Into the woods

We gathered at the car park. A gaggle of friends intent on running a few miles after-work and off the so-called beaten path.

There is little doubt, trails can be punishing.

We face perils at every turn. 

It's only the second of a four-week series, and we haven't exactly gotten the bumps smoothed over. 

It's not supposed to be easy. 

Although, it wouldn't hurt to plan for the bare essentials.

Like why do I keep forgetting to bring bug spray?

Bloodthirsty mosquitoes, vector ticks and poorly marked trails are the least of our worries. ... We will literally run across fields full of woodchuck holes and happen upon fenced-in dogs who are finally getting the opportunity to run free.

We haven't even discussed the possibility of what to do if we happen upon a bear, or a raccoon or an overly familiar squirrel. 

I push all that to the edge of my mind and lace up. There's nothing quite like running in the woods. 

The shaded quiet of trees overhead give us cover to watch the sky open up with dappled light. We delight to feel soft earth under our feet as we take extra care, avoiding the mounds of lush, green moss and bright orange newts we encounter along the path. 

There's no denying it's beautiful here. 

Our guide, who runs through this place on the regular, points out the local lore. We are happy, sweaty tourists.

He tells us about the Sheep Dip, a trickle of water falling over rocks that feed into a slow stream. That's where the flock would cool off back in the day, he explains. We will have to see Magical Rock another day, since we zigged. Next time, he promises, we'll zag. 

I tried to follow the leader closely as we circled the landscape. Acknowledging that my sense of direction lacked any sense at all. I knew, left to my own devices, I might be here forever.

Which, I told myself, wouldn't be so terrible. I could live in the shady shadows with the crickets and the hop-frogs while the rest of the world burned itself out. 

This is the thought I hold as I try to keep up in the hour allotted for this little jaunt.

The pandemic has changed me some. Where I had once chosen the pest-free tables inside, I now rejoice in the availability of a patio table. I recognize it more as I tackle the hill ahead of me in small steps. It is an easy climb if I keep conversation to a minimum.

The air smells different here. Earthy and sweet. The light looks different, too. It casts a warm shadow all around. As I run up the next hill, my watch reminds me that I am slower than usual, yet I feel like I'm flying. The soft ground absorbs all manner of shocks that would assail. my shins were my feet hitting the pavement.

The hill turns into a valley, and my pace accelerates naturally. 

I didn't see the root that tripped me up. 

Thanks to the forest's earthen floor and its carpet of verdant moss, I barely felt the impact of my fall. I wasn't even sure whether the "snap" I heard came from a twig or my ankle. But I knew exactly what kind of pain I was feeling: The kind that told me I had zigged when I should have zagged. And worst of all, I'll probably be missing this magical place (and its Magical Rock) for the next six to eight weeks.

Intentional community

The room had so much nervous energy. A hundred parents perched on rows and rows of stackable chairs waiting for the keys to this new universe ... university. 

"What are you feeling? Just shout it out." 

I have to admit, I was skeptical. A college orientation for parents? 

I expected the mustachioed man from the insurance commercials to emerge and gently tell us how we could avoid the mistakes of all parents who came before us.

Instead we met Candy, who introduced herself as the director of student engagement at the school of a-very-long-name within the university that also has an acronym I couldn't for the life of me remember, and had asked us this question earnestly. She smiled sweetly as she waited for an answer. 

"Come on, you won't surprise me."

A voice in the crowd ventured a guess. 

"Excitement."

I winced and lifted my eyes to the ceiling fixing my gaze on the row of inset lights overhead. 

I dialed back my sarcasm enough to admit that "excitement" was perhaps the most hopeful and measured of responses. But this person, I thought, was probably being as candid as a middle school photographer. Hoping that with some authoritative suggestion they might substitute the truth with some toothy grin.

The remainder of the gathering must have sensed this, too, because the room erupted in the naming of a range of emotions that seemed more accurate if painfully so: "Anxiety." "Fear." "Loneliness." "Joy!"  "Jealousy."

I felt it all. But mostly I felt terrified.

The dean didn't need to tell us what we all suspected: that we, the undersigned of the next crop of first-year students, were on the cusp of beginning our lives as the proud new parents of a bouncing adult; and this two-day, 17-part symposium, was cleverly designed to give us the basics tools to more effectively let go. 

But oh, no. Lest you think this was the pep talk of all pep talks; the magical string of words that would halt the helicopter parents' rotating blade. This speech and all the speeches that followed were intended to give us the framework by which we could helicopter from a safe, more secure distance. 

Knowledge, it turns out, is the key to that trust and the cornerstone of every big thing we endeavor to build. Well, knowledge and the ability to find resources online.

Candy, knew what we were thinking, even before we all thought it. 

"Your child got here. That means they are capable of great things. But that doesn't mean they will make this enormous transition alone, and we don't expect them to."

Then Candy ran down a list of first-year hardships that ranged from the conflicts that may arise when one is dropped into a room the size of a walk-in closet with two strangers; to the amount of deflation, the ego may suffer just before Christmas when the first grades of their college careers come calling. 

The honeymoon will be over. 

"The most important thing you can do to support them now is to understand how we are here for them find solutions. Because one day they will call you with a problem, and we know that you can absolutely help. But we don't want you to call us, we want you to encourage them to take the initiative. They will listen. We know this because we have evidence that parents still have an enormous influence on their student's decisions."

Somehow, those words gave me the key I had been searching for. That this method wasn't madness, it was intentional and important.

Knowledge really does feel empowering. 

Into the lion's den

Republican operative John Faso seemed revelatory as he joined WAMC's Roundtable panel on Monday. Alan Chartok, the more liberal host, showered the conservative former representative with praise for taking up airspace in the studio. He likened this bravery to sticking one's head in the proverbial "lion's den."

