Cat's Cradle

 It has been so long since I’ve heard her voice ... my newly adult child, the baby I used to call Ittybit.

This is not a complaint.

Just an observation.

Like the type of handwriting known for its flowery script that some would tell you has gone the way of the dinosaurs, it seems the random phone call home. I also know that ninety percent of the time I will EVER spend with her has already occurred.

Truly, I am not complaining. I have understood the hard realities of parenting even before my daughter was born. I knew that time would fly.

It is one of many reasons that I took copious amounts of pictures. I did not, however, make many videos. Which sometimes worries me as months go by without hearing the cascading sentences of her excitement; or the exasperated signs that spell out irritation.

Not that it matters. Somehow, I recognize the underlying sentiments she communicates with the straightforward words she randomly texts at odd hours.

I may not have known that Short Message Service would displace the telephone, but I am entirely comfortable with texting as a primary method of communication. I have even been overjoyed with silly messages she sends through mobile applications that I can not seem to initiate on my own.

And there’s nothing that sets my aging heart aflutter than a mid-winter request for an in-person appearance. She didn't NEED me, but she WANTED me.

It’s as close to feeling like royalty as I will ever reach.

“I am running a headshot event for the students in my dorm … any chance you are available to take the pictures? … pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top *blink*blink*.”

Little does she know I will drop everything to drive five hours in a snowstorm if it means I can be in her presence as well as being of some help.

Or maybe she knows all too well that I will drop everything for her when it is coupled with my favorite hobby? Suffice it to say,  I wasn’t exactly what anyone would call a helicopter parent when she was growing up … I was not one to swoop in and save the day.

Back then, I had the idea that what kids need (within reason) was the freedom to figure things out for themselves.

Now … in hindsight, I can see that sometimes, to her, that stand-backish-ness may have resembled benign neglect. At least that’s what I wonder about nearly seven times a day as my social algorithms toss me video lists that will help me identify if I may have an Adult Child of an Emotionally Immature Parent. 

She reassures me that is not how she feels, but if she did, she trusts that I would possess the maturity to hear her out.

It’s not as if I am superhuman, having never made mistakes. I never even pretended to have all the answers.

But I did check in, and I acknowledged how new I felt I was to the world, too. Despite having lived inside of it for a couple of decades longer, I only had so much insight.

I suppose that’s the maturity part; the acceptance that your opinion is not always golden just because you’re headed toward those yellow-brick years.

Ahead of the storm

Anticipation kept me awake. 

I switch off the alarm before it rings, and while I’m a little annoyed that planning a run before work tends to inhibit my sleep, I accept the late-night soundtrack outside my window — gusting winds and a Long Horned Owl —  as welcome compensation. 

I avoid looking out that window first thing, convincing myself I want to be surprised by any snow that may have fallen earlier than previously predicted. 

A millisecond before my feet connect with the floor, I feel the skin around my face tighten into a wince. 

It’s preemptive. I know the floors are cold enough to send stabbing pain into my soles. I expect it.

As I hobble around it will loosen. By the time I have pulled in the clothes I set out the night before I hope to be gliding around as smooth as silk.

Hope is still in play. 

The wildcard has yet to be played. My left foot - the inner arch to be specific - has been trying to tell me something.

I am holding out hope that it’s all a grand bluff. 

Truth be told I’ve been on guard that the grumbly appendage is engaging in stealth negotiations with a little point near the edge of my back that is intermittently threatening rebellion.

It’s not that I’m ignoring my frenemies, it’s just that they become quiet enough after takeoff that I tell myself it’s ok to postpone our come-to-Jesus moment until we land in three to seven miles.

I will go slow. I'm hedging my bets that it’s not an injury in the making as much as it is a quirk of advancing age to be managed. 

Just being out here in the dark and cold feels like an accomplishment. Getting out of bed before dawn, wrapping myself in layers and safety lights so that passing motorists are not left unaware.

The snow has been falling. It softens the noise of the world. Enough that its dangers can take you by surprise. It soaks up the sound of cars and trucks that may or may not be compensating for the ice that after days of fluctuating temperatures has a solid base, 

Nevertheless, the challenge is part of the plan. 

It feels good to be prepared. For an instant, after I leave the house, I stand on the porch absorbing the cold as a welcome recalibration. I had been bundled up inside long enough to have courted overheating, 

I even carry a flashlight for extra precaution, alternately swinging it by my side as if directing planes down a runway, and shining it on the roadway ahead to troubleshoot potential trouble spots. 

No one wants to be surprised by potholes or camouflaged ice. I know to stick to the roadways as they are more evenly seasoned. When the spring comes I know

to make noise; I don’t want to surprise any critters newly awakening from their winter slumbers.

