A-OK

From the moment she covered her mouth and stared bug-eyed at the election results that sent her to Congress, I have loved watching Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Maybe it is the mom in me? Or maybe it is the girl I used to be. There is something about her that just sparkles.

In so many other ways, AOC seems like the proverbial girl next door. The hostess with the mostest. The woman we hope our children will aspire to emulate. Maybe even the kind of human we, ourselves, set out to become.

She is bold and bright.

She is willing to work hard and fight the uphill battles. She is quick with a smile and quicker about her wits.

She is not afraid.

From the outset of her political career, she has been providing teachable moments. From her campaign ads to her after-hours clips on Instagram, she has invited us to learn alongside her as she experienced everything from how to re-pot a root-bound plant, to how to navigate some of the more moribund protocols that keep our government's workings a mystery to even the most astute voters.

During the last two years I have told anyone willing to listen they should not dismiss her because of her fervor or youth. They should neither peg her as intractable nor as a flash in the pan. Just watch her progress. 

I can't say that I was shocked by the so-called “tense exchange” between the Democratic newcomer and Republican Rep. Ted Yoho.

In front of reporters, Yoho made a name for himself by calling Ocasio-Cortez "disgusting" for her comments about New York City's recent spike in crime and her contention that it is rooted in hardship. He called her "dangerous" presumably for her other progressive stances. And in a parting shot after she spoke up had called him on his "rudeness," he hurled two expletives at her that are verboten to repeat in family newspapers.

Words lacking self control, said in a moment of outrage, certainly exist in the world we all navigate.

I will not clutch pearls over expletives.

But it's not the words that matter as much as the tone. And the tone is only as damaging as the bravado in which it is used. And the bravado is just a cover for the kind of cowardice that is facing its own irrelevance.

Hurt people, as they say, hurt people.

The abusive man may even string together the appropriate words of apology, and meaning them or not, force another kind of diminishment through that apology's acceptance. 

Not that Yoho made a legitimate apology.

As Ocasio-Cortez rightly pointed out, he didn't take responsibility for the confrontation. Instead he claimed having a wife and two daughters made him a decent man, and a decent man who who “cannot apologize for his passion.”

He didn't admit he was wrong so much as he tried to insist that his unprovoked mistreatment of a colleague was part of a dynamic that she as well had engaged.

I am glad AOC declined to give him a pass. I'm glad she is standing up to bullies and saying loudly and clearly that neither their tactics nor their apologies are A-OK. 

Rare air

"How was your drive?"

Harrowing. How could it not be? We had ventured away from home for the first time in months. Just for fun? A little break? A visit with family? Something our minds (and the pits of our stomachs) told us we were fools to venture.

But the queasiness that had settled in on the 90-minute drive to the lake was easily smoothed by a light meal and the promise of hours spent splashing around in the summer-warmed water. 

"Car sickness is worth it," yelled my son as he pedaled his feet, propelling a bright yellow stand-up surfboard around the edge of the water in circles."

As we plunked down into deck chairs and slathered our shoulders with sunscreen, he sluiced along the water's edge testing his buoyancy. 

It had been two years since he'd visited the cousins, but he would never forget how to navigate this wondrous contraption. 

It was like falling off a bike. Only the landings were soft and wet and didn't end up causing road rash. 

"I've got it," he yelled with delight as his right hand squeezed what looked like a brake lever on a bicycle handlebar.  

He satisfactorily drifted around 

 the dock and made his way to the inflatable trampoline island just a few well-heeled foot pumps away. 

No one minded him being over his head since he was wearing a life vest. With it, he'd never be out of his depth. 

"This place is better than Disneyland," he declared with the full-throated approval only someone who knows he will never, ever, set foot in THE Magic Kingdom during his childhood so long as his parents are footing the bill for the trips. 

Stupid parents. 

His sister had reached the bouncing island the old-fashioned way: she'd swam there. Arm-over-head, digging into the water with her ice cream scoop hands, just how the swim instructors had taught her when she was just a tot.

She rolled gracefully every third stroke, adding a moment of back float during each rotation. 

This is the life. 

The cousins had places to go and people to see, so they excused themselves and offered a new toy that we might practice in their absence. 

"You know how to surf, right?"

They'd seen our Christmas cards, the kids with Santa hats pasted on their heads in our Vacationland photos of surf camps past. They could tell that the waves were real, no matter how small.

It took two men to carry the thing down a steep set of dock stairs, shuffling along the sway-backed ramp to the water. 

The cousin gleefully unzipped the insulated covers that protected what appeared to be an overturned RV dining table attached to a small watercraft propeller.

He eased it into the water before easing himself in to demonstrate. 

The table and the host quietly sped away. The next time we saw him, he and the board were quite literally flying over the water, not 10 meters away from where we stood in slack-jawed silence.

This is the stuff of legend. The stuff sci-fi and Marty McFly had promised. 

"Just play with it, and have fun. Even if you can't stand up, you can have a lot of fun just letting it tow you around."

The cousin was gone, and my daredevil girl was already in the water putt-putting around before my mind had clenched around reality. 

He just left us alone with a flying surfboard!

Before I could say "hold on just minute," my daughter had already fallen off twice and learned a terrifying lesson about losing balance, trigger grip tightness, and board bounce in that rocket-fast order. 

