Surviving ourselves

My nerves are all aflutter. 

 

Race-day jitters make up a part of it. But it is something out of the ordinary – like a road trip with friends -- that counts for the lion’s share of my angst.

 

Today I will be among a small field of amazing women -- nine to be exact --  who are running Celebrate Life Half Marathon, a few of us for the first time, but all of us for the last time.

 

For decades, CLHM has offered a lifeline to families in Sullivan County who have faced a cancer diagnosis and treatment, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to ease some of the economic burdens families face when they have to navigate a serious health crisis.

 

Voted one of the best half marathons in New York State by 100 Half Marathons Club and featured in Runners’ World Magazine, the race will cease operations after its 20th anniversary, this year. 

 

It is a beautiful and challenging course, much like life itself. 

 sure many runners will be sad to see it end.

 

This day might have been months in the planning but is has been years in the making.

 

We are mothers, and daughters. We are single and married. We are Democrats and Republicans. We are holding ourselves to healthy lives with healthy debate. Sometimes we don't get it just right. But we keep trying.

 

All nine of us. 

 

We've rented four rooms.

 

Devised a plan for carpooling.

 

We have even secured reservations for the standard pre-race carbo-loading event at a fine dining establishment we are crossing our fingers ascribes to the belief that bread, being the staff of life and all, should be served warm and in quantities that rival an all-you-can-eat buffet.  

 

That will surely be a highlight, but if we can somehow manage to wrangle pre-checkout showers after we cross the finish line (dangerously close to check-out time) we will have attained post-race heaven.

 

I am as ready as I will ever be. And thankful I will be regardless.

 

I have packed, unpacked, and repacked my bag at least three times thus far.  I know I'm going to overpack yet still forget something important ... like socks or my shoes.

 

A part of me worries obsessively that the pandemic years have made me even more of a feral beast than I was already; insulated by isolation and a touch more unfit for polite society. Like, when was the last time I shaved my legs? I'm probably going to laugh too loud, aren't I?   

 

I mean who forgets their shoes?

 

Life threatening illness isn’t the only hardship that challenges us or turns us into survivors. Pain; the loss of someone close to us; a divorce; or even simply unmet aspirations can throw us for a loop.

 

So on this day, I will try not to worry, but instead, I will embrace my awkwardness as a reminder that sometimes the most important thing is to survive ourselves.

 

And that is surely something to celebrate.

At the whim of contingency

It was 3:49 a.m. when the bedside table quaked under the vibrations of my cell phone.

The noise of it must have melded with the soundtrack of a dream I'd been having, it fits nicely with the ticking of a clock that was getting louder as I searched my old high school for a classroom I'd never seen. Finals week. As I awoke, I was slow to recognize what was happening.

From between my sleep-puffed eyelids, I could finally see that the screen was aglow with a new message from my daughter.

I wasn't concerned as I counted out the time difference by tapping my fingers one by one against the palm of my hand. 

Seven hours. It's past 10 a.m. where she is and the school day should be in full swing. 

I reached out a bare arm to retrieve the phone so I could better make out the words:

"I'm ok. None of my friends, nor I, were hurt. We are all good."

I am fully awake now. 

I'm all thumbing as I send off a message asking what had happened. Capital letters tower in the center of lowercase words, some of which, off by a single letter, don't make much sense as I reread them. Trying to fix it only makes it worse.

I send it anyway.

Google doesn't give her time to translate Mom before a search engine hits me in the solar plexus with reports of a catastrophic train collision in northern Greece, where my daughter is studying at an American university abroad. 

Headlines told of the course of events that was still unfolding. Maps and photographs showed the horrific news of a passenger train had collided with a freight train as it ferried students back to Thessaloniki from Athens where many had just spent a five-day holiday. 

As fortunate as we are that she was safe, I felt equally fortunate that I hadn't spent a moment wondering if she would be.

Especially, as I lay in the dark with the light of my phone flickering past the mounting evidence of the enormity of this tragedy, 

My daughter assures me she is fine, but I know the weight of it hasn't set in yet; It certainly hasn't for me. 

I have not, can not, put myself in the nightmare of having to grasp an entirely different set of contingencies for which no one can ever fully prepare.

I bristle over well-meant words of comfort though I shouldn't. I'm not above offering agnostic prayers of my own, pretending that universal forces and gut feelings are somehow benign. 

But I know it's just the mind trying to make sense of the unknowable. Trying to parse all the steps we need to take without laboring each one until our feet feel like they are made of lead. 

A lump forms in my throat when she tells me she and her friends considered taking the train from Athens but decided air travel would save them some cash. 

"It's rattling to think it may have saved more than that."

Man, cold

"It's not COVID!" He yelled from under a pile of blankets on the couch.

For two days, going on three, my husband had been making camp in the living room, asking me to fetch him a beverage or stoke the wood stove while he cycled through a plethora of television options ... and coughed uncomfortably.

He is not a good patient.

And for three days going on four, I'd been annoyed, wrinkling my nose as he punctuated the end of his sentences with an obligatory expectorate hoping the neck of the t-shirt he'd stretched over his face would be adequately protective. 

I have run out of patience.

I didn't want to be the nag, asking him when he tested last, but I was also tired of feeling the burden of worry … especially as I tried to avoid the crumpled remnants of the last toilet tissue roll he'd taken from the bathroom for use as receptacles for his specimens, which turned up like puffed tumbleweeds everywhere.

“Need anything at the store? I see we're out of T.P.”

“Ooh … I'd love some kombucha,” he replied. “The good kind.”

“Ok, sure. And while I'm gone, you might want to take this here cotton swab and swirl it around in your nose awhile. I'll help you read the results when I return.”

“Alright … but you'll owe me. Like I want the kind of septic-clogging toilet tissue that will feel soothing on my sensitive schnoz.”

Of course, as fate would have it, upon my return the man was waving the test cassette around as if it were a disposable lighter at a concert when the band began playing his song.

