I feel sorry for young people today. It appears that the dating scene is pretty tough to navigate. Newsflash — it always has been.
But what is different is all the advice and pop psychology out there on the internet and, especially, the social media world teaching people how to get it right.
It goes something like this:
Do I want to know if I’m an anxious, avoidant, or secure attachment? Maybe I should know how to identify those things so I can identify them in myself and future dating partners.
Should I know if I have abandoned my feminine and have been living only in my masculine because in order to survive, I’ve had to be strong and independent and not ask for help. Might that be why I’ve remained single so long?
Maybe I’m cheating myself because I’m not really in a relationship, but rather in a situationship that doesn’t require any kind of commitment.
Here’s one that I’ve never heard of: Is It a Crush or is it Limerence? Apparently, limerence is an obsessive, fictional, or imagined attachment to someone you might know superficially or who could even be a stranger. Geez, I think I do this. I thought this was unrequited love, but now there’s a new name for it. Reading the comments section from this article, I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one. There are a whole lot of people who identify with this.
Am I heeding advice about seeing those red flags that pop up and foretell future problems, but, then again, do I recognize the green flags that signal the go ahead. Still, proceed but with caution.
On the other hand, maybe I should just chuck all this relationship stuff and simply celebrate being single because like Miley sings in her Grammy Award winning song: I can love me better than you can.
WHEW!!
Totally overwhelming.
Now, I agree there is merit in all this new information. It’s important to understand, recognize, and change old patterns and behaviors that can unconsciously activate old wounding that we mistake for love and keeps us unhappy. I totally get that. I’ve been there.
But speaking as a mature woman whose been around the block a few times and learned a some things, I have to wonder if maybe everyone just needs to lighten up a little bit and Bring Romance back.
Let’s all just take a break and enjoy each other’s company and demonstrate our loving feelings with some thoughtful, simple, but heartfelt acts. For instance:
Go analog/snail mail and send a card, a hand written note, or a postcard. It’s thrilling to receive mail in this text driven culture. I read of someone who scribbled a handwritten note and then took a picture and texted it. In a pinch, that would work.
Flowers are always nice. Who doesn’t like getting flowers or even a flower? Small gifts are romantic too. A favorite bakery item, a book, a poem perhaps?
Show up and announce you want to have coffee and spend some quiet time talking and checking in. Don’t we all want to feel seen? Don’t we all want to feel special? Holding hands is lovely. So is an unexpected hug.
Being romantic requires listening — being heard, an art in itself. Here’s a good example
Jack knew Hannah wanted to go see Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour Movie. She had mentioned this a few times, and not being a Swift fan, Jack didn’t immediately pick up on it. But he listened and realized how much it would mean if he took her to see it. He bought tickets and surprised her. They went together. Score! She was touched deeply (and he actually enjoyed it).
Sigh.
Spread a little romance in your platonic relationships as well. I recently visited a favorite shop in the town where I live and saw something that caught my eye. I immediately thought of my friend Elizabeth and bought it. I’ll surprise her with it at a later date.
Valentine’s Day and Galentine’s Day is upon us. That’s probably what got me stirred up. I think the best advice would be to put away the phones, detach from social media for a while, go analog, have fun, and pay tribute to the art of Romance.
In my young mind, it couldn’t have been more exotic or more intimate.
Sure, in the past, I had encounters like this at my grandmother’s and cousin’s home. But we shared a similar culture. This was a different trip altogether.
As a young adolescent of eleven or twelve, I was crossing the border into the unknown and spending the night in the territory of strangers … my first overnight at a friend’s house. What it revealed to me was something that I had never consciously noticed before.
On high alert the moment I walked through the door, the most primitive and powerful of the senses startled me.
The Smell …it’s so … up close and personal. And unlike the other four senses, can’t be turned off.
Back then, homes weren’t covered up by those horrible Febreze and plug- in air fresheners which only mask the aroma. In this case, it was like my budding olfactory system was frantically playing pinball pinging the ball to my brain trying to score a memory.
What I sniffed wasn’t unpleasant, actually, just different. The family signature was a unique blend of woody/resinous, with a few drops of fruity and a hint of chemical. It took a little getting used to; all the while, I was horrified to think what odors my family home announced to visitors.
Once fully saturated and the novelty wore off, the visuals kicked in.
Like my own densely populated family of origin, my friend was also one of six kids, and while I lived in a large, ten room house, this family of eight shared quarters half the size. Since no one used front doors that I knew, we entered from a shed that opened to the eat-in kitchen.
The family hub was surprisingly small but neat with older, white painted cabinets and some cabinet doors missing altogether. Totally foreign to me was the fact that the dad, an original DIYer, was in the process of renovating it. At my house, the outside Christmas lights could still be seen in May until my mother finally gave up nagging my dad and took them down herself.
From the kitchen, we went through a modest center hallway to what seemed to be the pride and joy of the family, the formal living room. This room appeared to be totally pristine and off limits to anyone under 30.
Seated there reigned the mom, who rarely went out and apparently chain-smoked, inconceivable to me, as my own mother was an extreme extrovert who loved shopping and playing golf.
My friend introduced us and then went on to proudly explain how her mother had done the decorating herself including sewing the drapes, and reupholstering the couch and chairs. It was all tastefully done in a soft, yellow floral print with a few well-curated antiques she’d found locally. The fact that this raven-haired, wisp of a woman possessed such talent struck me as amazing. In addition, it was pointed out she was also a gardener whose small back yard would soon be overflowing with purple iris, lupine, and pink peonies.
I was dumbfounded.
Late afternoon morphed into the dinner hour (much earlier than at my home), and the experience I dreaded most. Eating in this unfamiliar place with the whole family. Like any good guest, I didn’t want to insult my hosts’ generosity of what was probably a special meal prepared in my honor. Fingers crossed, I prayed there would appear something my picky tastes could tolerate.
The dad was also a cook and his specialty dinner was lasagna. This wasn’t a staple in my house but manageable and close enough to spaghetti maybe if I skirted around the cottage cheese.
Whew.
But then I saw it. Are you kidding? There was NO way.
Tossed salad dressed with Miracle Whip!
I was trapped.
I didn’t like mayonnaise, and it was inconceivable that anyone could even eat Miracle Whip. It was simply grotesque that it was being used as salad dressing. Where was the Italian! Much as I tried to hide my distaste, my face apparently curdled.
The family smiled broadly. The three little brothers chortled with glee. They were all so darn nice about it and gave me a pass.
