Decision 2020

I voted on Monday, which was the first day of the one-week early voting period in Maryland. I knew that I wanted to vote early but I didn’t have a plan, other than to go sometime during the week. I’ve always loved voting on Election Day, but I expect two- to three-hour waits that day, and it’s a workday for me. But the early voting location was very crowded and busy at 5:30 PM; and it felt almost festive, despite the floor signs, placed as six-foot-intervals, reminding us to maintain six feet of distance between ourselves and the voter in front of us; hashtagged #StoptheSpread. It seems silly to print a hashtag on a sign, but if it makes them happy then I won’t complain. 

I parked my car at the far end of the lot and walked into the building, wondering why every community center in Maryland smells like chlorine. This one doesn’t even have a swimming pool but maybe they’re bleaching everything to kill the ‘rona. Anyway, the Queensguard Community Center is a very nice building: airy and light and clean and modern; with skylight windows near the ceiling and terra cotta-like tiles on the floors and bright, well-appointed meeting rooms and exercise rooms separated from the corridor by walls of aluminum-framed windows. The line moved very quickly but I wouldn’t have minded a longer wait in such a nice space. 

I took notes using my phone, blithely ignoring the signs forbidding their use. The signs were in Spanish, so I could always pretend not to understand them. And although I am generally a rule follower, I do need rules to make sense and it doesn't make any sense to tell grown people that they can't use their phones in a taxpayer-funded public building. I know my rights. That's why I'm here. 

As the line moved down the long corridor toward the gym where the actual voting was happening, an officious election judge was loudly reminding a young volunteer how to count the voters as they entered the building. I heard her say 940, and then she turned toward the line of people and bellowed "Attention everyone. We have checked in 940 voters so far on this first day of early voting, and it's not even 6 o'clock!" She was rewarded by a quick but enthusiastic round of applause. I'd have waited until 1,000 to make that announcement. But of course, I probably wouldn't have made an announcement at all. I don’t like to attract attention. I’m an under-the-radar and behind-the-scenes kind of girl.

I checked in, and a friendly volunteer handed me a large manila folder with my ballot card; and then I waited in one last line for my turn to actually vote. A tiny woman, a bit older than me but not much, was in line directly in front of me. She was very casually well-dressed, in dark jeans and boots and a very nice wine-colored wool jacket. Her short-cropped spiky hair was stylishly colored, and she was carrying a beautiful black shoulder bag. She too was ignoring the no-phones signs, scrolling through her news feed as she waited her turn. I saw her heavy-framed statement glasses when she glanced backward for a moment, and then the volunteer who was managing the line called her forward, leaving me first in line. I waited another minute, and then it was my turn. 

It didn’t take long for me to finish voting. I had to read one of the ballot questions a second time to make sure that I understood what a yes or no vote on that question would actually mean, but I was firmly decided on the other questions and candidates, so I was finished in two minutes. I thanked the volunteer and went on my way. As I walked out of the building through the same long corridor, I saw that the line to vote stretched out the door and a few yards down the sidewalk. There were easily 60 people in that line, likely including the day’s 1,000th voter. The lady who had voted ahead of me was in the parking lot, taking a selfie in front of a huge Biden-Harris sign attached to a high fence just past the no-electioneering perimeter, so I guess I know whom she voted for, if I couldn’t have guessed it by looking at her. 

It’s Wednesday now, just five more days before this is all over--the voting part, at least. I hope that we’ll have a result next week, but I’m resigned to the very real likelihood that we won’t. But I did my part, and that’s all a person can do. Decision 2020 is a wrap. 

Suburban campsite

Not long ago, I changed the route for my near-daily neighborhood walk. I walk for exercise and to think, not for scenery; and so the monotony of the same route every day seldom bothers me. But every so often, a change is in order. So now I’m walking past different houses on different, but still-familiar streets, and noticing details that I don’t pick up when I’m driving through on an errand. 

Our neighborhood is a Levitt neighborhood, built in the late 1960s. It has about 600 houses or so, all of them built in one of five or six styles that were popular at that time--ranch, colonial, Dutch colonial, Cape Cod--you get the idea. Our house is a ranch style, which the Levitt Company called the Judson model. All of the house styles have names. I know only the Judson (mine) and the Endicott (the colonial). 

On one of the main streets through our neighborhood, there’s a house in a style that I call the Hollywood house, because its front courtyard reminds me of a movie actor’s Beverly Hills starter house circa 1950. I don’t know the style name, but it’s a u-shaped house, and the front courtyard is enclosed with a low brick wall and a gate. It’s nicer than it sounds. There are only a few of these houses in the neighborhood, and I like them. The particular example that I’m thinking about is one that I have actually seen from the inside. A friend is a real estate agent, and I visit her open houses. It was probably ten years ago when I visited this house, and it was at its for-sale open house best, inside and out. 

A decade later, and the house is less pristine, less show house perfect, but it still looks very nice. The shrubs and trees have matured, offering more privacy and shade for the courtyard; and the brick wall and walkway and the wrought iron gate look sturdy and well cared for. 

So I walked past the house, and I saw a homemade political sign on the strip of grass that borders the sidewalk in front of the house. The sign has a red elephant and a blue donkey and the legend “I'm not undecided. I'm unimpressed.” As someone who hates both major parties, I agreed in general principle with the sign, though I’m not undecided. I’m voting for the candidate who isn’t Trump. But that is the extent of my partisan commitment. I walked past the house another day, and I noticed a cartoon taped to the brick wall. Literally taped, with Scotch tape. I don’t know how it stayed put, but maybe it’s extra heavy-duty Scotch tape. I stopped to look at the cartoon, which was an old, non-political Far Side. I must not have found it very funny, because I don’t remember it. 

A day or so later, I found that in addition to the elephant and the donkey and the Far Side, the owner had also posted another lawn sign, for his own handyman business. He also parked an old truck on the street in front of the house, with For Sale signs in its front and rear windows. I didn’t think anything of this; the truck, or the additional sign, or the cartoon, until I walked past the house again the next day. The truck and the signs and the cartoon were still there, along with a cooler, a very large, mountain-climbing-style backpack, and two old but serviceable folding beach chairs. The whole thing had begun to take on the look of a campsite; or maybe “encampment” is a better word. I wondered what was next. A tent? A picnic table? Lanterns and a bucket-style shower? An outdoor stove powered by Sterno cans?