"N-e-g-a-t-I-v-e ... like I told ya."

I wasn't surprised. But I was happy he'd tested his assumption.

Maybe it was just a “man cold,” or the same viral bug that had attached itself to our son's upper respiratory system and caused him to spend the better part of the previous week with a cough that rivaled a smoker. All his home tests were negative, too.

We had even made a trip to the pediatrician to rule out RSV or a secondary infection - like pneumonia - that might require antibiotics.

Which the doctor prescribed considering the worsening cough had been (by my recollection) hanging out, low key, for weeks. 

Of course, once my husband felt the tickle in his throat and started to cough, he assumed he would be next in line at the pharmacy. Like father, like slow-draining sinus-anatomy son.

In his estimation whatever was causing the thickening mucus to mosh around in his headspace if it was reason enough to self-isolate, it was reason enough to over-medicate.

And so in three days' time, he wound up at his doctor, too. 

A doctor who, to my husband's chagrin, refused to prescribe the five-day anti-microbial “cure” that he sought. And who, instead, insisted on testing for other possible infections, and sent him home with instructions for a weekend of rest, hydration, and movie marathons as he awaited the results.

Which eventually presented him with another “I-told-ya-so” moment.

“They called. I tested positive for RSV. I told you it wasn't a Man Cold.”

Peer pressures

 This day will probably feel longer than most. I've prepared myself for it since the official, three-part summons arrived in the mail nearly two weeks ago.

I could have postponed. Life is always finding ways to gum up plans, now is as good a time as any to mark off days on the old calendar.

Instead, I find myself among a hundred people packed tightly into a narrow, high-ceilinged room on a Thursday. We are resigned to staring up at the ornate skylight as we wait to perform our civic obligation:

Jury duty.

It hadn't even started yet, but I had already failed twice. First when I left home with the aforementioned the tear-card printed with my name and official juror number affixed to the refrigeration; and second, when I wore a coat with so many zippers and snaps that magnetometer can't stop yelling at me even after I pass through. 

These are mistakes I needn't sweat. None of them are deal breakers or time-consuming to fix. 

Like most people here, I don't completely understand the inner workings of the process. Much of the administrative function happens invisibly or out of earshot. I try to follow the court clerk's explanation of complicated court calendars and judicial job descriptions before I change my attention to the hushed conversation behind me.

The most important instructions are simple and related in various ways repeatedly:

Ideally, we are informed, that we should know nothing, or have adopted no opinions but be willing to be objective and follow directions. We should not talk about any specifics of the case. The most important thing we should know in addition is that the accused is innocent until proven otherwise.

We are also shown a short film about understanding how to redirect our own implicit biases to ensure we are making judgments based on evidence and facts rather than beliefs or assumptions.

It is apparent to me that some other things have changed since last I sat here, discouraged from using a device or reading material of a periodic nature.

Namely jurors' relative comfort. They even let us work remotely during any downtime.

I want to put my feet up. Or curl into the folds of the quilt lying twisted on the couch, clicking through channels on the television. The familiar place I tend to be when summoned by technology to mark myself present on one specific social media attendance list.

It's silly, I know. But it's the game my globe-trotting daughter is willing to play, and even a brief glimpse into her life is worth the existence of my own demoralizing selfie.

I will be content to scroll the national headlines and work a crossword until we are asked to rise for the judge.

I am of two minds. One that is eager to embrace my civic responsibility: to experience the legal system up close and in person, and not be concerned about the duration, especially if it means the potential of learning interesting facts or strolling around city shops during hour-long lunches. My other mind hopes to be released back into a familiar routine, which will otherwise need reshuffling in light of this absence.

Of course, the enormity of the responsibility isn't something I take lightly. Someone is relying on a jury of peers.

Garden virality

Things have changed. The fish tank is still there, but it's more of a terrarium now. The bucket is gone, but the stickers are all laid out in single rows on the bench, ready for one-touch selection. There are no cartoon creatures decorating the walls on this side of "the house." Just pictures of teens making healthy choices.

He looks a little out of place. The elephant in the room.

Someone calls his name and we are ushered through a door and back into the maze that is the office. Number 10.

His legs dangled from the exam table, the sanitary paper crinkling under the friction of his shifting weight. A shock of uncombed hair stretched in all directions as he pressed the edges of his mask against his cheeks to contain the body-shaking cough.

A man-child. 

The doctor knocked softly on the door before entering.

"How are you today? Been better, I bet. So tell me what's up?"

My son shrugged his shoulders and looked at me.

Our stories don't always match.

The way I see it: He had a cold, and now a lingering cough for a couple of weeks, mostly mild until just a few days ago when it started keeping him up all night, which made me worry about the possibility of pertusamonias and rotoviriosas, prompting this visit.

"We've tested for COVID; we've tried decongestants, expectorants, and suppressants; we've resuscitated his humidifier; we tested for COVID again, and again and again. Nothing."

The way he sees it: "I've been coughing since I was a baby."

It's a tag-team effort, but we manage to cobble enough agreement to give the doc a clearer picture of his situation.

It seems like a minor miracle of the Who's On First variety.

It's even hard to believe he's the same kid I first schlepped here, fast asleep in the car seat's removable "bucket," more than fifteen years ago.

Honestly, I couldn't remember the last time he'd needed a sick call. His whole little life, he had contracted nothing but garden variety viruses that, on occasion, had sprouted only minor secondary infections of the ears, head, or chest.

The doctor methodically got to work: Questions asked. Notes taken. Face places palpated. Breath sounds examined. More notes. A few more questions and, finally, a decision: "I think he's earned a round of antibiotics, can you swallow pills?"

"I remember ... I had a sinus infection when I was ten ... and you had to go back to get giant horse pills because I couldn't stand the taste of the pink liquid."

He thinks it was eons ago, while I have only a vague memory. It could have been five years ago. I could have been ten. 

