The Runner

As with his previous visits, George wished he had talked Janie out of burial in the mausoleum.  “Being buried in the ground is too expensive,” she said.  Six months earlier, he and their daughters had obeyed the funeral director’s gentle suggestion to leave before Janie was slid into the box forever because the entombment would be “industrial.” 

George turned out of the cemetery onto Covington Road.  The car air freshener, “A Hint of Lemon” reminded him of the Pledge Janie used when they were hosting a party.  He used to love that smell because it meant she would make her specialty, Mexican egg rolls.   He saw a runner who had slowed to a walk, hands on her hips, looking down, shivering.  Should he stop and offer a ride?  Janie had made all the decisions.  Where to go on vacation.  What to eat.  When to interfere with their daughters’ relationships, schoolwork, and parenting.  He hadn’t realized how much he had lost his decision-making muscle until she was too weak to do it any longer.  Her oxygen mask kept her from speaking, but he knew that if she had the strength, she would have ripped that mask right off her face and told the doctor exactly what she wanted, which George wasn’t able to do. 

It was time to make some kind of decision about the runner.  His daughters didn’t like him driving this close to dark, but his neighbor Evelyn wanted him to lay flowers on her husband’s tomb, a couple doors down from Janie.  She said she couldn’t go herself, Byron would understand, but since George would be paying his respects to Janie, he could also pay them to Byron.  Evelyn gave him flowers she had picked from the landlady’s garden and said with an endearing yet frightening cackle, “Byron hated her.  Tell him where these came from.”

The runner looked over her shoulder at him, as if she finally noticed he was driving slowly behind her.  “Are you following me?” she asked.  George said, “You look cold.  Do you need a ride?”  The runner exhaled with a big gust.  “Can you take me to the entrance of Covington Lakes?”

She got into the car.  George noticed goosebumps on her legs and arms.  He had never seen goosebumps that large.  The runner reached over and turned up the heat without asking permission.  She smelled sweaty in a green sort of way that reminded him of his youngest daughter who ran cross country in high school.  It was a nice mix with the lemon-scented air freshener.  She ducked down when they heard the noise of a police siren coming up behind them.  George pulled over to let it pass, but to his surprise, the police car stopped behind him.  George wondered what he had done and if they would take his license away.  He had forgotten the runner, who had rolled herself into a ball, tucking herself down on the floorboards.  “Are you okay?” he asked, thinking that she was sick or had cramps.  “Shut up!” she said.  “Get out of the car and don’t say anything about me.” 

George started fumbling with the glovebox to get out his registration and banged her on the head.  “Ouch!” she yelped.  “Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, pulling out receipts from TireMD and napkins from Dunkin’ Donuts, desperately searching for his registration. 

George stumbled out of the car, holding an official looking piece of paper and trying to free his wallet from his back pocket to show his license.  “Was I speeding, sir?”

“We had a report of an excessively slow vehicle.  We also are looking for a brown-haired woman who was last seen running on this path.  Have you seen her?”

George felt himself start to panic.  The cop seemed to understand.  “She poses as a runner and goes to houses with elderly residents and says she needs a drink of water.  She then ties them up, forces them to tell her where they keep their bank passwords written down (and old people always write them down), transfers their money to an offshore account, and leaves.”

The cop picked up on George’s consternation and continued.  “Sir, you look like you shouldn’t be driving at twilight.  Why don’t I follow you home to make sure you get there safely, and then we can agree that you will only drive in daylight hours.  Sound good?” 

“Yes, yes.  Thank you, sir!”  George shakily got into his car as the officer walked back to his. 

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The Heat Is On

It’s not clear how old I was when I started hating the feeling of being hot.  Every summer I slept with the fan on a chair beside my bed blowing directly onto my body.  After many complaints, Dad consented to get an attic fan, but I wasn’t fooled when my parents talked about how it would cool the house at night.  Luckily my neighbor Kim was usually generous in inviting Tammi, another friend with cheap parents, and me over in the afternoons to watch the Cubs on WGN, switching off to All My Children and General Hospital.  Sometimes, though, Kim would get sick of us and I would have to find other amusements in the scorching afternoons.  The only thing I had the energy for was reading.  I devoured the books from my mom and sister’s shelves:  The Winds of War (longer than it needed to be), Lolita (I thought she was a little brat), Shogun (where I learned about scurvy and how the Japanese were much cleaner than Europeans), The Day Kennedy Was Shot (I wanted to see the pictures of the gore so well-described).  It is pretty funny that Mom wouldn’t let me read Judy Blume’s Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret and Then Again Maybe I Won’t because they were inappropriate. 

