Sell outs

I was sleepy when I read the pitch in my inbox.

A civil liberties group had announced it would oppose efforts to dismiss a case it brought against the Consumer Product Safety Commission, its former commissioner, and the Department of Health and Human Services for daring to educate retailers about the dangers to infants posed by weighted baby blankets.

It was looking for journalists to take an interest and talk with their attorneys.

In its case against the government agencies, The New Civil Liberties Alliance contends that the agencies have made “unproven, unlawful attacks on weighted infant sleep products, (specifically in respect to their client’s wearable sleep blanket that contains weighted beans) because the agency had not conducted enough research to pursue rulemaking about the specific products it was warning against.

Does it matter that in June of 2023, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) said in a letter to the CPSC that the weighted products should NEVER be used on babies? Or that years of study about sleep safety for infants have generally concluded that infants should not be put to bed with blankets, pillows, or stuffed toys because suffocation from these items is a known and provable danger to children under the age of one?

No. Because this lawsuit isn’t about the safety of products or the protection of infants. It's a result of jettisoning regulations and consumer protections. It’s about the liberties of an individual – in this particular case, the freedom of an entrepreneurial mom to sell their million-dollar idea to as many people as possible with the help of a retailer like Target.

It's about keeping the government from using any agency or expertise to make any recommendations whatsoever.

Because your pediatrician telling you to do something you are free to ignore is one thing, but government regulatory agencies taking the warnings to heart and altering the marketplace to the potential for harm is somehow a bridge too far? 

It takes time to gather data about dangerous products, many of which remain on store shelves for years while data about their harms accumulate, "new" and "improved" dangerous items come to market every day.

For instance, inclined infant sleepers with a pitch of more than 10 degrees from horizontal have been banned in the United States, but only after more than 100 infant deaths linked to their use during the course of 13 years.

The sale of weighted blankets for use on infants is a relatively new and worrisome phenomenon, but experts' understanding of their dangers is built on experience with similar products. This case, if it prevails, will conclude that agencies can't make. Each new product will be a lawsuit that reinvents the wheel.

For instance, doctors know that standard blankets and bedding can be deadly to sleeping infants. Given an infant's physiology, the risks posed by weighted bedding are a predictable likelihood.   

Each new blanket is a new court case waiting to happen thanks to the 2024 Supreme Court decision to end the Chevron Deference Doctrine, which allowed courts to defer to the expertise of regulatory agencies.

We can’t stop harm.

We don't know if we can limit dangerous guns, stop concealed carry of weapons, or curtail the creation of ghost guns. And yet we are contemplating the legalization of silencers and bumpstocks.

We can't even slow it down.

All we'll be able to do is conduct our own "research" from a new wave of dubious information.

And if these lawsuits prevail, we may find the true experts unable to warn others about the dangers. 

It feels like our eyes should be wide open now.

Holding hearts

 I was working methodically through a list of heartbreaking tasks, and I felt frantic. 

Our beloved dog, who has spent the last 14 years as a gentle, loving presence in our home, was ready to leave us. And though we have gone through all the necessary steps, we were not prepared to let her go.

There had been suspicion. The gut feeling that something wasn’t right. There was something more than the aches and pains of old age. But it wasn’t until the vet called with the results that I saw the signs in sharp focus. 

Arrangements, as they say, had to be made. 

So I set the wheels in motion. As I headed off with one child to an orientation, my husband went to retrieve the other. We would meet again at the start of the weekend for one last full day. 

Afterward, the schedule would be unwavering. 

The dog would only be alone for a couple of hours, if that … there would be visitors checking in on her to say goodbye.

There was so much to do and so little time. When I returned home after dark, I couldn't see the pile of dirt my husband had excavated, but I knew exactly where it was just as surely as I knew I would forget once the hole was refilled, leveled off, and the grass allowed to grow back.

So I started to calculate. I tried to pick two points to anchor my vantage point ... as if I could ever internalize the coordinates. 

I tried another tack. 

If I stand with my back to this telephone pole … and walk seven paces diagonally toward the edge of the building straight ahead  … I find my feet at the edge of the abyss.