We look to the doctor for a determination.

"Yep ... I see that right here," the doctor said, drumming an index finger on his chart. "That was back in 2016. Not much since. I don't think it's an allergy. It is possible that he might have the kind of anatomical plumbing that just doesn't drain completely.

The kid always astounds me with his pachyderm memory. 

 

Shelter from the Storm

 I felt empathy for the parents of Saratoga Central Catholic as they rallied to stop an emergency homeless shelter from being operated out of a neighboring property. I really did. It's not easy to stand up to our fears when it comes to our children.

Especially since even the smallest changes make us feel like we're taking a wide, left-hand turn into Harm's Way.

So, I can understand why they'd seek answers to their questions.

But I can’t help but be disappointed in their success.

But as I read the stories in the local newspapers about the controversy – A house that formerly housed a senior citizens center has been identified as a place for a permanent emergency shelter when the seniors moved to a new, 14,000 square-foot space at the YWCA -- I couldn't help but think: what would Jesus do?

As a lapsed Catholic, I have often used that term derisively, a jab of icy sarcasm aimed at the religion that faltered for decades when it came to the infliction of abuse onto the faithful and the shielding of clergy from accountability.

"It's going to be 30 below zero this weekend!!!! WHAT WOULD JESUS DO???"

Of course, I thought to myself, Jesus would rather NOT have a homeless shelter share a fence with his little lamb's athletic fields.

WWJD?

Certainly something more generous than fighting City Hall or getting twelve-hundred signatures on a petition, or boycotting the philanthropic organization that helped the Seniors move to bigger digs, leaving their previous address available for the endeavor.

But I had to reel back my anger when I shouted it into the empty room as I assembled a sandwich and brewed another cup of coffee in my warm, fully stocked kitchen.

I know it won't do any good to castigate the parents for what I may believe are unchristian thoughts.

They're not Jesus. They aren't the Diocese. They're not even holier than Thou in the scriptural sense. Maybe they've never volunteered or even met anyone who ever needed a shelter.

They're just parents fearfully trying to get what's best for their kids, which in today's day and age means shielding them from the big, bad world for as long as possible. Maybe that protection takes the form of smaller class sizes or prayer in school. Maybe it segregates the boys from the girls or teaches religion instead of sex education.

We parents are a lot alike.

We want their children to do the right things. The hard things. The things that may even be unpopular in what we may see as a permissive new world.

We don't willingly accept that homeless people belong to our communities. We don't trust that the Shelters have our interests in mind.

What a missed opportunity that this shelter will not come to pass. These parents may be relieved at what they have achieved, but they should not be proud.

Hopefully, the church will offer its students and their parents a way to make amends through volunteering wherever this shelter finds a home. Maybe in service to the least among them, they will find their own shelter from the storm.

Everything it's crocked up to be

I never thought I'd be a crockpot parent, standing around a semi-circular reef of slow cookers dishing our molten meals to hungry athletes during a weekend wrestling tournament. 

But I have matured into a more versatile human being, able to dish out hot meatball sandwiches in a single glop; dig out the last can of Coke from where it hides in the bottom of the ice chest, and unapologetically make change for fifty-dollar-bills using singles and fives. 

No filthy sink trap is beneath my abilities or my dignity to unclog.

Each break, measured in minutes as I made a mad dash from the cafeteria to the gymnasium -- hoping to catch a glimpse of my kid moping the floor as either the custodian ... or the mop -- alters my job description upon my return.

I'm positively gleeful at the prospect of scrubbing pans.

Today is a good day. Maybe even the best day. A day I wouldn't trade for a deep tissue massage or a nap. 

A day spent watching kids -- win or lose -- shake hands before and after they go to their respective corners. Celebrating a win isn't something that's allowed on the mat, even a surreptitious arm pump will get a player sanctioned. 

So as we sit in the stands, our son is on the mat, tying his home team color around his ankle, bowing his head as the ref gives instructions. His opponent lowers his stance and extends a hand. My son's meets his at the same level. 

The whistle blows and they grasp each other around the head, dancing around for a moment until one breaks free of the other. 

They go again, circling, getting each other around the head, shoulders, waist, and knees. A tangle of bodies slaps down on the mat. The ref's hand raises a hand signaling which player gets how many points. Squirming from under another arm takes points away. This dance continues until shoulders stayed pressed for three seconds, or one has enough points when time runs out. 

We have been used to our son lasting only seconds in the rings until he is pinned by a matched opponent who is stronger and more aggressive. Lately, he's managed to crawl his way out of cradles or push himself pins. 

Lately, he's been able to come up for air the moment a boy from the sidelines taps the ref on the back with a pool noodle, and the buzzer sounds. His dad and I collectively inhale, too. 

We are on the edge of our seats as we watch our boy make progress. The whistle blows again, and again he gains the advantage, proving to himself his worth as an opponent. A hail Mary move, and with seconds to spare, a pin. 

He contained his excitement as required as the referee raised his arm. We did not. Nor did the parents of his teammates. It seemed like the whole crowd went wild. 

This single win weighed heavily. 

It's amazing how much I loved that moment and all the ones that came before it, including tripping up and down the bleachers, awkwardly hawking 50-50 raffle tickets and leftover puffed rice marshmallow squares.

Of course, the boy's smile as his team engulfed him in bear hugs is something every parent needs, too.

Karen is Over-Sharon

“All of our associates are helping other customers. Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line and an agent will be with you as soon as one becomes available. …”

Minutes tick by as music plays on a loop.

My heartbeat spikes when the tune is suddenly interrupted … Finally … 

“All of our associates are helping other customers. Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line and an agent will be with you when one becomes available. If you would like a call-back, press 1 to leave your phone number. You will not lose your place in line.”

I won't take the offer. I don't believe they will ever call me back.

Why should they? I am not calling to wish them good fortune. I am calling to try and fix a problem … or cancel a subscription … or figure out whether this official-looking letter seeking payment is a scam … or worse … a scam that is imperfectly legit, just deceptive.