Until we moved to Rhode Island, it never occurred to me that we would have to spend a large amount on a normal house without a/c, when that same amount would have bought a McMansion in Indiana, complete with bonus room, 3^rd bay in the garage, and air conditioning.  After three weeks of using my fan on the chair method, we installed central air.  Yes, it cost a ton, but it has been worth every cent.

On Wednesday, the thermometer read 74 degrees at 6 a.m., and I knew running would be impossible.  So I did what any privileged white woman would do--I went to a hot yoga class.  I told the yoga studio owner about how heat raises cortisol which is a problem for those of us experiencing  perimenopause.   I also suggested that, since there are a lot of women my age who are probably feeling the same symptoms, maybe she could offer classes that were not heated.  She looked me in the eye and said, “I hear you.” She then proceeded to crank up the heat and teach a very active vinyasa class.  At the end of class, she talked about how we tell negative stories to ourselves and we should not believe them.  I knew she was talking to me, and since I felt so great, I had to laugh.  I even drove home with the a/c off and sunroof open to the blazing sun, singing very loudly to the Staples Singers.  I wondered if I wasn’t really heat averse, but just made that up.  It has been a long tale of woe, this battle I have with heat.  But what if it was just in my mind?   

Later that afternoon, it was 98 degrees when I walked across the concrete quad to teach the first class of the semester in Fogarty Hall.  The classroom was stifling.  There was just one lonely fan, very similar to the kind I had placed beside my bed so long ago, to cool off about 300 square feet.  Within five minutes, my dress was sticking to me and my brain downshifted into just one lament: must-get-out-of-here. My students and I abandoned this beautifully appointed classroom for a cramped space with a makeshift whiteboard and no digital technology, but with blessed air conditioning. 

If there’s a lesson here, I am sure it is that my dependence on air conditioning reflects a lack of character.  It reflects my privilege as well—I get to choose whether to be hot or not.  There are many New Englanders who see surviving the heat as a badge of honor with tales of mold growing on tables due to the humidity and sweating the second they step out of the shower.   Still others do not have a choice. 

We are currently experiencing the hottest summer on record in New England and there is no evidence that it is going to get better.  There is evidence that I am not alone in my cranky response to heat: hot weather increases crime.  I suggest that our politicians and scientists find and fund environmentally responsible ways to keep us cool.  And I solemnly pledge that if I ever win the lottery, I will pay for everyone to have air conditioning who wants it.

Lessons from Mavis Staples

The boundaries between my world and the world of another being get pushed back with sudden clarity, an experience both humbling and joyful. 

                                                                                    (Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2003, p. 9)

Many of our friends travel to Provincetown, on the very tip of Cape Cod, for vacation.  Just a two hour drive for us, it still seemed like a hassle with traffic choking the narrow roads lined with old-fashioned motels and shops selling tourist gear.   How much different could it be than Hyannis, our regular Cape hangout, or Newport, which is a mere 30 minutes away from our house? 

It is completely different.  Sure, in Hyannis or Newport I would have been able to buy the underwear I forgot to pack.  In Ptown, no such luck, as this town has no room for basics, especially for women.  It has art galleries, galleries of stuff that is not art, at least to my untrained eye, and lots of shops with provocatively-themed shirts and posters.  It is a place where anyone can display and celebrate his or her (mostly his) weirdness, or simply just be themselves knowing that they will not be judged, and if they are, who cares?    

It was here Nels and I had one the best days of our lives, even though we managed to miss the annual Carnival parade.

 We took a whale watch tour early in the day on the advice of friends.   Even though we were assured we would see whales, I was not prepared for what that actually meant.  The whales apparently spend the summer feeding at the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary before heading to the Caribbean for winter. 