Soon, she was gliding around the perimeter in circles, leaning into turns, and accelerating the straightaways hoping to achieve liftoff she might sustain.

Less than an hour later, she caught air. 

Now it was my turn to feel queasy. The smile on my daughter's face told me all I needed to know. This will always be better than Disneyland.

The Extra Mile

What was I thinking? 

A Streak?

Forty-one days of consecutive running? One hundred miles in a month? Injury-prone me with the lingering specter of vice-grip hips?

I didn't think. I just did it.

I told myself it didn't matter. I could stop at any time.

Of course, it didn't matter that All My Friends were doing it. However, I didn't need the hard sell or peer pressure to sign on. I only needed one mile a day at any speed I could muster.

One mile is a tiny investment. 

It is a walk to the Post Office and back.

Four circles of the High School's track. 

Two times around the block and only 10 to 12 minutes of my time, depending on a typical average of variables. For instance, previous day distances are divided by today's index of heat and humidity and multiplied by the desire to be somewhere else ... for a little while.

It becomes a habit, similar to brushing your teeth or feeding your dog or tidying up the kitchen. 

Only it's not like a chore ... it's just a thing you do ... because.

Except, unlike brushing teeth or feeding fido, you can get out of this game at any time. 

But it's not a game; it's a matrix.

You take your mile up a hill and back down.

You sprint from fire hydrants to telephone poles and jog three or four mailboxes.

You may add on a little, here and there.

Or you may subtract when your knees start to creak or groan.

Soon you find yourself watching numbers tick past you on a spreadsheet, showing you how you got to where you are right now: 10 miles on Sunday, one mile on Monday, two-mile Tuesdays, 3, 4, 7, 5, 9, 3, 2, 1, 5, 8, 3, 7, 2, 1, 1, 1 ...

"I could keep this up forever," I start to think over-confidently. Telling myself that listening to my body will keep me from overusing it.

Then the 42nd day comes. Goal reached: Memorial Day until the Fourth of July. One-hundred-forty-eight miles in total.

Do I really need to continue?

Haven't I noticed that familiar (but unwelcome) guest, Pain poking around?

Did Heat and Humidity invite him to his party? It feels like four-thousand degrees.

I can be done.

"You can't be done," said my daughter in horror. "How can you be done?"

You'd think I'd told her I was quitting my job and letting all her dishes pile up in the sink.

"I think I am done," I typed into the ether.

"You could be done," a friend typed back by way of reply. "Or you could take 37 laps around your pool and keep the streak going one more day." 

"Just Do IT," yelled my youngest, treading water in the center of the deep end.

So I did: In 11 minutes and 12 seconds, I ran the mile while the kids showered me in encouragement (mostly with Super Soakers), ringing cowbells and hollering "Go, Runner!"

It may have taken 54 laps, but this was the best mile so far.

Maybe tomorrow I'll quit going that extra mile. 

Summertime rules

Summertime rules

I don't remember summertime rules or chores that I didn't give myself.

Once in awhile I'd clean my room or mow the lawn. But it would be out of boredom more than obligation. 

I'd leave home in the early morning and return just before dinner. I'd spend the day riding my bike, miles, and miles on the gravel roads between my past and future. 

My parents always believed I'd find my way. 

My children don't have that kind of secret life, one that is physically distant from mine. Especially now. 

It is afternoon, and my son is still asleep. His room is a clammy, overstuffed pocket of childhood in a north corner of our house. 

The things he's accumulated are archived in piles. He steps over some, drapes others in discarded clothes, the rest is hidden when his creaky old door is wide open. 

These toys from his baby years collect dust under two more sedimentary layers of playthings from his toddler- and boyhoods. 

He's not sentimental; he just has neither the time (he's fighting zombies) nor the inclination to avail himself of space. After all, his teenage self is satisfied with the two-square feet that fit his chair and desktop.

 I'm the one who's too sentimental to clean out his room and decide what fate shall befall the remnants of his playthings. Do they stay in the attic museum, or do they go to the curb, hoping for a ride to another life?

He is 13 now; a teenager still filled with sweetness, but also cultivating a kind of blossoming rage we tend to define as hormones. 

It's a combination we've come to expect, almost condone, in boys.

We have expected as much. 

Three years more than a decade ago, he came complete with a foreskin and so many seemingly unfathomable choices all of them couched in a question of parenting: Do we worry too much or too little? 

We opted for no unnecessary surgeries and anxiety as needed. He would be of the world, yes, but he would also be ours.

Nature doesn't trump nurture. 

But he's not a baby anymore.

It is nearly one o'clock. He is awake and roaming around. Searching for food that I might call breakfast. 

Though I'd be wrong if I were to ask because he would proudly say that he doesn't eat breakfast anymore, he's not hungry until lunch. Toast at lunch is neither meal. It's not even filling. 

He will graze through the pantry, proving his point that meals are a thing of some quaint past.

One-thirty. I have invited him to mow the lawn. It's going to be a hot day.

I shrink a little inside myself, waiting for an outburst or a disappointing response. 

He gives me neither. Just a happy chirp, as if it's no problem at all.

He'll get right to it after a few video games. 

Two-thirty comes and goes. 

Three-thirty comes and goes.

Four ... comes, and he still sits in front of the game with his headphones on moving only his thumbs.

Remember the lawn? You said you would mow it. I don't ask much ...