I don’t remember where everyone disappeared to after dinner. The living room was off-limits, and there didn’t appear to be a family room with a TV anywhere I could see. We traipsed up to the second floor, where the parents and the boys slept. One bathroom. How was that not an accident waiting to happen? We continued our ascent up a skeletal set of attic stairs.
And arrived at another construction site.
I was shocked.
The three older sisters each had an unfinished room that resembled the open cubicle of an office space but framed with fresh pine boards. Although it first appeared a little rough, at the same time, it had this exotic tree-house feel perched up high and far removed from the hustle and bustle of life down below. There must have been times when the lack of privacy annoyingly intruded, but I also sensed in the arrangement the comforting close and affectionate familiarity that sisters share. I couldn’t help think about my own huge bedroom with canopy bed which didn’t really feel quite like my own because my two closets were stuffed with my mother’s excess clothes and shoes.
Her presence a constant intrusion.
I don’t remember the next morning because, as with most big families, the early hours resembled the commotion of a mess hall. The novelty of the night before had worn off, life resumed as usual, and I walked home a little changed.
My world view of how other families functioned was limited, and this trip jostled me out of the small, insular world I knew. Life had pretty much been devoid of comparisons.
But suddenly I was evaluating ways of being that were different from my little country of origin. It deepened my perspective.
Looking back I still get that same intake of breath, racing heart, and wonder-struck feeling that comes with a new adventure.
Who knew spreading his ashes could be so much fun,
My dad holding my twin sisters and me. It could be fun and harrowing at the same time.
He was always a bit of an enigma, my father.
Born the only child to an older, stage-and-silent-movie-actress mother and entrepreneur father who died when he was eleven, my father lived a lonely life away at boarding school and later a military academy.
When we were still very young, his mother lived in a nursing home in the small, Maine town where we grew up. It was our mother who took us to visit. My father refused to go. We never really understood why that was so, and it remained mysteriously, weirdly astonishing to us until she died.
As we grew older, he could present to friends as erudite,urbane, and a slick dresser, yet, on the other hand, show up late for mass on Sunday wearing a trench coat over shorts exposing bare legs shod in loafers with no socks like some kind of flasher, a source of shame. This was the same guy who wore men’s sock garters and shined his shoes every morning before work. Who the hell did this?
Because we figured he had suffered growing up, my five younger siblings and I felt sorry for him and kind of forgave him a lot of shit that included walking out on our mother and us for a year when I was 13 and my youngest brother was 2, and then returning to grace us with another sixteen years of alcoholism before our family had an intervention, got him sober, and he decided, finally, to leave for good.
He moved to California without a dime and reinvented himself initially working as a janitor at a burger joint (some kind of penance?) before slowly getting his life together marrying again, making a successful living in real estate, and giving back to the AA community.
Over the remaining thirty years, he came East once, sometimes twice a year. These visits usually precipitated conflicting feelings of dread because he stirred up the past and took up so much space, and the hopeful anticipation that my indifference about him might warm, and, as a now adult, I might actually enjoy seeing him.
After all these years, I still can’t decipher the heart’s language of what he means to me. I guess I loved him. Not in the Father’s-Day-card kind of way( I never sent one), but more like a funny uncle from whom I learned resilience, a terrific sense of the ridiculous, and a love of The New Yorker cartoons of George Booth.
When my dad died five years ago from lung cancer, and much like the time thirty-one years earlier when he left, he decided he’d had enough and checked out before any of us could get on a plane to see him one last time.
He’d often stated in the past that when he died he wanted no service, and we could just bury his ashes in an old coffee can. We made good on the no service request but not quite the coffee can and opted, instead, for a more traditional, unadorned urn. But what we did do surely would have made him laugh.
After scattering some ashes at the lake he loved and his parents’ grave site back home, the six of us, along with several of his grandchildren, carried what remained of his ashes in a baggie to New York City, a favorite haunt of his youth.
We had bandied about the likes of MetLife Stadium, home to his beloved Giants, and The Meat Packing District on the far west side where his ancestors had once thrived, but it wasn’t until we found ourselves milling around on a street in Midtown when in a moment of pure spontaneity, one of us — I like to believe it was me — hatched the perfect plan.
Where we were exactly was the corner of Madison Avenue and East 44th Street, in front of the flagship store of the iconic menswear brand, Brooks Brothers, his favorite store. The plan was the six of us would grab a hefty pinch of dad, and with hands in pockets, sneak a dribble here and there throughout the store where he could shop and preen among the expensive suits and ties for all eternity.
The plan was met with hoots of Yes! That’s perfect! He’d love this! And like a pack of gleeful adolescents trying to stifle smirks and smiles, we entered its gentleman’s- club-like inner sanctum trying to appear nonchalant.
What I remember next is that we scattered like city rats in every direction trying to cover as much territory as we could, all the while throwing both caution and dad to the wind.
I took to the stairs to find the expensive suits, a favorite. Someone else hit ties, of which he owned hundreds. Since there weren’t many people in the store, we had to act fast because we quickly drew the attention of store staff who probably suspected they’d been hit by some motley shoplifting ring.
One by one we eventually tumbled out of the store in a gasping, laughing heap in front of our kids. I thought to myself, all in all it was a pretty benign caper but was this the kind of behavior we should have been modeling?
I figured wrong. The overwhelming consensus among his grandchildren was that he would have gotten a big kick out of it.
I wondered maybe this could become a thing? Do other families have similar tales?
Brooks Brothers filed bankruptcy in 2020; its flagship store is now closed, and the real estate will be repurposed to accommodate some other business venture. But whenever I think of this most American of iconic brands, I’ll picture my father outfitted in his finest suit, shined shoes, garters, and all.
Revisiting the lake of my youth, will life ever be this happy, this good?
Original painting of Cobbossee Lake by the author.
It begins with a sound.
The rhythmic lapping of water against the dock. That simple tempo awakens other sounds: the low growl of a boat engine in the distance, youthful laughter and shouts of “cannon ball.” The Beach Boys singing “Good Vibrations” followed by the keening vocals of Laura Nyro’s “Eli’s Coming,”
The floodgates open and a blanket of sun warms my 12 year-old body, and the odors of suntan lotion and my ripened bathing suit — is it ever washed? — recall few baths because a 14 mile length of lake stretches out from this northern shore, and summer… seemingly never ends.
Visiting this lake again, a painful nostalgia has me in its gripsomany years later, and, like a sleepwalker, I am unwittingly lulled to the lonely space of memory.
Every summer growing up, my five siblings and I moved from town to a lake only 10 minutes away… yet a universe away… from mundane rules and stifling structure, and I felt we existed at its center. Located in a tightly packed grove of other seasonal “camps” (a Maine colloquialism for anything from a shack to a house)there was an army of other big families whose kids were more than ready to participate in the daily drills of whiffle ball and red rover, red rover, call somebody over.
