On being Ruthless

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

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

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

Do you think I'm being hyperbolic? 

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

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

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

What will become of ...

Your healthcare?

My healthcare?

Our children's healthcare?

Our children's education?

Equal rights?

Human rights?

Voting rights?

Our ability to assemble in peace and protest?

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

How did it go so wrong?

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

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

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

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

Will it matter?

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

How do we live with ourselves?

How do we live with our neighbors?

How do we go on without them?

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

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

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

Did you know Breonna Taylor would have been 27?   

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

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

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

Why should we calm down and clam up?

Do you really need an exit plan?

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

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

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

Can you stomach being ruthless for just a while longer? 

Uphill, both ways

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He had everything planned, too. 

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

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

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

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

Maybe he should leave at 6:45?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

De feet, on de fence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

One Hundred Nine days and still counting.

Internal drive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why was I nervous?

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

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

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

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

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

dab in the center of a crosswalk.

She chose wrong.

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

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

This wasn't part of her plan either.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seen and heard

 A new and unfamiliar school year is barreling toward us with some sorcery that seems like slow motion.

Maybe that's because it feels like we are stuck in the first reel of a B movie, sitting in our seats quietly, waiting for the edges burn and curl away from the projector.

As administrators push back start dates to allow for more planning, parents have received pages and pages of new procedures, followed by several preliminary schedules, and an equal number of clarifying revisions to the whole electronic handbook of confusing new rules. 

I'm not ashamed to say as I scroll through the midway point on the 14th page of The Plan on my pocket computer that my eyes start to glaze, and beads of perspiration dot my brow.

We are not prepared. And like so many things we haven't experienced before, we will never be ready enough.

I don't think I'd be far off in saying that this Herculean plan of reinventing in-person classes seems as though it has been cobbled together by people who are really good ... at other things. 

You know, like how you put a slide rule in the hands of an English teacher, and he might use it to diagram a sentence. More likely would be taking Ed from marketing and putting him in charge of special effects makeup.

Maybe get the scientists in on this one?

And as they follow the guidance put forward by the current leadership, Many of us have to wonder just how much trust is too much?

I'm mean ... I'm not sure any of my elected officials majored in epidemiology before they minored in Roberts' Rules of Order. And that school boards might have a doctor or two on their reopening committees isn't as reassuring now that we've seen Dr. Ben Carson "work" outside of his celebrated field of neurosurgery.

Also, less than reassuring is the recent report of dozens quarantined after an in-person administrative meeting in a Saratoga County school district, where school officials said they followed "restaurant guidelines."

This doesn't bode well since education's guidelines seem to bear some similarity to restaurants, especially where it offers teachers the discretionary choice of several "mask breaks" during indoor classes.

But I have to have faith that reopening guidance is based on more than smoke and mirrors or television ratings. I have to believe that we are still capable of having each other's best interests at heart.

Still, I have to remind myself that education is an essential need. And that our children need to be seen and heard, not just screened and notified.

I do have faith in face coverings. I have faith that those are working, and will prevent rampant infection. I have faith in teachers and other parents to be doing the best they can at any given moment. I believe that being outside and apart now will enable us to be together later.

I have to believe that just over this horizon … there may be just another horizon. That's life right now. The only way we'll eventually get to our destination is if we help each other over these humps now.

The rush hours

The calculations for rush hour always lasts well into two. Add vacation to the equation, and a person must factor in two more hours no matter what time they set off on their destination. 

These have always been the rules.

If you travel, eventually you will face wall-to-wall traffic. Sometimes it stops you in your tracks, and other times you may be swept up in its current, forced to move along with it like a school of fish.

It's been a while since I've rushed into the latter's dizzying fray.

Cars are jockeying for position all around me. I pass a red station wagon twice as we buzz along in the same direction. 

As drivers, we casually acknowledge the initial overtake, but then we pretend to have blinders on as we continue to go neck and neck on this track of highway. 

We are in a race to get home. And this girl in the red wagon is my secret rival.

Her car is laden with the after-effects of a holiday: Surfboards, lightly breaded with sand, are mounted to the car's luggage racks. Bicycles are affixed to the hatch at jaunty angles, their tires spinning slowly in the wind. Colorful beach stickers, stacked one on top of another, curl up at their edges. This car looks to be the well-traveled suitcase of lore.

Rust and dust mingle at the edges of everything in the girl's old rattletrap, signaling memories that have been resurrected to revisit the "good old days," people are always talking about. 

I am behind the wheel of a new car. The gears shift easily, and the ride is smooth. I am in unfamiliar territory in this vehicle - the passing lane. I effortlessly exceed speed limits as I pass car after car on the left.