This never feels good. 

I hate myself a little more as I hang on the line.

No matter what I do, I am THAT WOMAN. 

The one who is not satisfied. The one who may never be satisfied with the answer you give her.

The woman who makes them mute the phone while they get the attention of the person in the next cubicle for a laugh while they exchange rude gestures.

The one who has become a meme:

“Karen wants to speak to the manager.” 

I try to keep the irritation from my voice.

I know their job is thankless.

I know they don't make the rules.

But I just wanted to cancel my membership. 

“I know your script says that you can't CANCEL my account because it has become INACTIVE. But why must I provide a VALID CREDIT CARD NUMBER to reactivate the account so that you can CANCEL it? Why can't you cancel inactive accounts?”

“But it is unnecessary. It won't charge your card.” 

It IS necessary, because it keeps prompting me to provide a new card, so you are telling me to have it stop prompting me to provide a new card on the first of every month, I have to provide a new card and then cancel the account. Does that make sense to you? 

“I'm sorry ...

“It's been a long day of misunderstandings …

“Someone keeps screwing up their user name and locking me out of my bank account … 

“I have already waded through eight spammy phone calls and sussed out four legitimate scams, and it isn't even noon.

“Tomorrow I'll have to go to the gym, the owners of which are demanding in-person appearances despite the two-year-old law requiring they offer online cancellation.

“But now, I just want this one thing to end. I don't understand why it has to be this difficult?”

There was silence on the line.

“I'm sorry. I know I'm the one making it hard.”

I hung up the phone. Not with a slam or an expletive, just with the uncomfortable knowledge that I have no idea how things work.

Then, like an answered prayer, an email arrived:

“We are sorry to see you go … ”

Long-term storage

 In the corner of my home office, a tower of wicker boxes containing most but not all of our important papers is on the verge of collapse. The cat has made it her scratching post and has shredded them. 

It is not ideal. 

I have made it my mission this midwinter moment to move them and wrangle some of the other records that require added attention. 

For all that the computer age promised, it certainly did not eliminate clutter. 

Conventional wisdom now tells us that clutter, or the overabundance of possessions that created chaotic living spaces as they accumulate in our lives, lives in a kind of lockstep with depression. 

Many of those studying the impact clutter has on our mental well-being will tell you how it might affect men and women differently. 

It maybe won't surprise you, if you harken back to the 1950s ideal of a single-family dwelling in a well-manicured subdivision, when a man came home, kicked off his shoes, accepted a drink from his dutiful wife, and retired to his recliner with this evening paper, his home was a kingdom ... a place for him to unwind. 

His wife - having already worked all day and who had disappeared to rearrange his shoes - was not merely a caretaker in this domain, but probably felt as such as she began the opening salvo in the evening shift of menial drudgery. 

Everything has its place.

Honestly, I don't know anyone in the living world - past or present - who resembles these descriptions. Certainly not my parents who struggled with bouts of seasonal depression amid a lifetime of scattered preparedness.

And as we move along in the thing called life, our proud moments and our due diligence seem to haunt us as much as our mistakes. 

It's something I've been thinking about since my father died and bequeathed to his children all of his earthly treasures, which, it turns out, contain far more letter-sized printouts than one might imagine that live in unmarked shoeboxes growing like stalagmites all over the house.

Is it any wonder we are still drowning in paper? Documents we must shred to the consistency of fine-grain sand to keep thieves and scoundrels from reconstituting their remains into an identity one could readily steal. 

These record tombs span decades and cover all manner of subjects from midcentury pay stubs to millennial medical payments, some of which mix topics and years within the same compostable file. 

Conventional wisdom tells us to keep our financial records for seven years to ten thousand years ... or perhaps longer, lest the mystical rubric of unforeseen possibilities haunts our descendants. 

Which, undoubtedly, it had as I sifted through envelopes to find the Deeds of this father as well as a few of the old light bills, too. 

I tuck them back into the file and stow the file into a box I label descendants. 

I've done enough decluttering for this winter, and maybe enough for two (or maybe even nine) lifetimes. 

Grecian formula

 "You have arrived," announced the mechanical voice of the GPS as my husband pulled to the curb at Logan. He popped the trunk and we hopped out to extract the luggage. 

"Hopefully, it won't take long," he called through a half-open window. "I may have to park at her old dorm and Uber back!"

Her eyes narrowed to stabby points for a moment. It was too soon to be making jokes. Especially since the whole car ride there, we'd been offering the sage advice of Gus Portokalos from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, by riffing on the various miracle uses of Windex, including, to my husband's disbelief, the removal of wedding bands that have become too tight.

She rolled her eyes, but questioned her own judgment having just settled into this college city she was now flying away from, not to mention bringing us for the sendoff.

 We each dragged a suitcase into the terminal. She lugged the heaviest, the one that would have to fly in the belly of the plane. I steered the stylish carry-on, an indescribable color of pale blue. We came to a stop just before the tape maze where would-be passengers know instinctively how to coil their way around, single file, on the first leg of this journey .... to greet an agent at the check-in point. 

"I have to pee."

We had set our clocks to "Egregiously Early" and it only added to the anxiety.

"I'll go with, and stand with the bags."

The bathroom was mostly unremarkable. It was clean and well-lit. Its surfaces are modestly tiled in ceramic and steel. The only surprise was planted in a basket to the left of the sink: a live orchid, festooned with white flowers reaching out like a hug. 

This must be a good sign, I think as I wash my hands. 

"I'm glad you stayed," my daughter says as I roll the suitcase her way. "I think I'd be fur-reaking out if I had to wait here by myself."

I want to say something encouraging, something to put her at ease, but I know it's not my forte. 

"We have nothing to fear except fear itself. ... Especially since WE are not traveling Southwest."

"Of course by 'WE,' she means it in the Royal sense," says her dad, who has returned from the hinterlands and has found a place in line. 