Other factions of friends, lucky to also inhabit this universe, arrived from the east and west shores by motor boat, and we’d hone our skills of getting up on one ski and jumping the wake. If we were really lucky, Charlie Hippler would pull twelve of us behind his powerful Cris Craft dubbed “The Big and Fast” at days end on a Saturday night.
The everglades had nothing on our exotic, little creek that wound its way mysteriously to its outlet, a water hazard on the fourth hole of a golf course. There we would fish for many a failed second- shot- Titlelists, and then resell them for a nice profit that bought Barbie dolls and fire balls.
On stormy days, we’d secure the boat and retreat to the big enclosed porch and watch blackening clouds come riding from the north. The world grew dark and calm and suddenly still until a thick, black line appeared in the distance. A driving rain propelled it forward with lightening strikes and cracks of thunder, and we’d anticipate the moment when it arrived blowing open with a bang! the closed glass doors.
We idolized Barry and David, two older teens who built in the woods, just beyond the wishing rock, a three story tree house equipped with screens. A marvel in its craftsmanship and creativity. If we promised to be good, they’d allow us to climb up.
Adults were a blurry vision on the periphery, but neighbor visits clinking cocktail glasses often led to impromptu parties that fluffed up feelings of security and well being because it confirmed our parents were popular and fun. Dashing between quick questions and light conversations, we’d steal cigarettes and beer and then quietly disappear. Life was good.
In a rare moment when I found myself alone, I’d slip away to the shoreline and wonder who I’d be at 18, where I’d be at 21. Any age beyond that was inconceivable.
The camp was sold many years ago. The circular road is now paved and the seasonal grove of my childhood seems crowded and over built.
Revisiting this space is twofold: It is both a happy remembrance of youth, a loving family, and an unabashed exuberance for life, and it is a painful reminder that time has marched on and the world is a much more complicated, predictable, and solitary place.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been, quite literally, kicked to the curb a few times over the years.
And that includes a dropkick from each of the three big contenders that figure prominently in the life-sucking-psychic-energy department: romance, work, and customer service.
But in one area of my life, there’s been a person who for the past twenty-two years has alleviated stress and kept my days, as well as my 1993 Volvo 240 wagon running smoothly. He’s not only a wizard, he’s also generous, passionate, honest, and damned pleasant.
It’s early evening and the dark winter sky is a gun metal gray. As I’m driving down a busy interstate after work, the dashboard lights up and the engine lets out a slow, dying exhale. Panic puts me in a choke hold because there’s nothing worse than sitting in the break down lane, alone.
I pull the car over and call Peter. He immediately answers the phone. The problem is diagnosed on the spot, and he instructs me to turn off the radio and any other malfunctioning accessories. After limping another 10 miles back to the garage, he’s waiting for me and proceeds to replace the alternator in record time while I wait — and I want to cry not only because are I’m relieved but also because there’s still money in the checking account. I can’t count the number of times I’ve incredulously blurted out, “Is that all?!” after getting the bill.
Such generosity of time and labor is unheard of except from the best of friends.
Passionate about his work he recognizes that same passion in his customers and is willing to barter. Lucky for me he loves art, and on three separate occasions over the years, when the cost of a repair was substantial, I’ve traded my paintings with him.
I can always trust that I’m getting the best deal possible because he is a genius at rebuilding expensive parts or designing new ones. If I need a head gasket, I know Peter will explore every avenue to make it less painful.
He’s a gentleman — I’ve never seen him get angry — and he has that rare ability to make you feel like you’re a favorite customer. Maybe that’s because he operates by his well known quote, “NO Rules, NO Fools.”
Three years ago he was diagnosed with cancer. I learned he had no insurance. I did the only thing I could do and gave him my wagon with new tires and the head gasket he had recently put in. Because after years of good will and stellar service, you pay it forward.
Peter died April 20, 2020, at 62.
I now drive an old Subaru Forester.
Through word of mouth, I’ve been blessed again and found another perfect match. Like Peter before him, Sal runs a small, independent garage in the country and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
At most other places, they would have told me I needed to replace the catalytic converter. But not Sal. The only problem was it was hanging loose, so he fashioned a clamp (because they don’t make them) that secured it in place, and it’s been good to go for the past two years.
During another visit to replace a costly ball joint, he drove to a friend’s garage to borrow a tool he knew the guy had that made the labor intensive job a lot easier. I saved hundreds of dollars.
My driving now often includes harrowing trips on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. As I white-knuckle-it entering the on ramp, my anxiety is lessened because I’ve had my six month check up at the garage back home.
It’s funny how you can become so attached to a vehicle. But I think it has more to do with the person who makes the magic happen. (It’s magic to me)
Life will always be a bumpy ride.
Thanks for absorbing a lot of the shocks along the way.
The nomadic instinct is a human instinct — Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad
Having a “Lucy” on the stoop in Brooklyn, NY. A single cigarette at the local bodega is $1.00.Photo of the author by Jack Liakas
After a couple of years of deep contemplation, I decided I was tired of living a life of not quite… quiet desperation…but lingering melancholy.
I felt my life shrinking when it should be expanding. Routine had sidled up, tapped me on the shoulder, and suddenly uttered Boo!
I remembered “The Songlines,” a terrific book I had been given just prior to a nine month, solo trip I’d taken to New Zealand and Australia five years ago. A best seller in 1987, the author Bruce Chatwin is credited with transforming travel writing. His book is part travel adventure and personal philosophy as he explores the meaning and origins of ancient Aboriginal “Dream Tracks,” invisible roadways left by the totem ancestors as they “sang the natural world into existence.”
What stuck with me was that Chatwin postulated we humans have a nomadic instinct. Staying in one place, sedentary desk jobs, and our excessive accumulation of stuff are unnatural and don’t make us happy.
He was right.
The pandemic has reinforcedthis. After a year of zoomed out working tethered to laptops, a lot of young people are having a YOLO (you only live once) epiphany severing the ties to secure jobs and pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and travel.
Like a lot of older people, this year has forced me to look at my own mortality and fortified what I learned traveling alone five years ago: The older we get, we tend to like things predictable and safe, and our lives tend to shrink. The older we get, we’re less likely to take risks, and we limit ourselves because great risks are rewarded with great opportunities and adventure. The older we get, time seems to accelerate, and we’re left wondering where the hell did the years go?
Conversely, being fluid and mobile slows time down. Visiting new places and engaging with the beauty of nature keeps us curious, sparks creativity, and expands our lives.