Dawn greets me midway home. I am wide awake and grateful that I have managed to avoid the worst of the weather. 

Adult Education

On the eighth day of this New Year of My Malcontent, I lay on a high school cafeteria floor and tried to relax. 

Calm would not come easily, I knew, what with the Chaotic News of Everything and All. However, I hadn’t counted on a malfunctioning soft-drink vending machine providing the necessary distraction from those inner thoughts when I chose the location next to it, unfurled a yoga mat, and copped a squat.

I had, however, calculated that the room would be freezing, so I bundled myself in a down parka, switching it to fit like a sleeping bag by wrapping myself in its arms, straight-jacket style.

The instructor’s voice was barely audible over the racket of the machine, not to mention through the soft pillow mask I had made of my coat’s hood. I contorted comically to be able to hear her more clearly. The image I must have projected to my neighbors as we stretched this way and that, me noisily swishing around in my parka sack as we all tried to follow the clear-sounding directions of our teacher.

“Take a deep breath in,” she said to the room, which was pleasantly packed with folks, who, I assumed, had also sought out this eight-week series of calm and tranquility to hone their own inner peace. 

The bargain price of the series (thanks to the value of public education) was a bonus for us all. 

We – with our worn joggers and stocking feet – looked more like the rabble than the fabu.

No matter how long I’ve practiced, each class feels new. In this one,  none of the poses brought us to our feet, and only a few would bring us to a seated or kneeling position. So I struggled to translate what I knew from standing into prone.

The voice at the front of the room said something about pushing against the soles of our feet with our legs crossed, left over right … or right over left? 

Craning my neck to see the instructor, turned out to be a mistake. It’s been a while since THAT muscle has been asked to move independently of the other muscles that hold my shoulders and back together. I heeded the warnings and eased off.

I turned to the folks beside me, stealing enough furtive glances to understand what had been asked of us and correcting my form accordingly.  

I started to sweat unnecessarily.

As the class wore on my wishing-to-be a younger self gave in to the more restful stretch. Truth be told, each motion became a surprising challenge and I anxiously wondered if somehow organs had shifted in my torso, now that I had set my intention to extend my arms toward one side of the room and my legs toward the other.

A few more uncomfortable moments (without discernible effort) remind me that I should have better appreciated the body I once had, the one that didn’t make strange cracking sounds or stab me with sharp pains out of nowhere. The body I must now accept and start to care for with patience (and no sudden movements). 

My focus moved to my closest neighbor, the vending machine, which sounded as if its inner workings were spinning off cubes of ice into parts unknown. I breathed in at the whirring, and out at the clunk. In and out … until I was calm.

I lay staring at the ceiling and thinking of my son, who had been in this very room a few hours before, no doubt challenging his friends to contests of nugget eating and ice tea taste-testings. 

I had asked him if he wanted to join me …believing some fallacy notion that he might enjoy hanging out with his ol’ mom at his current alma mater before trading up to college. 

He’d “rather have a root canal,” he answered with a grin, which is understandable for a boy his age. 

Flexibility comes and goes with age, I think. Neither of us seems to have enough of it at this particular moment. 

When the class ends, I collect my things and roll up the mat. 

I am grateful for this community. Grateful to be reminded so gently about what we stand to lose.

As I turn to nod to the vending machine, thanking it for its service, I notice a hand-written sign taped to the front, warning those who would dare to plunk in their quarters that the beverage dispensed would be warm. “Cold water available from the attendant. All you need to do is ask.”

And I am grateful anew, because when I get home I will ask my son about this rickety old machine, and I know he will laugh and eagerly tell me all about it.

 

Keeping the Faith

As I was trying to shut out the politics swarming like flies around last week’s inauguration, I found myself surprisingly immersed in and comforted by religion.

First came the sermon heard around the world … and then came this reckoning on how religion is losing its faithful.

As the President and Vice President shifted in their pews at Washington National Cathedral, their faces showing displeasure if not discomfort, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde delivered truth to power from the Canterbury Pulpit. 

“Let me make one final plea, Mister President. Millions have put their trust in you. In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families, some who fear for their lives.

 

“And The people … The people who pick our crops, and clean our office buildings; who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants, and who work the night shifts in hospitals; they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals, they pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of churches and mosques, synagogues, and temples.

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr President, on those in our communities who have fear ... . And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger for we were all once strangers in this land. May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being. To speak the truth to one another in love and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people, people in this nation and the world.”

And though Budde’s words may have fallen on deaf ears for many gathered in attendance, her message was well received by many of the “formerly faithful, even those of us who misspent some of that time rolling Matchbox cars across the pew or pinching our sisters.  