He's not as cheerful now, but he agrees. The request is not outlandish. He uncurls himself from the game and disappears to find his shoes. 

I do believe he'll find his way. 

Fight Food

Thud. 

Should have been ready. But I wasn't.

I had put off washing dishes only to get pelted.

As the soft, cylindrical pillow of pretended deliciousness sailed through the air toward my head, I slow-played the trajectory of decision-making that resulted in the purchase of "Throw, Throw Burrito" - a card game-dodge ball mashup that brings new hope for old food fights.

"At least it's not messy," yelled my daughter over the delighted shrieks of her brother, whose 13th birthday presented the occasion for her to give him such a game.

Also ... he was winning.

And devilishly so.

Perhaps all these months of video games honing his hand-eye coordination had trained him to scout the whereabouts of the projectiles while keeping his eyes on his opponents' decks. He's become skilled at simultaneously gathering points and picking off the competition.

I can barely take a card from one pile and discard onto another.

My best strategy is to duck.

The rules seem complicated - you get cards, try to make matches to earn points, and determine which players will get to throw something that looks like a dog's toy at the person across from them when the person on the diagonal matches three cards.

The boy doesn't so much care about winning as he does about getting to bean his father harmlessly, in a three-paces duel without repercussion.

Also, the rules permit him to hide behind his sister.

The whole thing is over in two lightning rounds, and the hardest part is wrestling the dodge burrito away from the jaws of the family retriever.

Twenty minutes of heart-racing fun spilled from the dining room into the kitchen, bouncing off the cabinets, we even managed to avoid breaking any of the dishes piled up next to the sink.

Even if there was breakage, anything that shatters pre-washed has to count as a win.

Quarantine hasn't changed us much. Made us softer in some places and sturdier in others. But it's made us see things what's important a little differently.

Honestly, like so much of the year of our "Good Lord, 2020," I couldn't have imagined that some of the best moments would be so snugly wrapped up with the worst ones. And how guilty pleasures seemed so much more redeeming.

It is my most sincere hope that the memories we take with us into the hereafter will be seasoned with at least a hint of silly.

Sure, we can't really go back to normal, but who needs regular when your neighbors introduce you to a thing called "walking taco" whereby you add beef, cheese, lettuce, guacamole, sour cream, and salsa to a snack-size bag of pulverized corn chips and call it dinner?

Is there any other way to respond than offering melon-ball-sized dollops of ice cream, thimbles-full of chocolate sauce, and whipped cream to a crumbled up bag of sandwich cookies?

I think not.

Turning avocados into guacamole has to be the moral of this story.

Also … no need to wash dishes.

Barn doors

The words tumbled out of my mouth the way all the worst words usually do: Horses galloping out as the barn doors are swinging shut.

Yet again, without pausing for thought, I had unleashed a stampede of torment and just stood there, gaping slack-jawed at my own stupidity.

My son had a friend over for his first st at-arm's-length get-together in months. And currently they were so far apart they weren't even talking. I could have expected this. Even before pandemic times, most of their squabbles would start out just for argument's sake and carry into a real argument, followed by a period of long, active silence. Until they would shrug shoulders and the friend would go home.

Still friends.

"Just go apologize. Your birthday is in a few days. Do you really want to harbor bad feelings for the only kid available for playdates during a pandemic?"

The birthday boy froze and stomped away in anger and embarrassment. His, friend – had he heard me – would have felt justifiably insulted.

A neighbor had quietly extracted herself from the chaos my filterless thoughts created between our two houses.

My daughter leaped into action, telling me in no uncertain terms that words like those directed at her, would have brought tears.

"Oh my god, mom! It's amazing how in three short sentences, you have managed to knock down just about everyone who had been standing. Like you were bowling to hurt feelings."

She was right. It was an awful thing to say, no matter how I meant it.

Pandemic or not.

It's just me ... projecting my own fears onto the biggest screen I could find, and proceeding to foist this terrible scene onto everyone in my vicinity.

It doesn't matter that I miss people. I miss the kids' friends. And their noise. I miss sleepovers and pool parties and sending the kids to the store for ice cream just to hear the sound of silence for the time it takes to get there and back.

It's been hardest to get used to silence. 

And as we continue to cloister away, I worry that these old friendships will go the way of the school year, and summer camps, and sports events.

Into the void.

I apologized. Who am I to tell my son not to be angry? Not to take care of himself? Not to trust that he will work it out with his friend?

As they have for just about a decade.

As they would with or without me.

I apologized for not trusting the process.

But I guess that's the point. How can we trust a process I helped put into place?

A process that, in my own home, I designed?

Don't we always have to question our own motives, maybe even more than we question the motives of others'?

Challenging what you know to be true has been the full sum of my learning curve. At least for me, it's always been the things I didn't think to question, which turn out to be the most questionable of the so-called known facts.

Of course, he would apologize. This is not their first rodeo. Horseplay leads to an argument, which leads to the silent treatment, which leads to a reckoning. And around the ring, it goes.

Still friends.

The horses have to get out of the barn. Maybe they have to run with their terrible thoughts, and we have to see them shake off all our worst thoughts like tiny particles of dust against the light of day.

Time out

Outside.

A golden patch of lawn crunches underfoot. Its short, thick blades crackle and break, looking like the freshly strewn straw of a gardener bent on greenery replacement.