*****

I avoided the area for a bit, to give the site a little time to expand. It was like waiting for a package. I looked forward to seeing the next surprise. Then I walked past the house again a few days later. The folding chairs and the truck and the cooler and backpack were gone, replaced with  wooden spindle-back Colonial-style chairs and a bookcase, lending the scene an air of living-room permanence. The Far Side cartoon was gone. Maybe he was having it framed as part of the redecorating effort. He had also added another lawn sign proclaiming his independent political affiliation, though he hadn’t put down a carpet yet. It seemed possible that he was just discarding the bookcase and the chairs; but the arrangement (chairs slightly tilted inward toward each other to encourage conversation, and facing the bookcase) suggested that they were there for a purpose. 

I kept thinking about the homeowner as “he.” I never saw anyone enter or exit the house when I was walking past, and I don’t know iif a whole family lives there or if it’s just a man or perhaps an older couple; but I felt certain that the person who was arranging and re-arranging the furniture and decor was a man, at least in his 60s or possibly 70s. 

*****

Our little Levitt-built community has a governing association and a neighborhood pool and a very active listserv and even a newsletter--an old-fashioned on-paper newsletter printed on yellow paper, stapled in the upper-left corner, and hand-delivered in hard copy to every home in the neighborhood, four to five times a year. Most of the houses are more than 50 years old, but we still have quite a robust contingent of original owners. I also know of at least three houses owned by people who grew up in the neighborhood (two of those people own their actual childhood homes). We have block parties. We have a neighborhood swim team. We have walking groups and an annual 5K. It’s a mid-century suburban enclave that feels like a small town. 

There are advantages and disadvantages to this neighborly spirit. People here look after one another. We know our neighbors and we know our neighbors’ children. It’s nice to feel like part of a community, and to see your friends’ children grow up, and even to mourn with your neighbors when a family member dies. 

On the other hand, people do like to be up in each other’s business, as they say; especially when it comes to property maintenance and appearance. We have rules (they’re called covenants), which most people don’t pay much attention to, but which are very very important to a certain contingent of people who are particular about the way the neighborhood looks. These are the people who complain about unsanctioned fences and sheds. They make pointed comments on the listserv when a neighbor’s lawn is overgrown or if their leaves are not raked. Anonymous calls to the county code enforcement office are not unheard of. Shit gets real. 

So even as I followed the expansion of my neighbor’s little campsite, I wondered what the other neighbors were thinking. Something about the arrangement of the furniture and signs and clippings made me think that maybe the man was trying to provoke a reaction, or that he wanted to display his iconoclastic lack of concern for rules and suburban aesthetic standards. Maybe he wanted to bring the indoors out. I don’t know if he follows the listserv or if he reads the newsletter. Maybe he does, but he thinks that people wouldn’t notice the gradual accumulation of stuff; or he hoped that they would and that he could use his little display as an opportunity to fight for his right to do whatever he wanted on his own property. Anyway, I continued to follow these developments with considerable interest. 

*****

After another few days, I walked past again. The Far Side cartoon was back, taped to the brick wall with thick strips of shipping tape; and a new cartoon was taped right next to it. The new cartoon depicted a bunch of Bozos in the House chamber. The caption read “In the halls of Clowngress.” This man’s design sensibility is interesting, but his taste in political humor is suspect at best. 

The chairs and bookcase were still where I’d last seen them. There was also a barn jacket hanging from a hanger on a tree, with a stack of folded clothes on a chair just beneath it. A lantern was placed on top of the bookcase, right in the middle. This was getting interesting. I wondered if maybe the man’s wife was threatening to throw him out of the house, and maybe he was planning to camp out on the front lawn and sidewalk. I resolved to walk past the next day, to make sure that I didn’t miss anything. 

The next day, almost everything was gone, except for the jacket. A disassembled bookcase--I wasn’t sure if it was the same one or not--was piled neatly in the driveway. And there he was! A man in his 60s was dragging his recycling bin down the driveway to the curb. He smiled and waved at me, and I smiled and waved back, and I kept walking. 

*****

The homeowner was a white man in his 60s, just as I had predicted. But still he wasn’t exactly what I had expected. He was friendly and smiling and quite normal-looking--not wild-eyed, not even unkempt. I’d avoided taking pictures of the site because I thought that maybe a madman was watching from the window and that he’d run out to confront me if he saw me photographing his property. I’d walk past, nonchalant and carefree, minding my own business; and then I’d stop to take a few cursory notes so that I wouldn’t forget details. But I suppose I needn’t have bothered with the precautions, because I don’t think that this man would have cared. He might even have posed for the picture. 

It was warm for a few days, but now it’s cold again, and the campsite is gone for now. I never did figure out what was behind it, and why it disappeared almost as suddenly as it appeared. I watched the listserv closely, waiting for complaints about the situation; but surprisingly, no one said a word. Maybe any neighbors who objected spoke directly with the man and politely asked him to dismantle the encampment, and he obligingly did so. Because it’s still possible for neighbors to be nice to each other, and to be reasonable, and to cooperate and compromise. It’s still possible for people to care about others’ feelings. I’d like to think that this is what happened. 

I wish that I had taken a few pictures, but this hot mess is well over a thousand words now and so I have the equivalent of at least one and three-quarter pictures.  The ever-changing campsite was a highlight of my daily walk for a few days, and I’ll miss it. But maybe it will be back in the spring. Maybe a lot of things will be back in the spring. 

In earnest

Monday, October 19. It’s Monday, late afternoon, and I’m finished work for the day; or rather, I’m all but finished. I’m waiting for the answer to a question. That answer might or might not come today, but there’s no point in wasting time, so I’ll kill this bird and then pick up the same stone again if I need to kill another one. 