We certainly look the part of a family getting ready to take off. 

I am still pushing around a suitcase, and he is serenading her with fatherly advice, bad jokes, and travel tips that must be decades old by now. 

She reminds him of all the leg work she's done to get here: Not only the scheduling of her studies abroad but also the logistical details like applying for VISAs and booking travel. 

She smiles to tamp down the shards of annoyance that have fractured her voice, reminding us that we are not in this together. Once the airline exchanges a ticket for her luggage at the counter, she will fly away. 

I change the subject to the orchid. Telling my husband of the wonderment of finding such a showy plant in the restroom, wondering who cares for it, and trying to guess what it means.

 "Did you know? The word 'orchid' comes from the Greek, 'orkhis,' which means testicle! So why isn't there one in the men's room?"

And on the heels of the comedy stylings of her parents, our firstborn child opens her arms for a final hug before heading to her gate.

"Not gonna lie, I'm a little glad that I can't take you anywhere."

Secret sauce

 My husband and I don't generally enjoy the same movies. 

He gravitates toward action adventure, primarily where CIA agents do super-secret spy stuff, trying to keep the names of other agents from getting out in the open. 

While I try to pick movies in which women talk to each other like normal human beings. Movies that make him fall asleep.

Not that he complains. 

We each know the criteria the other uses in the decision-making: He looks for heavy artillery and guesstimates explosions per minute ratios as he scrolls the listings. 

I have a different measure.

"I know ... it's called the Béchamel test and it's quite complicated. Women should have a certain percentage of all lines of dialog in keeping with the suggested demographic. And they should not be heroines, not villains. 

"Close, dear. Béchamel is a sauce made with flour, butter, and cream. Bechdel is the test named after a cartoonist, Alison Bechdel, who, inspired by Virginia Wolfe, joked in her comic strip about how women are so flatly portrayed in literature and film that they don't even address each other. And it is a pretty simple formula: All a movie or book has to do to pass is have at least two women interact with each other about something other than a man."

Of course, there might be bonus points if the women are named characters, and the conversation the two have were about something other than children or family, but it isn't a deal breaker.

The Bechdel test is an extremely low bar. One can only go up from acknowledging the presence of another person possessing XX chromosomes on the set.

It's such a low bar that movies still get made whether they pass or fail. Shocking, I know. 

We didn’t fare much better with our childhood heroes, either. Harry Potter's Goblet of Fire doesn’t pass muster, nor do any of the Lord of The Rings movies. Even my beloved Toy Story series leaves feminist icons like Bo Peep and Jessie the cowgirl following the boys but not interacting with each other in any scenes.

And, I suppose, the most shocking part is how easily we have accepted these cardboard-cutout cookie-cut shapes as our literary and cultural heroines. 

They are so expendable, their stories so mundane, they don't even acknowledge each other. 

Of course, the worst part is that even discussing this simple test can start a defensive war. 

The mere criticism of the shoot-em-up genre he takes in stride, but pointing out the misogyny feels like a personal assault on his scruples. Somehow, his ability to soak in the entertainment value of the harmless sex and violence brought to you through the Magic of Hollywood wasn’t a vice until I pointed out the women who amount to pretty veneers. 

“But you laughed at Ocean’s 11. You think those guys are funny!”

“Of course, I laughed. But to pass the Bechdel test, they had to create Ocean’s 8 and kill off Danny so he didn’t just waltz in and steal the show as well as the gems.

Housekeeping

She's not what I'd call typical. 

The girl was getting ready to come home from college for the holidays, but she needed to do a little housekeeping first. 

"Hey ... can you do me a favor? Can you put nine dollars in my college bank? Our machines don't take cash or credit, they only take College Bucks."

She didn't want to be the kid who brought everything home in need of a wash.

"Sure, but it will cost you. I need a personal shopper:  Do you think your brother will like these?" 

I sent a link to what must have appeared to her sensibilities to have been The Most Hideous Pair Of Sneakers On The Planet. The Kind No Self-Respecting Teenager Would Ever Wear In A Million YearsTM. 

"You can't be serious," she shot back adding a link to a pair that I Never, In A Million Years, Would Have Guessed He'd LikeTM."

It will be good to have her home.  Even if it's not all sugar and spice. 

This is all I could think about as the gingerbread house sat beside me in the car, filling the cabin air with holiday cheer and filling my heart with glimpses of Christmases past. 

Fourteen to be exact. 

It hasn't been every year that I've managed to procure one of these seasonal kits from our local bakery, but I've scored enough of them for the kids to think of it as one our most enduring traditions. 

It brought the whole family together in a kind of frayed patchwork that makes us quirky and unique. 

My husband will crack his knuckles in anticipation of how his hands will cramp as he uses them, in a vice grip fashion, to apply steady pressure to the piping bag that I, in my only job aside from purchasing, had filled with royal icing. The kids will loudly unwrap what's left of the candy stash -- slowly pilfered as we bided time -- and playfully argue about a particular pattern of colorful confection and the proper way to stucco it to the dark gingerbread's exterior.

Our laughter scatters the wrappers, now empty and crumpled, all around the dining room where the sugar dust of renovation gathers. It also summons the ghosts of those who aren't with us any more. 

My mother ... in chunky sweater and still wearing her winter hat inside ... folds her arms and grins at my father, who is underneath the Christmas tree, setting up the train. 

The memories aren't all idyllic. There will be hard feelings bubbling up that might, under ordinary circumstances, create a mess. These stress of expecting too much or getting it all wrong. But even they are comforting in their own way. 

Odd Jobs

I must admit, I walked into this room with a purpose. Maybe I'd come to fetch something out of a drawer and become distracted by the myriad things that called out for attention. It's certainly a likely scenario.

But what had I been looking for? 

