Fish or cut bait

As I listened to oral arguments in a case before the Supreme Court concerning Mifepristone, one of two drugs often used in combination, and commonly prescribed by doctors to facilitate abortion, I felt a mix of emotions:

Anger at the thought that denialist doctors and dentists had wormed their way onto the high court’s docket to pitch a case that could force all doctors to abandon evidence-based, and in some cases emergency, medical care to human beings they deemed to be unworthy of the standard of care all doctors take an oath to uphold.

Disbelief about what I was hearing from the counsel for the plaintiffs, who was trying to underscore the harm her clients could endure from merely the thought that they might one day, though some extreme circumstance wherein an anti-choice dentist might be the only medical professional available to treat sepsis in a pregnant woman, have to decide whether the patient had sought an abortion or it had happened spontaneously. 

And, finally, a minor amount of relief that at least some of the ideologues on the bench weren’t biting at the line they’d been cast. 

But even that feeling is fleeting. 

The regulars of this particular fishing trip signaled with their questions how these so-called doctors might one day better land a whopper. Specifically with an antiquated law that governs the mailing of medications. 

Isn’t it enough that guardrails for a doctor’s firmly held beliefs have already been erected?

How many women will die before we acknowledge that that live birth is as rare as pregnancy loss is common? 

Must we continue to endure the chipping away of healthcare autonomy with legal maneuvers bathed in bad faith? Must we suffer the most invasive procedures when the least invasive ones have been standard care for decades?

We must, evidently, because what they are saying the the court is that they do not want to provide the standard of care to anyone they believe is having complications from a pregnancy loss they don’t consider acceptable, or can’t confirm was not the result of human intervention.

As the plaintiff’s attorney dodged one question in particular, it seems her clients might fear complicity so much that they wouldn’t be willing to hand a bottle of water to a non-religious colleague, let alone perform standard procedures to clear the patient of non-fetal tissue for the prevention of infection or death.

Can we truly believe the harm to a practitioner’s soul would in any way match the harm done to the women they would discriminate against by denying emergency medical care? 

In so many of their claims, it seems ensuring that souls endure the most suffering as they experience this “right to life” is the central, though unstated, goal.

I do not believe the majority of us want the sea change in healthcare these fringe doctors are angling for. Nor would we accept such Sisyphean impediments to any other forms of life-saving treatment should our doctors decide the way we consumed food, drank alcohol, or didn’t belong to a church meant we weren’t deserving of righteous care.

And while I am certain these doctors will one day be startled to face a Creator who doesn’t share their belief that using “God-given” talents to deny life-saving care was what she intended, I don’t for an instant think this litigious minority should force the rest of us to turn the other cheek.

At least not when we still have a vote.

-- 

Siobhan Connally
writer, photographer, keeper 

Unexpected flash

 “Oops!” 

I had trained my camera on my husband. He had been lying in bed beside me, head propped up on a pillow while our black cat draped herself over his shoulder like a scarf. I hadn’t hidden the camera, but I had every intention of being furtive in this particular photographic pursuit for posterity.

The room was dark except for their faces, which were illuminated by the word puzzle he was playing on his phone.

The flash had given me away.

My husband laughed at my predicament more than his own.

I had intended to quietly record a different moment in our lives. 

Not just the one in which a sweet feline affectionately paws for his attention, but more pointedly that this serene moment is happening with wires and monitors taped to his face, torso, and index finger. 

Here we are finding a new-age way to fight the dying of the light. 

So many of our stories overlap. Husbands and wives, and parents and children. … That they do is not surprising. But what is often shocking to us is how our shared experiences often diverge.  

A month ago, when he was trying to schedule this sleep test, I was sitting in a waiting room waiting for someone to call my name so that I might be screened for new and more frightening diagnoses.

Instead, his doctor’s office called my phone looking to track down his preexisting conditions, leading me into a testy exchange in which I enquired as to why they had called me instead of him. 

They didn’t think they needed to let me know they were having trouble reaching him. They definitely didn’t think that they needed to remind me I was next of kin.

For better or worse, our stories are all jumbled together. 