I am no such gardener. There aren't any seeds hidden from the heat or the-hunt-and-peck hunger of the visiting catbirds and cardinals. 

Any water that douses this spot has been chlorinated and displaced by the kick-splashes of the resident Quaranteens. 

That's how they think of themselves these days: Children of Isolation. 

I had dragged my chair to the patch of blonde grass when the sun moved over. As I sat there kicking my feet so that the desiccated lawn itched the dry skin of my soles. I try to feel the fortune of space and a pool and a yard full of weeds. 

But summer has arrived early and cemented us in place.

Not being able to move is exhausting. 

This lethargy, heralded by a new and unsettling spring fever, continues its slow burn under separate, unequal magnifying forces.

We can't sustain anything but anxiety and dread.

Time has a way of dulling other senses.

Not thinking about it is the only release.

We manage to breathe a little easier. But just a little. Filling our lungs before dipping below the surface and bobbing up. The water is still cold but it is not unpleasant after a dunking first shock.

I'm not in the pool. I'm just remembering the sensation. Like taking a deep breath and inviting a bitter stream of cigarettes smoke to fill my lungs.

The rush of relaxation that followed is the real memory it conjures. The weightlessness of the deadly air that escapes.

They have trouble picturing me - their mom - as ever being a smoker. 

“It seems that you should have been smarter than that,” says the older one as the younger one nods in agreement.

I think about telling him the stories about children who would follow trucks that belched a pesticide fog into the air to save them from mosquito-bourne illnesses.

Nothing about the olden days seems sensible now that we have all this time and space for reflective dread.

Though … I still wish I could give them little pieces of my childhood. The ones that were private and empty of adults keeping guard.

Our children aren't really much different than we were, I think.

Blue-lipped and determined, they sluice between the deep end and the shallows until night falls, and the first wave of mosquitoes set down to feast on the adults. We swat at our ankles absently as we keep a more careful watch over the fill level of each other's Quarantini glasses. The events taking place in the pool attract our attention only when voices get louder than ours.

Screams only irritating because of their exaggeration.

The real dangers are always silent. Always the thing you didn't even know to worry about.

My golden grass looks gray in this light.

I swing at the air and slap at my ankles, announcing to the splashers the golden hour has passed. It's time to go inside.

Don't look away

My children never want to talk about politics. They don't like being in the same room with it, let alone the same car. Especially not in the car, where they can only wriggle around under the protective hold of a seatbelt wishing for a room of their own to which they might retreat. 

They'd rather turn up the radio if they can't climb into the trunk.

They are privileged. They wrongly believe they are colorblind. 

But the murder of George Floyd and the civil protests his killing sparked nationwide have opened their eyes to police brutality and racist injustice as a coupled pair. 

They can't just unsee it.

As the cameras roll and spill into their media feeds, they witness a police response they wouldn't expect from a person in uniform; a person who might even resemble their friendly, neighborhood DARE officer.

 And though they are used to hearing and saying all the surgically specific rejoinders to the sounding of general alarms, they can't muster a "not all ..." that usually begins every defensive statement. 

In this case, they are wondering why are there so many?

Who can believe that All Lives Matter if we can't even say the words Black Lives Matter? 

As videos roll, they see more and more police outfitted in riot gear release clouds of tear gas and rounds of projectiles into noisy but otherwise peaceful crowds. They see the unprovoked use of force as patience grows thin. 

A man in uniform punches a woman sending her sprawling to the ground. An officer spits on a protestor sitting directly in front of him. A journalist is tackled by police and battered with a shield. Police ransack a medical area, slashing water bottles and scattering supplies. We watch the footage of police unloading bricks under the cover of darkness. We see them lobbing flashbangs, or using tear gas against citizens who had gathered peacefully. 

We stop thinking about broken windows.

It doesn't look like a bad cop movie; it just looks like bad cops. 

It's not all, certainly, but it sure seems like there is a united front, with few who are willing to stand against the abusers in their ranks, even with the application of public pressure.

Police brutality is not new. Abuse of power doesn't even seem particularly rare. My kids have heard me talk about my own experiences as a suburban youth, which involved a dubious traffic stop, unnecessary verbal abuse, and racial profiling in which I intervened.

I grew out of the unwanted attention -- youth being another way to profile criminal potential. 

Maybe they didn't believe that kind of stuff happens in modern-day times. 

Maybe it's because the extent of policing they see in their community is sparse and mainly in the schoolroom, so they don't have the same fear.

We have the privilege to look away. 

It's the video in our pockets that has begun to show how misguided it is to look away or to justify any lack

of transparency. Not when that one bad cop faces no criminal penalty -- no transparent sanction in line with the gravity of abuse of power. 

What they see now is how good cops ignore the bad ones and how difficult it is to hold such fierce and furious power in check. They are also seeing how much harm comes from just looking the other way. 

It's not just a handful of bad cops. It's the system that doesn't root them out that should concern us the most. 

We have to stop looking the other way.

Executive producer credit

We've been watching so many movies. 

Some of them – those with crowded restaurant scenes or lavish family gatherings at least – are starting to feel a little foreign and exotic.

As we scroll past 80,000 titles, we can't agree on a single one.

In fact, getting an agreement usually requires an executive decision.

Dad usually gets the final say.