They were going to talk about the end of Roe, and Faso was the only person in the room who approved of the decision.

For women like me listening at home, the previous weekend had been spent in a strange state of disbelief. Yes, we knew it was coming. But just after 10 on the morning of June 24th, we learned the Supreme Court had overturned the landmark decision that had protected a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy for half a century.

Faso's side had won. And, depending on how one explains it, the court's conservative members had either saved the potential for human life, or they had ripped away a basic constitutional protection from millions of people who can become pregnant: The right to make essential healthcare choices for themselves.

I felt revulsion just listening to Faso spin truth into lies: Turning the fact that majority of Americans would put some restrictions on abortions into a a misguided mandate to prevent most abortions from being legal.

It doesn't surprise me.

He is not of the people. He has always set himself apart. Even in his early days as an assemblyman, he had a constituent arrested when the man called his listed home number and became impolite. As a member of Congress, he pushed many duplicitous falsehoods intended to divide and conquer: linking food stamps to crime; fighting worker protections; to the final blow of voting down healthcare after assuting a cancer patient he wouldn't take it away.

Faso, the polite and presentable Trump ally, even said the quiet parts aloud as he argued "States' Rights" to decide which women and which religions will get the permission to express themselves freely while our medical systems become incapable of doing less harm. 

The point was honed when a fellow panelist, Libby Post, asked him to explain why, in the matter of body autonomy, his faith could trump hers? Why, she had asked, should she be thwarted from following her Jewish faith, which holds that human life begins at first breath, not at conception and further requires abortion to viewed as a life-saving option.

Faso, on air, called Post's beliefs an "outlier," and then tried to backtrack when she rightly called him on the implicit bias of his comment - that the Jewish law was, by definition, a thing differing vastly from all other groups or sets.

He left the studio soon after that, citing an appointment he had elsewhere.

If he regretted his choice of words, I didn't hear him say it.

Not that it matters. As a Trump supporter who claimed he found the former president's crassness distasteful, Faso was happy to accept the spoils in the interests of Conservative goals.

Though Faso denies it, we should know what's next.

With precedent dead, the questions of who you can marry, who will be allowed to discriminate against you, what you can say and where you can travel in your own country will be revisited. And they're not done with women yet either: Not having the right to choose doesn't mean termination exclusively. The right to protect ourselves with birth control or from spousal rape, even the ability to try and become a parent using the miracle of science, will all find unsympathetic jurists on this court.

Faso is a harbinger not a hero.

We are all heading into the lion's den.

What are you wearing?

"What are you wearing?"

I hesitated for just a moment. I don't know what she means. Is she criticizing my clothes? I look down … My shirt didn't have anything silly emblazoned on it … my pants didn't have holes. My sandals didn't show socks… I couldn't even find a smidgeon of mustard anywhere.

What's wrong with what I'm wearing?

“Not what you're wearing now …(doofus). What do you plan to wear to the graduation ceremony.”

“I don't know. I suppose I'll have to wait to find out what the temperature will be.”

The 10-degree swing in the forecast had me questioning all of my options.

But my daughter didn't want to compare climate concerns with respect to our outfits. She didn't want to know if I was planning on wearing sensible shoes ... or a maxi skirt. She wanted to know whether I was planning on wearing something that might embarrass her.

She wouldn't put it past me to throw on some boxy sweatshirt and the shapeless cargo pants that I tend to live in throughout the summer.

She knows I'm unlikely to wear a dress ... even the one she gave me during the pandemic that I promised to wear to the Post Office. Of course, she knew I had already been seen in that flouncy floral delight ... at her brother's middle school graduation ... and out to dinner once. ... and yes, even at the Post Office one Tuesday during the thickest point of isolation. 

But does she think I'm going to wear something that will call attention to the unstylish rube that I am: Maybe a bright orange blouse more befitting a Halloween pirate.

I can't blame her for the concern. It's not like I've NEVER shown up at school dressed in a gorilla outfit topped by a mermaid costume and a magician's hat.

"Don't worry. You will recognize me. ..."

Truth is … I'd already picked it out: Jeans with a long jacket - dressed up on this day with bright colors and a pair of strappy sandals. A mixture of styles I've worn in some fashion or other since my own high school days.

I could see her shudder.

It doesn't matter to her that these items all came from second-hand shops, but it may be of some surprise that they have some of the upscale labels my mother would have worn. The fabrics harken to a similar vintage: nearly antique.

“Hey, I may even use the iron.”

I go into my closet and extract the proof. The hangers click satisfyingly as I stretch out the fabric for her approval.

She nods with astonishment.

“You have come a long way, baby.”

One might think experience and maturity might have sent me down this path of dressing my age ... but no. My daughter, with her keen grasp of mathematics and style, has taught me the important angles of at least "looking" put together.

Turns out I was pretty close to having this key to the style universe all along.

She calls it a Capsule Wardrobe and it means you wear the same fifteen pieces of clothing on a rotating basis ... only the separates cost a fortune otherwise you have to call it Mix and Match.

The trick, of course, is to avoid buying the other 4,328 pieces that never seem to blend in.

Out of the ordinary

I wish my father were here. 

I miss him. Not just on Father's Day, of course, but his absence today looms large.

He wasn't a Hero ... or The Best Dad Ever. He couldn't be categorized by a card. He was just a guy who loved his kids and his grandkids and did his best for the family.

A part of me loved him most for the things he didn't get exactly right.

The indelible moments.

The hour-long trip into the snowy woods to find the perfect Christmas tree, only to realize the trip back would mean another hour's trek dragging the quarry with a half-frozen toddler on top.

The eighth birthday party, held at the Snow Dock in Albany watching the garbage barge float past, when it turned out the bowling alley was closed.

He wasn't perfect but he was enthusiastic. Pride wasn't his motive.