On the ride out to the Sanctuary, I was struck by how small I felt in the midst of all that water.  How  unimportant.  Something clicked into place: a reminder that nature is more vast and mysterious than I usually think about.  Although I spend significant time in Colt State Park and on the East Bay Bike Path, these places are curated for both human and animal activity.  In contrast, the open ocean is a place of true wildness.  

The whales were magnificent.  Graceful, playful.  Such joy in their movement.    Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote that all living things speak a particular language, even the mosses she studies.  She suggests that long ago we all spoke the same language, but that has been lost as beings have evolved into many kinds of species.  These whales seemed to be communicating with one another and with us, a large group of admirers.   One whale would flap her fin up in the air as if she was waving, then slap it down on the water, creating huge splashes of sound and spray.  Three of them would swim together and then descend below the water one by one.    Even as I describe what I see, words are not enough to convey the fullness of the experience—the emotional and spiritual and joyful.  Bounded by the space of a boat filled by tourists speaking multiple languages, we all were part of something bigger than ourselves. 

That night we went to church.  Not one of those stuffy New England cathedrals where I feel the need to tiptoe and whisper with a feeling of not-good-enough.     Instead, we went to the church of soul music held in the Payomet Tent with the Divine Ms. Mavis Staples presiding, 80 years old and perhaps five feet tall. 

Mavis did not preach.  Instead, she invited us to listen, to sing, to dance, to reach out.   Her message of racial and political unity went straight to my heart and body through music.  She sent out incredible love and drew us into the conversation about what is needed to make this country a more equitable place.  Have you ever listened to Respect Yourself?  

If you disrespect anybody that you run into

How in the world do you think anybody’s s’posed to respect you

Take the sheet off your face, boy

It’s a brand new day

Mavis told us we have work to do.  She was open and honest about what we face as individuals and communities, and she did it joyfully and with eyes wide open.   We had front row seats, and she reached out and grasped my hand at two different times.  I felt recognized—more than that, I felt called to her mission. 

Earlier in the day, I felt my unimportance looking at the vastness of the ocean.  The day ended with me realizing that, I may indeed be insignificant, but what I do matters.  This paradox encloses lots of other small contradictions I am recognizing lately:  the need to let people be who they are versus the wish that they were different.  The call to bear witness versus the urge to fight.  The search for identity and clarity versus staying still in the muck and mess.

Then I remember both/and can replace either/or.  I can feel insignificant and yet have impact.  I can accept people even if I don’t want to hang out with them.  Bearing witness is a form of resistance to oppression.  Clarity may arise from the muck.  Love and justice go together. 

    

The Willingness and the Stuff

When we moved into our house back in 2005, Dad and I painted the whole first floor while Nels was away on a business trip.  Mom found it endearing that the couple who owned the local hardware store closed early on Wednesdays so they could go golfing.  It was a memorable time with my parents, even as the painting process seemed impossibly long and tedious.  Mom said it was their best vacation, but that may have been the fumes she inhaled from the solvent she used to scrape old paint from the wood trim. 

Fast forward to the present and the need for change is in the air again.  But…but. You know how it is when something needs to get done, but the job is so big you want to pare your ambitions down to lying on the couch and binge-watching The Crown?  Luckily, when Nels asked when I wanted to start painting, I said, “tomorrow” and he thought I meant it.  The painting tools came out of the shed, new supplies were purchased at Ace Hardware, and raggedy t-shirts and sweatpants were dragged out of drawers.

We had to start where painting always starts, the ceiling.  After two days of moving paint sheets around and trying to determine if I had actually painted sections or was just painting the same space over and over, we were done.  The ceiling was a vast sea of whiteness and I couldn’t tell where I had been and what I had missed.  I still can’t.

After diving into Pinterest, I was convinced that the walls should be blue to contrast with the brown furniture.  Plus I wanted a darker color to pop against the new white windows we were putting in.  But what shade of blue?  How light, how dark?  How gray, how purple?  Then I brought home some samples and realized there was no freaking way I was committing an entire floor to blue.  I gave up on being creative and went with Benjamin Moore’s Edgecomb Gray, a reasonable neutral guaranteed to look good in sunlight and shade. 