Of course, the hole isn’t endless. If I were to measure, my guess is the tape would read about four feet in all directions. When I allow myself to look down, I can see how carefully my husband has carved each edge.  

With the work done, I return to the house. Despite her discomfort, the dog had spent the night on patrol; at regular intervals, I heard her nails gently clicking out of our room, into the hallway where she would visit the children's rooms. She'd lie with them for a while before returning to us. 

For the rest of that day we binge-watched numbing TV while she softly snored. 

She wasn’t eating much anymore, but she gladly accepted bowl after bowl of chipped ice. She puts herself to bed at 9:30 and starts her patrol when we all turn in an hour later. 

It occurs to me that we may be stressing her out … what with all eyes and hands on her. I know I’m stressing myself out trying to find which of my seventeen makeup brushes matches the uncanny velvety softness of her ears. 

Time moves so much faster in the morning. The birds are singing. There is a breeze. I don’t want to be indoors. When the vet arrives, we are on the porch … the five of us. 

The dog is excited to see a new friend. She pulls herself to standing so she can check out the medical bag. She accepts treats. It doesn’t seem rushed, but only minutes pass between each step-by-carefully-explained-step, leading her quietly and gently away from us. 

When it’s over, I feel relief wash over me. I know grief will still visit on strange occasions: When she doesn’t come to greet us; when I can’t finish a snack and instinctively call out for her to collect the leftovers; or when I’ve vacuumed up the last of her hair from the floors.

She is at rest.

I don’t have to pace … I can plant a flowering bush … I can find the pink brush and pet the very top of its curve as gently as possible. She will be there.

Training Day

The sun hadn’t even breached the horizon as I pulled away from the house. It was five a.m. and we were heading to the Big Apple for a two-day orientation that would introduce my son to his new life as a university freshman come fall. 

I had the bright idea to take the train: Park and ride style. 

It seemed logical to acquaint the last one to leave the nest with the beauty and convenience of mass transit, which is why his surprise at the notion we would forgo the convenience of driving, fighting traffic, and vying for parking when we could let the train bring us there in one straight shot.

Logistically speaking, I was also banking on the idea that if he had the experience, he could be home in two hours using just two trains and his phone to summon us for a short commute from the station.

 Not that I had ever made that journey on my own. 

Wherever I visited the city that never sleeps, I have always followed someone else’s lead, marveling the whole way at how we managed to decipher which train went uptown and which went downtown. My friends would joke that my understanding of time and space would dissipate as if the work of an incantation and fairy dust as soon as the subway doors slid shut.

The walls of the station and its tunnels melted into a blur. There I’d be, stone sober but feeling the swimmy unsteadiness of being drunk as we rumbled on down the line. I squinted out of the grubby, scuffed windows, unable to read the station signs.

It always seemed like a miracle when my guide would rise out of their seat or shift their weight if we were strap hanging and announce, “This is us.”

“How did they know?” I would marvel, unable to decipher the words that filtered into the train car from the PA system, and obstinately unaware of the line map that lit up as each stop approached. 

I’m older now, if only a modicum wiser. It also helps that the phone in my pocket takes away most of the guesswork. 

It also helps that my advancing age seems to make me invisible.

This time, when I emerge from the underground and stand at the edge of the landing to gather my bearings before deciding which way the building numbers ascend, left or right … people don’t seem to mind … they just pass by as if I weren’t there.

Not that I don’t have plenty of opportunity to mortify my kid by gumming up the works:

In case we are keeping score, I should note the following: I couldn’t find the train reservation on my phone while the conductor waited to jam a green fare check card above our seats. Luckily, the boy remembered I had sent him the link and is not all thumbs as he searched his phone to retrieve it. 

Now, I almost redeemed myself when I managed to get us out of Penn Station and to the subway we needed, but in my chivalry of swiping the boy through the full-height turnstile turned into his chagrin when my second swipe didn’t allow me access.

 I might have swiped the equivalent of eight or ten rides to no avail before I noticed a set of jumpable turnstiles just over yonder. 