Forgive the poor choice of figurative language. I’m not in the habit of killing birds, with stones or anything else. I am in the habit of doing two (or more) things at one time, an approach that yields mixed results. Multi-tasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Anyway, it was a fine day, except that I couldn’t do several of the tasks on my to-do list because I could not read my own appalling handwriting, which grows worse by the day. It’s what I call a problem, because it is a problem. Though I swore that I would never sit for another exam ever again, I’m studying for a certification exam, taking copious notes, and I don’t know how much use these notes will be when it comes time to review them. But the act of writing things down helps me to remember. Except, apparently, when it comes to my to-do list. I still can’t read three of the items that I wrote down on Friday, and I don’t remember what they might be. 

*****

Tuesday, October 20 (two weeks away from the biggest shit-show of an election in American history). It’s Tuesday now. I’m in the middle of at least half a dozen drafts, and I’ll finish them soon. But in addition to writing, I’m also reading P.D. James’ Time to Be in Earnest, a one-year diary of her life from 1997 to 1998, and this inspired me to return for a bit to the daily diary form of writing. Of course, a day in P.D. James’ life generally consisted of having lunch with former Prime Ministers, or delivering an endowed lecture, or meeting with her publisher to plan an international book tour; and mine right now consists of sitting around the house in sweatpants editing IT service catalog pages and creating PowerPoint presentations and wondering what to cook for dinner; but each life has its place, you know?

Oddly enough, I have never read any other of P.D. James’ books. I don’t know what attracted me to this one, but it’s very good. P.D. James happened to have been born at the right time (1920) and the right place (England) with the right talents and gifts to become the perfect first-hand witness to history and social change. The book is supposed to be a daily diary of just that one year, but she also writes quite a bit about her entire life; enough that this is almost an autobiography or memoir. Because the book covers a year that overlaps 1997 and 1998, James records her immediate reaction to the death and funeral of Princess Diana. I’ve watched “The Queen” about half a dozen times, and it’s very interesting to read an Englishwoman’s real-time impressions of the events depicted in the movie. I’m going to watch “The Queen” at least one more time; and I’m also going to read more P.D. James. It turns out that she also wrote The Children of Men, the movie version of which I have also seen about half a dozen times. 

Sweatpants and PowerPoint and half-finished essays and re-watching old-ish movies--I can’t imagine why Prime Ministers, former or present, aren’t lining up to get me on their luncheon calendars. But enough about lunch. I still need to figure out dinner. 

*****

Wednesday, October 21. A neighborhood friend has been posting daily updates on Instagram, with captions that always begin “Social Distancing: Day (number).” He passed Day 200 a few days ago. I didn’t look at a calendar to count and see if he started with March 14 as Day 1, as I would have. It’s enough to know that 200 days is too many days. 

Since March, we’ve had little pockets of normal life here and there, for which I’m grateful. But the abnormal has far outweighed the normal. I’m losing my social skills, and they weren't that great to begin with. I never know what to wear. I spend several minutes every morning puzzling out this question, accounting for weather and video calls and if I’m likely to leave the house and for what reason. And then I put on leggings and a sweater, or shorts and a t-shirt, and that’s what I wear for the rest of the day. 

I keep thinking that I want life to return to normal; that I want to be out in the world, busy from morning to night, and that I want to wear real clothes every day, and to take a bit more care with my appearance. But do I? Do I really? Every day, all 200-plus since March, seems to rob me of a tiny bit more of my energy and initiative. I walk every day, weather permitting; and I still have work. I still keep the house clean. I write every day, and I keep in touch with people. But if I’m honest, and I’m always honest, then I must admit that of all the things that call my name, my family room couch has the loudest and most compelling voice. If I did only what I wanted to do today, then I’d have spent the entire day on that couch, finishing P.D. James and re-watching “Miranda” and “Mary Tyler Moore” on Hulu. And sleeping, because I can’t sleep at night. It’s Day 200-whatever. 

*****

Thursday, October 22. Today is a better day. After a thick morning fog that hung on until nearly 10, the sun came out, and everything looked much cleaner and brighter than it did amid yesterday’s gloom. And yesterday got even worse after I wrote that entry, with pestilence on top of the plague; pestilence in the form of SNAKES. THREE OF THEM. 

I live in Maryland, in the Washington DC suburbs, not in Florida or Australia or the fucking Mekong delta and so I do not expect to have to dodge serpents when I take my daily walk. Yes, they were garter snakes (and one of them was definitely dead) but THREE snakes in one little 2.5 mile suburban stroll is at least two more than I would expect to see and absolutely three more than I ever want to see, because I never want to see any snakes, not even little ones, not even deceased ones. 

You and me both, Samuel L. Jackson. You and me both. 

Today is the the day of the last of the three presidential debates; and I can’t wait to not watch it. It’s also ten days until the start of NaNoWriMo, and I’m going to try that again this year, because what could go wrong. I have a character and (kind of) a plot and everything. It’s very tempting to start writing now, but other than writing down a few ideas (because I don’t want to forget), I am going to follow the rules. I’m going to begin writing on November 1 and I’m going to stop on November 30; and hopefully, I will end up with a 50,000-word novel. That’s 1667 words a day. I can write 1667 words a day on my head. I can’t vouch for the quality or coherence of the words, but I can write them; and if I’m following the rules (and I’m always following the rules) then that’s all I have to do. The editing comes later. P.D. James died in 2014, so she probably knew about NaNoWriMo. I don’t know what she might have thought about it. I suspect she would have disapproved, but I could very well be wrong. And she's not the boss of me anyway. 

*****

Friday, October 23. I am not a TGIF person, not as a rule. It’s not that I don’t love weekends and time off, because I do. But I also like work; and counting the days until Friday has always seemed tantamount to wishing away days of one’s life (one P.D. James book, and I’m already throwing around the impersonal pronoun like it’s dolla dolla bills in a hip-hop video), and that seems unwise. 

But this week? I think I hit the wall with the COVID-enforced WFH this week, and Friday couldn’t come a day too soon. Two days away from my computer and I’m sure that I’ll return to next week’s onslaught of virtual meetings and teleconferences with my customary good cheer, but I spent today teetering on the edge, and one more call would have pushed me right the hell over. 