I know I'd come from the kitchen, where I had been emptying the dishwasher, and picked up a glass that belonged at the bar in the living room, so after I brought it there, I noticed the cat had thrown up on the couch slipcover, which I stripped off and shoved into the washing machine down the hall. Of course, the detergent box is empty, so I have to run out to the car where I had left the replacement because storage for that kind of thing is at a premium (I'm not a fan of stockpiling) so I keep the recent household chemistry haul in the trunk.

Had you walked into the house at the moment (past the woman with uncombed hair clawing through the boot of her car) you clearly would have seen an open washing machine, textiles spilling forth, with an item in need of recycling on the floor in front of it; a clean fancy tumbler sitting on a pile of coffee table books in the next room; an open dishwasher, half filled with clean dishes and the open cabinets where those dishes will temporarily reside; and a cat who would be hungry for second breakfast circling your feet.

The neighbor knocks, looking to borrow a thing I secretly hope won't be returned. It's just another thing that is taking up space.

I know I shouldn't be upset when she idly mentions missing having a house that looks lived in as her eyes trace the explosion of winter boots and gym bags and cardboard boxes waiting to be muscled into the recycling bin.

She's earnest. 

People make TikTok memes with adorable versions of open cabinets and abandoned tasks trying to convince us we are the victims of our disordered minds.

But I don't buy it. Evidence of a retching animal, be it sound or substance, should instinctively shuffle the order of domestic operations. It should not surprise when such an emetic eruption, even momentarily, throws the whole house into chaos.

The fractured attention we self-diagnose is just a label that might never have stuck without the modern necessity of increasing having to multitask how we multitask.

As the husband snickers to the camera about his wife's absent-mindedness, I wonder to myself "just how many butter knives has he left straddling the no man's land between the sink basin and the counter proper? He and his brethren will never see this utensil as abandoned or as a task undone because in his mind it is perfectly logical to decide on that second piece of toast ... a little later in Never.

Eventually, I will wrestle these things back into order. It won't be pretty, and I'll probably bash my head into an open cabinet door. It will be the final thing that needs to be buttoned up before I sit down.

But to be sure, the snowstorm that is life will blow through before I get up again.

It's the most logical thing in the world: Life keeps handing us odd jobs.

Cabinet of mysteries

 The box, grimy with dust and crushed on one edge, must have been sitting on a shelf in my father's garage for a number of decades. It looked like the kind of box that had been made in the 70s and sold at Hill's Stationery shop: sturdy, with a glued-on label that affirmed its contents had once been a raft of business-sized envelopes. Yellowed by time, the container was thicker and sturdier than its modern counterpart. It was something any generation might frugally repurpose. But it had clearly outlived its usefulness.

As if it knew my plans, the box wouldn't budge when I tried to slide it toward me. A task I had assumed would take only a minimal effort before I could inspect what was inside and unceremoniously pitch it and its contents into the great beyond. Which, for my purposes, was a forty-thousand-yard dumpster I'd rented to haul away all the things my father had owned that had somehow avoided eviction all these years. I increased pressure, and the box suddenly came loose, bringing with it a chip of paint from the shelf where it had stuck.

When I tipped up the lid, I found a leather-bound book tooled with flowers and smelling of age and must.

The book held sepia-toned photographs affixed to cards ... professional portraits, some of which bore the imprint of studios with Spindle and Collar City addresses. Someone had carefully inserted each photograph into the ornate windows of album's thick pages. They seemed remarkably preserved despite the fact that some had shifted over the years, their edges out of alignment, where they'd come unglued.

Known as Cabinet Cards, (I learned from Wikipedia) this style of photography hit the height of its popularity in the 1880s and 90s. And, as the name implies, were intended for display inside glass curio cabinets. The cards, however, fell out of favor by the 1920s once consumer market cameras and mass-produced picture postcards came on the scene.

As I flipped through the book, I met some unfamiliar faces: Men with wild hair and even wilder beards, the cut of their clothes suggested they were professionals, although some wore the garments of the priesthood; Women of all ages, some looking dour as they perched on the edge of an ornate settee, while others gazed sweetly into the camera as they stood wasp-waisted in layered skirts; One person, sitting ramrod straight, donning tartan togs and a high-tufted hairdo, defied gender typing. There were even a few children: girls with their long hair in bows, wearing straight-line dresses that reached their ankles.

As I continued to study the faces, it seemed entirely possible that at least some of these beautiful Victorian strangers had come from the old country only by mail. Perhaps, they were tucked into letters and sent by airmail half a world away. Just like my father's sister reported to have seen herself and her siblings on a mantle in Ireland when she made a pilgrimage there to meet our Irish cousins. Like these images those real-life relatives were essentially strangers she only knew about from reading letters traded between her late parents and theirs.

My aunt didn’t recognize anyone either. Nor did anyone in my mother's branch of the family.

Perhaps it was just a silent hobby of someone now long departed; A collection of paper wonders that would take up space on a shelf (albeit in a newer shoebox) destined to confound its next discoverer. A mystery worth living on in posterity.

Seen and not heard

I hadn't heard from her in a day.

Not a call, not a text, not even a blurry nested photo of what she was doing, and what she looked like doing it, when Be Real went live ... 

I looked at my watch. "It's been thirteen hours and one entire day."

The mission, should you choose to accept it, is getting proof of life before the NOC list gets out in the open. 

Not that the disappearance should have worried me.

As the semester's end neared, and with it, the time-gobbling tasks of course finals looming, I had told myself to expect a certain increase in cellular silence. 

Tests should trump texts despite this modern age of upheaval. 

My daughter's generation has migrated to new playgrounds that members of my generation don't easily assimilate. 

Our inner thoughts are encased by the thinnest of, yet nearly impenetrable, virtual walls.

Facebook is for the elderly, Linked-in is for the elderly who are still employable, and Twitter is a 44-billion-dollar hole in the universe where the rest of us shout into a void. 

Desperation is a text from your mom at 6:45 ... a time calculated to wake you up a few minutes before you needed to get out of bed anyway. 