This was the Christianity of my youth. The tenets of a loving creator who urges us to treat our neighbor as ourselves, to welcome those who may be strangers, and to care for the poor. Her sermon may have been directed to one man, but it was as familiar and comforting to me as the parable of the Good Samaritan.  

So often as religion becomes televised for public consumption and photo opportunities, I fear the scalding of fire and brimstone or the fleecing of the flocks. So many, it seemed, were lured from the message of love to the promise of prosperity gospels. As the ratings went up, we watched in horror as pastors traveled by private jet and swept their abuses under the tarmac.

These days it seems that the Church of What’s Happening Now really hopes the meek won’t inherit anything, let alone the Earth, as if only those with clout are worthy.

Budde's words rang not only with truth but also hope and faith that we can still foster better intentions. And they reminded me that while some of us have let go of our religions, we continue to keep the faith.

Home, Gym

 One of my most vivid memories of my mother has her sprawled out on the living room carpet, face up, her legs stretching over her head, the tips of her toes endeavoring to touch the nap. A lady on the television was talking her through it step by step.

“This is the plough,” said Lilias Folan, a lithe brunette whose half-hour program on PBS introduced my mother, and me by extension, to yoga. In those days, Lilias aired just after Sesame Street (or perhaps before Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood), memory no longer serves.  I must have been four years old, so it may have been strategically scheduled so that Mom’s yoga might overlap with sleep intervals I quietly resisted. 

As much as I loved Snuffleupagus, this gentle, bendy woman outfitted in tights and a side-striped leotard, was even more captivating as she demonstrated the artful poses that had my mother “rocking and rolling” herself into a pretzel before my eyes.

And it came flooding back with a piece in the New York Times this week about how televised exercise shows of the 1970s forever changed how America approached fitness. 

Lilias had a warm, easy way about her. Carefully guiding her “Class” through the poses she would introduce in Sanskrit and translate into English. She combed through the finer points of mediation and made people understand that breathing could be intentional instead of merely instinctive. 

And she kind of looked like Joan Baez, a literal folk hero to my mother. And she spoke as easily about finding happiness in life as she did about curing the sagging muscles of the upper arm. Both would take time and consistency.

I could definitely see the attraction. Which is why I joined her in our Living Room Gym every chance I got. 

Disco had ushered in a new kind of music to our shared delight, and its influence on pop music paired seamlessly with the next exercise ministry that followed: Aerobics. During those years, Mom was decidedly an acolyte of Bess Motta’s 20-Minute Workout. I remember coming home from high school to find her marching in four-four-time with the triad of lion-haired dancers working through the routine.

“Head rolls, forward … and back … two, three, four. Next one turns left … then right …”

With head rolls, and moves from side to side. Stretches and dynamic movements are all meant to rev up the heart rate and draw out perspiration.  Bess warned us about bouncing – specifically not to do it too much – since her hair with its mass of volume and curl gave off a false impression of her corporal form.

Each episode of the 20-Minute Workout was comfortably similar. A white background with a shiny floor, the camera circling the three of the dancers as if they were on a carousel, not the camera person. The only thing that seemed to change was the color of the outfits: tank-style bodysuits, belts, tights, and slouchy leg warmers. The three were always artfully coordinated but never matchy-matchy.

All I knew was standing in the living room next to Mom, our arms out and rocking from side to side was the closest either of us would ever come to recreate the movements we’d seen in Flashdance. 

It was a whole new experience for women like my mother. We didn’t have to make plans or reservations. We didn’t have to get into a car. We only had to switch on the channel at the designated time and just follow along.

We didn’t even have to be embarrassed. No one would know we’d fallen hopelessly out of sync.

Even after I’d moved out, Living Room workouts came full circle.

In the 2000s, Mom and I returned to televised yoga. She’d call me at 6 a.m. every morning to remind me Inhale with Steve Ross was about to Oxygen Channel. Ross, a California guru, had all the things we liked, gentle stretches, pop music, and a room full of young people wearing free-flowing, color-coordinated clothes. Again, the sequence was comfortably rote. The poses challenged without confounding us, and we could sing along. 

And more than just a daily practice, it was one of the most consistent ways we connected as mother and daughter. No matter how that relationship could fray, music and movement could always bring us back together. 

Futile Awakenings

 It’s been a while since I shouted at the nightly news while my husband is making dinner, or, howled during morning drive-time segments all alone in my car. 

“No one can't hear you,” my husband will chuckle at these fruitless attempts to counter whatever incredulity makes me fume. No doubt some outrage I might have assumed was satire if it wasn’t announced on a network that had once prided itself on reporting facts.

The headlines from papers of note that fulfill the wishes of a "Pitchbot" jokester:   

“President-elect Trump and his allies have spent four years trying to change the narrative around the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. capitol. On "The Daily," our reporter talks to one of the rioters.“

Serious news is near-impossible to decipher in the modern moment.