Of course, I swiped one more time, and by magic, the metal gave way and allowed me entrance. But the fun didn’t end … I got stuck not once but TWICE trying to get on the #2 train going downtown. I credit the kid for not running for the next car and pretending not to know me.

That would happen soon enough. They would whisk him off with others in his college cohort, and I would join the parents, who would be coached on how to support our kids without making a nuisance of ourselves. That it will be ok if they make mistakes.

As I listen to all the reassuring words and constructive tips, I think there might be hope for me yet. I text the kid to see how he’s faring, and that maybe he should lead the way home after the program concludes the next day. 

He sends me a shrug emoji and tells me his phone is nearly dead. He didn’t bring the charger.

I can’t help but laugh. I guess I’ll see him when he figures it out. 

The Graduates

 She feels so small when I hug her goodbye. 

It surprises me because she usually fills whatever room she inhabits with an outsized personality. I forget that her physical form is quite petite.

I’m not the hugging type, but with the kids, I embrace this hypocrisy. Usually holding on a few beats too long …for them … as we part.

These days, we greet each other this way, too.

“Enough, Mom! I’ll be here all week.”

My daughter came home from college (she attends practically year-round) to watch her brother graduate from high school. And to razz him about his friends, and his hair, and his clothes, despite the fact that she readily admits each and every article of his is on point.

In no small part, the result of his acquiescence to her guidance.

She loves him. She doesn’t want him to bear the burden of bad style if she can help it.  He loves her right back. So he lets her dress him up, unlike when they were kids. 

It was a quick week packed to the gills with activities: There were rehearsals, dinners, and other formalities that culminated in a strangely wonderful, if not rain-soaked, commencement. As we huddled together atop folding chairs and under two leaky umbrellas we had only brought, thankfully, because of a deeply held superstition that their mere presence in our possession would protect us from an uncertain deluge.

There was also a family gathering, bitter and sweet, that was happening simultaneously. We did that, too, no matter how groggy we would be from the road, we were up for that trip. ... And another trip to the train. Pick up. And to the airport. Drop off. It would go on like this until we head home again in the wee hours of the night.

The car is lively. The kids trade playing DJ with their Spotify lists as if it were the 80s and they had just assembled a most excellent mixtape … just for me. They converse about their lives and their plans for the summer. They sing along with the radio and razz each other during intermissions by belting out songs they once loved that have since lost their luster and esteem.  

I drink it in. I'm not sure how long this bubbly nectar will continue to flow. The banter is easy now, but one ill-timed statement could tank it. Sending us all into an uncomfortable silence and then into our own personal entertainment hubs, which will be silent only to me, the driver.

But that’s always the challenge, isn’t it? Conversation? So many loaded subjects that can dislodge the balance. 

I take care, especially while I’m driving, not to steer directly into any of them. Not even when my daughter reminded me to speed up, or pass this car, or watch out for that truck …

I smile and oblige. Listen more than talk. Keep my eyes and my mind on the road. 

The student becomes the professor.

When the ride is over, she exits the car. We help her gather her things and balance them on her still-small frame so she doesn’t topple over as she schleps them away. She stops for a hug. She is still small despite all the baggage she’s now dragging around.

It’s a group hug now, and it’s lasting too long. 

“Enough, Mom! I’ll be back in August.”

Preaching to the choir

My friends and I were sussing out a minor dilemma: Which protest would we be attending? 

It was a foregone conclusion; not an “if” but “where“ and a “when.“

During a flurry of texts, we discussed schedules and timing and the philosophical calculations of where we’d see the best return on our investment.  

For various reasons … perhaps the drumbeat of opinion-page observations ... we found ourselves in this predicament, where somehow, beliefs based on norms and facts are as valid as those based on conspiracy theory and bias ...

And it was on us to change hearts and minds with posterboard and paint.

It’s all in the tone… or the humor.

Perhaps it also explains why we cling to the idea that we shouldn’t be preaching to the choir. 

That, it seems, is all about pitch.

Our group triangulated. We consulted the interwebs and learned the possibilities of platforms and places to protest were near endless. We could head to Albany and mingle with thousands of kindred, sign-waving souls.  Or we could pick a venue closer to home. Wake up late and meander over to a sleepy little town, where the same dozen people gather near the four-way stop to complain about the government (part time).  