The boy in my passenger side quietly plays a video game. We listen to the mechanical lady in the phone project directions through the fancy new screen in the dashboard where radios used to be.

Every now and then, he pauses to pet the dog in the backseat, who is panting uncomfortably. The dog hates the car even more when every floor space is taken up with leftover luggage the trunk couldn't store.

The dog is used to driving in the other car: the one with the seats that fold down and the epic amounts of sand from the beach. This car gives her no room to pace.

She looks at it wistfully we pass again and groans. The boy pets her head. 

The man in the passenger side of the girl's car doesn't need computer navigation. He could make this trip in his sleep. He is used to being "The Driver," and he's never once missed an exit and found himself in Cape Cod. 

The girl behind the wheel is too young to know all the secrets of her car's aged effects. But she a confidant of her competence. Her father is relaxed.

She's just a teenager who, for the first time, is driving all the way home.

And she's going to be furious when I get there first.

Mothers Beach

 My wrist started buzzing. 

It was my watch alerting me to the fact that my daughter was calling.

I was somewhere between Harris Drive and Great Hill, halfway through a three-mile beach run on a waning family vacation. 

Modern technology can be a miracle or a curse, and my brain was still wrestling with which type this would be as I went digging through pockets for my phone before my daughter's call went to voicemail. 

Curses. 

Panic was in her voice.

A week-long, feeling-off sort of stomach had graduated from the female relegation to an urgent concern.

"I feel like I'm dying, and I can't move. I need you."

She hung up.

When I called back, the hollow sound of her retching answered. 

I had left her father and dog on the sandy beach only 15 minutes earlier. The pair had probably managed to lumber down to the surf, maybe a quarter-mile from the car, at least by my panicked calculations.

He answered on the first ring. 

I told him about the call and my Gray's Anatomy mind going straight for a ruptured appendix and a mother's intuition that erring on the side of caution would mean an Emergency Room visit just to be safe.

Head toward Mothers Beach. I'm headed your way.

I was running again, only faster. My throat now filled with anxiety as all my huffing and puffing stayed cordoned off from my surroundings behind a mask. I have grown accustomed to laboring in filtered air. 

The watch on my wrist is alerting me to intervals that I ignore. I only turn it off when I'm finally seated on the passenger side as we speed towards "home." Only I hadn't been effective in turning it off.

As we pulled into the driveway, the watch congratulated me on having beaten my fastest 5k. 

I make the beeping stop as I sprint up the pathway and into the house. Her grandmother is already there as I pinball around the house, gathering supplies.

I am surprised my bag already contains all the things a mother would need for just this moment - including a thermometer. Another miracle, since I was never the mother who prepared. 

We are on our way to the car as she holds the magic wand in her mouth until it beeps ...

And once again, after I switch its reading from Celsius to Fahrenheit, so I can understand she hasn't got a fever without Googling conversions. 

"That's good," I tell her confidently without knowing for sure that it is.

Her father makes it all the way to the driver's seat before I send him back into the house for a bucket, just in case. We have a half-hour's ride ahead of us.

I seem calm, though I can't see it for myself. I feel like static electricity and chaos combined. I am just glad not to be driving. 

I am sitting next to her in the backseat as she writhes around, seeking a position that provides some comfort. Eventually, she lays down as I stroke her forehead and press on her side. 

We breathe together to stave off panic: inhale deeply, try to match the same length of exhalation. Inhale. Exhale.

We are two minutes away from the hospital when she finally vomits and realizes the pain receding.

When the nurse asks about the scale of discomfort, she 

subtracts eight points from the car ride, leaving her with a manageable in not slightly embarrassing 2.

They take blood and vital signs and wait for results. The rule out the bad and the ugly, though the doctor returns to the room with an ultrasound machine to screen her kidneys. They seem unremarkable.

After a couple of hours, we are released with an advisory to check in with her primary doctor and repeat a specific test in a few days.

The chances are high, the doctor tells me, the reason for her pain could remain a mystery unless whatever the ailment gets worse.

It's all spelled out on the sheets they handed us before they sent us on our way. We followed the exit signs to the parking lot and drove back to grandma's house. 

I am thankful my mother's intuition isn't usually right. 

A bicycle built for two

 Visible steam and foul language circled the air around his head, so we knew to make ourselves scarce.

It T minus Go Time and "The Dad" had started a "little project."

Therefore, we were avoiding "The Dad."

Our vacation was happening as per usual, now that Maine had lifted its ban on visiting New Yorkers, though our usual holiday calls for a fair amount of isolation anyway. 