That’s why the movie “Nomadland,” which swept the Oscars for best picture, director, and actress this year totally grabbed me. Based on the nonfiction book, “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” author Jessica Bruder followed an ever increasing number of nomads,often called rubber tramps, for three years. A lot of them are older people who have given up traditional housing and travel by car, van, or RV across America searching for work and staying at communal campgrounds.
Though some choose this lifestyle — I remember the grey nomads of Australia — for most, this evolves out of necessity. The fictional character, Fern in the movie version is a widow who leaves her home and economically devastated town and heads out on the road in her van. This isn’t an easy way to live, and in no way does the movie romanticize it. Yet, there’s a certain hard won beauty about living life on your own terms. Fern and the real nomads she meets are inspiring because of the kindness and compassion they show each other and the self sufficiency and fierce independence they model.
Let’s face it, life is tough, and the one thing you can count on is change in all its guts and glory. But this subculture seems to be able to toss convention to the wind and tackle, head on, all the unexpected interceptions life tends to throw.
Not quite rubber tramp, but happy wanderer
In my own way, I’ve been bitten by this itinerant bug too.
After two years back home in Maine living alone and time running a marathon, I once again felt the urge to bust out.
I rented my house for a second time and moved to NYC in November of 2019, a life-long dream. Yeah, I know. Then disaster struck. Talk about change. But I’ve learned that pain motivates progress, and The Big Apple is still the greatest city in the world, even in a pandemic.
There are, of course, drawbacks to my semi-nomadic wanderings. I’m not living out of my car, but it has become a bit of a mini storage unit since the bulk of my scant belongings are stored hither and thither, and I’m constantly loosing stuff or leaving things behind. Since my means are limited, I am subleasing a couple of furnished rooms. After forty years, I have a roommate again. I often get lost.
And…
I’ve never been happier and feel like a younger, but better, wiser version of myself. Like Fern, I have a strong support system that includes close siblings and the compassionate friendship of strong, capable women who look out for each other. I’ve discovered the freedom of becoming a minimalist, and an unexpected surprise is I enjoy having the company of a roommate.
The plan was to move back to my house in June of this year, but the nomadic instinct has taken root in my boomer-age-tenants as well. So we’ve decided that I’ll move back to my house with all their furnishings from June to October, and after enjoying a summer on the coast, they’ll rent my house again until mid May of 2022.
That could change.
Because, as you know, a lot can happen in a year.
In the meantime, I’ll try to keep my old car serviced, and I’ll renew my AAA membership.
Best of all, there are fewer and fewer bouts of melancholy and more and more moments of pure joy.
I’m not really a smoker. Just having fun. Photo of the author by Jack Liakas
The amazing Helen Mirren is credited with this quote:
Your 40s are good. Your 50s are great. your 60s are fab. Your 70s are F*@ing awsome.
When I first read it, the 40s, 50s, and 60s decades resonated. But the 70s? F*@ing Awesome?
I tried hard to believe her — I really did . But I wasn’t totally buying it.
Until recently.
Looking back:
The 40s were good. I got married, had a son, enjoyed being young and healthy. But before the decade was done, dissatisfaction cast its shadow and darkened into a full fledged storm of divorce. Better things were coming. I managed.
I’ll agree the 50s were great. I felt some discrimination for the first time in this youth-obsessed, Instagramed culture we’re fed. Fifty seemed the invisible tipping point that toppled me over to the silver singles realm of on-line dating. It kinda pissed me off. Yet… at the same time I got smarter and began learning to have a relationship with myself… and enjoyed my freedom!
The 60s, where I’m currently running out the clock, have been fab. I’ve stopped both trying too hard and taking myself too seriously. I’ve gotten away with scamming fear a few times and even traveled solo half way around the world, and I’ve come to accept and like the skin I’m in (well most of the time).
Which brings us to the 70s being awesome. I wasn’t buying it initially. Why was that?
Well, for starters Covid-19 has hit this age group and older the hardest not only with infections but also with deaths. And many of us, myself included, have shamefully accepted this as less serious.
I’ve heard from women in mid life complaining of feeling invisible. Just wait a couple of more decades. Another wrote about the benefits of being invisible. What?? No way. I see no possible benefits to being invisible. I still want to be deemed relevant in the world. Invisibility be damned!
But as I stewed on these self imposed, narrow perceptions, I noticed that the world, and even social media are slowly changing, and elders are being recognized for their sex appeal, style, and talent, as well as wisdom and experience.
Just look at the actor Stanley Tucci, an Instagram star with a huge following mixing cocktails for his wife in his slim- fitting black polo.
There’s been an explosion of gorgeous, silver-haired models and social media influencers selling, very successfully, I might add, beauty products.
But what has really kicked out the jams of my faulty thinking and prejudice are the recent Academy Award nominations of actors who not only represent diversity but also elders in their 70s. Their perseverance and stories are inspirational.
Self taught Korean star, Yuh-Jung Youn, up for best supporting actress for her role in “Minari,” spent 50 years in TV and movies in her homeland before being recognized here in the US. She is the first Korean woman to be nominated: “Me, a 73-year-old Asian woman could have never even dreamed about being nominated for an Oscar.” A divorcee who raised two sons Youn decided when turning 60 that she would only take on projects with people whom she trusted exemplifying the philosophy that I want to embrace. That is: to live and age on my own terms.
Seventy-two-year old actor, Paul Raci, also nominated for best supporting actor in the film “Sound of Metal,” had been playing bit parts in Hollywood for the past 40 years before he was discovered by Director Darius Marder for the role of a deaf, recovering, Vietnam vet. He always felt he was capable of more, and when nothing happened, he continued to hope and pray for a break through.
To realize that dreams can still come true in ones 70s, even after decades of dead ends, is truly remarkable. They’ve both shown us that this is a time for refirement not retirement, modeling that the best can still be… yet to come.
So I’ve changed my perspective. At a time when I thought I should be content driving through life on cruise control, I’m going to put my pedal to the medal…and mettle… and never look back in the rear view mirror of the past.
My 91 year-old mother died this month in an assisted living/memory care facility in Maine. I wasn’t allowed to be with her.
As a resident of NYC for the past year, I would have had to quarantine for two weeks making a visit impossible, and I didn’t want to jeopardize the other residents and the staff who so lovingly cared for her and, remarkably, managed to keep her home Covid free.
Since she had been ill for the past ten years with a couple of close calls, my family had hoped she would make it a few more months when restrictions would be lifted, but the cold winter and dark days provided the perfect atmosphere for death to court and finally win her. As the saying goes, Death waits for no man—and if he does, he doesn’t wait for very long.