Those days seem so far in the past, especially since journalists have turned into scolds reminding audiences they have an obligation to report “both sides.”

In the weeks since the election, I have stepped back from close reads and my usual media transfixation. So my silence is owing, in strong measure, to attrition.

Soon enough his voice will be everywhere again. The swollen vagaries whittled into downright lies with sharpened points. Nails in our collective coffins, We won’t be able to avoid it. 

But more than the annoyance of his continuous gushing stream and lack of conscience, it is the people around him who pose the most risk. 

People who already have the spotlight; people who have blinded us with the foolgold of big ideas.

Like Elon Musk, who, after backing the America-First guy, unabashedly bashes the talent and skills of American Workers, saying out loud that companies like his require international workers on limited visas; people who can’t quit and retain legal status. 

People like Mark Zuckerberg, who, on Tuesday, announced that his company, Meta, would end its TFG-era of professional fact-checking, trying to spin the ability to deceive as fundamental to free special. He even had the audacity to stake a claim that he formed his company to give people a voice. 

He must think we have forgotten his once lofty goal, creating Facebook for rating the appearance of women around campus. 

"We're also going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content," Zuckerberg said. "The reality is that this is a trade-off. It means we're going to catch less bad stuff, but we'll also reduce the number of innocent people's posts and accounts that we accidentally take down."

Pandemic denialism leading to snake oil cures, political conspiracies sending armed rubes into family pizza shops, and other swindle-based threats against civil society draining life savings …. will flourish while the head honchos that dust their hands of moderating against chaos rake in spoils of its monetization. 

I don’t think we deserve a country that is cannibalizing itself because some folks realized the horror and called it out. 

The rest of us will need to wake up and realize the danger. We can’t avert our eyes forever.

Fueling station

Almost there. The crossroad is up ahead. 

Will I? Won’t I?

“Ugh. …”

I throw on my car’s directional indicator and hang a right into the gas station, where I will throw my New Year’s resolution — which I toasted with a healthy smoothy in a silly glass picked out by my children  — out the window.

“Yes, I guess I will.”

It may have seemed like a last-minute decision to the motorist behind me, but I had been considering stopping at this particular convenience location since I drove past it a half hour earlier.

I was on the edge then: It was well past noon and I hadn’t yet eaten. It may be well past dinner before I get home to a proper meal. Perhaps a little caffeine would hold me over.

I certainly didn’t need the kind of fuel I craved, which I had successfully avoided earlier only because I knew I’d be turning around and going back in short order.

Judging by the service apron, with the gas pumps all vacant and the parking spaces around the store completely occupied, I had the feeling I was not alone in my gut reaction.

But I kinda knew this place. Not particularly well, yet I’ve been here before. It’s not fancy, but it has some bells and whistles. The coffee is good, and once you navigate past shelves packed with pared-down versions of grocery store staples (at elevated prices), and wire racks filled with single-serve, cellophane-wrapped commercial bakery snacks was a window where a real, live person made salads and hot and cold sandwiches to order.

There were even a few tables that were mostly taken with people waiting on morsels.

I didn’t need much, I thought. 

I could find something, anything, to grab and just go that I might be able to masquerade as healthy.

I stood in front of the coffee maker to give myself time to consider the options while I worked on caffeine. I poked my finger at the screen to make it come to life and perused the options: Espresso … Cappuccino … Latte? 

I didn’t want anything that fancy.

A little panic creeps in when I don’t see the option of plain coffee but I remember what a person should do in just this situation, and begin to relax. I selected a size for my beverage and its coordinating cup from an upside-down stack, plunking the thing down over the coffee maker’s spillway before I selected ”Americano” and then “Brew.”

A fragrant and foamy liquid spilled forth into the cup, I can now turn my attention back to this mid-afternoon perk up still has me feeling peckish.

A hard roll would do. Perhaps a muffin leftover from the morning commute would be just as nice. Not a whole sandwich.

It didn’t have to be an eight-count package of doughnuts … the kind with the freakishly uniformed-shaped crumbs on top, which also had a sort of Franken-Flavor, cinnamon, and sugar was actually a hybrid berry.

But there it was -- a blue and white box of crumb-topped ring cakes … floating out as if visiting from someone else's memory --  just to the left of where the coffee cup lids were stacked.

In a minute, the box would be at the cashier’s counter next to my coffee. And then on the seat beside me in the car.  

 Will I have the willpower to eat just one? Save the rest for my resolve and the teenagers who still possess a youthful metabolism.

It's possible. 

I'll just need to stop in half a mile (just before the pizza shop) and put the box in the trunk.