He rarely took the easy path. A David fighting Goliaths. 

He hummed the music of Aaron Copland. He loved the poems of Robert Frost. He had strong feelings about politics and prose. He was anxious, but he didn't worry. He loved my mother. He hated eggs.

He would have grand tutorials around the operation of his electric train set, but I don't think he ever instructed us on the commodified evils of leaving the lights on in a room we'd vacated. He'd just shut them off.

He had an impish laugh, too. The kind of laugh that started silently and wracked his slender body until it took full control. He often found humor at his own expense, but he found amazement everywhere else.

"Did I ever tell you ...." is how he began most of his stories.

About how the old neighborhood looked. How he met my mother. What shenanigans his pals at work had gotten up to. What the grandkids had said last week that made him "laugh like a fool."

Of course, he had told them all before, but there was something about his voice that always made me want to hear them again. I could picture the tale as though it were flickering behind him on a movie screen.

Nothing out of the ordinary. 

It doesn't really surprise me that, according to history, this American day of honoring dads was ingrained by a daughter who simply admired her dad.

It also doesn't surprise me that the sentiment felt so embarrassing that it took a while for the nation to catch on.

Fatherhood, according to long understood lore, was more of a noun than a verb.

My father often remarked that he only found the true joy of fatherhood later, as retirement gave him time to spend with his grandchildren. Toting them around to swim classes or ballet performances. Letting them play with the model trains before they'd even learned the basics.

"Did I ever tell you how when you were little I used to go to work before you woke up and get home after you'd fallen asleep? You'd cry when you saw me on weekends because I was a stranger.

"I'm glad things are different now."

Looking forward

As graduation nears and all of its transitions loom on the horizon, I can't say a single one of us feels ready.

Though each day of this year has been leading us here, I still can't really believe it's happening. I close my eyes, and my daughter's first graduation comes into a clear focus.

The white construction paper hat, with its shimmering tassels of scissor-curled ribbon. A little girl with big plans ... So ready to move on ... to kindergarten.


Thirteen years have passed since that day. Four-thousand-seven-hundred and forty-five days.

Her unkempt hair and princess dresses have gone by the wayside, replaced by understated togs and sweeping locks Rapunzel might have envied were she a real girl like ours.

To her this moment has been slow in coming.

To me, it seems like no time has passed at all. We are all grateful to have made it through with more highs than lows.

This season of celebration, however, seems clouded in uncertainty. The stakes, of course, seeming infinitely more daunting.

In our lives. In our communities. In our understanding of how we fit into the world we live more, and more of us feel ill at ease.

It seems so dark right now. There are so many fears.

Stress stirs them up and makes tears boil over.

Every decision is fraught with anxiety.

Life itself is a risk.

Or is that just perception?

Is this life just on repeat?

The change from childhood to adulthood in one stage crossing. The pivot of a shimmery tassel from one side of her mortarboard to the other.

The accomplishment comes with a sigh of relief. We made it.

And in life's true irony, her achievement, not unlike the folder she'll receive for the photo op, will seem empty.

We have to believe it's worth all this angst, in part, because we bought the sales pitch.

It is what you make of it, or so they say. Where resilience seemed so empowering once, now it seems to be a side-effect forced by acceptance.

Maybe it's just in the moment we find ourselves. A time when so much is being taken away for no reasonable purpose. The worsening of our experiences in a nation that used to aspire toward being free.

It's hard to know what's real. It's hard to catch our breath when instincts take over.

When things don't work out the way you planned; When you have regrets;  When you feel like you are failing, and having to start over from scratch.

There are so many things we can't know for certain. So much of our experiences are strongly felt but not easily explained. Not even to ourselves.

I do not know the best way to chart a course. I know that hard work and dedication don't always mean you will realize your goals. What we want isn't always what we need. Just like I know that winning doesn't always mean we were right.

But we are still here. Looking forward to what happens next.

Greeting and salutations from that little old tree in the forest

The voice sounded so mature.

"Hello!"

I had just walked into the house and past the room where we welcome overnight guests, when a voice trailed after me.

"I'm sorry, I can't take your call right now. Please leave a message at the beep, and I will return your call as soon as possible."

Of course, I recognize this voice as it follows me on my quest for a lunch of last night's leftovers. 

My son. Sounding like a radio announcer, all smooth and silky, was replacing the outgoing message on his phone as he cuddled up with the dog on the guest bed sofa sleeper.

But something sounds off.

He notices, too.

"Hello! I'm sorry, I can't take your call right now, but please leave a message at the beep and I will get back to you soon."

Still wrong.

“Hello! I am sorry to miss your call. Leave a message at the beep. and I will get back to you.

I stood there without speaking, salvaged salad in hand, and just looked at the two of them for a while. Her graying muzzle rested on the crook of his knee as he scratched between her ears. She groaned softly has he repeated the takes.

 A lump swelled in my throat at the nostalgia before my heart sank.

"HELL-o … "

I wasn't prepared for the effrontery of this new baritone boy erasing his predecessor's froggy-throated message delivered via prank ....

"Hello? ...."

And in the the moment of hesitation after the question mark's lift, I would forge ahead with my assuage until ..

"Ahhhhhhhm not here! Leave a message and I'll call ya back!"

It got me every single time. 

Except now that little scoundrel was gone. Replaced by a new, more mature boy who was in possession of a piece of blue card stock, which permitted access to entry-level employment of limited scope during the summer. 

This new boy intuitively knew the old boy's sophmoric snark might limit his opportunities further. 

Of course, staring too long at your teenage son, is a known antidote his aspirational suave. He begins to squirm under the scrutiny.

His serious demeanor dissolves and he crosses his eyes and hopes I'll disappear.

Maturity isn't here full time just yet.