Like many families who have lost someone this year, my grief and guilt was compounded by the pandemic visitor restrictions which kept me from comforting her and holding her hand. It was especially difficult because I knew my mother, who at the tender age of three, was sent to boarding school. I could never imagine the feelings of abandonment and trauma she must have suffered, and in the last few years of her life, having slipped in and out of the fog of dementia, often came to believe she was back at school and repeatedly asked when her parents were coming to pick her up. In the past, leaving her after such a visit was agonizing. She’d walk me to the door holding my hand, and as we kissed and said goodbye, I promised to come back soon. As the door slowly closed, the lingering image of her child-like face and wide, beseeching eyes haunted me.
I couldn’t help but wonder if my not being at her deathbed caused her to suffer. Had she been waiting for me?
To come to grips with these feelings and memories at the news of her death, I tried to recall stories I’d read and second hand accounts I’d heard of the dying who saw beautiful lights or reached out and called to mothers, fathers, and children. My hope was that death was a redemptive, loving reunion with departed family who helped us cross over. Oddly enough, three days later, I was forwarded an article about this very thing that had originally posted online on the exact day that my mother died.
Trained as a medical doctor and scientist to defy death and save lives, Christopher Kerr, early in his career began paying attention and listening to his dying patients who often described having dreams and visions of deceased relatives who came to visit them.
Kerr eventually became a hospice doctor, and over the course of ten years, he and his research team recorded the testimonies of 1,400 dying patients and families. His findings revealed that over 80 % of his patients, regardless of age, and from all walks of life had dreams and visitations from loved ones. These end-of-life experiences increased in frequency as they got closer to death and were overwhelmingly positive and a source of comfort. Many reported difficult relationships forgiven, and old wounds healed.
In one instance, Mary, in the presence of her four children, cradled her arms and began rocking a baby and calling out Danny. It wasn’t until the next day that they discovered from Mary’s visiting sister that her first child had been born stillborn.
In a Tedx Talk Kerr gave, Jeannie, another patient described seeing people walking very slowly by her her bed. On right side they were people she didn’t know but were friendly and touched her gently on the hand or arm in comfort. On the left side, their faces vivid, were her mother, father, uncle and other deceased relatives who did the same thing. Kerr also reported that many children were visited by former pets.
In conversations with my own family, I discovered my mother’s brother, who passed away two months earlier, had talked to his son about seeing a little boy who wanted my uncle to follow him. A grandson had died many years ago of SIDS.
My family was fortunate that two of our six siblings were able to be with my mother in the end, although they had to visit separately. The day before she died, one sister described how my mother, who was no longer able to feed herself or communicate verbally, suddenly moved her line of vision to a corner of the room, and with a look of peace, slowly raised her arms like a child wanting to be picked up. Slowly she lowered them and then looked from the corner of the room to the side of her bed, and again, with only one arm this time, gracefully like a ballerina, raised and lowered her arm.
On the morning she died, my other sister had a similar experience. Gently holding her hand, my mother opened her eyes, raised that arm, and expired.
I’ve always wanted to believe that we don’t die alone but are met with loving beings who help us make the transition. Dr. Kerr’s work helped confirm this. The death of my mother has been painful, especially not gathering with family and friends for closure that a wake or funeral would bring. But what has been a great source of solace was knowing that, at the end, my mother was lovingly welcomed into the arms of her deceased family and finally taken home.
You would be leaving soon, back to your life in Brooklyn after a quick visit home to Maine. Sharing a love of art and painting, you suggested, “Mom, let’s do a painting together.”
In the subdued light of late fall and with nothing planned, we applied a thick layer of ocher color and began.
For ninety minutes we worked in sync putting our hearts together, yet never uttering a spoken word.
Color and brushstroke were our language of love, resulting in a masterpiece of moments… a tangible memory…
Five years ago, I started an inner journey and stumbled upon three easy yet different processes that I, fortuitously, did at the same time. These three things shook up my life and sent me on an adventure that continues to this day.
It began with a picture I’d cut out of a magazine of a lithe, ballerina-like figure balancing on a tightrope with the aid of a tiny, black parasol. The background was dreamy and verdant. I responded to this picture in a visceral way, but its meaning remained a mystery. I placed it in the center of my poster board and just let intuition run rampant and continued to cut away other visuals and words/phrases that sparked a response. I’ve dubbed this my Mining the Unconscious Board.
At the same time, I dusted off the cover of Julian Cameron’s wonderful book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, and started writing three, stream of conscious morning pages right after waking up each day.
For the umpteenth time, I also tried meditating, but this time I stuck with it. I took the advice of a friend who recommended the lectures and guided meditations of Dr. Joe Dispenza, a meditation expert and neuroscientist.
Guided by a higher power, I practiced these three things together, and my life hasn’t been the same since. I’ll go into these in depth in a minute, but first, you might relate to what precipitated this discovery.
In 2015 I was living in a state of what I considered “quiet desperation.” Divorced, with an empty nest, and feeling stifled in my teaching career, I longed for change. The thought of my life cementing into a numbing routine terrified me. I wanted to feel alive again. The new year and upcoming birthday would allow me to take my retirement without any penalties, but it would be a risky move financially.
For months I agonized over this decision. Seeking answers, only I could find within, I haphazardly began this practice of three. Then in June, a week before school let out, I literally jumped off that high wire into the unknown and retired. Well, semi-retired.
My friends and family were shocked.
Not one for bucket lists and without a plan for the future, I found myself both exhilarated and petrified. Mostly exhilarated. The only thing I did know was that I would change things up.
In August invisible gale forces gathered me up and suddenly blew me into action. A close friend from Perth and her daughter from the Kimberley of Australia came for a visit. Upon discussing my recent news, they in unison asked the question: What are you waiting for?
A month later things magically fell into place. I had my house rented for a year to the perfect couple, a friend offered me free rent in the interim, and I began plans for a solo trip to New Zealand and Australia for nine months…on a budget. At the same time, I started writing, something I’d wanted to do for years. I left on January 11th 2016, and published 30 blogs. It was a trip that changed my life.
And it didn’t stop there.
After being home again for two and a half years, I started feeling unsatisfied. Then one day I discovered a box of books I’d misplaced, and in the box I found my The Artist’s Way book and a binder of the morning pages I’d written before. I figured it was a sign and started writing them again.
I had never stopped my meditation practice and thought it might be time to create another mining the unconscious board. Pictures of lovely rooms spoke to me and a map of Brooklyn, NY, were posted along with words and phrases about adventure and new beginnings. For years I’d always wanted to move to New York City, but the time was never right.