For example, the time I took a three-year-old and a five-week-old (by myself) to Maine (while he worked) and the newborn spent four-and-a-half of the six-hour drive crying inconsolably. When I tell the story, I feel like its hero, having survived the arduous journey. But he only hears only that he is a zero for not even playing a minor role in such a major undertaking.

When he tells the one wherein I broke up my relationship with vegetarianism to feast on a foil-wrapped plate of airline chicken, I remind him that is essentially my story and his experience of it mocks me.

 

Not that I mind exactly. 

But he knows what I mean. 

Even these little vignettes can have so many perspectives it can be difficult to focus on the ones from other vantage points. 

Like the stories I tell out of earshot of my kids … the ones that recount cutesie quirks like toddler mispronunciations and silly dances. Youth offers its own richness of embarrassments, they don’t need me laughing about my memories to make them feel foolish. 

It seems like it should be a simple thing, knowing where a story will go … even when it seems straightforward. But it's not always so. Often it’s the unexpected flash that sheds light.

Car talk

 While she packs the car, I check the weather. Though it won't change our path any, my heart is lighter knowing we won’t have to contend with snow or rain. 

Spring break seemed to sneak up on us this year, and now it’s over. 

At least it is over for our college student.

The days off from her school never align with the days her brother receives from her old alma mater, still, we manage to make the most of her time.

We binged on her presence. From family meals to family marathons in front of the television, watching all of the one-hour shows that she’s denied herself until we could all sit side-by-side on the same couch. 

Her life, she notes not unhappily, resembles the outward contours of adulthood. 

She has done all the dutiful things time doesn’t permit during her regular semester. She’s scheduled appointments with doctors and dentists. She’s managed to squeeze in a shift or two of waiting tables to free up some extra income. She meets up with a friend, and takes her brother to school, just like in the old days when she was a kid. 

This time is such a gift. Each minute is precious for its rarity, though I must admit I have not conferred the mantle of adulthood to my firstborn, most likely because our first moments together feel more like recent memory than ancient history. 

I pull out of the driveway and turn right. I follow instructions the map reader calls out, though I think I have driven the route enough times to remember. But I may never put trust in myself when technology so freely offers the comfort of assurity.

No one likes getting lost except in thought or conversation. Neither of which I would expect as we make this commute.

Especially once she asks if she can play music. 

I imagine our conversation will ebb now. I will ask “Who’s singing,” and she will answer a name I do not recognize nor can retain long enough in my memory to retrieve if the song shuffles back within the hour. 

Soon, I was surprised to be wrong. The volume stays low while she directs lines of thought my way. 

Each thought intersects another, knitting the strands of news, secrets, and ideas into a nubbly cloth. Overall, I feel the warmth of her trust. 

I’d like to tell her, but she starts another ride down memory lane. We are back in the car, me driving while she and two friends in the back seat dish about about their lives.

They speak as if we are not merely divided by a generation or two but by an invisible soundproof partition.

Oh, how I love the commute. How a car can’t seem to contain or corral any particular audience. 

Hours pass like minutes. 

By the time we arrive at our destination, we are quiet. I circle the block and cross my fingers, hoping the parking gods will smile down on me so that time can stand still long enough for me to help her ferry bags of books and clean laundry up five flights to her dorm room.

Alas, I must double park and wait for her to complete the circuit twice so as not to risk the inconvenience of a tow.

Finally, she is back and ready for hugs and “see ya next time.”

She knows how much I hate goodbyes. 

Keeping women in the picture

In the big picture, we want to take maternal health seriously. We want to minimize harm to our nation’s pregnant and postpartum patients. And through laws like Paid Family and Medical Leave, we have helped to ensure parents can afford to welcome and care for the new lives they labor into the world.

But what happens when that picture never develops? 

For women like Cassidy Perrone, who delivered her daughter, Olivia, stillborn in 2022, the tragedy is compounded by flaws in the system designed to support them as they recover and try to care for themselves and their families. 

Perrone, the primary breadwinner, learned after the birth that she was ineligible for Paid Family Leave. 