I was going to continue writing this post for two more days, but I haven’t published anything since October 8 and I don’t want you all to forget about me, so I’m going to wrap up this little dear diary week today. I have a few more pages of P.D. James left; a few more days of 1998, when Microsoft Teams didn’t exist and Donald Trump was just a loud-mouthed real estate developer. A person should live in the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, but it’s hard sometimes, I tell you. It’s hard sometimes. 

Proliferation

Do you know what I just did? I just bought another handbag. This might seem like a thing that is not even worthy of mention; and in and of itself, it is not. But if you’re not doing anything and you have all the time in the world, feel free to search this blog for the words “handbag,” “tote bag,” “purse,” “pocketbook,” or “reticule.” 

Not the last one, of course, because it’s not 1893. It’s 2020, and I have far too many handbags, as your careful search of these keywords will have made manifestly and abundantly clear. Not only did I buy another handbag, but I bought a whole bunch of other random stuff that I don’t need. And even though I know that I don’t need these things (in fact, I won’t even WANT some of them when they finally arrive), I just keep yielding to the impulse to add something to my electronic cart and then to finally push the “place order” button. There’s always a momentary thrill just as you push that button, isn’t there? And then of course, there’s the fun of anticipation, the frisson of excitement as the mail truck or the UPS truck rumble down your street, slowing until they stop right in front of your house. Nothing else sounds like a delivery truck arriving at your front door. 

*****

Do you have any particular rage triggers? I’m not an angry outburst kind of person, liberal use of the f-word notwithstanding. But I do have a few things that provoke unreasonable, blinding, furious rage. A wrong turn, especially at night, is one of those things. Last night, I turned the wrong way on a now-unfamiliar road (I say “now-unfamiliar” because it’s a road that I used to drive on nearly every day; but I no longer live in that neighborhood and the street and the neighborhood look very different now because of twenty years of construction and development) and the result was a 15-minute detour in the dark and a near collision (entirely my fault) with a person who was trying to make a perfectly legal left turn as I tried to blithely sail straight through an intersection from the other left-turn-only lane. I was furious. Not my finest moment. 

And drawers! How I hate it when a drawer gets stuck closed or (much worse, because it looks sloppy) stuck open. I have to walk away from a jammed drawer. Thank goodness I’ve never had a hammer nearby when a drawer was stuck because I’d turn the whole cabinet or desk or chest into kindling. 

The worst thing about a drawer that’s stuck is that I almost always know that it’s going to happen when I put in that one extra thing that’s just too much for the drawer, but I do it anyway because I can’t stand to have things laying around uncontained and because I can’t let the drawer win. Me and a dresser drawer are like Donald Trump and the coronavirus. I’m not going to let it dominate me. I’m just going to call in a Navy helicopter and a team of Secret Service agents and Army doctors and then stand back and let them show that drawer who’s boss. 

*****

So I followed my own instructions, and I did a search of this blog using the recommended terms. It turns out that I have written about having too many handbags more times than other people actually have handbags. Does that make sense? I’m talking about sheer numbers, a subject about which I am not qualified to write, but just try to stop me. 

I like to think of myself as a person who is not a collector, but that’s self-delusion of the highest order, because I have more than enough handbags to form a collection; not to mention hundreds of books, dozens of t-shirts, a shitpile of notebooks, and Bic four-color pens distributed everywhere I might need them to take a four-color note. It’s not reasonable. And it occurs to me, with my razor-sharp intellect and unparalleled deductive reasoning skills, that there might be a connection between a proliferation of stuff such as I describe here, and drawers that won’t close (or open). 

The moratorium begins now. No more handbags. No more non-electronic books. No more four-color pens, except to replace one when the ink runs dry. No promises on the t-shirts. I do love t-shirts; and in my defense, I accumulate them, but I seldom actually buy them. 

*****

And now it also occurs to me, with my steel-trap mind, that t-shirts are the only thing on this list that I actually store in drawers, so a handbag and book and pen moratorium won’t solve my drawer-rage problem AT ALL. As for bad night driving? That’s only going to get worse, I’m afraid. It’s all downhill from here. 

Cloak of Invisibility

I just finished reading Hilary Mantel’s Giving Up the Ghost, a memoir that covers her whole life from childhood to 2003, when the book was published. I didn’t discover Hilary Mantel until this year, when I read the Wolf Hall trilogy, the first volume of which was published in 2009. I was disappointed that the third volume didn’t win the Booker Prize as the first two did, but this isn’t the year for novels about Tudor England to win big literary prizes. I don’t know if Giving Up the Ghost won any prizes, but it’s pretty extraordinary. 

Hilary Mantel’s parents split when she was very young, and her beautiful mother “took up,” as the expression goes, with another man. The man, who became Hilary’s stepfather, was hard-edged, masculine in the most old-fashioned sense of the word, and impatient with “little Miss Neverwell,” an unkind doctor’s description of Hilary, who was frail as a child. Her health didn’t improve as she got older, but more on that in a minute. 

My parents also divorced when I was very young, and I also had a stepfather who had little patience with my weakness, my fears, my dreamy forgetfulness. It was what it was, and it couldn’t have been easy for him, either. What I remember most about that time, the time between my father and stepfather, was change and upheaval that no one bothered to explain to us children, because it wasn’t our business. We didn’t go to my grandparents’ house on holidays anymore; we went to my stepfather’s house and spent the day with his brothers and sisters. All of a sudden, people who were once my neighbors were now my aunts and uncles. I had to check in with them when I got home from school. I had to do what they said. It didn’t make any sense to me. I was not a defiant or rebellious child, but I did need things to make sense. 

Hilary Mantel experienced a similar slight estrangement from her grandparents when the family moved to a nearby village to escape the censure of neighbors (her mother and stepfather were not married). Her family was different from mine and working-class poverty in the early 1960 in the north of England was much harsher than working-class poverty in 1970s Philadelphia (we had heat and indoor plumbing). But she suffered the same confusion and disorientation at the sudden change in routine, the sudden end of the easy back and forth between her house and her grandparents’ house, the shift from daily contact with her mother’s family to occasional visits, planned and formal. Like all children in these situations, the young  Hilary Mantel could not understand why these relationships are not permanent, why things change that shouldn't change. But like all children in these situations, she understood perfectly that she had no say. A child has no say. 