We could wear a Resist shirt at the Pride Parade, or a Rainbow on Flag Day. We could donate to any number of charity causes. We didn't even have to stay together. We could venture out on our own.

Truly, no small part of me wanted to simply walk through my little corner of the community and embody resistance by wearing my usual weekend garb and a happy face. 

My closely held beliefs would be easily recognizable from all the anxious pacing and the home brewed coffee I tote around in my favorite mug. 

But I didn’t want to be alone any more than I wanted to be among rivals.

I was reminded of the time I opened my door and just listened to what two young Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were trying to fulfill their mission of proselytizing, had to say. 

I had no feasible plan to convert them to my particular denomination of secular humanism, but I was committed to blunting my edge of the cold, cruel world the folks who sent them knew they'd face the minute they started ringing the doorbells of the heathens. No one likes being told their going to hell.

I offered them coffee and conversation instead.

One fewer door slammed in their face.

Of course, all this was on my mind as I carried my sign to the edge of the road, and squeezed between a few folks whose slogans were way more clever than mine.

It turned out to be a pleasant afternoon … surrounded by like minds –  a closely woven community knit wider.  Setting ourselves free from our silos by seeing our numbers rise.

On the occasion when the angry world passed by, squealing their tires and yelling taunts, I felt protected by the crowd.

We don’t need to make the heathens answer our cold call, but we may need to remind the choir they aren’t singing into a void.

We don’t need to fight every battle. But we do need to hold onto our beliefs and exercise a little faith in shared humanity. We need to stick together.

Sign of the Times

The sign confused a lot of folks.

At first glance, it resembled a Gadsden flag: a coiled rattlesnake – often associated with distrust of government and the defense of individual liberty – on a bright yellow field.

Only the snake wasn’t arranged like a sprung spring … it writhed in the shape of a womb.

My husband had painted the sign a short time after the Supreme Court rescinded the understanding that women were considered equal under the Constitution and deserving of autonomy. 

He called it a gift and posted it in front of our house next to a sign I had painted two years earlier, (kNOw Justice, kNOw Peace).

The signs had lived at the edge of our driveway for about three years withstanding all kinds of weather, including the furtive complaints to town elders about its potential to violate ordinances concerning political signage.

Elders, to their credit, who would tell them they didn’t have to agree to understand the difference between the enforcement of general guidelines for electioneering during a cyclical “silly season,” and what is required for the preservation of protected speech.

It enticed people to honk their horns in solidarity … or rage … at all hours of the day and night.

Until, in the wee hours of the new Trumpian term, the sign disappeared. 

I presumed it had been carried off by one (or more) of the previously affronted. It was impossible to know for sure, since our neighbors’ American Flag, blowing in the wind that night,  obstructed the field of vision of their Ring camera, which had reliably shown the edge of our yard, and often revealed the unsavory truth about which of our “neighbors” gave middle fingers to the signs and which of our damaged packages had been perfectly fine until they had been literally kicked to the curb by the delivery driver.

Not that it mattered.

When the world didn’t stop on its axis at the idea of women’s private health decisions being criminalized, how could I be surprised by an overheard offhand comment: “I wouldn’t want to be married to the woman who makes him live with a uterus sign.”

In place of umbrage, I felt something akin to agreement.

“The feeling, I can assure you, is mutual.”

Not that it mattered what he thought. 

I wasn’t married to him. 

Still, it made me realize how nice it is to live with a man who isn’t squeamish about his partner being just that -  a partner. He is a man who believes that feminism simply means women are human beings deserving of self-determination.

He brought that same philosophy to parenting; we didn’t always see eye to eye but we hashed out disagreements with love and civility. 

We didn’t always put up a united front, but we could always talk it out and if nothing else, agree to disagree. 

Which, according to a new Gallup Poll, the gender gap between important rights like abortion is increasing by its widest margin yet.

I can’t imagine a world in which our children don’t see their partners as deserving of basic healthcare. I do hope they will be better, wiser, and more compassionate because they had parents who were true partners.