There is a lot to know about paint and painting.  And what you know about painting, you have to know about yourself.  Benjamin Moore has a paint style called Aura which dries really fast and requires a different painting technique.  Sorry, no.  Neither one of us felt like experimenting.  This project also reinforced our knowledge of one another.  Nels is the detail guy and painted four coats of white, two of primer, two of paint, on all eight dark-stained window frames.  Because the semester was starting, I was only available in fits and starts.  While I was happy to take down art and switchplates, spackle holes, wipe down surfaces, and roll some first coats of color, he ended up doing 90% of the work.   I am proud that he let me paint some of the baseboard heaters.   That showed his faith in me, as those required some technique.  Our relationship survived because we stuck within our respective zones—I picked the colors and did the sloppy grunt work and Nels did everything else.

Speaking of couples who let each other do what they do, my Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Andy have been married for a very long time and are clearly used to each other’s quirks.  She still laughs at his goofy jokes and puts up with his stubbornness, and he ensures that she, who needs an oxygen tank 24/7 and can only see peripherally, has what she needs. 

Aunt Chartie (or as I grew up calling her, Aunt “Shotty” from my mother’s southern pronunciation) and I talked on the phone shortly after Thanksgiving.  She and Uncle Andy had gone over to a friend’s house, and the friend, in his 80’s just like them, had served cranberry sauce from a can.  Later that week, Andy decided he wanted real cranberry sauce and made it himself with her input.  She and I discussed what it took to do something like that outside the context of holiday requirements.  She said, “It takes the willingness and the stuff.”  Not only does a person have to want to put in the time, but they also have to obtain what is needed and have support. 

I recalled this as Nels and I were painting over the last six weeks.  It was a huge project and we just had to make the decision to begin.  Luckily, we could afford to buy the paint and our schedules are somewhat flexible, so we had the willingness AND the stuff.  Similarly, a student must be willing to learn, but she must also have the “stuff”--including time, support, and adult care, to do the work.   Too often we forget that there are multiple aspects to learning.

Aunt Chartie died last week at the age of 85.  Every time I look at our freshly painted home, or work with students, I will remember her words. 

Sept. 11: Memory and Unpredictability

        There are many ways to mark time.  Some do it in terms of decades or important events, like weddings or birthdays or graduations.  There are also the dates of catastrophic events, such as FDR’s statement on Dec. 7, 1941 as a “date which will live in infamy” when Pearl Harbor was bombed and the U.S. declared war on Japan.  People also remember where they were on Nov. 22, 1963, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Those dates shaped their respective generations.  Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings, as well as the crash of Flight 93 in the bucolic Pennsylvania countryside, shaped mine. 

        As I ran through Colt State Park this morning, I was struck by how similar this morning was to the same date 16 years ago, a thousand miles apart.  Clear skies, cool and sunny, low humidity.  When I got home from my walk that morning, Nels was on the phone in his office and gestured for me to turn on the television in the bedroom across the hall.  The first tower was a smoking mess and then I watched another plane fly into the second tower.  I could only sit there on the edge of the bed and cry as the commentators tried to make sense of what was happening.  When I finally roused myself to go to work, everyone looked as shell-shocked as I felt. 

         It was clear from the very first plane crash that life was going to be forever changed and a deep feeling of dread lasted for months.  I had never, ever listened to talk radio, but found myself glued to NPR.  Steve Inskeep’s calm voice narrated the unfolding events each morning, and also provided glimmers of hope and moments of compassion even as the news remained dismal.   

For the first time in 16 years, I was caught by surprise this morning when I checked the date.  I often commemorated the date in my morning journal, but not always.  Here are a few excerpts from past years:

In 2002, my cousin, 42 at the time (younger than I am now), died suddenly of heart failure during the first week of September.  It clearly felt like too much to deal with post-Sept. 11 mania:

I feel like I’ve been riding this torrent of media overload the entire week prior to this day, and now it will be even worse.  I don’t understand this.  I don’t want to relive that day nor the weeks that followed.  Why do others want to do so? ...I still remember the shock, I remember the numbness of the day…Plus I’m dealing with my own grief about David’s death.  It’s not that I have cried.  I mostly have felt numb, again.  I keep thinking wow, I’m over it as I go about my daily business, but I’m not.  I think about him and his family often.  I just see him in the coffin with all that makeup on.  He didn’t look asleep; he just looked dead. 