In New York pregnant people who experience stillbirth are currently excluded from receiving Paid Family Leave (PFL), despite their partners being eligible. In some instances having their approved cases revoked after they suffer a fetal loss.

This is why PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy (PUSH), a group of parents and medical providers advocating for those who have experienced stillbirth, is convening in Albany this coming week to call for legislation that would bring awareness to the need for more equity in how paid family and medical leave benefits are determined.

Since PFL is intended for bonding with new babies, caring for ill family members, or managing issues arising from military deployments, a postpartum patient who suffers stillbirth becomes ineligible to obtain PFL because they are no longer categorized as caregivers. Instead, postpartum patients must rely on Temporary Medical Disability Insurance, which pays considerably less as they recover. 

In New York state, temporary disability offers roughly 50 percent of workers’ wages but caps the benefit at a legal maximum of $170. In comparison, PFL offers as much as 67 percent of the claimant’s usual wages.

The disparity, like all disparities in maternal health, disproportionately affects under-resourced families of color, who are more likely to be forced back to work during the most dangerous postpartum weeks.

Women who experience stillbirth are also almost five times as likely to suffer severe maternal complications compared to those who deliver living infants. And experts indicate that using best practices, at least  25% of US stillbirths may be preventable. 

Since the 1940s, improvements in maternity care have resulted in a dramatic reduction in the occurrence of stillbirth; however, more recently, the decline has slowed or halted. In 2020, the latest year statistics are available, the CDC reported about 21,000 stillbirths in the United States. According to the National Institutes of Health, there are approximately 1,400 stillbirths in New York State each year. 

 

“New York’s current Paid Family Leave law forces parents of stillborn babies to make the awful choice between a paycheck and taking time to safely recover during the early postpartum period – a critical time in maternal health when moms are at significantly higher risk of life-threatening medical complications,” says PUSH Executive Director, Samantha Durante Banerjee. 

“This puts these families in an even more precarious situation, literally being forced to choose between their physical and financial health. And it's only exacerbated by the fact that it is totally unexpected, happening in the immediate wake of an immense trauma, and at a time when this family is grappling not only with the loss of a child but also significant financial impacts (funeral and burial expenses, autopsy and testing which often is not covered by insurance after stillbirths, mental health support, etc.) that come along with this devastation,” she said.

“Mothers need at least six weeks to recover physically from pregnancy loss, not to mention to recover emotionally. There have already been too many close calls where mothers with no choice return to work too soon and risk their health. We need a solution now – before a New York mother loses her life,” urges PUSH Policy Director Allie Felker.

PUSH is asking Gov. Kathy Hochul to fast-track legislation that would grant the birthing parent 12 weeks of paid time off regardless of whether labor resulted in a live birth.

Honestly, I don’t know whether PFL is the best vehicle by which to do this or if medical disability should rise to meet the realities of our times since the consequences of lost wages can wreak havoc on all patients and their families. A part of me worries that in either scenario, anti-abortion politicians will always try to weaponize good-faith legislation in their continuing efforts to diminish reproductive rights or dictate to families how they should be configured.   

But I don’t see how we can claim to hold family values in high esteem if we carelessly erase the value of a woman’s financial contribution to her family or the realities of her continued caregiving role even as she convalesces. 

Twelve weeks is a small price to pay if it keeps women in the bigger picture. It’s simply what’s fair. 

——-

 PUSH for Empowered Pregnancy (PUSH) will gather outside the Governor’s Executive Mansion (138 Eagle Street) on Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 2 p.m. 

Divine spine

The conversation was heading in an awkward direction, as conversations about religion and politics often do. 

My mouth was ready to cast off a sentence, which might have amounted to “I’d rather see a church burn than spill a single drop of this-here coffee,” when I managed to reel it back inside. 

A brief chortle, however, propelled me toward ephemeral damnation.

“Do you go to church?”

“No,” I had to admit. “And because I am a lapsed Catholic, I feel the need to verify just how much thought I’ve put into disbelieving.”

He waved me away, not wanting to waste his time with any of my religious meanderings. 

It’s just that he KNEW and I didn’t.