Happy Father’s Day to the true partners among us.

Mama bear

I want to eat something.

Something that perturbs me.

Or worries me. Or makes me enraged.

Tear it stem from stern.

Devour it in three gargantuan bites.

It won’t make me feel any better, I know.

If it doesn’t trigger a gag reflex the feted feelings will just lead to more agita.

Its acids will burn in my gut until I regret every morsel I’ve ever wolfed down.

Keep me up at night, pacing the floors just like when they were small.

They are only with me in my imagination as I meander. There is nothing in my arms but a thickening layer of my own flesh. I wonder when that happened? Probably the same time as the proud flesh spilled over at the waistline and hem edges, reminding me of the dichotomy that comes with aging - the comfortable discomfort of whatever gets tacked on as extra.

Even though we always know what’s coming it’s always a surprise.

Middle age is a wonder.

At least it feels that way to me.

Especially now that I know aging is not a mystery. It isn't something so foreign that I almost expected never to experience its effects. 

“La dee dah dee dah.” And other lies we tell ourselves.

“We’ll never grow up.”

“We’ll never find love”

“We’ll never get married.”

We’ll never have kids.”

“We’ll never get old.”

Of course, we thought we’d never get old – we’d never have hot flashes or brain fog, or the sinking feeling that we would be losing the plot of our own stories – not one of our mothers ever spoke about menopause.

But here it is … The Change.

Still, it’s hard to wrap our Present heads around the Future.  

You know there will be graduations, and weddings, and retirements, and maybe a few grandkids. Not that I am pushing any such agenda.

Instead, I spend that time in hopes that funerals are few and far between; and that they don’t directly involve myself or any of my loved ones.

We may feel like we have all the time in the world … but the clock is ticking faster.

Or maybe, I just want to sleep through this part of the season.

Hibernate while the cubs go off into the scrub.

The last baby has his first mortarboard in hand and is almost ready to motor.

He has plans that go beyond childish dreams.

The world is waiting. But I know it won’t chew him up. Or at least I hope it won’t.

I remember that feeling of wanting to eat him … that strange expression of early motherhood that translated into some unspeakable emotion - like loving a thing so much that, with heart filled, teeth clenched, adrenaline pumping, you might just gobble them up.

I wish I could still be that mama bear.

Yet despite how tempting that might be, now is the time for that impulse to hibernate. 

Above and beyond

The day wasn’t much more than halfway over, but my eyelids felt excruciatingly heavy. 

The to-do list still had a few more loads of laundry; some weeding of a roadside flower garden (that I have been meaning to do since the school stopped requiring the interception of a parent or guardian to meet the bus); and a trip to the grocery store, which, once accomplished, would be my third visit of the weekend.

The store is only three miles away. Five minutes by car. But somehow those first few steps of putting on shoes, finding my wallet and keys, then locating the reusable totes I never manage to bring into the store anyway, make me feel like I should take a short break … maybe have a glass of cool water, sit on the couch, commune with my phone for a bit … just to be sure my list is complete  … before I make another arduous journey.

“I’ll go.”

My son was standing in front of the refrigerator, holding on to the doors and staring into the abyss long enough to make me wonder if I would have to summon the spirit of my mother and holler something in his direction about “not heating the great outdoors” or “refrigerating the kitchen.”

He closed the ice box with a shrug and deciphered my puzzled expression.

“To the store. I’ll go. What do you want?”

I don’t know how to describe the feeling …

You know? Like when the kids were tiny tots, and they were both sick with some vomit-y plague, and you were a zombie because you never got sleep, but somehow you are resignedly prepared to clean up whatever surface gets splattered?

And then one of the pukers actually makes it to the toilet!

For a brief moment, orchestras play and angels sing. 

You feel re-energized.

… It kind of felt like that.

Wide awake now and enthused by the prospect of not having to circle the store’s aisles until I’d had gathered almost everything I’d come for; finding out in the checkout line, or when filling the trunk with the haul, that I’d forgotten something integral …. maybe the meat for dinner or the eggs for breakfast.

I thanked him as I tapped out a list on my phone that I would send to his phone in the time it would take to drive the two miles.