But his sister had raised the stakes in their rivalry by announcing her family would be bringing bikes as a way to keep our vacation exciting while socially distanced.

So in the hours before we would leave and after he had packed, her brother dragged a collection of moldering bikes from the basement and lined them up on the driveway according to workload.

Two of the bikes were his and would require oil, new handle grips, and two new tires and inner tubes. (And he'll have to go back to the bike shop for a third inner tube because he'll forget to set the psi.

Our daughter's bike - the pink and yellow beach cruiser - needed all of that and a coat of paint so as not to be an embarrassment. She has become so much more sophisticated the five years since she picked out those candy colors. The worst part, of course, is that the bike's seat barely required adjustment. 

My bicycle - a relic of my early adolescence - just needed air in the tires and a dusting. My father had made its repair one his projects a few years ago as a surprise.

The last two bikes on the driveway were our son's and would require a little cleaning before they got handed down to someone they would fit. 

This development was just one of the things weighing on The Dad's mind. 

Bike shops have been cleaned out of inventory since April. How would he get the newly gangly teen up and rolling?

"He could use my bike," I said, thinking it's shade of blue could counterbalance the sway-barred center that indicates its gender role in the bike world.

The Dad works through the details in his mind before he sells our boy on the difficulties of riding a real racing style bike.

"Don't worry if you can't get it down right away ... racing bikes are temperamental."

Maybe it worked. 

After his test spin, the kid left the driveway and disappeared for an hour tooling around in the neighborhood. 

But maybe it was just the slightest taste of freedom on a bike that economized its user's energy instead of trying to spend it thoroughly by bedtime. 

Also, he hasn't left the house on his own since March.

"They don't call them "girls" bikes anymore," he instructs. "They're called Step-Throughs." 

Clearly, he wouldn't let seemingly arbitrary gender norms such as color selection or bicycle design determine his enjoyment of the open road.

Of course, this moment's progressive beauty would be lost once The Dad released a new stream of expletives into the air:

"@!)#% the bike rack doesn't accommodate step-through bikes. We'll have to improvise!"

We are still avoiding The Dad. 

Sound and furry

The house is too quiet. 

Morning came and went, and the boy didn't wake. 

The dog stretched out in front of his closed bedroom door, waiting for the day of dropped foodstuffs to begin.

Waiting on the boy has become a kind of part-time job to supplement her meals.

Cheerios for breakfast. Sandwiches for lunch. An untold number of crumbly snacks, some of them just before dinner.

She sees him and her pavlovian response is to lick her lips.

Not that she doesn't love him with all the tail-wagging love dogs have for their boys, it's just that her loyalties are multiplied by four and divided by an infinite number of snack breaks during any given moment of the day. 

She can always rely on him.

After all, he's the last person in the family who isn't really leaving the house. He's barely leaving his bedroom unless it's to poke his head into the kitchen to rummage through the refrigerator and cabinets.

She approves of his new appetite. She does not approve of his sleep pattern.

She can't seem to settle at night until the technical screens that illuminate his room go dark. 

All morning I've been rummaging around. Banging pots and pans as I shift them from the dishwasher to the cabinets. I am dragging laundry baskets up and down the stairs, letting the phone ring a little longer than is innately comfortable. 

Nothing.

It's noontime, and the room is still silent. I open the door and creep in. The dog paces along behind me. 

The floorboards creak, but he doesn't stir. He is wrapped like a caterpillar in a cocoon of blankets. The room is icy from the air conditioner in his window churning full force.

I touch his forehead, holding my breath. He is warm. But not too warm. I relax a little.

Don't worry, mom …. is forever a contradiction in terms.

It's summer. Let him sleep, I tell myself as I back out of the room, taking the dog with me by her collar. She wants to stay. I should let her. If only she could tell me how long he'd stayed up last night. I know he won't.

When he finally makes an appearance, still sleepy-eyed and slow-moving an hour or so later, he looks taller to me. Even apart from the shaggy hair that points every which way as if it woke up on fire.

He doesn't speak for a while.

There are no "Good mornings," just the sounds of cereal pellets falling into a bowl and a spoon being plucked from the drawer.

I continue to put away dishes as he fills his mouth with sweetened and fortified colorful cardboard. Some of it sloshes out as he drags the spoon across the bottom. The dog is waiting to clean up after him.

I wonder about his mood. His initial quietness isn't as good an indicator as to the angle of his eyebrows. But if it lasts much longer than a second breakfast, we could be in for a very long day.

There is nothing worse than the silent treatment on a hot summer day.

"Did you know that wombats have cube-shaped poop?" 

That's the noise for which I'd been waiting.

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.