Which reminded me of the scene in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," when Toula Portokalos complains to her mother about her father's stubbornness feels like an experience that can never be lost in translation or fade into the shadows of yesteryear. 

"Ma, Dad is so stubborn. What he says goes. 'Ah, the man is the head of the house!"

"Let me tell you something, Toula. The man is the head, but the woman is the neck. And she can turn his head any way she wants."

That scene replayed in my mind (lightly edited for memory lapse and wishful less-patriarchal thinking) as my daughter approached me for advice on why her own father wouldn't listen to reason. "Why does he always get his way?"

It turns out, I had walked in on a typical father/daughter argument, and they had seen me. I was trapped.

She had done something thoughtless, and he had given her all the pieces of his mind at a booming volume. She was in the process of tossing them back at him when I appeared and stood there listening.

"Why do you always have to you yell?"

"Well, I have to yell because you never answer me the first time I ask."

"I answered. You don't hear me."

"My hearing is not in question here."

"Well, maybe it should be since my answers don't seem to be getting me anywhere!"

That's when I realize in this tennis match of an argument; both players are looking at me.

I really don't want to get involved. Mainly because both sides typically play against the middle. And I hate feeling like the Mommy in the middle.

Sadly, I think we have all reached the stage of quarantine when even a moment of complete silence can cause an argument of epic proportions.

"Why are you just standing there?"

Each of them wanted me to take their side.

He wants me to present a united front, nip buds, and put people into their places. 

She wants me to protect her ego and her id.

I carefully try to do both calmly addressing the validities of each of their feelings and responses. By teasing out underlying frustrations that may have exacerbated the debate, I delicately draw out how they might have reacted differently.

All the while, steeling myself for the blowback I most certainly deserve. I may think the argument can be managed with detachment and fairness … but I am neither fair nor detached.

Deflecting retaliatory accusations by way of a patented Don't Take It Personally technology, I weather a subsiding storm.

As the credits roll, a happy little tune plays as each of us takes our well-deserved bows.

Of course, the movie playing in my head has me convinced that my character's performance was Oscar-worthy.

Unacceptable loss

For years I followed nursing home ratings.

How many complaints had been filed? How many investigations completed? What percentage of those were found to be warranted?

I counted fines and averaged them, dollar/cost style. Divided by the monthly receipts, which were daunting, and came up with an equation that was almost too painful to acknowledge.

Acceptable loss.

For me, it was personal. For a time, my mother resided in the nursing home that currently has the most cases of the novel Coronavirus in Columbia County. It took us years to get her moved.

The thing I remember most about interactions with staff at that first, worst placement, was their instance that problems didn't exist at the facility because management didn't allow them. Problems, they explained, meant people got fired.

I couldn't argue with the logic. It wasn't worth it. All one needs to do in such situations is to lift the rug and locate all the problems that have been swept underneath it.

Of course, the rug is a heavier lift than we had imagined.

Wet garments may have been visible, but the bedsores, weight loss, and dehydration all came to light during subsequent hospitalizations.

Of course, there were no beds elsewhere. There were just complaints and fines and the steady trickle of temporary staff.

Pay a fine, pass the costs, business as usual.

When we finally managed to get her a placement elsewhere, the difference in her care was enormous. She was clean and dry. She was properly fed. She was more alert.

And it all seemed to stem from the administration's admission of problems. They had them, every institution does, but they understood fixing issues as they arise is the best way to minimize harm.

Governor Andrew Cuomo's initial Covid-19 response requiring nursing homes to take patients who tested positive for the virus or whose status was unknown was a costly mistake.

No doubt.

I can only guess that our collective belief that all health facilities are stringently regulated and adhere to a hospital's standard of care factors into how we might expect such a triage could be successful. Medical professionals are, in fact, medical professionals. Only now, with Pandemic pulling back curtains, we can see that some medical facilities might just have a bean counter in the center, shifting the levers. 

Honestly, I did not imagine an infectious disease spreading through the country and burning through healthcare facilities like wildfire would cause some of our "leaders" to ask that we discount the most alarming numbers (like those coming from nursing homes) in an effort to get back to a semblance of normal. 

But here we are.

At what point do we not just shrug our shoulders? At what point are we going to admit that these lives are not -- and never should have been counted as -- an acceptable loss?

Will a pandemic do it?

At what point will we investigate nursing homes and how they are regulated? 

Unsurprisingly, there is plenty of blame and finger-pointing going around right now. Blame is a consistent and effective distraction. But it doesn't usually fix problems. It just weaves a heavier rug to cover them.

Embracing the birthday

At precisely 6 p.m. on one of the days that end in Y, I was standing on my porch, with my kids excitedly hopping around me, raising a glass filled with a pink beverage in the direction of the family nextdoor.

I was toasting the sweet little choir that had gathered on their front porch to serenade me on what seemed, in these Corona-fide days, like my 127th birthday.

I had no idea it was a trap.

Three days earlier I had hidden my birth digits from the social network I have come to think of as Face Bonk, in an impulsive fit of self-preservation. I'm not sure why. Ordinarily, I look forward to the steady stream of well wishes from all 155 of my digitally-prodded friends.

Face Bonk silence was exactly what I needed - a salve for a future that is stuck on the present.

I imagined I was just quietly slinking through another day in Pandemicland, wearing soft pants and smiling in earnest at the few sparsely placed "Happy Birthdays" those who don't need reminding would deliver through the phone lines or written on greeting cards stamped with postage.