*****

When she was seven, Hilary wandered into a corner of her back garden, and saw a demon. Her account of this event is vivid, terrifying, and entirely believable. I believe it. She was convinced for some time after that she had committed a terrible sin by failing to avert her eyes in time, by seeing what “no human person was meant to see.” And she seems to accept that punishment for this sin would be entirely deserved and justified. 

For a few pages, I thought that the rest of the book might be about the aftermath of the demonic encounter. But then, Hilary’s body was taken over by a different type of demon, agonizing pain that was finally diagnosed as endometriosis, but not until she suffered years of medical indifference, misdiagnosis, over-medication, weight gain, hair loss, and finally the loss of her ovaries and uterus. And that still wasn’t enough, because endometriosis can return even when the responsible organ is gone. 

I’m very lucky that I have never suffered ill health. I mean, I have been sick here and there, and injured here and there, but ill health of the chronic, relentless, no-one-understands and no-one-believes-it-anyway variety is a form of misery that I have been lucky enough to escape. Depression and anxiety are both forms of chronic illness, of course, but I know that that’s what I have. I always have known. And sometimes I seek help and most of the time I don’t. But I never have to wonder what is wrong with me. 

Hilary Mantel is in her late 60s, so she was a young woman in the late 1960s through early 1980s. At that time, young women were easily and carelessly dismissed as hysterical, flighty, attention-seeking, unstable, self-dramatizing...and I guess that still happens. But young women today are far less likely to put up with what Hilary Mantel endured. They’re much less likely to allow a doctor to tell them that their real pain is not real, that it’s imagined, that it’s caused by hysteria or an overactive imagination. 

*****

Eventually, Hilary recovered and was restored to health, but only partially. She had been naturally and enviably thin for her whole life until the endometriosis and medications and hormonal disruption brought on by the hysterectomy and oophorectomy caused her to gain a great deal of weight very quickly. 

I gain and lose the same 15 pounds over and over again. Thanks to the damn ‘rona, the 15 lost pounds have found me again, and they brought five friends. 20 pounds is not a small amount of weight. If you put 20 pounds worth of stuff in a tote bag and carry it around all day, you’ll be tired. I have personal experience with this, so trust me. But 20 pounds is also not enough weight that I look drastically different than I did six months ago. Some of my clothes are too tight now. I see the difference when I catch a side glimpse of myself in the mirror. But even though it’s not that much, I can feel it. My arms make contact with my midsection differently than when I’m thinner. My stomach is in the way when I lie on my side. It’s awkward. 

It’s really more than just a few pounds, though. Getting older is very hard. In addition to the weight gain, my hair is not right, and I can’t make it right, and I can’t decide what, if anything, to do about it. I had an appointment to get it cut today, and the stylist just had to cancel. This is really just as well, because it’s never a good idea to schedule a haircut when no part of you feels right or comfortable, because the haircut will make things worse and not better. And what does my hair have to do with this anyway? Wasn’t this a book review? 

*****

I never did figure out what ghost Hilary was giving up--maybe it was the demon, or her stepfather, or her once-healthy body. Maybe all three. But I’m giving up a few of my own, however reluctantly. I feel invisible. I feel alienated from myself, like my body is something I need to escape from, but it might be time to adjust and accept that this is what I look like now, and this is how I feel, and a person in her 50s can’t ever be a person in her 40s again. Invisible is not the worst thing to be, anyway. It can even be a superpower. 

Unprofitable servant

I keep thinking that this year can’t get any crazier, any weirder, any more goshforsaken terrible, but it keeps surprising me. Now the President has the damn ‘rona. And no, of course I’m not happy about it. I can’t understand how anyone celebrates another person’s sickness. 

*****

It was a very busy work day for me. I had to develop a slide presentation for a high-level meeting next week; high enough level that I myself will probably not attend. I took notes and scribbles and vague suggestions from a whole kitchen full of cooks, and I ended up with something that nearly everyone was happy with. They were happy, so i was happy. 

*****

Screwtape reminds us that the devil is happiest when we are satisfied with ourselves. In The Hope of the Gospel, George McDonald reminds us that we should never seek the admiration or approval of others. When we do what we should do, we should regard ourselves as the unprofitable servant, having done only what was expected and required. 

*****

I thought about this as I tried to separate satisfaction at a job well done from enjoying others’ praise for a job well done, and as I tried to avoid congratulating myself for not being a person who revels in the sufferings of others. An unprofitable servant, I did what was expected and required. Most days, that’s all I can do. 

Exit the Dragon

I write these silly things all the time, and sometimes writing a title takes longer than writing the whole essay. But sometimes, a perfect title comes along and just writes itself. 

*****

Not only is this a perfect title, it's also not a metaphorically perfect title. This post really is about a dragon. See? It’s huge, isn’t it? 

What? You have an even better title?
No, you don't. Come on. 

This dragon is notable for several reasons. First of all, it’s notable that a neighbor has a huge inflatable dragon on their front lawn. Secondly, the dragon has been there for months. Maybe years. I don’t know. I walk past it all the time, and only in the last few days has it occurred to me, just barely, to wonder about it. It can’t be a birthday thing, and it can’t be there to commemorate some dragon-focused holiday because it’s been there forever. Though some people do keep their Christmas decorations up until March, so who knows. 

When I say that the dragon is on a neighbor’s front lawn, I mean a distant neighbor, six or seven streets away. I see the dragon only when I pass their house during my neighborhood walks. I don’t know how the actual neighbors, who have to look at the dragon all the time, feel about it. On the one hand, I think that people should be able to do what they want to do on their own property. On the other hand, it’s a huge red dragon, and what the hell? What in the actual hell? 

*****

My husband and I went for a walk the day after I wrote this. When we turned onto the street where the dragon lives, I didn’t see it right away and I thought well, isn’t that ironic that the dragon disappeared the very day after I realized that he had been there for months. We don’t know what we have until it is gone, I suppose. But then we walked a few more steps, and found that he was right there where he belonged; he just isn’t visible from the intersection. 