In these early days of this new freedom, the message will be verbose and irritating by the sheer word count and the forced smile they intone: 

"Good morning!!! I know you are busy. But can you text back when you get a chance? Just want to know you are ok. You didn't post a photo yesterday on the only site you allow me to see (and for which I try not to comment or be intrusive in any way so that you might forget I am lurking ... like a stalker and come to regret allowing this small access). **Heart emoji, prayer emoji, smiley face emoji**"

Three dots drum their fingers on the screen and my fears immediately start to abate. 

"I'm fine. Just super busy with finals. *heart emoji, heart emoji, laughing face emoji.*"

The kids aren't here. They aren't supposed to be. That magic arc of childhood is hurtling towards the other horizon: adulthood.  

We knew the advice wasn't cliche: "Enjoy it while it lasts. You won't believe how fast time goes."

But sleep deprivation made us believe that we could be the exception. 

 

Our kids will call. They will write. They will visit every chance they get. And when they visit they will spend quality time ...

... with their friends. Or the kids who were not their friends, but who, with the hindsight of maturation, friendship was just a delayed opportunity. 

Which can be rectified over winter break. 

Our kids are still here.

Even when they aren't here. 

When they are out living their lives.

So, by this time next year, I fully expect to be able to text a "You good?" And get a thumbs-up emoji. As it should be.

But I'm not giving up hope of hearing her voice ... when she gets tired of typing and has more than a few words to say, she records a voice memo and sends it back in the chat. It self-destructs after playing.

A prayer for my mother ... over tagliatelle

"You want to start with the base.

"Onion, carrots, celery. ...

"A mirepoix ... the holy trinity."

It's my mother's voice that is whispering over my shoulder as I inexpertly dice the vegetables into uneven pieces and dump them into a pan to sauté. 

"Oh, do I?" I whisper back. 

No. I did not want to worship in the galley kitchen of tradition. I wanted to skip the base. Especially the green bits. 

She had always anticipated my plans and endeavored to circumvent them. She may be gone, but her advice lives on in the blessing of memory. 

"Don't skimp on the celery."

Maybe it was the pile of green half-moon crescents left on my plate after every tuna sandwich or noodle casserole of my childhood, that had tipped her off that I didn't like the miracle vegetable's peppery flavor or its tough fibrous veins. She knew, also, from the first bite of my adult-hosting events that something was missing. 

And she firmly believed the omission was a culinary sin. 

"I know you had some success trading celery for pickles in your tuna salad, but I will pray aloud for the door to hit you on the way out if you try that kinda nonsense with dinner. 

"Just close your eyes and put the celery in. The flavor won't be the same without it."

That was her message for everything I would ever question about conventional wisdom: "You just have to have faith."

And so it came to be, on the eve of all food-centric holidays that our family meal would be pasta. Something sparse on ingredients that would nevertheless provide a plentiful yield.

My mother's go-to meal was Bolognese, a flavorful meat sauce she'd pair with noodles. 

It was a family favorite, mostly because she said it was "goulash" and called it "garbagé."

What you need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 small onion
• 10 ounces ground beef (not too lean)
• 10 ounces ground pork
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 1/4 cups tomato puree 
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1-2 whole bay leaves
• 1/3 cup milk 

What you need to do:

Dice onions, celery, and carrots and put them in a large pot with olive oil. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until the onion is translucent. 

Increase heat to medium and add the ground meat, stirring to break it up as it cooks. Once the meat browns evenly, turn the heat to high and add wine. Cool on high until the alcohol burns off (about 30 seconds) and then turn it back to medium. 

Stir in tomato paste, puree, salt and pepper then add bay leaf and reduce heat to the lowest setting and simmer for three hours. Stir occasionally. 

To finish, remove the bay leaf, add milk, and heat thoroughly at a medium temperature. 

My mother served it over elbow macaroni, but the recipe, one of the first she ever copied for me, called for a wide flat noodle linguini, fettuccine, or tagliatelle. 

Of course, she added some words of wisdom she thought I needed most: "Remember to cook the noodles before serving."

In Gratitude

At a family reunion, last summer my father's sister set a box of empty books out on a picnic table with a sign marked "Gratitude Journals" and instructed us to take one. 

The box sat there through the cookout, and as the band played up-tempo folk covers, their pages rustled at the edges in tempo with gusts from the warm late August breeze.

It had been a while since we'd all been together like this. Almost a year. My father had been there then, toting around oxygen bottles and getting tangled in the lines that had recently tethered him to them. I had been a nervous wreck, swooping in to untangle him and recriminating myself for taking him on this journey in his condition. I was so anxious that I couldn't even articulate my fears to some of the relatives who had decided we hadn't reached post-pandemic gathering safety quite yet: "... this may be the last time ..."

His memory was with us now, filling the void I had felt with absolute certainty that he would have loved every minute. From the moment we stepped into the foyer of the rental cabin with its decades' worth of one family's ski passes affixed to the wall, to the moment his granddaughter jumped from the rock wall's edge into a deep pocket of the river below. Unexpected miracles if you think about them. Even just the thrill of kicking a rainbow-colored ball into the weeds when the bases are loaded seems an outsized feat. I will cheer until my voice splinters.

Gratitude, psychologists will tell you, is more than words we offer in return for a gift or a favor. Gratitude is a trait that can be part of our dispositions as well as a fluctuating mood we carry from day to day. It can ease our tensions with a world we often find ourselves at odds with if we let more of it inside.

As she made her way from cousin to cousin, embracing each of us in a hug that belied her slender frame, my aunt explained the basics: Life is much too short to focus so heavily on its hardships. Take some time every day to take note of its gifts. 

I visited the picnic table before I left, selecting a book with a green leatherette cover embossed with Celtic knots and lined, cream-color pages from the others. I slipped it into the bag I had hauled around all day, from which I would harass my nearly grown children at regularly-timed intervals with cans of bug spray and sun-protective lotions.