I had already graciously received presents foraged from the bottoms of drawers or the backs of closets. Thoughtful little do-dads I would be free to use up or to restock my own little mom and pop regifting shop. 

All that was left was to contemplate the gift cards forwarded from favorite stores, whose profit margins may be so so razor-thin it might slice open my heart to actually use them.

All of that changed at precisely 6:01 when a car pulled into the driveway and rolled past our house.

"Who's this now?" I asked my daughter in the voice of a new retiree who is wishing passerby off their lawn.

Suddenly I knew. And the knowledge went on like a lightbulb as one after another; a fresh vehicle joined the slow parade.

With no discernible pecking order, the masked drivers, who waved as they headed to our turnaround, didn't necessarily know each other. They had been drawn in from various circles just to wish me a happy day in semi-isolation.

Some of them got out of their cars to chat for a few minutes from a safe distance.

I hadn't been prepared, though, and had to dash into the house for a mask. And even that felt less awkward than I could have predicted.

Covering up my face and standing at a distance meant people couldn't see my normally steely demeanor turn soft.

And before a person could sing the Happy Birthday song twice, we would all wash our hands of a formal part of the celebration. The party rolled on home.

As I stood finishing my cocktail, I had the feeling that this was truly the best way to celebrate things we dread: with silliness and brevity.

I have never been more grateful to turn 127 years old and never been happier to be surprised.

Especially now that we don't have to hug.

Goodminton

As small parts tumbled out of the box and onto the deck of the front porch, the tension in every muscle of my upper body ratcheted just one tick tighter.

The came up to sniff one, and I frantically shooed her away. 

In addition to my teeth being set on permanent edge as a result of these here pandemic times, we have gaps in the porch steps through which any one of these little do-dads could slip, and not only would my newly eager children have their dreams for a front yard game of badminton dashed, but the decision I don't remember making to NOT allow for under-porch access amid a renovation several years ago would come back to haunt me ... and these kids.

Oh, these kids.

I want to sing their praises.

I want to tell you how surprisingly wonderful they've been, not fighting with each other. Finding joy in the most simple of things, or just making it themselves out of hope and thin air.

Like this badminton set, I masked up to find at the five and ten. This set that is just a bunch of parts strewn across the porch deck like a puzzle.

As I try to decide how this v-shaped plastic nib fits into one of five pre-drilled holes in the nylon nesting poles, we all feel the heaviness that what was once an impulse now risks so much and so many.

"I almost can't believe there are no instructions," I say, hoping it didn't sound like too much of an indictment of my kids' investigative skills. But just enough ... knowing the likelihood of anyone in my house lifting a single thing in pursuit of a lost item.

My daughter looks again. This time she finds a bifold sheet of paper with simple illustrations instead of words, which she scans and quickly realizes I look like Steve Martin's "Freddy" to Michael Cain's "Lawrence" as I try to stick myself in the eye with a cork-topped fork.

"Here, let me have that," she says gently as she takes the poles and the widget and quietly sets about inserting Part A into Slot B, risking her perfect (and newly grown) nails in the process.

It is a moment to savor.

She is taking charge while her brother and I wordlessly follow her instruction, slipping the net onto the tops of our poles and waiting while she secured them with what I wouldn't be telling her were called "wing nuts."

Well, almost wordlessly. I forget that I haven't entirely digested the paper instructions, and think I'm "just helping" when I ask my son to "take three giant steps back."

"Hey, Mom... I'm "Simon" in this enterprise, and 'Simon' didn't say anything about taking three freaking steps."

"Simon" said a lot of words after that, but none of them were "freaking."

Not that I was clutching at any pearls.

I was just holding onto a pole as she anchored two spikes attached to twine on either side of me, and watched as she repeated the process where her brother stood, nine yards away. All of us mildly amazed when the setup kept standing as we finally stepped away.

It worked!

The taught net stood sturdily against the intermittent gusts of April winds. And there was much rejoicing.

Two children, holding racquets over their heads, pinwheeled around each other on the soft grass.

Neither one cared whether their side had the most or the least number of obstacles. The dog, roaming from one side to the other, evened things out.

Dog days

The dog's ears casually rise to attention as I move through the house.

She furtively glances my way without shifting from her place in the sunny patch of the rug.

She follows me with her eyes through the kitchen, to the living room, into the bedroom, and back. She listens as I close a cabinet and open the refrigerator. She yawns and stretches as I pace the floor.

Just as she has me trained to be quiet while I gather up the things that might send her into a tizzy, I have trained her -- by poor follow-through -- to have low expectations despite all indications point to a sure thing.

The leash.

Some running shoes.

An overripe bag of kitchen trash.

All of these things, in the past, have meant an opportunity for great fun: A low-key tour of the block maybe, or perhaps a three-mile jog; even an informal bounce or two around the garbage cans in the backyard. Of course, these things I am gathering could mean nothing: a tidying, a false alarm, an abandonment of sorts.

But now the whole world has changed, and she's not the only one who is unsure if it's for the better.

The car keys haven't left their hook in a while. The leash sits all in a tangle in a basket by the door. It seems as useful as any necktie right about now.

She scoots out with me for a run. We just go to the back yard, where I can clock a mile in five laps of the property. No matter how many times I circle, she's given up within the first four. She'll sit in the middle of the grass and watch me circle.