And from here until the end of the session, he would bestow upon me the healing miracles that God bestows … if you are saved.

As he tells me his story … a short one that starts with sitting on a bench in church, praying for nothing in particular, and receiving the shock of feeling a dodgy vertebrae in his lower back shift a whole quarter inch to the right, falling back into place like a puzzle piece, smoothing out the pain he had hardly acknowledged.

The way he described it, was as if the whole congregation felt the godly adjustment. 

He paused long enough for me to pay respects to the power of prayer.

It was in earnest that I replied: I’m so glad for you.

No one could have been more surprised than I was that the spirit had, in fact, moved me.

Even amidst the suspension of disbelief, I couldn’t suspend the feeling that however someone finds true peace, it’s personal.

Not my place to throw a wrench in the works.

Which is where another “holy lecture” found me a few years ago as I stood with a sign in a sea of protesters unmoored by a Supreme Court decision that had overturned the civil right of women’s body autonomy bestowed by Roe Vs. Wade. 

This voice at the lectern, a woman, had called upon her Christian faith and waited a minute as the gathered crowd exhaled a collective groan.

“Now I know what you are thinking. You’ve heard a lot of people of the faith tell you they believe in the right to life, but they do not. If they believed people should have the right to life they’d make sure people also had the right to live it.” 

She preached about how the righteous would be against the taking of lives through judicial and extrajudicial means. They would be against guns, and wars, and hatred. They would be interested in feeding the poor, and housing the homeless. If they wanted healthy, happy babies they would make policies to ensure those babies’ parents were cared for, too. There would be real benefits, not just bootstraps. It takes backbones, too.

I noticed then how the crowd had hushed. And I felt a calm come over me.

I felt my spine tingle.

Like a puzzle piece slipping effortlessly into place.

A year and change

His room doesn’t have a thermostat, but it feels like a balmy 78 degrees each time I knock on his door, tentatively cracking it open a sliver to inquire about the state of his awakening.

Sometimes he’s still sleeping. A starfish splayed out over the mattress; tangled in bed linens.

Often, he is already wide awake.

His whole life is in there … somewhere. The first thing I see when I tip my head inside is a grammar school diorama balanced at an awkward angle on top of a myriad of other possessions …. collecting dust on the dresser. 

I can only step inside but not walk around. Everywhere I look his childhood looks back: A wall of Nerf, shelves of Lego; drawers stuffed to overflowing with clothes that he has long outgrown. He lives out of laundry baskets.

One of these days, (I tell myself daily), I will get in there and take control of the clutter.

The clock is ticking. 

The warm air is pungent with spent socks and the remnants of midnight snacks, but I can also make out the smells of various tinctures and tonics he uses to make his shaves more smooth and his hair more rugged.

I try to be careful. Speak softly, try not to startle him. The moods of teenagers are appropriately fickle whether we parents approve or not. But still … I am his second wake-up call if you count the sunrise clock that makes no sound.

It can be a delicate job that his father often drill-sergeants through to his own detriment. I endeavor to handle him with kid gloves.

Not that we don’t get the same response - I’m awake! - it’s just that he sounds much less annoyed as he relays his assurances that he will be ready to leave on time.

I find trusting his word builds equity. He knows I’ll be the one owing late fees as I wait for a second cup of coffee to brew as he’s warming the car. He doesn’t beep the horn, instead, he pings my phone with a string of “MOM”s in rapid fire. 

We are not going to be late. But time is dwindling. Soon enough - if he follows his sister’s lead - we will be packing a car with all his dorm room essentials. 

Recently, he attended his third college tour. The first that was meant solely for him. As a younger brother, he had trailed along silently but with his eyes fully focused on the work at hand. I could tell he was looking forward to taking his turn one day even if he wasn’t ready to map it all out by himself.

So I made an appointment and sent him off with his father to explore his first choice. A university with two campuses to choose from just outside of his ability to commute. 

“He really opened up,” his father told me on one of many calls to keep me apprised. The boy had navigated maps, asked questions, and chatted with other prospective students with an air of confidence that my husband admitted had come as a surprise.