In July of 2019, things magically fell into place again. It’s hard to explain but it’s like being caught up in a wild surge of electrifying energy. Invisible hands ushered me forward, and in November I found a sublease in exactly the Brooklyn neighborhood I wanted that included a separate room for a studio. In December, I sent a piece I wrote about finding a roommate in the millennial world of Brooklyn, which resulted in an interview and then a half page feature article in The New York Times Renter’s column in March of 2020.
Vision boards and dream boards are nothing new. They are powerful visualization tools that allow you to create a tangible representation of dreams, goals, and your ideal life. But they tend to be externally focused on material things you want to manifest in your life. I am more interested in having experiences that will make me feel alive, and by mining my unconscious, I look for pieces to the puzzle that prompt questions such as What is this revealing to me? which in turn, eventually lead to answers.
Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, believed that there is a whole world of fears, desires, and feelings that lay hidden in repressed memories, in repressed memories, in our unconscious, that can have an effect on our current behavior. The analogy of the iceberg is often used to help conceptualize the workings of the mind. “The things that represent our conscious awareness are simply ‘the tip of the iceberg.’ The rest of the information that is outside of conscious awareness lies below the surface. While this information might not be accessible consciously, it still exerts an influence over current behavior.”
Tapping into the unconscious isn’t easy. Freud used dreams and free association. Cutting out pictures and words that you react to in a visceral way is a form of free association, and it’s fun.
So get your magazines together and let your intuition be your guide. Cut out pictures, words, and phrases that speak to you. Once you feel you have enough, begin arranging and rearranging them on the poster board. What picture(s) are especially intriguing? What word, or words put together in a sentence, resonate? Once you’re satisfied, glue them in place. Put your collage where you will regularly see it, perhaps a night stand in the bedroom.Then marvel at the mystery of what it means!
This is also a great creative writing tool. Find a picture, then arrange your cut out words phrases into sentences to create a narrative. Often stories reveal themselves.
2. The Morning Pages
The morning pages are another form of free association, and they are done upon waking when our brain is still in a theta wave, twilight state between sleeping and waking. Right after getting up, I grab my notebook, make my coffee and sit down to do my three pages. It takes about 20–25 minutes. Done in longhand, you simply write stream of consciousness.
This cathartic writing frees you to dump any negative monkey mind thinking. For instance, you can let that inner critic rip, and then he/she is silenced for the rest of day allowing you to be more open and receptive to creativity. Just write whatever comes into your mind. Cameron recommends writing morning pages for three months, which is what I did in the past, but I’ve been doing them daily now for a year, and they’ve become part of a routine of good habits I’m cultivating.
3. Daily Meditation — Start Small But Start
I’ve known about the benefits of meditation for years, and reading Eckhart Tolle’s bookThe Power of Nowmotivated me to start. But I just didn’t keep up with it until I was introduced to Dr. Joe Dispenza, who for years has been studying the effects of meditation on the brain. His scientific approach and combined research in neuroscience, quantum physics, epigenetics, and more appealed to me. He has numerous, well articulated videos available on YouTube. His teachings worked for me.
Regardless of where you draw inspiration, the point is to start. Begin with just five minutes each day then gradually work up to ten. It gets easier with practice, and you’ll notice perks right away. I noticed I felt happier more and more and less stressed. No small feat during these crazy times.
Any one of the above three will improve your life, but done together…well… the results can be extraordinary.
So give it a go! What have you got to loose? In any event, you just might experience, as Joseph Campbell put it, “…the rapture of being alive.”
Over these many months of 2020, I’ve developed this animal instinct of being on high alert sensing an impending disaster… but it never goes away and relief never comes. This flight or fright state leaves me weakened and easy prey to impatience which makes my stress levels soar.
Since early childhood I’ve been pretty slow on the uptake practicing the virtue of patience. I-want-it-now-tantrums morphed into impulsive bad decisions, into faulty reasoned thinking that I had some control over outcomes in my life. But I’ve learned these last few weeks, with a lot of time for reflection, that succumbing to the art of patience has brought me some peace.
This past May, in the midst of the pandemic, I applied for a large scale art commissioning here in NYC. The deadline was the 31st, and applicants would be notified late summer/September. I realized this was a long shot, but I told myself regardless of the outcome, I was proud of the quality and effort I put into it.
I managed to enjoy a summer vacation back in my home state of Maine but began to dwell on how an acceptance would impact my life. My lease was up November 1. Very soon I would have to make a decision to stay in NYC or return to Maine. Late summer turned into September. I was getting impatient.
Obsessing about it didn’t help, and I was making myself miserable, so I sent an email September 15th asking when they were notifying applicants. Two days later I received a reply: “…hopefully late September.”
What?! I complained, stewed, agitated, then tried maturity and prayed and meditated for an answer. On September 29th, it finally came: “…the notification timeline has shifted slightly, and we are notifying all applicants by late November.” !x#*!
And there it was.
Patience delivered me a painful noogie.
But I got it.
I simply had to wait and trust in the process, surrender to the present moment and the unknown. I know this in theory, but now I have to let go and live it. I have to soften myself to be more receptive to what is. Not practicing patience is like dialing up the universe and then getting a busy signal. This quote from the book Lab Girl underscored it:
“Each beginning is the end of a waiting. We are each given exactly one chance to be. Each of us is both impossible and inevitable. Every replete tree was first a seed that waited.” Hope Jehrens
A second lesson presented itself a week later after completing another art application for a museum open call. I carefully filled it out and uploaded my photos, but one of the questions was asking for a web site. I have a blog site but not a art site except for a Facebook art page. For some reason, I considered posting this, but when reviewing my app, I impetuously hit the submit button leaving it blank… even though I had another 24 hours to do so.
This impulsivity nixed any chance of being considered since the review committee has no other work to support a decision. This same jumping- the- gun impulse to hit “publish” catches me up too. One more revision might have made a big difference. If only I’d taken a deep breath and stepped away for a while.
“A patient man has great understanding, but a quick tempered man displays folly.” (Proverbs 14:29)
My heightened awareness brought in to focus just how often we are challenged to practice patience and how our reactions to it can either add negativity to an already too stressful world or alleviate it.
After waiting in line at the post office, I finally stepped up to the window to mail an overseas package. The clerk greeted me curtly and it kinda went downhill from there. This time I did take a deep breath and rather than biting back felt a degree of empathy for this person. Any number of difficult things could be going on in her life. I didn’t take it personally and, instead, felt a kind of kinship with this woman. Maybe even a little love?