In 2005, I wrote:

Four years ago today.  It seems longer than that.  It seems like we have always lived under this administration in this fear-mongering world, where a constant state of worry holds us hostage.  But then I look out and see the geese flying by, and I feel okay again about the world.  It’s a temporary feeling and as fictional as the fear, I suppose.  The world is what it is.  It’s just so difficult to see that and not all the crap we put around it.

In 2010, it was simply: “Here it is, September 11.  Nine years later.  I remember.”

On the tenth anniversary, I wrote:

It’s 5:55 on the 10^th anniversary of Sept. 11.  I have done my mourning and thinking already this week.  I just hope that there is no new fresh disaster.  Like others, I have remembered where I was, how I thought the world changed at the time…I see how I’ve changed now…I see how proud we can be of all who worked together to perform rescue operations.  But I also see that the over-patriotism, the arrogance, the ethnocentrism in those American flags waving from cars.  It feels like overcompensating. 

In 2013, I wrote:

Ahh…I just realized what day it is.  The 12^th anniversary.  I’ve been thinking about it on the beautiful mornings, because I’ll never forget how great that walk was that day, how I felt so lucky and encouraged, and then how I came home and saw the television.  The impact of that day is still inscribed in my physical and emotional body like no other non-personal event. 

In 2014, six months after my friend Jenn died in a car accident, I wrote:

And now today is the anniversary of Sept. 11.  When I think about days that changed me, this is up there.  In a way, it’s like learning of Jenn’s death.  It seemed so impossible that something like that could happen, and at first the dread that something more could happen, and then the long years of war afterward, which was about fear and mourning, but also about coming together.  Maybe that’s what needs to happen for those of us grieving for Jenn. 

            We all have ways of remembering the events that demonstrate the world is not orderly or predictable.  These same events also, paradoxically, remind us that developing a sense of calm and stability supports our best selves and work (maybe even survival).  As a character from Elan Mastai’s book, All Our Wrong Todays, said, “There’s no such thing as the life you’re supposed to have.”  True, but we have a responsibility to be our best selves regardless in spite of—or because of—events like Sept. 11.

From Neil Young to Jesus: Resistance has a Big Tent

Oh Alabama

Can I see you and shake your hand

Make friends down in Alabama

I’m from a new land

I come to you and

See all this ruin

What are you doing?

Alabama, you have the rest of the union

To help you along

From “Alabama” from Harvest by Neil Young (released in 1972)

When the first chords of any Neil Young guitar lick—as recognizable as my mother’s voice—hit my ear, I perk up immediately.  In the middle of a show at the Narrows from their strong new album, Duende, a member of the Band of Heathens said, “This is for Jeff Sessions,” and ripped into “Alabama,” Neil Young’s lament about southern racism.   After the raucous applause which included a yell of “Fuck Trump,” to hearty crowd affirmation, the lead singer grinned.  And then he said, “Music is about bringing people together, not splitting them apart.”

I had a similar experience attending a live performance of The Moth at the Zeiterion Theatre last week.  It seemed like everyone I knew, from my mother-in-law to my yoga teacher to my colleagues to my students knew about this radio show/podcast except for me.  When I asked what it was about, they just said, “It’s so great!”  It turns out that the Moth is comprised of stories.  The host opened the show by noting that stories were for everyone, even in this acrimonious time.  Five people came onto the stage and shared 10 minute personal narratives of varying humor and pathos.   Even though Donald Trump played a major part in one of the stories, the point was not to praise or to denigrate; but simply to tell the story in which he was a character.

These experiences, along with listening to some of my favorite music this week (Avett Brothers, Frank Turner, Wailin’ Jennys, Mavis Staples and of course Hamilton), helped me understand and embrace the role I want to take in this divisive and scary time:  that of someone who brings people together.  I am not a moderate in my political beliefs: my lefthandedness and my leftist priorities are in harmony.  That said, I think it’s time to widen the tent. 