“He really seems like he’s coming out of his shell.”

Funny how we still see our children as we get closer to ushering them into adulthood.

Ma bell

Her face comes up on the screen and everything around me stops. My breath catches and the room goes silent if only in my consciousness, which has muted what had previously been an entertaining noise.

A cold sweat comes over me; not unlike the sudden panic of a doorbell; perhaps welcome sounds back in the olden days of neighborly caretaking. Perhaps not.

Even back then, the doorbell would send me into a panic. Stranger danger isn’t a new development; mothers everywhere warned their children away from answering doors when they were home alone, or at least from telling the door ringer, or even the phone caller that we were, in fact, home alone. 

But when the house was full, we would trip over ourselves to get to a rigging phone. I’d stretched out the coiled cords, worrying them through closet doors, to get some privacy,  

I can’t say as I miss the days when we used to wall ourselves off in our rooms, listening to music and engaging in marathon-length phone conversations where nothing truly memorable was ever discussed despite how important it all seemed. 

My mother would rattle the door an hour before she needed me to hang up, and again, more fervently at the half-hour mark, so she could place her nightly welfare checks on the elderly aunties before they retired to sleep. 

Things haven’t changed as much as we think. Since we all have our own separate phones, I am at liberty to call (or text) the elderly aunties whenever I like, though still trying for reasonable hours. But I rattle to door to my son’s room every so often just to see his face.

This is what I tell my daughter when I look at the phone tracking app to locate her from afar. I’m not so much checking up as checking in, though I can’t pretend either definition isn’t a first cousin of stalking. 

Unlike her friends’ parents, who track down their kids and quiz them as to why they may be in a sketchy neighborhood after dark, or in a questionable establishment geared toward debauchery, inebriation, and the potential for sophomoric pranks, when I see her icon photo somewhere other than her dorm room, I sigh in gratitude that she’s not just holed up in her cubicle being all alone in her aloneness. 

I walk a fine line, I know. It’s easily crossed. So easy that I don't tell what I know from checking the maps. I don’t let on that I know she was at an arena, or in the shopping district, or at a frat house. What she does is her business. 

I don't expect the good news to travel as fast as the bad. 

Which is why every nerve in my body stands at attention when the phone rings with her face looking to spend time with mine. I do everything in my power not to answer the phone the way my mom used to answer: What do you want … or what’s wrong? 

Often I fail.

“Why can’t your daughter just call you to say hi?”

“Oh, she most certainly can! How’s everything going?”

“Well, everything was going fine but Trader Joe's just stopped stocking cornichons… how am I supposed to live without my gherkins?”

Out of pocket

I thought about the bills I had tucked in my pocket. It was money I had considered saving ... or spending on pizza. I hadn't yet decided. 

I knew I should have taken the time to slide the notes into the wallet. But I didn't want to find my purse. I could be careful I told myself as I walked the dog. They would stay put in my jacket with my phone, a car key, and my hand ... keeping everything sufficiently warm.

It was predictable. I had shuffled all these things several times during the stroll: taking care of Fido's business; pulling out my phone to take a picture of the sun setting; lathering, rinsing repeating. Eventually, I remembered the cash and decided to check. The smaller denomination was clinging to my phone but the larger bill was gone.

It wasn’t a lot but decided to trace our steps backward to see if it had somehow stayed on the road and not taken a ride on the wind.

I didn't find it. Not along the way or at any of the places we stopped. 

I think it is a premonition of hardship to come. I’d rather not say my mind works that way because I know it’s the way I unravel. 

The fear of knowing some loss more than money is always lying in wait.

I tamp down the feelings with something, anything, positive. 

“At least lost money would benefit a finder,” I think.

Which was not the comfort I took from the disappearance of a pocket knife my father had given me as a college graduation present. The one I wanted when I was seven, but he didn’t think I was mature enough to own as a second grader. 

Somehow, I lost it to the ocean the first summer holiday I’d taken as a newly minted adult. I comforted myself then that at least I’d always know about where it was if not exactly. 

Over the years I lost so many things I adored: 

Books I had lent, jewelry that had slipped off fingers, even a beaded cuff my daughter had just given were there and then gone, Like an “Irish Goodbye.”