I look away … only to get another surprise:

A table lamp is lying on the floor, and next to it are the cordless phone and a small framed photo. The trio must have gathered each other up for companionship upon descent.

"Hello! What happened here?"

"Oh! There was a commotion between the dog and cat before. I didn't really pay much attention. Must have been one of them that knocked everything over."

So much for trees falling in forests, not getting heard.

As I suspected, it doesn't matter much if you heard it falling or not. The tree is still down, and the hikers are just going to walk around it until there's a new path to follow.

Our inside voices need to get louder on gun control

Another school massacre.

Another letter from a superintendent trying to reassure us that they are doing everything humanly possible to keep our kids safe. 

Scroll through the news: Experts offer suggestions on how to talk to our kids.

Increasingly we feel unable to remain calm as the torturous details of this latest slaughter trickle out. We need our kids to function and remain in good spirits for their next active shooter drill. We need them to stay calm so that we may all carry on.

Cheerleading, perhaps, as we continue to accept such an unacceptable situation.

We heed yet another call from politicians to deliver our thoughts and prayers as they raise their hands and shoulders skyward against an idea that the right to bear arms is unassailable. 

Everything else is fair game, I guess.

We will question all motives. 

Even my husband, a supporter of weapons bans wondered aloud: "Do you think Beto was pandering?"

I tell him that I reject his question's premise ... unless we redefine pandering as begging for much-needed change.

"Beto said what we ourselves think. We should all be so impolite.

My husband apologized for asking. He just wants to be on the same page.

The one not sullied by motive and opportunity.

We will distract ourselves with calls for more security. Maybe we'll consider building metal detectors into every doorway. Maybe we'll require our teachers to be armed. More and more will die, but we will accept the press conference jargon ... that it could have been worse.

It has only gotten worse.  

The only change we'll see is the Gun Deaths line on a graph shoots ever upwards. It's been two years since that line shot past automobile accidents as the Number One killer of children under 18.

Still, the seventy percent of us who want effective Gun Control are unable to thwart the thirty percent who are managing to enact Gyn Control instead. 

None of this is ok. But what can we do? 

Why can't we enforce the "well-regulated militia" part of the second amendment?

Why can't we ban military-style weapons?

Why can't we require insurance and licensing for every single gun? 

We have been effective in creating a system that protects neither life nor liberty. Or ... as thethirty percentt are so fond of telling us ... we live in a Republic not a Democracy. 

It's easy to feel hopeless. 

The gun industry is banking on that despair for its livelihood. a never-ending circle of violence. 

There is so much more we can do to exert political pressure over this status quo. We should remind ourselves that Beto, using his inside voice to speak truth to power, and being shouted down with expletives, should strike a nerve within us all. 

Mamie Till showed the world what hatred did to her child. It is well past time we make our leaders take a long, hard look at what their greed keeps doing to ours.

Sisyphus, Running

Running is often a solitary sport.

Alone, we keep our bodies in rhythm as we try to outpace our thoughts. We may charge up a hill with an upbeat tempo feeding into our headphones and roll back down, listening to the sound of the songbirds gliding along on the breeze.


It can get lonely.


Running, as a practice, is supposed to be a kind of “de-stressor.”


So, of course, one of the first rules in running clubs is: Don't talk politics. It will only make the activity distressing.


Stepping on toes, both literally and figuratively, can lead to dangerous places: quite literally a blood-pumping, heart-pounding way to a leaner, meaner you.


It can also lead to long, sole-crunching silences.


Which is exactly where I found myself after accidentally wandering into the topic of Roe-reversal at mile-two of a six-mile run: feeling like the someone had pressed the mute button on the world.


My Republican friend couldn't understand why his Liberal friends, like myself, had to keep saying the word "abortion." Especially since many people like him – well-meaning citizens without the benefit of a medical degree -- hadn't understood how many other reproductive procedures the bans might restrict.


He was just starting to understand the consequences: That the same drugs and procedures prescribed for early abortion are also prescribed for the treatment of early miscarriages; and that pharmacies may not fill those prescriptions in fear of legal reprisals. He didn't know how many procedures used to treat medical complications, including fetal demise, have been hog tied by the abortion debate as it has been written into the letter of the law. But he still feels the weight of a moral quandry: That it seems as if there are too many women who aren't being responsible with their choices. And who wouldn't want to save babies?


He knew a few women who had bad experiences or had used abortion as birth control. It didn't seem right.


So these are the stakes?


“I see the handful of people you know personally who use abortion as "birth control," and raise you the handful I've known whose abortions allowed them to continue educations, leave unhealthy relationships or saved their lives.

"This isn't politics, it's personal."


I say the words. Loudly, and with feeling.


"We can not make it our business, as a nation, to make abortion inaccessable for those who need one. Abortion must be safe, and it must be legal throughout the duration of a pregnancy because things can always go wrong. We need to ensure that women have the best healthcare for them. We have to be able to direct the course of our lives. Women should have the right to determine whether they are ready to be pregnant from the very start and that we can have the most compassionate care at the end if something goes heartbreakingly wrong. Abortion is healthcare for women."


The sounds of our running shoes scratching through gravel suddenly got louder. All other sounds retreat.


The silence startles me for a moment.


I begin to apologize, but he won't accept. He says there is no need. We are friends.


“We all just need to keep talking, keep listening, and keep trying to find common ground.”

I can't take back my position, but I want to roll back my rage.

This may be the hill I'm willing to die on, but  I rather the death be from exhaustion than getting flattened over and over by the heavy burden I tried to push up here by myself.

On The Town (Fate, Accomplice)

… : )

Hey, mom? What are you doing later?

I could almost hear the honey in her voice as I read the text.

This, dear friends, is not an open-ended question meant to ascertain a person's availability for a fun and frivolous after-work past-time.

Intuition (and experience) told me this was a trick. And it begged for an open-ended response.