He would be irritated that some of the items on it were intentionally vague: Meat for dinner, a selection of bread, something for snacks, cat food. But he wouldn’t complain.

Upon his return, he stopped by the garden where I was haphazardly weeding and let me know, enthusiastically, that he had procured a rack of ribs and was planning on slow-roasting them so dinner might be a bit late.

I laugh when I wonder aloud if I should send him back to the store for a lotto ticket.

“You'll have to ask me again in a few weeks when I’ll be old enough.”

The care we are not taking

There I was, absently scrolling through my email’s inbox when, among the flotsam and jetsam, I saw a name that I thought I recognized.

But when I clicked on the email from “Alex” and saw a few hundred words highlighted like a striped shirt, alternated between the paragraphs in either plain or bold-face fonts, I realized my mistake.

Yet as I kept reading, I realized the mistake felt so much bigger.

It wasn't selling anything but a little humanity; Correcting a mistake that we all share some part in creating.

The press release told the story of Senate Bill S3781 in which the New York State Senate (joining Texas, Maryland, and Oregon) took “a powerful step in returning dignity for the roughly 13,000 children in New York’s foster system.”

By guaranteeing that the Office of Children and Family Services provides proper luggage to youth transitioning between foster homes.

INSTEAD of TRASH BAGS.

The background explained that out of roughly 13,000 children in the state’s foster care system – who, on average, experience three different placements while under the government’s care –  fewer than 3,000 (and none of those residing in New York City) have been supplied with anything more than a trash bag or a cardboard box to transport their belongings between dwellings. 

What is the projected cost of providing a suitable bag or case?

A paltry $15 per child.

I don’t know why that surprised me.

There has never been a shortage of disdain for those among us who need assistance in this country. We expect people to jump forward through hoops for basic necessities, and back again to show their gratitude even when the things we donate are substandard.

We will pay for a billionaire’s infinite tax breaks but we don’t want to pay a few hundred dollars to make sure a struggling family has food in their cupboards. The poor, we seemed hardwired to believe, are not worth the investment.

Nor can I explain why a well-intentioned state pilot program called “My Bag,” in 2023 delivered none of its 2,700 bags to children in New York City — which is home to more than 7,000 foster children, yet saw zero luggage bags.

But picturing a traumatized child clinging to all their worldly belongings in a bag that the rest of the world registers as trash, is as clarifying as a gut punch. 

Or at least it should be.

And while I applaud New York’s 57 Senators voting in unison to ensure that children in this unenviable position are afforded this one small comfort, I am bothered that it hasn’t been the norm.

I’m just sad that every right to which we are entitled is afforded to us only if we haven’t been entirely worn down from the continual fight. 

This one seems easy.

Undoubtedly, it’s been hard fought.

I wish we would reject the very idea that suffering builds character and realize that education, housing and food security, as well as access to basic medical care, are the building blocks of a healthy community.

I hope we take stock of the situation in which we are finding ourselves. We need to reject the cruelty we so absently inflict.

On every front, kindness and care are what we need.

Summer, a time for processing

In the waning light of two fortnights, I will no longer be the mother of children.

If this had not been evident by the passage of time itself (despite my refusal to allow developmental classification to rob me of my children when it switched them with “adolescents” a handful of years ago), it was apparent by my soon-to-be-graduate son’s increasingly sheepish grin.

When prodded for the reason behind his bubbling mirth, he just shrugged and admitted that his REAL plans for the summer were still in flux.

Really? Now, I had known there were college orientation days, and routine doctors’ appointments that had been committed to several calendars, equipped with alarms where they hovered in cyberspace and circled in red where written on the whiteboard of analog … lest anyone forget. 

Not to mention that we had ASS-U-ME-ed that at least a few of these fleeting summer days would include some measure of gainful employment. Maybe just enough to keep him flush with pocket money during his first college semester.

His real plan, he admitted, was a road trip to Canada, where he and a few friends would go on one last adventure before they scattered across the country. In this plan, they would cross a border, show their passports, and, though he did not attest to it, I knew he would gain access to a land that would let them imbibe before they turned 21. 