I go off course long enough to let her back into the house, where she can keep pace with the ones logging on to their virtual classrooms.

With her humans always around, she has fewer places just to lay by herself, a pursuit she apparently had mastered during the day when we had gone to work.

Now she's always on the job.

The sunny spots are all occupied by others. And, more alarmingly, there are so many dis-embodied voices traveling through a seemingly endless number of different-sized screens, it's hard to know if there's a need to bark at an intruder or bark because they're just not petting her.

One dog barks in the background on Zoom, and the whole dilemma starts again. Did her people get another dog? Does it live in that metal clamshell thing they keep tap, tap, tapping on?

These are the questions I've imagined pulsing through her canine thoughts before she abandons them to bark at a squirrel that's brazen enough to scurry past the window.

The last remaining annoyance that hasn't turned itself inside out.

Her humans are all over the place when they haven't sequestered in their separate corners.

Doors slam. Voices get angry. They get sad. They go silent. But there is laughter, too. And it can be cleansing and healing as it rolls over all of the rough patches.

Like a hand, rubbing her belly or scratching behind her ears or whenever she wants.

Slow on the curves

"Let go," the teenager instructed as we rounded the corner.

For a moment, I didn't register that she was talking to me. Her eyes hadn't left the road as she steered the car along the winding country road.

Everything was going as smoothly as possible in our beat-up, old family station wagon. Her hands were firmly planted at "9 and 3"... a clock that had shifted an hour in the years since my parents had taught me.

And yet, one of my hands was gripping the seat while the other was curled painfully around that hinged handle on the roof of the car that seemingly has no other use than to appease a mother's inner panic.

"You are bracing. Again!"

I had to admit, seeing my hand gripping the odd suitcase handle above the door frame was a surprise.

Pandemic times notwithstanding, I had the sense I was finally getting a better handle on being chauffeured around the county by my newly permitted daughter than I used to.

She'd gone past the tricky intersection where local

tradition dictates that all drivers must stop except the ones turning left from the East.

"Why is that" she wondered.

And as per usual, I had many words but no solid answer. 

"Some places are just that way ... Take the traffic circle at the end of the road here for example. It's the only one I know of where the cars inside of the roundabout don't have the right of way. I think it has to do with the circle's proximity to the railroad crossing, and how no one wants there to be a backup that leaves a car waiting on train tracks. But who really knows?"

Of course, here in the car – the radio off for safety and concentration's sake – she has to heed my words, even when they don't seem to go anywhere.

More to the point, she has to admit when she doesn't understand something.

"I need you to talk me through this traffic circle coming up. Is that stop sign for me? Which is harder again, a left turn or a right?"

And who would have thought the tough part would be getting up to speed? Literally. Certainly not me.

She's even surprised herself. Gaining exponentially in skill and confidence in the few months she's been practicing. Navigating to school, and making her way smoothly through circles and spelling out Y turns in parking lots as if she'd been driving in cursive.

She's even agreed to practice operating the standard transmission sedan I insisted on buying as our new family vehicle, back when driving from one place to another seemed more necessary than just novel.

Even that learning curve is flattening out. 

As we drive around today, she even praises my almost impressive lack of parental flinch.

After all, it had been more than a few minutes since I'd given her any instruction, necessary or otherwise. We'd already covered which car had the right-of-way at any given intersection and why other parents giving their kids cars outright has absolutely no effect on me.

Yes, we've come to this cliff, and needless to say, we're not planning on jumping off of it.

Good eggs and ham

I hate my face. It looks like an egg. I hate the up-angled foreshortening and the extra skin apparent when I look down. 

When did that happen?

Maybe I should have applied something bronzing to counteract the pallor. Or at least fill in the tiny lines between my eyes that look so much deeper these days than just skin level. 

Or maybe dip myself in some colorful dye like we used to do with eggs before we'd scatter them around the house for the kids to find ... or not find as our noses would lead the detective work some weeks later. 

Even more so, perhaps, I hate the crackling, tinny sound of my voice as it completes its circuit through the air and into a microphone and back out of the speakers of the technical clamshell that's open on my bed.

I can think of another space that's as comfortable, or private, or lacking a buildup of clutter. 

But I miss the social part of keeping a physical distance. And apparently, I miss it enough to brave all vanity and meet friends and family in the only room that can hold us all - a video chat room.

But here we are ... some of us sitting at our dining room tables; others sitting at our home office desks; and me, leaning up against an armchair pillow, trying to stay within a shadow.

We are talking about, of all things, how to celebrate Easter with our close family. 

And while I marvel at the age we live in where those among us with means and privilege can stay virtually connected while remaining -- for the most part -- isolated, I must also wonder how we will square ourselves with the reality that seems now, and for the foreseeable future, we are to remain distant relatives. 

We are long past the phase when we'd gather in the village square to meet a six-foot-tall Easter rabbit, who would lead a hundred teacup-sized neighbors in the annual hunt for candy-filled eggs. 

These past years the bunny tosses a few bags of jelly beans and rice-crisp eggs into a tote bag and hangs it from the knobs of their bedroom doors.

This year the bunny had to scramble at the last minute but had an anxiety attack at the grocery store and a moment of clarity. Hanging from the doorknob will be boxes of cereal and hand soaps that look like rocks. 