"Why, what's up?"

Three dots pulsated again and then disappeared.

When the words finally appeared they offered nary a hint of specificity. 

"I was hoping you'd do something for me."

I imagined her voice as sharp Boston vowels tumbling from Ben Affleck's mouth: "I need your help. I can't tell you what it is, you can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna hurt some people."

I thought for a moment about forwarding my to-do list complete with appointments and meetings, making a particular notation of a closeted desire ... that one of my teenage progeny might gather up the dunes of laundry spreading through the house on the shifting winds of the season and put their grains where they belong.

I don't want to be the one doing the “sniff test.”

That, I know will happen someday, when they get houses and washers and children of their own. Today is not that day. Today she wants me to take her shopping. She has her own car ... her own money ... her own ideas about what she wants. Why is she asking me to be a part of it?

Is this a trick?

What can I offer? The past should inform her that her mother can only lay a wet blanket over the fire within. I can bring the admonition for spending too extravagantly. I have reached the age (unhappily) that the let-me-speak-to-your-manager vibe isn't as mortifying as it should be. Surely, she's not anywhere near ready to allow me to be the conduit between her youthful sensibilities and the desire to get a sale price.

She can't want me to talk her out of whatever skimpy thing shaped like clothes that her heart desires ... Or to make her think about the cost basis ratios … can she?

Dresser drawers? Washer? Trash? Maybe it's Trash, washer, dresser drawers ... The order of operations has always been quite flexible. 

I've been here before. Only I wasn't the mother then. 

Youth fashion hasn't changed all that much since I used to try and fit in. 

Time is so weird how it moves in fits and starts. How it weaves in and out. 

Time with her as I have experienced it ... the daily hum of music, song, arguments, hugs, laughter, tears, papers rustling, clothes thrown here and there, finger-pointing, eye-rolling, slammed doors, the occasional plate of warm cookies, and an explosive mess in the kitchen ... will freeze.

But it won't stand still. 

She will be three hours away, living her best life. And I will be waiting for those three pulsating dots to complete our connection.

For once, I won't say what I'm thinking. 

Instead, I respond with my best Jeremy Renner imitation: "Whose car are we gonna take?"

Wish us well

 Don't wish me a happy Mother's Day.

 

I am a person.

 

A person with a uterus.

 

A person who has grown fetuses. Birthed babies

 

I am a person who has chosen a path.

 

A path that was sometimes made rockier because people can identify me as a woman.

 

Considered less. Valued less. Always expected to do more ... with less. 

 

Separate. Not equal. That's life. 

But as we face a new dystopian future, I am a very unhappy mother.

 

True, I have moved past the phase in my life where my body can grow an organ to sustain a fetus. But my body has done this twice. Both times it was daunting and not without unpleasant and frightening complications. 

 

I didn't fully understand the seemingly limitless risks involved in pregnancy and childbirth as I was about to undertake them. A lot of the choices came down to probabilities calculated by others with more knowledge about all the complications that could occur. The cynical part of me would tell you they didn't want me to worry my pretty little head about.

 

The truth is there are so many things that can go wrong, it would be near impossible to explain all of them in the course of a single office visit.

 

That's what I told myself In the aftermath of my pregnancies: Everyone did their best. Because how could an ordinary person willingly put themselves at such risk when the outcome could be as life ending as life affirming? 

 

People who want babies will.

 

But why should people who don't want children be forced to take any of those risks?  A decision made by five people in a marble courthouse who firmly and cynically  believe laws that made abortion understood as a constitutional right were, instead, “wrongly decided” and not “settled law” after all? Five originalist thinkers working us back into a place where our inhabitants are either enslavers or the enslaved.

Unacceptable.

 

Your husband can’t make you give him a kidney, but he can make you give him a kid? 

 

And the state will enforce this labor. And not only will it enforce it, it will ensure that the labor is as hard and hurtful as humanly possible.

 

Do we accept this as we have accepted restricted access to abortion and birth control? Like we have allowed over-burdensome regulations: Forced cooling periods; multiple and unnecessary medical procedures. Extreme scrutiny including the gauntlet of harassment that has accompanied us to even the most routine medical exams and procedures?  

 

Do we accept another hurdle to proper care like we accepted the impossibility of getting birth control from the dominant Catholic healthcare system?

 

As I contemplate these questions, I wonder what my life would have been like had this country fully embraced my humanity. I can’t imagine what my daughter’s experience will be when our country denies hers entirely. 

 

The dystopian future that Margret Atwood showed us just a few decades ago in literature seems closer than ever to becoming real life. Parts of it have always been here. 

 

It’s not ironic that the handful of extremists on the Supreme Court shaping this future have relied on the great injustices of our past to get us there. 

 

There is no going back. Not because we have come "too far," but because we haven't gone nearly far enough. 

Don't wish your mother a happy day today. Wish her a healthy one.

I am Switzerland

The war broke out in our car on the way to the restaurant. The girl, now aged to the earliest point of adult maturity, had fired the opening shot. It had seemed to come out of nowhere:

"New York bagels are the only bagels anyone should eat. You shouldn't bother with bagels from anywhere else."


Granted, I hadn't been listening to the conversation happening on either side of me. I had been sitting there on the hump, thinking about dinner and, with every bump in the road, reconsidering my decision to let everyone prone to car sickness, (or whose growth-spurting bodies no longer comfortably fit in the car's "way back" seats) travel in relative comfort.


The boy's head bolted upright as if roused from sleep by the blast of a horn.


"How can any bagel be bad? By definition, they are dense orbs of starch goodness. Toasted and buttered, they can not fail."


Then it got heated .. or more precisely ... it got a little hot over the dish served cold. And the barbs started to fly past me in both directions.