The flux part was turning out to be syncing the schedules of his core constituents.

Oh, how my heart leapt into my chest.

Summer … The time when all safety-conscious parents operate on high alert.

You know who you are: When you fired up the grill you made sure it was clean and clear of nearby combustibles; You chose your highway travel plans to coincide with optimal road conditions even if it meant driving at off-peak hours; and you made sure you kept your eyes on the kids at all times in the pool.

I remember thinking the only time I was able to let down my guard was when the leaves started to fall and my husband secured the winter pool cover in place. 

Despite all that angst, I’m surprised to feel as if this is truly the summer of my discontent.

That moment when you actually let go … Just before they will be out of the house and on their own anyway.

And you really just have to hold your breath and hope that you have not only said and modeled all the right things, but that your children have absorbed and adopted them.

As I read and reread official guides for "Summer Safety," complete with  "Tips For Summer Travels," it seems apparent that planning is key.

Of course, you want them to start by planning NOT to get drunk. But even if that’s their goal, you want to have already committed to taking transportation that doesn't include the keys they may have in their pockets. They should plan to use public transport or call an Uber to bring them back to their home base, be it a hotel or campsite. Not only because it’s the law, but because it’s the safest, sanest thing for everyone.

And yet, having tried to drill that into his head since the day he grew taller than me, there is also the reality that no matter how sober he might be, he must remain aware that there will undoubtedly be people behind other wheels in his general vicinity who may be sloshed.

“I know … I know,” he’ll say. “I’m a good driver. I don’t get distracted. I don’t text and drive. I don’t even fiddle with the radio. There is no way I’d drink and operate my car.” 

His voice is soft and reassuring when he reiterates with the ultimate of all oxymorons: “You don’t have to worry, Mom.”

Perhaps he’s not wrong … Planning takes many forms. Some of them are literal ones that require time for processing.

“Have you checked your passport? Getting it renewed might take all summer, not just a fortnight.”

Running down a fear

 I am an anxious traveler. 

 I like to get that out of the way whenever the topic of journeying away from one’s home comes up.

 The aversion isn’t something I can pinpoint with any precision.

 My angst at its prospect has morphed over time. Initially, it started as a fear of flying, then turned into a fear of getting lost, and finally into a general panic about being out of place … an ugly American who is functionally illiterate everywhere I go. 

 I credit recreational running for easing some of the worst of my symptoms. However, it’s been a gradual revelation.

 Initially, I’d have all the best intentions of lacing up my trainers and taking a few laps around the block of whatever hotel I found myself.

 Instead, I’d end up in a gym, starting my watch on the treadmill so at least my location would be saved in Garmin as I slogged out a few miles scribbled in one place.

 But in time, and with practice, I found following the blue dot on my phone’s navigating map wasn’t as difficult as the picture my imagination painted. All I needed to do was reconfigure how to interpret the graphic waves of propulsion … and accept that the opposite of my directional intuition would always be the path on which I should embark. 

 Not that will always be the case, but when I go with my first impression only to realize later that I should have zigged when I, indeed, zagged, I will likely pretend this trajectory was always the goal. Then I will make a sweeping turn – at a slightly varied pace that I think seems more whimsical than abrupt – and continue onward.

 Typically, I will seek out the well worn paths of previous travelers. Consulting magazines and interweb advice on THE BEST PLACES ™ … Until I realize  I would likely have to run more miles than I have in my training plan just to get there from our hotel, then take some other type of ground transport to get back. 

 Usually I will substitute that idealic plan for the subtle observation of where folks are running nearby and let my phone map guide me.

 I recently traveled to Barcelona for Spring Break, the last-minute guest of my daughter, who —  because of a combination of jet lag and the midnight wake up call in the form of a raucus city-wide celebration honoring Barcelona winning a record-extending 32nd Spanish Cup title after Jules Koude's last-minute goal handed a 3-2 win against Real Madrid — decided to sleep in instead of accompanying me on a morning run as we intended. 

 Since our hotel was located on a main road, I found that the paved median with its expansive width and rows of tall sycamores on either side was a mecca for pedestrians waiting for buses as well as runners and walkers on a mission to get farther.