Must remind them the faux stones are not candy; and hot dogs, this year, we'll call ham.

Perhaps it will come up at dinner when we serve up this new tradition - of mystery meat via video chat. 

I can picture it now: we'll toast each other while reminding my dad to keep to some semblance of social distancing in front of the camera, so the rest of us can see more than his nose and forehead.

It will be horrible and wonderful, and everything we'd never imagined all wrapped up in one.

And maybe, if we're lucky, the bunny will find TP for our Easter Baskets.

Blessings and curses

It's noon on a weekday, and my husband and I glare at each other from our anchored locations on opposite couches.

He has the remote control and is binge-watching the kind of junk television that doesn't even whet my appetite.

It's one of the eleventy-billion made-for-streaming sci-fI crime romance comedies that is trying to stop the end of the world by reversing some ionic polarization in the molecular cortex.

Apparently, it's very popular.

I'm trying to read. But I can't get my mind to focus on any of the words' meanings as my eyes scan the typeface. I just hold the book and turn pages. They feel pulpy and rough to my hands, which are just as pulpy and rough from all the washing. I can't process any more things that seem new.

At least until I feel like I am winning the war against touching my face. Sure, I've advanced ground on that front, but I don't want to be smug. One sense of an itch in a moment of absent abandon could destroy all the urges I've repressed.

The kids are upstairs, in their separate rooms, doing schoolwork.

They aren't fighting as much, which is both a blessing and a curse.

Battling over the little things - like how long Tweedle Dee is taking in the bathroom or why did I let Tweedle Dum eat the last slice of toast - is what makes a family feel normal.

Having a kid wait patiently in the hallway as his older sibling hogs all the hot water is something no parent is entirely ready to accept as anything but an altered reality.

The saddest part is that it only took a pandemic and the fear of shared surfaces and soggy towels that have them agreeing to use the kids' bathroom instead of the master.

I don't care what we've all said in the past. We may want our New Normal to be brimming with kindness and human decency, but we have to be ready for the desperation, too.

We are distancing ourselves, too.

Six feet is an ominous length for the space between us.

It's hard to admit how lucky we are in this suspended unknown. We have a house and a sanitized digital tether to the outside.

Though I worry a certain Big-cat collectors' crime documentary making the rounds is just another insidious pathogen, we didn't do enough to protect ourselves against.

My husband puts a drink on the table in front of me. It's sweet and weak, just the way I like them.

He searches the channels for a comedy. The kids appear from their rooms and settle in to watch comic actresses disassembling a male-centered spy-motif.

There is much laughter.

And then we'll watch guinea pigs save the world.

Why not?

Soon it will be midnight of that same weekday. The kids will be in bed; maybe they will be asleep when I crack open their doors to peek in.

But I won't chastise if I find their faces lit by the blueish glow of a computer screen. Nor will I call attention to any better use of time. I will let them wake when they want and work through it at their own pace.

This may be the new normal. But it assumes none of this is normal yet.

More than arm's length

My sister and I haven't been the best of friends.

Maybe it's because we have everything in common, including an all-to-familiar impatience for one another.

As children, we shared and argued over our parents; we clashed over the values of attentions paid and spent; we even argued over an invisible white line drawn down the center of a small, pink bedroom we at one tIme shared in their ranch-style home. 

My sister, who diligently and dutifully works at a grocery store, still lives in that same house with our 80-year-old Dad.

They care for each other, as well as a nutty little Corgi, who, as they both will tell you, "isn't wrapped too tight."

I know I don't have to tell you how terrifying it is when the phone rings these days.

Not the least bit because of the mouthy little dog barking in the background.

We all have someone out in the world we have to put at an even further distance.

For all the years, I have put words in this space under a byline; my sister has proudly directed the people she meets in her checkout line to read them.

I'm not at all proud to admit that it embarrassed me.

Me, the introvert writer, realizing that she was the intrepid reporter of the family all along.

We have both connected with so many people over the years, one item at a time. But she has done it with genuine curiosity and candor.

She knows you all. She asks what you do and what you think about your car. She asks if you have any pets.

She loves hearing your stories and sharing how the lady ahead of you got forty pounds of shrimp! Can you imagine? That's going to be some party.

She knows more than most how much we're willing to tell strangers. 

I wonder if you know how much she cares about your families? How she worries about your coping mechanism in whatever ails you; a determination she's made by the grocery-to-alcohol ratio you load into your cart. She's heard your sorrows and worries, and she gives you the advise people like me are always telling folks to keep to themselves.

I have tiptoed around myself, often trying to be someone else, while she just puts herself forward, which is different than putting herself first.

She is who she is: a tiny mensch with opinions she's entitled to share.

And while some of us have been unkind to her, some of you have been amazing.

You have shared with her more than just simple answers about paper or plastic in monotone. You have sent her flowers and cards when she's been injured or ill. You have passed along praise to her bosses when she's just been herself, doing the work the way she thinks it should be done … not just because someone is paying her to do it.

You know what she's doing, and you are grateful.

And lately, even those of you who may not have noticed her as you shop in a panic, share a few squirts of hand sanitizer from your stash when her store's supply chain hasn't been able to provide.

She is so grateful, she calls me up and tells me all about it. For that, I am grateful, too, because I am looking forward to being closer than arms' length.