"What do you mean 'toasted," I'm not talking about secondary processing. The flavors of cream cheese or the salt-ratios of butter. I'm talking about plain bagels taken from a bin and put straight into a paper bag. I'm talking about the attributes of the raw, unadulterated bagel."


For a moment there was mouth-gaping silence.


She had stuck out her proverbial beach. Left it wide open. And he saw the opportunity.


His eyes sparkled as he went for the kill.


"Oh. Well, that explains it then. You are a crazy person who eats raw bagels and decides they don't pass muster. Your bagel expertise is based on a taste for uncooked dough, which, let's face it, is entirely gross no matter what state the Bagel Bakery works out of."


I so wanted to take her side.


She wasn't wrong. There are certainly awful bagels to be had. Thin and anemic, they are often frozen monstrosities that our moms bought in bulk and would get covered in delicate ice crystals before we'd get hungry enough to thaw one out and try to choke it down with a slathering of peanut butter.


But neither was he. In the hours before The Big Shop market day, as the delectable snacks dwindle, you will eat that slab of starch the package calls a "bagel" and you will like it. That's how "junk food" works its terrible magic.


It's also how freshman boys who would rather get root canals than do another page of Earth Science homework, win debates against senior girls who have just been accepted to about a dozen discerning colleges.


Which is where just one ounce of maturity. One moment of calm left out to warm, could turn this whole thing around.


And I saw HER eyes gleam.


“Oh, I see what this is: It's a schmear campaign.”


Just like that the argument ended in laughter.

I didn't even have to use my secret weapon: knowledge that the most popular bagel in New York City right now gets trucked in from Redding, Connecticut.

Somehow I managed to stay in the frying pan and out of that fire. I'm willing to bet it's all because I prefer Swiss on my bagel.

Our lucky day

 He was just the kind of man you might expect to see at a local coffee shop, enjoying retirement and discussing the evils of tourism on the old home turf. And we are just the type of tourists who wrongly think they blend in.

The man smiled, identified himself as Dave, and checked us in for an experience we weren't exactly ready for: Horse hunting.

Specifically, we would be hunting for a glimpse of the wild horses of Corolla, which are thought to be the descendants of Spanish mustangs that were either shipwrecked or left by explorers who landed on the northern end of North Carolina's outer banks in the 16th century. 

Dave handed us a few waiver forms with paragraphs of small-print legalese we would not read in its entirety before we signed in the two places required and initialed in the six more locations he'd have to point out a second time. 

"I need someone to ride shotgun," he said affably, looking directly at my son, who was conspicuously dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and a straw hat that eclipsed the sun. 

"I'm thinking it's you, bud," he said, handing the boy a duck grey parka from a pile before asking the rest of us -- who did not realize an open truck out on the dunes would get mighty cold -- if we wanted an extra layer. 

Dave warned us from the jump that spotting the mustangs is never certain, and the group before ours had a tough time finding any on the two-hour tour. 

There was something surreal about piling into a truck and winding our way through housing developments that dot the dunes like sandcastles. There were no paved roads, just signposts in the sand. 

Our guide slowed. The truck inched along one stretch of marshland forest after another. No sightings. He gunned the engine and hauled us up over the dune, back to the beach. Over and over this commute continued. Dave drove us past houses owned by the famous and the infamous. He navigated the steep climbs and sharp drops with ease. 

The world was different here. The dune takes what it wants; extending 40 feet farther than it did last year. Its sand covers trees and trails. In a few years, Dave tells us, the dune will reach the sound. 

We move on. 

Dave tracked hoof prints through a scrub of Live Oak, I marveled at the grace of the tree branches. We reach the end of the pathfinding "sand apples" instead of horses.

Dave explains that the winds' shift took with it the water from the sound. "The horses like it there because the grasses are lush when that happens. But it makes it harder for us to see them."

As if on cue, a horse lumbered out of the tree line and onto the path ahead of us. Regarding us blithely before it continued feasting on a nearby lawn. 

It owns this place. 

Dave takes the opportunity to tell us that these horses are miraculous in their ability to exist with the ever-changing landscape and the encroaching humans. They are unique in the horse world, too, having a diet that is entirely restricted to the grasses that grow here. "An apple or a piece of carrot will kill these guys, and every year we find idiots feeding them."

Now that we've seen this "bachelor" specimen, Dave can relax and enjoy the ride. He points out the snake tracks that cross our path as he wheels back to the beach towards Tour HQ.

The wind isn't as harsh in this direction, though Dave doesn't seem to be in a rush. He pulls over askance in the middle of the beach and hops out, returning a few moments later with a hunk of rock he hands to the boy.

"Your lucky day! That's what happens with lightning hits sand." 

Ans then lighting stuck again as we waited to get back into the fray of beach traffic: a herd of five mustangs loped up from behind and galloped beside us along the shore. They slowed to a walk, and we slowed with them, yielding as they crossed in front and headed back to the dune and out of sight. 

It really was our lucky day.

Do no harm

As I was crawling around the internet ... looking for a recipe that could gather the ingredients left in the pantry for a dinner that would feel like a hug to the family ... (In other words a rainbow-colored unicorn that I wouldn't find) I discovered something that surprised me.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, Vermont doesn't limit abortions for any reason. 

Perhaps, my cynical brain surmised, the Green Mountain State didn't need to exert such pressure. Maybe it just doesn't have enough healthcare providers and they don't feel a need to flex that authoritarian muscle.

Or maybe they recognize that abortion is healthcare, plain and simple. Maybe they've decided legislators have no place in the exam room determining their interest in a procedure that is really not unlike an appendectomy - when you need one you should have one.  

But they seem alone in their humanity.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, thirty states have introduced legislation that seeks near-total abortion bans this year. Seven states -- Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wyoming -- have passed bans in at least one legislative chamber.

Much of the bans target healthcare providers, intending to make abortion services inaccessible.