“How long has that dragon been there?” I asked my husband. “When did you first notice him?” 

“A while ago,” my husband said helpfully. A while. I could have come up with that timetable myself. “Maybe it’s a corona thing,” he said. 

I hadn’t considered this, but perhaps he’s right. Perhaps the bright red dragon is meant to represent the ever-present threat of the plague. I thought backward to try to pinpoint the time when I first noticed the dragon, and I realized that I don’t really remember anything pre-corona. If it happened any time before March 13, 2020, then it’s ancient history, from a time when dragons maybe actually did roam the earth. 

*****

In 2019, I read Maeve Brennan’s The Long-Winded Lady. Maeve Brennan was an Irish writer who lived in New York City in the 1950s and 1960s (and possibly before and after). She wrote a column, also called "The Long-Winded Lady," for the New Yorker. The book is a best-of compilation of those columns. 

Maeve Brennan might have been long-winded in person. I guess that’s the stereotype of Irish people: talkative, even garrulous. But her columns weren’t long-winded at all. They were very spare and succinct. She wrote mostly about New York City, and how every time she felt settled somewhere, that somewhere would change. She moved around all the time, from one temporary furnished apartment or hotel suite to another. Sometimes, she had to move because a building she lived in would soon be razed to make way for a bigger, more modern building. She didn’t complain about change itself, but she lamented the pace. It was as if she was trying to maintain a record, a point-in-time snapshot of how a neighborhood or block looked during the time that she occupied it, but change came so rapidly and so unexpectedly that sometimes a whole building would disappear before she could describe it to herself, and then its memory was gone too.

*****

So I wrote the dragon part of this essay months ago, and promptly forgot about it, because what was the point? A post about a giant inflatable dragon seemed apropos of exactly nothing in life. And then I started walking around the neighborhood again, because the pool was closed, and it was walking weather again. And I walked past the dragon house, and the dragon was gone. 

I couldn't remember for sure if it was the right house, but I knew the street, and that street was entirely free of dragons, real or imagined. There was a SOLD sign on the front lawn of the house that I thought was the dragon house, and when I looked back at the picture, I saw that it was the same house. I don't know if the old owner banished the dragon for fear that it would scare off potential buyers, or if the new owner managed to look past the dragon to see the house behind it, but then got rid of him as the first order of new home ownership business. No matter, one way or the other. The dragon is gone. People live and work on Maeve Brennan's New York streets, and have no idea what they looked like fifty years ago. And a few months from now, the new home will host friends and family who will never know that the street they're visiting was once a dragon's home. He was once a part of the neighborhood landscape, but things change. Things move on. 

Friends old and new

It always happens, doesn’t it? You think you want something and then when you get it, you don’t want it anymore. Not that I am ever happy to see the end of summer, but one thing that I thought I was looking forward to was not wearing shorts and a t-shirt every darn day. And then I woke up this morning, a sunny Saturday with temperatures in the 40s (in SEPTEMBER!) and I put on jeans and a top and a sweater, and I felt like I’d been stuffed into a straitjacket, bound up like a mummy in clothes that restricted my freedom of movement in a way that I am no longer accustomed to. 

It’s later in the day now, and a little warmer than this morning. It’s not t-shirt and shorts warmer but with leggings, a short-sleeved t-shirt, and a ¼ zip pullover thing, I am quite comfortable. I’m going to walk with my friend. More writing later. 

*****

It’s Sunday morning now, November cold but brilliantly sunny, almost blinding. I walked with my friend and her dog yesterday. My friend is younger and more energetic than I am, and her dog is more energetic than either of us. I like walking with them, because they make me walk faster and farther than I would on my own. We walk together pretty often, and we usually resume our ongoing conversation from whatever point we left off at the end of the last walk. We talk about work, or books and movies and politics, or family. Yesterday, my friend told me that she’d spoken to her mother a few days earlier. “We had lunch at Panera today,” her mother told her. “It was a treat, but quite a bit more food than we expected, so we’re just going to have a snack for dinner.” 

“There it is,” my friend said. “My parents are an insurance commercial.” 

*****

I don’t think much about what I wear when I’m with my close friends. They’re my friends. They know me. They know what I look like. But when I see newer friends, I take more trouble with my clothes and overall appearance. Earlier in the day on Saturday, I had an appointment with a church acquaintance. We work together in a volunteer group that helps new mothers in need, and we were to meet a new client together. So I wanted to look nice, to make a good first impression. This woman is stylish, in an affluent outdoorsy suburban woman way, and she always looks well-dressed and put-together, and I wanted to look well-dressed and put-together too. Or rather, I wanted her to think of me as well-dressed and well put-together. 

*****

Back in late July and early August, I started searching for a barn jacket. Something or someone put me in mind of a barn jacket, like the J. Crew ones that were so popular in the early ‘90s. I have no idea if they’re making a comeback or not, or if this was just one of my short-lived style whims. I looked high and low for exactly the right barn jacket. I couldn’t decide between vintage or new, between red or a dark tan, between canvas with a leather or corduroy collar or lightweight quilted nylon. Eventually, I lost interest because after all, it was still summer and I don’t like thinking about fall clothes in the summer; and because really, I’m not a barn jacket person. I don’t have a barn. I like going outside, but I’m not outdoorsy. I have never been on a horse in my entire life and God willing, I never will be. Nothing against horses, of course. They’re beautiful creatures. I just don’t want to go anywhere near one. I finally got a nice insulated canvas utility jacket with patch pockets and a hood; and I hung it in my closet thinking that I’d get to wear it sometime late in October. And then it was 45 degrees on a Saturday morning in the middle of September and I was glad that I had that jacket. 

*****

Back to my church friend. I’ve known her to say hello to, as my mother always said, for a few years, but we have never really interacted other than to greet one another at church or at kids’ sports practices (our sons ran cross-country together a long time ago). She called me a little while before we were to meet, to let me know that she was running late, and as I listened to her voice, I realized that I didn’t know her at all. I didn’t recognize her telephone voice right away, and her speech patterns and conversational style were not familiar to me. As we spoke, I wondered if we’ll remain friendly acquaintances, or if we’ll eventually become friends.