I wish I could be anywhere else than on a gurney waiting for a needle to take its core samples. Squeezing my eyes shut hoping life after this is more about the finding than the losing. 

Still, I do what I always do. Which is letting my repetitive thoughts bargain with superstition. I will count the steps in each flight of stairs; each second between songs. I will play games of solitaire until my cards align.

I add a year to my age on purpose, wishing I’d never shredded the ARRP welcome letter (with its fantabulous offer of automobile trunk organizers) just for reaching the crest of old age.

Eventually, I know time and inevitability will tarnish its protective effects, which, I can be honest, had never ever been protective. Youth weights probabilities differently. 

But not now. I am not ready to put my affairs in order. But perhaps I am ready to sort through the junk in my trunk. Maybe I’ll find some of the treasures I’ve lost. 

Comfort me, Elmo

When Sesame Street’s Elmo took to social media last week to touch base with followers in his trademark third-person style – “Elmo is just checking in! How is everybody doing?” – the response, an outpouring of angst and unhappiness, was immediate and at times intense.

People told him of their struggles with loss; their marriages, loved ones, pets, jobs, possessions.

They told him of their anguish over the state of the world and their inability to change its seeming trajectory into war and destruction.

And they told him of their general malaise: “Elmo, I’m feeling pretty sad right now. I think I need a hug."

Even celebrities and political figures added to the conversation, including President Biden:

“I know how hard it is some days to sweep the clouds away and get to sunnier days.

Our friend Elmo is right: We have to be there for each other, offer our help to a neighbor in need, and above all else, ask for help when we need it.

Even though it's hard, you're never alone.”

And while it may seem silly – a moment of cathartic exchange set off by a fuzzy member of the Children’s Television Workshop – it is certainly a testament to the lasting impact children's programming has had on our lives.

It's understood from studies dating back to the 1970s, when Sesame Street was still in its toddler years, that children's educational television has had a significant impact on our kids’ school readiness. We all practiced our colors, letters, and shapes from comforting monsters, some of whom lived in trash cans and were benignly grumpy. It made our parents happy.

These colorful, matted muppets perfectly demonstrated the wondrous nature children embody. They may have seemed like children, adults, or imaginary creatures, but these puppets were always safe and accessible.

Elmo was my daughter’s favorite. And for a good long while during her pre-verbal days, I wished he wasn’t.

I didn’t grow up with him. He didn't make me comfortable. At all. I didn’t like the high-pitched voice that confused tenses and referred to himself by name alone. I thought he was whiny. I scoffed at the idea that he was getting grammar wrong on purpose. “He’s using fishes as a noun! How can that be ok?”

But I had grown up. I had lost some of that wonder of childhood.

Elmo didn't speak my language. But he did speak my daughter's -- literally – he spoke the onset of speech for a person new to its practice. He forgot articles and repeated words, but he laughed a laugh of sheer joy that told my daughter getting it wrong isn't scary. He was gentle and sweet and he was learning just like his biggest fans.

It was during a week-long hospital stay when my daughter was 18 months old that I learned to love the sound of his voice as he kept my daughter not only calm but in good spirits.

That experience stayed with me as an adult in much the same way a fondness for wooly mastodons that seem a little sad, and vampires who love counting, had imprinted on my experiences of childhood.

I never said another unkind word about that marvelous monster again.

It's reassuring to know that he's still a creature in whom we can all take just a little bit of comfort.

Democracy may require a ménage a triage

Great Barrington has drawn national attention after an incident in early December in which police, acting on an anonymous tip and with the permission of school officials, investigated whether a copy of “Gender Queer,” a graphic-comic style memoir by Maia Kobabe, was part of a teacher’s lending book collection at the W.E.B. Du Bois Regional Middle School. 

While the outcome of the search, according to news reports, yielded no book, the teacher who was targeted has taken a leave of absence after the incident, and the community is rightly outraged. 

The police department has allegedly  apologized for its part, and town officials have similarly promised to conduct a transparent investigation, but each has tempered some of that contrition with the age-old qualified defense of “just doing our job.”