 It troubles me to make this kind of space in some ways.  For example, I never thought I would be cheering on billionaire Eli Broad, a pariah to public educators, except in his vocal opposition to Betsy DeVos.  I also wonder about those folks against abortion who name themselves as feminists.  Do we have to turn in our leftist credentials to include them in an anti-Trump movement?  It’s fine for us to question each other in ways to get each other to think, as in the women of color noting and critiquing the whiteness of the women’s march.  Where were white women in the Black Lives Matter movement, they ask?  I supported that, but I also felt a little queasy seeing it written across a white girl’s stomach at the Newport Folk Festival two years ago.  I have spoken to many white middle class women who don’t quite know what to do.  We don’t want to be colonialist, and we are not sure how to be activists and not speak for oppressed people instead of with them.   I hope this larger resistance will create space for all of us to feel comfortable talking and listening to each other. 

In this larger tent of resistance, I think of Jesus with the loaves and fishes, expanding who can be nourished.  We need the ranters who seem to be at the forefront right now, but we also need strategists and spaceholders.  How can we cultivate unlikely allies such as Eli Broad, anti-abortion feminists and radical people of color?  How about moderate conservatives in Congress who have been afraid to stand up to this administration and their leadership?  Do we all not at least agree that we want Trump and Pence out of the Oval Office?  Even as there may not be compromises on certain issues, I hope that inclusivity and peace can be the hallmarks of this resistance. 

Let’s remember:

-We are the majority.

-We want love and justice for all people.

-Politicians want votes and corporations want our business. 

That is, we have immense power.  Let’s use it.  Together.

The Politics of Friendship

“I am convinced people with opposing opinions politically cannot be friends.”

I was at the Women’s March in Providence when I checked Facebook and saw that post from one of my oldest friends.  I was excited to be at the rally with what turned out to be several thousand others—women, men, children, dogs and musicians of all ages and ethnicities.  Most had signs with clever sayings.  It was a beautiful day, unseasonably warm and sunny, and the feeling of dread I’d had since the election lifted.  If there were this many rallying in this small city, how many more were there across the nation (yes, Fox, even in the flyover states) and across the world?  The sense of community and shared energy was the perfect tonic for the toxicity of Trump’s Inauguration speech the day before.  

And then I saw that post from my friend, whom I’ll call Daren.  We have been friends since my freshman year of high school.  She introduced me to Planned Parenthood and Madonna’s first album, which we listened to all the time on her small boom box.  We made a lot of similar bad choices, especially when it came to boyfriends and overconsumption of alcohol.  Our friendship was off and on after high school, but when Facebook arrived, we reconnected and get together for coffee or lunch when I come back to Fort Wayne to visit family.   Daren is still the easygoing and generous person I remember from high school.  She is also much more conservative than I remembered.  To be fair, I did not realize how left-leaning I was until I went to college and felt like I finally understood how the world really works. 

Weirdly, our ideological differences have never come up when we are together, but are all too obvious on FB.  When I messaged Daren about her post, she said she had an argument with one of our mutual high school friends, a lefty like me, but also much more outspoken than I am.  It turns out their political differences turned personal, and what sounded like some long-simmering resentments came to the surface.  That made me wonder how political differences among friends and family members might not just be about politics, but something  a little deeper.  Feminists have always said that the personal is political, and I wonder if the reverse is not true as well.

Daren and I have some things in common—we both have been married to the same partner for over 20 years and are both subsequently devoted to our animals, although she is a dog person and I am a cat person.  However, our lives definitely took different trajectories, in that I chose to leave home for college and now live a thousand miles away, and she chose to stay in our hometown.  Our politics, values, and lifestyles are dissimilar.  So why do we maintain our friendship?  I think it’s because we knew each other when we were on our worst behavior in our teens and early 20’s.  Daren saw me at my most selfish and insecure, and I never remember her criticizing me for it (and she certainly had reason to).  I watched her engage in self-destructive behavior and tried to keep her from being too crazy. 

So, I am choosing to ignore her political posts, many of which I find hateful and offensive.  I try not to post those kinds of messages from my side, not because I don’t want to offend her and my other conservative friends, but because I think of Henry David Thoreau’s quote: “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.” 

I will continue to actively engage in resistance to the Trump agenda and administration.  I will also keep Thoreau in mind and attempt to be strong AND tender in my words and actions.  Long-lasting, healthy relationships are worth keeping if we still value one another, even as we have different values.