****

While we’re on the topic of jackets, is there really that much of a difference between a barn jacket and a utility jacket? In terms of function, not so much. Both are generally boxy or relaxed fit canvas jackets, with plenty of spacious pockets to warm your hands or hold your things. Both generally come in rather muted, drab colors. They might be insulated or not. Appearances aside, though, there’s a philosophical difference between a utility jacket and a barn jacket. They say different things about the wearer. The utility jacket is city mouse, and the barn jacket is its country cousin. The utility jacket goes to the museum or to Starbucks, and the barn jacket goes to the stables or to a fall festival. They might have different taste in movies. They might be on opposite political sides. 

*****

My church friend and I finished our task, and we spent a few minutes chatting before continuing on with our day.  We ended up talking about politics (more and more my least favorite subject) and I learned that she is a reluctant but unwavering Trump supporter, because she believes that he is the better option for pro-life voters. I disagree vehemently, but I understand her position. She’s not enthusiastic about Trump, and I’m not enthusiastic about Biden, but on November 3, we’re going to cancel out one another’s votes. 

I’m reading back over this now, and I think that I intended the jackets to serve as a metaphor. One jacket is an acquaintance, and the other is a friend. They don’t look that different until you really start to examine them closely. And it’s not a bad metaphor, is it?  A person might need a barn jacket AND a utility jacket. It depends on the occasion. And a person needs friends and acquaintances. I still don’t know if my church friend and I are going to be real friends or not, but I have not ruled it out and I don’t think she has either. That’s a good sign, I think. Some of us are still willing to reach across the ever-widening political divide to make a friend on the other side. It's not a bad idea to try on a different jacket now and then. 

The reading (and writing) life

Sometimes I write about reading, and sometimes I read about writing, and sometimes I write about writing. And I just finished reading C.S. Lewis’s The Reading Life, so now it seems that I also  read about reading. This book was a fitting selection, since I have been reading a lot lately, even more than usual. I’m in the middle of writing several different book essays right now. I hesitate to call them reviews; first of all, because I seldom read anything brand-new; and secondly, because I am not very good at figuring out why I do or don’t like a book, and “it was great; you should totally read it” is not compelling criticism. 

*****

One thing I don’t write very much about is work, because I like work and I want to keep doing it, and writing about your job on the Internet is a good way to lose it. All I will say is that when I click on the “share” button in a presentation that’s saved on SharePoint, and I see no fewer than three people trying to edit it at the same time as I’m trying to edit it, then we might have a case of too many cooks, know what I mean? And that is all I have to say about that. 

*****

But back to my book-reading. I also just finished Hyperbole and a Half, ten years after everyone else finished it; and This is My Life, almost 30 years after Nora Ephron directed the movie adaptation. I loved both of these books, for entirely different reasons, and I’ll tell you why at another time, as soon as I finish writing my half-baked essays about them. 

*****

In The Reading Life, C.S. Lewis lists four characteristics of true readers. They are: 

1. Loves to re-read books
2. Highly values reading as an activity (vs. as a last resort)
3. Lists the reading of particular books as a life-changing experience
4. Continuously reflects and recalls what one has read

Check, check, check, and check. 

*****

You know what? It’s September, ¾ of the way through the reading year, and I haven’t re-read a single book this year. But I did read all of Helene Hanff’s books, and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy and I expect to read all of them again. Right now, I’m reading Giving Up the Ghost, Hilary Mantel’s memoir. It reminds me very much of Curriculum Vitae, Muriel Spark’s autobiography. This is very high praise. Sadly, there won’t be any new Helene Hanff or Muriel Spark books; but Hilary Mantel is still living, and even though she’s finished with Thomas Cromwell and Henry VIII, that doesn’t mean that she’s finished writing. At least I hope not. 

*****

Thanks to the never-ending pandemic (2022? Really, Dr. Fauci? REALLY?), I still don't get out much. But I’m living the reading life and the writing-about-almost-everything (except work) life. It’s a pretty good life. God willing, I’ll get to keep writing more words and reading more books. And maybe I'll have a party in two years, give or take. 

 

Subject line

I have my Gmail account set up with tabs for Promotions, Social, Updates, etc. When I opened this account 10 years or so ago, I vowed that I’d use it only for private email, and give my old Yahoo address to all of the businesses that demand my email address every time I buy something. But with one thing and another, my system got corrupted and everyone in the world has my Gmail address. The tabs help me to control the spam, to the extent that a person can control spam. 

Every so often I check the spammy emails, just to make sure that I’m not missing something important. Yesterday, I saw an email with no subject line, from a brand-new sender: Coronavirus. Yes, now it’s sending me emails. Maybe the novel coronavirus has merged with a computer virus and it’s trying to infect me and my computer at the same time. But I’m too smart to fall for that, aren’t I? Coronavirus will have to get up earlier in the morning if it wants to get me via email. 

*****

Yesterday it was an email from the coronavirus and today it's a text message from the dentist’s office. I'm sitting in the "virtual waiting room," also known as my car, parked in the parking lot, and the office just texted me that my dentist is running late. Well, someone who works in the office texted me but it feels disembodied and impersonal as if the desk or the building is tapping away on an iPhone, keeping me abreast of waiting times. I had to take time away from a busy work day to come here, and I arrived ten minutes early as instructed. I live very close by, and it occurs to me that they probably knew that the dentist was running late and they could have let me know this before I left the house. I guess I can't blame a disembodied text message. So I'm multitasking. 

This isn't a routine check up. I have an old filling that's broken and I'm here to get it fixed. I can't stand novocain, but I'm glad that people can still take care of minor health problems even amid the pandemic. Coronavirus isn't the only game in town. Maybe that's why it's out there sending email messages. Maybe it doesn't want us to forget about it. It probably shouldn't worry. 