I read numerous posts on social media about practicing kindness. Kindness requires patience. So just take a deep breath before you blare that horn in traffic, show annoyance with that slow poke holding up the line, or respond with a nasty comment to a differing political belief.
My high alert feelings of impending doom are moderating. I’m still running, but it’s to a different higher ground, and I’m trying to be more helpful modeling for others how to get there too.
With nowhere to go,Covid has revived this simple pleasure and kept a lot of people happy and sane.
Photo by Ali Mu00fcftu00fcou011fullaru0131 on Pexels.com
I’m suddenly fourteen again.
In order to escape the confines of my big, chaotic family, I sneak the keys to the car and sidle out the door before anyone notices.
With a heavy yank, the driver’s side door shuts withan Omph sigh of relief, and the outside world disappears. Seated in my tiny capsule ready for orbit, I twist the radio dial to my favorite station and happily drift away. This is my great escape.
The last four months of this new age Covid living have forced most of us to return to a time of simpler things, be it baking bread, playing board games, reviving family dinners, or taking walks. At the same time, the total lack of privacy, the bouncing back and forth between just a few rooms, living with a roommate(s), partner, children 24/7 is just plain contrary to the laws of nature. A lot of short fuses have been lit, eggshells crushed, and barbs volleyed.
In November I moved to New York City, found a sublease with a roommate, but left my car parked an hour away thinking I would never really need it. Although she and I get along and are both introverts, after four months of working from home and being imprisoned together, I started hating her. Everything she did, and didn’t do, annoyed me. And she never went out!
I know the feeling was mutual. This and the underlying anxiety of getting sick was quietly beating us both up. I wondered what were people doing to combat built up hostility over seemingly nothing?
And then it hit me.
They escape to their cars.
I suddenly started noticing one, or sometimes two, people just sitting in parked cars listening to music, especially at night. This seemingly innocuous practice would come up in conversations more and more about ways to stay sane.
Parent friends in therapy confided the car was the perfect place to have a session. He/she could have a good cry or howl at the moon without their prying-minds-want-to-know children listening.
Another friend, living with her adult, twenty-something, daughter, revealed she is ordered out of the apartment on a regular basis to allow her daughter some much wanted alone time. This mom is happy to comply and retreats to her car where she can listen to the oldies, NPR, or talk radio for a couple of hours.
I’ve learned second hand that Date nights of long ago have found a revival in the family wagon, if even for a mere 30 minutes.
And remember the joys of parking? Imagine taking your sweetheart to a primo spot on the empty streets of Times Square.
So after months of living in the now sleepy city that never sleeps, I pine for my 2005 Subaru and the simple pleasures it will afford me. I leave for a vacation in Maine soon and relish the thought of sitting behind the wheel feeling free once again.
The immediate future isn’t looking all that bright, but I’ll find the silver lining. This time when returning, I’ll keep my car parked out front. When the need arises, like it often did so many years ago, I’ll have my own private getaway—
We need to develop the Buddhist practice of metta or lovingkindness…and the benefits are worth it.
Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
When I read the phrase To reteach a thing its loveliness…just let that sink in for a minute… it felt like a lifeline, like a comforting beacon of light after being lost on an uncharted sea of anxiety, fear, and growing anger.
Reading further in Sharon Salzberg’s book, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness, I learned this is the nature of metta, which can be translated from Pali, the ancient language of Buddhist scriptures, as unconditional love or lovingkindness.
It is the first of the brahma-viharas, heavenly abodes, and supports the others that include compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. The metta meditation is an opening of the heart and a wish for not only our happiness, but also for all beings. The Buddha first taught the metta meditation as an antidote to fear when it arises and feels overwhelming.
Could there be a better time to practice this?
Hitting month three of quarantine here in NYC, along with the ensuing explosion of the BLM movement, I needed a soothing balm to quell the guilt and an almost self loathing, for not having contributed more to society in some meaningful way, for being an elder and higher risk burden.
The pandemic has become more and more about politics and the economy uniting us in different camps of hatred: the haves vs. have nots, liberal vs. conservative, red vs. blue, entitled vs. essential, black vs. white. Social media, originally created to feed our very human need to connect, has, instead, amplified our separateness, and it has spilled on to the streets.
I’ve read about regular people lashing out verbally at others for not wearing a mask or social distancing. Plenty of times I’ve passed pedestrians on the street and police at protests and silently judged them for being arrogant and selfish for the same thing. Hating this reaction, I found myself stuffing my feelings to lessen the pain. This is where we get in trouble as Salzberg aptly explains:
Sometimes as individuals, or as members of a group, we may sacrifice the truth in order to secure our identity, or preserve a sense of belonging. Any thing that threatens this gives rise to fear and anxiety, so we deny, we cut off our feelings. The end result of this pattern is dehumanization. We become split from our own lives and feel great distance from other living beings as well.
When I read the words, To Reteach a Thing Its Loveliness, I was blown away by the beauty of the message and recognized instantly this was something I could do, as just one small person, to be an agent of change.
The practice of metta begins with loving/befriending ourselves, no small feat. I know. I’ve been a heavy weight titlist in the “beating myself up”ring for decades. But we have to begin with loving ourselves…despite our weaknesses and failings…before we can mirror it back to others. This mirroring brings it full circle.
The practice of metta begins with short meditations that begin with oneself, and then work outwardly to a loved one, someone neutral, and, the most difficult, an enemy. The meditation focuses on silent repetitions of phrases such as “May you have ease of well-being,” May you be free from danger,” “May you be healthy and strong.” Yes, it gets more difficult as you move outward. It is especially hard to wish happiness to an enemy, but this is the work of unconditional love, the driving force of healing. Even if you aren’t feeling the love, don’t give up. You are planting a seed, setting an intention, and that is enough.
As if the nature of metta isn’t just beautiful in and of itself, the Buddha outlined eleven specific benefits. Your practice will reap the following rewards:
You will sleep easily.
You will wake easily.
You will have pleasant dreams.
People will love you.
Celestial beings and animals will love you.
Celestial beings will protect you.
External dangers ( fire, poison, weapons) will not harm you.
Your face will be radiant.
Your mind will be serene.
You will die with a clear mind.
You will be reborn in happy realms.
If you’ve always wanted to start a meditation practice but felt it might be too hard, this is a great place to start. A few minutes a day is all you need to begin. I’ve recently added metta meditation to my regular meditation practice, and I’m feeling more hopeful and optimistic.