Numerous spokespeople have cited an “inability” to pick and choose the “crimes” they investigate as a kind of magic eraser for police overreach as they look into the criminality of reading material.

School officials have repeatedly been quoted as saying they feel obligated to allow police access to school grounds when asked because they feel a cordial and necessary partnership with them in the event of an emergency. As if school authorities have no reason to question, let alone second-guess, outside authority. 

Even those who we might hope would be friendly toward the democratic ideals of freedom of speech and expression, have come out and asked what all the fuss was about.

“Personally, I don't think the police did anything wrong. I think they responded to a call, I think they're obligated to respond to a call, they didn't go in there with a SWAT team and armed officers. I think some people are trying to capitalize on this in a very negative way because of what's going on in Florida, in some other states. But I think the police did their job,” is what Massachusetts State Rep. Smitty Pignitali (D) told WAMC.

The American Civil Liberties Union has asked for records pertaining to the investigation and has requested the town to take corrective action that includes instructing school staff that law enforcement's response to concerns about educational material is not only inappropriate but also deeply concerning. Anything less would not only allow but condone the use of police forces to harass and discriminate against certain community members. 

Like the teacher who was targeted by an anonymous phone.

The book in question, a coming-of-age story about identifying as non-binary, was published by Oni Press in 2019 with an initial run of only 5,000 copies. Two years later it had become not only a useful guide for young people in their exploration of self-identity, but also one of the most challenged books in the United States.

 According to the American Library Association and free speech advocate organization PEN America, who track the escalation of censorship and book bans in classrooms and libraries nationwide, the book was targeted for attack by conservative groups, parents, school boards, religious leaders, and politicians across the nation. 

According to PEN, censorship has shown a marked increase during the 2022-2023 school year, much of it driven by new state bans (as well as a few prolific and sometimes anonymous tipsters) that seek to label books that deal with race, sexual orientation, and gender as “explicit, harmful or age-inappropriate.”

 

Police Investigations of school libraries are not just a waste of police resources, it is a misuse of them. It is quite literally using the power of the state to intimidate, and curtail the rights to speech and expression of citizens. 

And if police are not able to discern from a tip line what constitutes criminal activity in a school library maybe there should be some kind of home triage unit that could decide for them.

Because if you buy the explanation that police can't pick and choose what they investigate, I suppose you might also believe that schools shouldn’t be able to determine what constitutes education, or that medical staff aren't allowed to decide for themselves what constitutes a medical emergency. 

Oh wait … 

How do you like your coffee? Reel or Insta?

 “Did you see what I sent you?”

He’s usually sitting on the couch next to me as we divide our attention between three different screens and trying to stay alert to the beckoning of a kitchen timer.

I usually roll my eyes before I change course scrolling to check my messages. I have no idea how many times I'll have to watch this movie before I understand what's happening. 

Over the years, my husband has sent me countless videos gleaned from the internet of seemingly miraculous things:

A scratch-and-sniff “museum” in Japan that offers visitors the experience of smelling various animal butts; A bride and groom who dressed up their pet llama as a groomsman; a pygmy goat who can only relax if he’s dressed in a duck costume; an octopus unscrewing the lid of a jar from the inside; and a never-ending reel of foodie challenges that have got to be based on dares.

“Even if we had a marble counter there is no way I'd spread two jars of gravy and a cylinder of shake cheese as a way of mixing spaghetti and meatballs.”

Honestly, I had never before felt the urge to test any of these (usually) zany (sometimes crass) videos’ validity.

Until now.

All it amounted to was a tight shot of a ribbon of coffee pouring through an orange slice into a demitasse cup.

My husband had found my weakness. A coffee recipe so simple that it might even be foolproof.

Not that I was going to rush into recreating it.

I mean…  I had to watch the 30-second long video over and over despite it having only one step. Thoroughness could take days.

I mean … I had to have the perfect ingredients. This could mean at least four trips to the grocery store to take into account the number of times I leave the place with everything but what I had on my list.