 After following it to a cross street that led to Ciutdadella Park - a 77-acre greenspace that features lush gardens, sandy walking trails, a zoo, and a magnificent fountain designed by Josep Fontsere, it is also the home of the Parliament of Catalonia and other historic buildings.

 After making two laps of the park's outermost trails – passing its two arboretums, a zoo and the Parliament building, as well as climbing the steps of the ornate fountain and descending to the other side, during both of the loops – and then venturing outside the walls for a single lap around the neighborhood – I had clocked about four miles … the extra two miles arrived while I was getting happily lost on the way back to the hotel. I had lots of sights to talk about with my well-rested daughter once we get to brunch.

 I might even convince myself it was the intention all along, who knows? 

Spring Breaks

I heard the plink of the pebble as it bounced off my windshield and watched as a crack made its way down the glass. Presumably, we were both traveling at 70 miles per hour: Me in the car going south on the Pike and it flying northward presumably from an uncovered gravel truck just ahead.

I didn’t say them aloud but the magic words of doubt and superstition kept circulating through my thoughts … This was a sign of foreboding,

“You should not be here.”

There had been so many middling problems vexing me during a month that I had started calling it the “year of April.”

But there was no turning back.

In a little more than an hour, I would be at Logan Airport and heading to the Iberian Peninsula for Spring Break. It didn’t seem like real life.

My daughter called in the middle of April and asked me to join her in Spain. A trip she’d been trying to plan with friends was falling through her grasp like a handful of sand. She wanted to go on holiday but didn’t want to be alone. 

She did not expect me to say “Yes.”

And honestly, I did not expect it either.

To say that I am an anxious traveler is an understatement. I have a hard time not tripping over words and fumbling thoughts when the nice lady at the local sandwich shop asks me what I’d like and I have not so much made a decision, as I’ve mangled the trajectory of one amid all the potential choices available.

I may never be able to use Spanish effectively… no matter how many stars Duolingo shoots at me after I complete a module. And I suspect the moment I try to say “Hola” the person to whom I’m trying to address will detect “English speaker,” and will switch languages with an ease I will never possess. 

“Never say never,” my daughter wags her finger at me … Reminding me she’s always been the wiser. 

She’s not wrong … as we unpack and set about on our itinerary, we encounter a mix of languages to traverse. We point … say numbers. I know the word for orange and can tell her when she points to it on a menu. 

She answers, "No," after I stare blankly at the clerk, who is calculating the price of a t-shirt I am trying to buy, had asked if had a member's card for discounts.

And we are not alone. All around us, there are people just quietly enjoying their lives and their surroundings.

The last Monday in April, when Spain and Portugal experienced a catastrophic power outage that disrupted mass transit and communication networks for most of the day, we were among them. Jockeying for space on the narrow sidewalks, throngs appeared from the shuttered subways, hoping for a seat on one of the buses that had also seemed to appear out of thin air.

Travelers from all over the world were walking through the wrong doors, and asking for the wrong things. Many were flummoxed. Put out by the interruption and circumvention of plans.

But they were also calm. They acted as if this was just another Spring Break … where things may not be working, but there is also room for a workaround. They sat at street-side tables as servers exited darkened restaurants carrying orders of whatever was available. Cash was king.

I was grateful we hadn’t taken the train to the mountains as we had planned. But I worried, after overhearing some women on the street surmising the power would fight its sabbatical for as many days as we had plans.

Soon, a ring of people had gathered at the corner. In the center was a boombox and the voice of a broadcaster explaining the situation. Strangers coming together to share information the old-fashioned way.

We joined fellow travelers in line at a darkened patisserie, where a woman behind the counter was busy portioning cake. She popped two slices into waxed paper sacks, twirling each end of the bags into little dog ears for closure before handing them to us. She asked for three Euros and smiled as she made change, thanking us for our purchase as we mused she had saved our lives.

How lucky were we to have cake for dinner?

Of course, the worst never came. The lights returned, cell service was restored. And the girl reached her father by phone, which made his world a little brighter, too.