it that lovely and sophisticated color gray. I also bought you towels that I seem to wash quite regularly.

She doesn't generally cotton my pointed jabs at her expense. And she responds by questioning my very sanity, evidenced by the state of my old dogs.

"How did you run your mile today?" she taunts, kicking her calves against the couch's arm as if to punctuate each one of her accusatory words. "I know you couldn't fit your sneakers over that foot, let alone stretch a sock over that mangled bit of flesh that's dangling at the end of your ankle."

"Now whose being gross," yelled the disembodied voice of her brother, my unlikely champion, as he yelled through the "pew-pew" sound effects of his latest transfixing video game. 

"Don't get me wrong. Her feet ARE gross," he adds, loud enough to establish that he has not taken my side in whatever battle has been waged. 

"The streak is still intact! I ran barefoot. In the grass," I expound, full of pride at the level of perseverance it had to take a person with obvious wounds to hobble around a track for 1609.34 meters.

One Hundred Nine days and still counting.

Internal drive

 She had a plan. It involved the DMV, circling around the block with the buffer of about 55 hours of parental driving lessons since she turned 16.

I had a plan; While the girl was taking her road test, I would run around the block.

I'd figured it all out. During the fifteen minutes the Department of Motor Vehicles had allotted its road testers to determine the safety and efficacy of New York's latest crop of could-be drivers, I should be able to run a mile and a half. That's fifteen city blocks and back if I were both lucky and swift.

But after she'd carefully pulled away from the curb with the examiner as her copilot - left-hand directional on as is legally appropriate - I couldn't bear to move.

I couldn't even bring myself to lift my gaze and follow the car from its starting position to the stop sign at the end of the street.

Which way did they go after that? I couldn't say for sure.

Instead, I would spend the next fifteen minutes trying to pace a groove in the sidewalk, trudging back and forth from the camp chairs Mr. R.D. Testa had so thoughtfully placed, in the shade, to the fire hydrant fifty yards beyond, in the scorching sun.

Why was I nervous?

I wasn't the one in the driver's seat, navigating unfamiliar streets with a stranger strapped in beside me. Pleasant enough fellow though he was, it would be up to her to determine what the notes he was making on his tablet as he softly clucked his tongue actually meant for her chances of passing.

I felt the centrifugal force of tension against my neck as I craned it toward each vehicle whooshing past the mouth of the roadway, tires grinding pebbles as they turned in and slowly made their way to be next in the lineup.

I checked my watch. Twenty minutes had passed, and still no sign of them.

Eventually, they would return. She would park the car, and there would be a long, silent moment where he spoke, and she looked stricken. His car door would open, and he would approach me to explain that while she did well, she did not do well enough to pass this time.

It was the old conundrum of having to choose between taking a right as when the traffic light is yellow or stopping for all of eternity (or until the light turns green again) smack

dab in the center of a crosswalk.

She chose wrong.

She calmly handed me the keys and melted into the passenger seat.

For the next 22 minutes and 39 seconds, the soundtrack inside our car was a mix of sobs and silence accompanying a repetitive chorus of "I Failed," sung with torment and a lilt of disbelief.

This wasn't part of her plan either.

All the feelings that accompany failure sit with her as we chugged along home. The defensive ones whisper not-so-sweet nothings into her ear: "That guy was just a jerk," her face-saving alter-ego hisses. "He could have passed you if he wanted." 

I find myself taking the examiner's side. "Hey, now. You know he was a nice guy, who has a serious job that he takes solemnly."

"Any one of us – even your dad – could fail that test under the right level of anxiety and one badly timed traffic light. We all make mistakes. We learn from them."

Her sobs turned soundless, and I stopped trying to make her feel better.

Only time and technology could heal that wound. And luckily, the technology she needed was in the palm of her hand.

By the time I pulled into the driveway and switched the car off, she'd booked another road test.

"Ok. New plan: Next week we'll do this again, only this time I'll get my license."