I know the sun is setting on this moment, even as the kids wave away my concerns. The sun has gone behind the clouds, and the flies are not swarming. We have replaced our parents just as they will replace us. 

This understanding no longer fills me with dread. The future will come whether I note it or not, whether I worry about it between my thoughts. 

Of course, I knew this book would remain pristine for a while. It will stay in the bag with the unused potions and wait for me to decide where to take it. I will hesitate over penmanship ... trying to stave off that first cross-through line by not writing anything. It will surf from one side of my desk to the other, reminding me with its emerald hue that it is ready when I am.

Rescue remedy

The road is long. It is windy. And soon, I'll have to stop for gas,

I'd almost forgotten about the tin: A somewhat marvelous yellow container purchased on impulse at the recommendation of a friend and tucked into the side pocket of my car door. It still contained a handful of pillow-shaped capsules -- pastilles as they were labeled -- that claimed to safely and naturally alleviate stress, and that I'd imagined were a mixture of sorcery and snake oil.

Of course, I do not believe in such hocus pocus. Not even at the price I'd paid, which, by pre-inflationary standards, was well above the threshold at which manufacturers understand that unmet claims would need to be properly reimbursed. But I bought the citrus, honey-flavored bonbons nonetheless and then promptly forgot all about them after an initial taste test made me worry the remedy might instead lift the enamel from my teeth.

But then Election Day happened. And the blathering of talking heads for days, weeks, and months as a lead-up wore on me. Their voices were like knives, my focus strained from the convergence of all the refractive screens in my general orbit. I start to become like stone. My hands clench a little tighter and my shoulders inch a little higher, especially as I drove myself to various errands and to mild distraction.

I was afraid for it to be over. Afraid of the landslide that would annihilate everything in its path.

I dipped my hand into the door gap and felt around for the circular tin. I shook it, listening for the satisfying rattle of tiny lozenges. Still there.

The sound it makes as I open it is loud and percussive. It feels like a drum beat. When pressed, the lid of the container echoes as it pops loose. Pushing in against the rim from both sides fixes the lid back into place with more of a metallic snap. I repeat the process in what I imagine to be 2/4 time. 

Anyone listening might disagree. The incessant popping and snapping could set their teeth on edge or make knuckles white. I wouldn't blame them for being annoyed to the point of explosion because of my tin beatbox pulsing atonal jazz.

I notice then that the box has shifted and a cascade of candied gels has spilled out into my lap. I realize the package's entertaining engineering requires two hands.

I abandoned all sense of order, took a deep breath, fished a pill out of my pants, and popped it into my mouth. It tasted like honey-sweetened nothing. Chewy, honey-sweetened nothing.

I take another deep breath and wait for the promise of soothing natural botanicals to wrap me in its blanket of calm as I keep driving.

There are so many miles yet to go. I roll down my window to let the unnaturally warm breeze clear the air. And just keep breathing. And I keep opening and closing the now empty tin with the beat of music on the radio.

Eventually, I realize I AM calm. 

I don't need the remedy, but maybe I'll just keep the tin.

Stroganoff

"It smells good," said my son, whose nose, which up until this moment had been metaphorically pressed against his computer screen, led him into the kitchen where I had been tinkering with dinner.

I say "tinkering" because I am a cook in the chore description only. I have no loftier aspiration than following simple instructions and am especially fond of the pre-packaged kind. Time and again, I may add a dash of this or that to doctor the taste. Sometimes it works; sometimes it fails spectacularly. No one seems to notice. 

My tinkering has been made more extensive as the years wear on and the fonts keep getting smaller and smaller. Instead of searching the house for drugstore readers, I make wild guesses as to the measured amounts the directions called for. 

Often I am wildly wrong.

There was the Great Tablespoon of Cornstarch saga one Thanksgiving not that long ago, which created the need for several rounds of hydrotherapy until finally, we paid our last respects to the decimated sauce as I tipped it into the trash.

My husband took over gravy-making from then on.

Eventually, he took over a lion's share of the regular meal preparations, too. Leaving me to bake fish, blanch vegetables, and boil instant rice in the evenings work places him elsewhere.

On this night I attempted to recreate my father's stroganoff, which is really my mother's dish that my father managed to recreate so flawlessly that he just took over cooking one day, too.

But I digress.

The stroganoff started with the slicing (against the grain for tenderness) of beef that we somehow managed to have left over from a roast the night before. He'd brown it more, adding onions and mushrooms and sautéing the lot over medium heat until the vegetables were soft. 

He'd dump the contents of the pan on a plate and add butter and flour to the pan. He'd stir and stir, slowly adding beef bouillon he'd already dissolved in hot water until this roux became a gravy, then he'd return the meat to the pan and let it cook down.

There may be a reckoning if the sauce was too thick (he'd add water) or too thin (he'd add water whitened with flour) and keep watch.

He'd splash in some Worcestershire sauce, which he would mispronounce on purpose, and a generous pinch of dill before finishing up by incorporating a solid amount of sour cream.

My mom used to ladle it over egg noodles, but my dad use to make "bowties" for his biggest fan ...

My son.

As much as I have tried ... I can't get around the roux. I brown it too fast, or it will hold on to its clumps yielding a deeply unpleasant texture. I'll forget a key ingredient and the taste will mirror paste. And no matter how hard I squint, I can't make out which way the grain is going. No matter how I slice it, I fear the meat will be tough as leather.

So I cheat.

I start with some pre-sliced beef and an envelope of powdered gravy ... and I follow the directions on the back, and in a few minutes, I have a soup that kind of looks similar. 

The boy brushed past me, picked up a spatula, and gave the pot a stir.

"You want to scrape all the way to the bottom of the pan and then kind of fold it over," I offer, hoping to blunt any perceptions of criticism with the adoption of a sing-song voice.

He digs in.

"It tastes good, too."