What will follow is predictable: Patients with the means will travel for services; patients without the means to do so will suffer; the rate of adverse outcomes will explode, including the criminalization of women who do not have successful pregnancies.

Like the Texas woman who was arrested and charged with murder after hospital workers were alleged to have turned her in for causing her own miscarriage. The case was eventually thrown out because the law that makes abortion illegal at six weeks doesn't attach criminal charges. 

As it is, abortion has long been a fraught subject. Our collective conscience has allowed us to see the procedure as a necessary evil: Something to be minimized overall ... unlike gun deaths ... or school shootings.

A woman's health ... her ability to make decisions ... or merely choose the safest evidence-based care for her situation ... shall always be infringed.

I suppose what shouldn't have surprised me -- especially in the case of Texas where an unconstitutional law on its face has virtually ended the protections of Rowe in that state -- was the realization that our healthcare providers are ready, willing, and able to allow the state's weaponized laws to do harm through them.

Perhaps it is understandable. Doctors have been murdered for doing their jobs. According to Guttmacher, less than 20 percent of private doctors perform abortion care as part of their women's health practices. They, understandably, don't want to be the targets of those allowed to harass under cover of "free speech." 

Meanwhile, women continue to endure poor treatment and worse outcomes because we won't defend them and their constitutionally protected care.  

But I don't understand. And I don't think I can forgive when it causes real harm.

All of the arguments made to limit choice do so under the bad-faith reasoning that abortion never saves lives. 

It most certainly does. 

You gonna eat that?

 “Do you want that last slice of pizza,” is as much an aspiration as it is a question.

For a moment, there was silence.

“Is that what that was? I thought it was a circle of cardboard encrusted in plastic and grass clippings.”

People for Less Unrest in Marriage — an entirely imaginary organization for which I am an occasional spokesperson — has united, at least temporarily, with Parental Yawn, a grassroots offshoot partner that is expected to remain almost entirely silent as they "wipe that smirk off their faces."

“More for me.”

"PLUMPY," as the conglomerate will be known for the duration of the upcoming Spring Break and subsequent travel itinerary, will be charged with enacting some semblance of peace between potentially warring parties as we navigate a maze of painfully ordinary decisions such as, but not limited to: "What would you like to do today? Shall we go for a hike? Which restaurant should we go to tonght?"

I don't even want to think about the referring that will be necessitated by a ten-hour drive. 

They may have outgrown the Are-We-There-Yets, but a heavy sigh with the roll of an eye can easily bring tempers to a boil. 

Communication breakdowns are like the fly in this SPF ointment.

One wrong look will set everyone's hair on fire. Poof.

But that's par for this course.

As you may have been able to glean from our acronym, PLUMPY, like all unendorsed think-tank-style rogue agencies that got their beginnings in March of 2020, has grown by leaps and bounds since its initial inception and .... almost entirely fueled by individually-wrapped devil's food snack cakes and vanilla ice cream swirled with caramel and chocolate chunks ... may have also gained a little heft.

Muscle weighs more than fat … or so I'm told. Ah-hem.

Not that anyone in these parts is body shaming anyone for their parts. The first rule of PLUMPY is to never identify any members. Ever.

Sometimes it's better not to say anything at all. A few well-placed “Sounds like a plan.” Or “I'll be fine doing … whatever,” can go a long way toward it actually being true.

I'm just trying to stop eating my feelings ... especially the ones inflamed by the central aisles of the grocery store; where the junk food lives. Why can't I eat just one chocolate-button-covered brownie with its thick layer of frosting as lush as the widest wale corduroy? What is it about these cut-rate confections that makes me eat half a box?

Honestly, how many fewer calories are in that "deluxe" pizza with its shell made out of riced cauliflower and a blanket of meats and cheeses? Is it even possible to find healthy choices at corner stores and gas stations?

Salad can be just as tasty, can it not? Ribbon-sliced vegetables blended into a trio of curly-edged lettuces.

E Ghad, I hope so. 

I won't survive this trip without some serious deep breathing exercises, a limit on sugar, and a moment of silence. 

Fail Safe

She entered the family room brimming with an almighty joy.

The news had finally arrived: The last three colleges she had been waiting on - the ones with acceptance rates in the single digits – let her know, in no uncertain terms, that they were, indeed, beyond her reach.

"Their loss," she sang as she twirled in front of the television, blocking my view.

This sounds like bad news. Should I be worried? Should I try to console her?

Why is she dancing? 

She twirled around until I found the remote control (and a really old cheese stick) in between the cushions of the couch. With Wayne Brady frozen on the screen, I could finally give her my full attention.

"What's going on. Are you alright?"

My mind raced. This is probably my fault. Me ...blank staring my way through the FAFSA and THE CSS and all the other initialed portals I could barely navigate. How many times did I upload the same files? How long did I wait on hold, trying to speak to a human who could tell me where I had gone wrong?

There is no doubt in my mind that I dotted a few “T”s and crossed many “I”s.

"I'm fine! The pieces of my life are finally falling into place. I am not just going to college, I am going into GLOBAL studies!"

The sadness of the college rejection news had been offset by the simultaneous and more exciting announcement that she'd been selected to study in a foreign country during her freshman year.

"I'd spend the fall in Boston and then in the spring I'd study in London ... or Greece!"

I still felt like a deer in headlights.

I didn't want to look disappointed. I didn't want to admit that the whole thing felt strange: She had professed her love for Boston, managed to get accepted to the college of her heart's desire there, and now she was planning to leave it all and study ... where? She didn't seem to know.

"This seems ... a little unusual."

Though I'm not sure why it struck me as such. My little private college had a program called "semester abroad," which the price of tuition and a little bit of airfare, I too might have rubbed elbows, or at least mixed paint brushes, with a few of my student counterparts in France.