On daily walks now there are more frequent, tiny moments of connection with total strangers I pass on the street or on a front stoop. It might be a verbal hello or a silent, mutual nod of the head that says I acknowledge you. Smiling eyes behind the mask. It’s a small moment of connection, a much needed dopamine hit of goodness. Lovingkindness is a powerful energy to radiate.
And I’m sleeping better.
So, if we should ever pass each other on street, know I am silently wishing, “May you be safe from harm,” “ May you be healthy and strong,” “May you be truly happy.”
After searching for an answer, the big reveal is, yes.
Author photo. Greene Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
I kept asking myself over and over again, Why now? Why the hell now?
In October of last year, I fulfilled a life-long dream of moving to New York City. After months of journal writing and mulling it over, I made the decision it was the perfect time. The winds of change propelled me forward, and magically things fell into place. My adventure manifested, and I was challenging myself doing new things and working hard. In February, as a result of a written piece I submitted, I got an interview with The New York Times, in one of their regular feature columns.
And then … BOOM.
After a short, four-and-a-half months of New York City WOW, disaster struck. The greatest city in the world suddenly crippled. Its beating heart of creative energy, suffering cardiac arrest was left an ICU patient with no visitors allowed.
Without notice, and cut off from all the art and culture I was drawing inspiration from, I found myself alone in quarantine. Like everyone else, I was left reeling in a state of confusion and fear. At the same time, I kept wondering why had this happened when prior to the pandemic all systems were go? My adventure was looking more like a quest, and my biggest trial was facing an invisible foe who could, quite literally, take me down. I was going to have to dig deep to answer this one.
Nagged by this question of why, I, nevertheless, held steady and made the best use of my time writing, painting, reading, and observing.
And then one day going through some old notes, I came across a quote I had written down . It was from a list of “68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice” to the young, compiled by author Kevin Kelly, who helped launch Wired magazine. Even though I’m old, it hit like an resuscitative electrical charge:
“When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problem, no progress.”
Well, I certainly was experiencing a crisis, but how was I going to change my perception and make it positive? I had come to the city to foster my own curiosity and creativity. Maybe quarantine and sheltering in place were just the environments I needed to buckle down and make real progress with my writing and painting. Feeding a passion takes solitude and focus.
So I dove in and keenly observed the changing world around me. Every day I wrote or painted with an energy that surprised me. I discovered a new painting medium using recycled trash and even submitted a couple of articles to different publications.
I had nothing to lose.
But it washard.
Any creative endeavor or change of habit requires us to access our higher nature. And you will know you are on to something because resistance, in its many forms, will rear its ugly head . For me, resistance comes from things like Netflix, social media, and Zoom constantly calling me to come play. Of course, I enjoy these things, but only after I’ve completed some work time. Wrestling resistance requires a Herculean effort, but staying focused yields results.
My confidence kept growing.
As further proof that I was on the right track, I happened to read through more notes I had taken several years ago and was jolted by another message that was waiting for me. In Letters to a Young Poet #7,written in 1904, the poet Rilke( only 27 himself) writes back to a young man looking for advice about his writing. Rilke’s response echoes the very same stumbling blocks of resistance and hard work. That in his practice of solitude, the young man might find himself distracted by the conventions of his day, might be tempted to take the easy route rather than trust in what is difficult, which would reveal his true artistic self:
“…it is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts it, everything, in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason to do it.”
So crisis and disaster have struck, and I’ve found the answer to my question, Why now? I’m choosing to see this problem of a pandemic as a personal challenge in making progress towards becoming the best that I can be.
I’m currently working on a series of paintings I hope to show in the near future and writing articles I hope to see published. I’m even entering a large scale commissioning art program here in NYC. Completing the application has been mind bending; I know it’s a long shot.
Working on it is hard.
But when I hit the send button to submit my proposal, regardless of the outcome, I will be happy I gave it my all, knowing…
“…that something is difficult must be one more reason to do it.”
Although my view of the world has literally narrowed, it is no less entertaining,yet, intimately, human.
Michael Hollander for Unsplash
And it seems that when we think no one is looking, whether under the cover of darkness, or in plain light of day, someone is.
In mid March, after the state of emergency was declared, much like Prospero and his guests in The Mask of the Red Death, people began fleeing the city to country homes. One early evening, I looked out my window to see a middle aged man (not from this Bed Stuy neighborhood) across the street furtively removing his NY plates from, first the front, then the back of his Audi SUV. He quickly stashed them on the floor of the back seat, got in, and drove away plateless, to … I can only assume… a suddenly sprouted pandemic entrepreneur who would attach a set of out of state plates so he could covertly blend in.
I was indignant. What a coward. Selfishly exposing a community with limited heath care facilities. But then I caught myself.
I Took a moment to be still, rather than running away with judgment and asked myself the question, would I do the same if there was a second home somewhere with lots of space and fresh air to enjoy? Ah.. probably, yes. But I’d like to think no.
A few weeks later, meat packing facilities are stricken with positive tests and must be shut down. Will hoarding of meat begin? I look out my window as a pickup truck pulls up, double parks, and a neighbor comes out to collect what looks like eight to ten large packages of assorted cuts of beef. It’s started already.
But then I remember the same guy who lives alone with his dog and who speaks lovingly and takes this pit bull mix out each morning and afternoon for a walk. Could this stash be a treat not only for him but also his companion, a reward for unconditional love in times of loneliness?
On Sunday morning, a homeless man sporting a huge, flapping coat and Nike flip flops shuffles by pushing his shopping cart overflowing with scavenged goods. He stops, carefully unpacks items from a plastic bag one by one, and selects an article I can’t quite see. He rolls it on in quick, short strokes to his mustache, rubbing it in, then his scruffy beard and neck and gives them a good rub too. It isn’t until he reaches under his coat and shirt and applies it to his under arms that I realize what it is.
I’ve worn the same clothes for a week and haven’t washed my hair in days. I’ve even skipped deodorant a few times in the process, yet I have the same warm, safe place to stay every night.
It’s Saturday night and a car pulls up and idles out front. A woman ambles to the side window, and an exchange is made. She quickly does an about face and returns inside. In these times of high anxiety, we can all use a little help from our friends, be it Johnny Walker or Crimea Blue. People gotta stay medicated in this plagued economy.
My drug of choice is chocolate, so I play the odds taking unnecessary trips to the local bodega.
Since the world has been put on pause, this virus has brought into focus our human frailties. Those frailties come from a place of fear. A fear of separateness.
Perhaps if we practice loving-kindness with ourselves and then mirror it back to others, we just might be a little more forgiving all the way around — get through this in one peaceful piece.
It's a 60s Thing...Taking a Gap Year in NYC. 