I mean  … it was so simple that when I decided to try it I didn't even bother with a trial run. I was just going to record the simple process and send him my cinematic tribute via instant messenger forthwith.

Eventually, I would get it all together. 

Ready? Set? The camera was rolling now. 

I knew what to expect as I steadied my hand against it and waited for the magic to happen.

The coffee sprang forth from the espresso machine like a freight train in a winter storm. Steam and froth accompanied the brown liquid as it poured onto the slice of orange I had placed over my cup.

But instead of filtering through the sliver of citrus the espresso cascaded over the edge and created a river on the counter.

#@^&!! Internet! I laughed as I cut the video and promptly sent it off into the green chat bubble toward the mister.

Three dots later he had a helpful suggestion: 

“In the video, the orange has a hold in the center. Maybe you shouldn't get the seedless?”

In dogged pursuit

The unnamed roadways on the Island De Vieques pushed northward in steep elevation along the coastline, and I pushed myself up their pockmarked surfaces at as steady a pace as I could muster. 

It was the last day of our acquaintance, and I was saying farewell to the lovely and rugged place with a final jog around the neighborhood. 

It wasn't my first ride on this particular carousel. but I was still wary. 

During the six days I'd been here, I had gotten lost at least twice and encountered a host of curious animals -- everything from hermit crabs and iguanas to wild horses.

Most of them ignored my intrusion once they realized the things I carried – a phone, a beach towel, a pair of sunglasses – contained no nutritional value. 

But nothing frightened me more than the dogs that roamed loose. I had kept a lookout for them, making note of places I'd seen the scruffier ones linger in hopes of avoiding any unwanted surprises. I took pains to scuff my feet on the gravel as loudly as possible, doing so I hoped would herald my whereabouts.

I was having success: 

I startled a shaggy mixed breed that looked like a relative of Little Orphan Annie’s pooch (1982 Movie not the ‘76 Broadway Musical) but he deduced I was harmless and continued on his merry way, nosing through some litter. 

I came face to snout with Old Yeller’s clone and got the distinct message (from his raised hackles and continuous growl) that he did not want me to pass anywhere near his humble abode. So I turned on my zero-drop heels and went along MY merry way.

Then there was the adorable pair of teacup pooches of the fluffy variety all alone in front at the boutique hotel just a few doors down from where I'd ventured out, and where my relatives were still sleeping akimbo. The pups looked comfortable and fetching in their matching outfits and bejeweled collars. But as I approached the place where I imagined their relatives were still checking out, they snarled and bared their teeth. 

Circling back. 

I'll just cut over on the nearest side street and cross my fingers that it will connect with the broader loop. I've already run one and a half miles; one and a half more would scratch the itch. 

It's restful here. The air is warm but not heavy. The hills give and take. The traffic I encounter of the automotive variety never reaches top speed thanks to narrow roadways laden with speed bumps. 

I am at the bottom of a steep hill and jogging upward, having almost completed my second circle when I hear some commotion behind me. 

The jingle of collars, nails scraping the pavement, and barks that travel through deep chests. 

There are two of them. 

I am afraid to look back. Afraid to lock eyes. But I know. They have different gaits and their growls have different pitches.

I instinctively stop running, knowing I can't outrun them but hoping that slowing down will give all of us more time to think. 

But I don't dawdle. I set my sights on the top of the hill and push the pace.

“Stay calm,” said the voice in my head who was telling me what I already knew: a pack of dogs that would ambush me from behind was not interested in playing. 

I feel one of the dogs touch the back of my knee. It feels like the dry lips of a horse flapping at a palm hoping to slurp a handful of something tasty. And then came the pressure. Not a bite. Maybe the swipe of a heavy paw?

I wish I had a rock to throw at their broadsides. Even if I might miss. Chances are fair that at least one of them might trade the chase for an instinctive game of fetch. 

In my escalating panic, the voice of actor Matthew McConaughey comes rushing out of my mouth like it's air from a punctured tire. 

“ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT … I've got no intention of moving in on your action.” 

And like movie magic, once the three of us reached the top of the hill, the dogs turned back and disappeared into parts unknown.

I took off running.