But I didn't know anyone who was going and I didn't want to be alone.

My daughter has never allowed fear to hold her back.

During her kindergarten orientation, she had personally interviewed the teachers and had essentially filled out the registration forms herself. In triplicate. I just sat beside her and fidgeted with safety scissors.

It occurred to me then … as it does now … that it wasn't bravery that set her apart from me … it was confidence. It was also, perhaps, a necessity.

“Don't worry. … I'm not blaming you for those rejection letters … But I'm going to file my own taxes this year … just in case.”

When aging rubs the wrong way

I was filled with hot coffee, toasted bagel, and the afterglow of warm chit-chat when I finally returned home from that morning's run. But my teeth were chattering anyway. 

This is not unusual.

Even if I'd skipped the social hour, the cold would set in before I'd made it home. 

As I turn and walk into the stream of the shower, stepping over my clothes that are now in a damp heap on the floor, I anticipate the kind of warmth that will set in if I let myself linger in the spray. 

The water hits me like hot needles; finding places I hadn't known were slicked with perspiration or gritty and irritated with salts that had dried onto skin.

A burning sensation surprises me.

I know from that particular sting when I look down, there is likely to be a patch of grated skin or a sunburn.

A blister, maybe? A cut?

I don't see anything amiss until the last drop of water escapes through the drain, and I slide the curtain open. 

As I reach for a towel, I catch a splotch of bright red in the pile of clothes next to it. 

My mind is slow to grasp there is blood where blood shouldn't be.
But when it does, the air around begins to pulsate. I hear no other sound besides the bifurcated thud of my heart. 

Next, I do all of the things I have learned over the years to keep my involuntary systems from becoming overwhelmed. Most of which involve slow-playing every fearful thought I can imagine from this moment until the one in which my brief existence on Earth comes to an end. And THEN telling myself NOT to panic. 

This never works. 

What helps is that under closer inspection, I could find no active bleeding.

I managed to get through the next few hours by the tasks of distraction and deciding on a reasonable timeline.

When will I call the doctor? Do I wait until happens again? Or do I call today ... or tomorrow? Do I call them next Tuesday I'm never?

The correct answer is lunchtime.

Instead of loading up on carbs, I chew on my fingers while I wait on hold for 22 minutes expecting to schedule an appointment three months out.

When the music stops a voice at the other end of the line says ... "We have a cancellation, can you come in at 2?"

All of a sudden I can't breathe. I am comforted and alarmed at the same time.

They think this is serious. It must be serious. Like a heart attack.

By the time I'm wrapped in a paper gown with my legs dangling over the edge of a pleather-bolstered exam table, I have almost resigned myself to a future without me.

I try to downplay my thoughts as I explain my symptoms. Winter skin? Overly long, scaldingly hot showers?

The doctor is quiet as she gently examines my complaint.

"It looks like a tiny cut there. Most likely chaffing as you were running. I wouldn't worry. You may want to use some kind of protective cream before long runs."

I wonder aloud if maybe I should lay off the long showers?

She shrugs “This stage of life it's normal to experience a loss of elasticity and … some atrophy. I'd just try the cream for now and see how it goes. A little dab should do you."

Aging really can rub you the wrong way.

Kick start

 

 
When his winter sport ended a month ago, my son retreated to the warmth of his overheated room and the comfort of his favorite video games. It is the equivalent of adolescent hibernation. 

And for the past four weeks, we've barely seen him.
Oh, we noticed evidence. 

Damp towels slumped on the bathroom floor like a dozing dog. In the morning, nowhere near the kitchen sink, I might find bowls encrusted with a thin layer of late-night ice cream. 

A trail of empty wrappers leads to his always-closed bedroom door. 
A shoe, sole up, trips me up in the entryway. A few hours later, I will notice its mate kicked under the dining room table, and I will try to make the mental note of it stick. 

Tomorrow morning he'll be limping around looking for his lost kick. I'll try and pull the sticky note out of my brain, but it will come out with a lot of words that ask only one question: "why can't you keep track of your things?"

Spring is here, boyo. It's time to turn over a new leaf.

However inartfully said, the message was clear. The boy could get a hobby ... or a job ... or he could putter around a house with no internet and only healthy snacks. His choice.

Truth be told, I thought it was a long-shot bet the man placed. After all, the likelihood we'd ever cut the wireless cord in earnest was next to nil. But thanks to some hidden odds, the wager paid off.

"Sam asked me to join the track team so I'm going to stay after school today. Hey, have you seen my sneaker?"

I couldn't believe my ears.

Wasn't he the little boy who demanded to join me on race day, but who ran out of steam by the first mailbox? After which, wasn't he the boy who gave me the hairy eyeball when I asked him if he'd like to go for a run?

Who was this boy?

"What? Wait, you joined track? Like ... you are going to run?"
I thought I might hyperventilate. 

A child ... of mine ... was going to live a dream I never even knew I had until I turned 40 and learned recreational "jogging" was the only sport I could do.

Finally! I was going to live vicariously through him. He might even ask me for what little advice I could provide. 

II was already picturing myself at the sidelines, cheering him on. I don't even know the events: shot put? long-jump? Javelin? There's no way he's running long-distance ... not with his father's big bones and my flat feet. ...

"Mom ... I'm better at discus, and New York state doesn't allow javelin throwing." He almost had it all figured out: "I'm not sure I'll ever figure out hurdles. Distance sends knives into my Achilles and makes my left lung hurt. Honestly, I'm thinking about joining the sprint team. ...

"Hey ... do you know why my shoulders hurt?"

And before I could answer, I made myself breathe into a paper bag. 
I couldn't believe I'm going to be one of THOSE parents ... the ones who know a little bit about a sport and will get to armchair coach like they are s certified pro. 

"You're probably tensing up. Just try to be mindful of it and relax."