Another day

Today is my birthday. I’m older; but as they say, no one is getting younger, and this is simply true. For the first time ever, I might have been able to swim outdoors on my birthday, which always falls after Labor Day; but it’s supposed to rain this afternoon, with possible thunder and lightning. Rain alone wouldn’t stop me from swimming, because how much wetter can you get, but thunder and lightning closes the pool and it’ll be out of my hands. We’ll see what happens. 

For my entire childhood and most of my early adult life, I was very lucky when it came to birthday weather. My birthday would dawn clear and sunny, and would remain so all day. My memory is not what it was so maybe I’m completely wrong about this, but I honestly think that I was in my late thirties the first time it rained on my birthday. Since then, the birthday weather has been hit or miss. But that’s OK because when you are my age, it’s mostly just another day. 

Maybe I’ll get to swim. I hope so. But I won’t have to cook dinner, and I plan to eat ice cream for lunch. The weather might be sketchy but ice cream and chicken souvlaki and french fries from my favorite Greek restaurant taste good no matter what it’s like outside. Happy Birthday, if it’s your birthday, too. 

Pointless

So I did swim, and it was cold, just as I feared it would be; but it was fine, just as I knew it would be. I swam almost every day this summer. I have as many adjectives to describe pool swimming conditions as Greenlanders have to describe snow. Which is to say not that many because apparently, the whole idea of native Alaskans and Greenlanders having a separate vocabulary just to describe snow was debunked years ago. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Anyway, Tuesday’s pool conditions might best be described as “dank.” A slightly cool, slightly damp, pearly day; and chilly pool water that looked darker blue than usual, without the sparkling reflected sunlight. A few laps, and I was almost not freezing cold. But it was great, and I’d do it again. I will do it again. 

The point of swimming (for me, that is) is that there’s really no point, other than the fun of doing it. No matter how often I swim (as often as possible during the summer), my technique never really improves, and I never get faster, though I do build endurance as the summer goes on. Endurance and flexibility are my only athletic advantages. I’m slow, I’m not that strong, and I’m terribly uncoordinated. 

When I’m in the water, I do try to think about improving my technique. I realize sometimes that I’m swimming with my fingers spread apart, and I remind myself to keep my hands closed, like paddles. I prompt myself to kick, so that my upper body isn’t doing all the work. I try to engage my core. I don’t even know what that means, but I try to do it. But I’m not not a kinesthetic learner. The best way I can think of to describe this is that I can watch someone performing an activity correctly, and I try to imitate their form, and I feel like my body is doing exactly what I’m seeing in my mind, but observers tell me that I’m not even close. 

For example, what I think of as “breaststroke” would never pass a judge’s scrutiny, at least from the waist down. I try to kick outward, so that I’m gaining propulsion from the soles of my feet rather than the tops, but even as I’m thinking about what it should look like and consciously trying to do it, I know that my feet are kicking downward. And I can’t keep the kick simultaneous either. I’m going to DQ on a downward butterfly kick (or a scissors kick or an alternating kick) every single time. 

And that takes me back to the point, which is that there is no point, except that I really love to swim. I don’t have to pass a judge’s scrutiny. I don’t have to beat anyone. I don’t have to improve my time; this is why I don’t even bother to know what my time is. I just like the feeling of moving through water. 

*****

It’s Friday now, the Friday of Labor Day weekend. I hate Labor Day weekend. Normally, I hate it because it marks the end of summer, at least what I consider summer. And of course, the pool usually closes on Labor Day. This year, because so many of the kids who work as lifeguards (mine included) are attending school from home, the management company decided to keep the pool open for a few extra weeks. (The ‘rona mostly taketh, but it also giveth a little). This year, I hate Labor Day for entirely different reasons. I am actually happy to see the end of this summer, and that makes me sad, because it’s sad to wish summer away.

It rained on Wednesday and Thursday night; heavy, drenching rain that broke up the warmth and humidity that had begun to build again. The fall lovers are planning for the first taste of PSL weather this weekend, hoping that it will be cool enough to break out the sweaters and the backyard fire pits and the gaiter scarves that double as face masks. I’m not doing any of that nonsense. I’m going to swim.  

It's all your fault

It’s the virtual first day of school, or the first day of virtual school, or whatever you want to call it, here in Maryland. My older son started his second year of college with a 9 AM Zoom session, and my younger son started his second year of high school with another 9 AM Zoom session; and thankfully, our Wi-Fi is capable of supporting all of this simultaneous activity because I also had a call at 9 o’clock, but on Teams rather than Zoom. 

Because we’re back to starting before Labor Day (make up your mind, Maryland), the first day of school doesn’t make me feel like summer is over. The weather is doing that--it’s raining and cool today, more like the end of September than the last day of August. So far, only two of my Instagram friends have posted first-day-of-school pictures. I suppose there’s no point, but I do like first-day-of-school pictures. Is there nothing that the damn ‘rona won’t take away? Now I don’t even get to scroll through a feed full of smiling faces and first-day outfits and new backpacks? You’re a bitch, 2020. I said what I said. 

*****

Now it’s the second day of school. Just like that, the routine that I have become accustomed to during the last few months is over, and I have to adjust to a new one. Another test of my well-honed change management skills. 

I blame 2020 for a lot of shit, but I can’t blame it for my time-wasting indecisiveness, because that long out-dates this terrible year. I’m almost finished working for the day, and I’m just about paralyzed with indecision about what to do for the rest of the day. Or more accurately, when and how to do what I’m going to do, because I know exactly what I need to do for the rest of the day; it’s just that I can’t decide when to do what, and I’m going to fritter away at least 30 minutes while I weigh pros and cons and compare approaches and consider possible outcomes. Maddening, I tell you. 

I want to exercise outside. I’d always rather swim, but I know that the water will be much colder than I like. But time is running out for outdoor swimming, and it might be better to suffer a few minutes of cold than to lose one of the few remaining pool days. But I also have to shop for my old lady today, and swimming will take longer than walking because I’ll have to take a shower afterward. And dinner--what am I supposed to do about dinner? People expect to eat every day, several times a day; and they all look to me to make that happen. And they’re not wrong, because someone has to be responsible and it might as well be me. Why not me? 

The cold water will be invigorating. It will clear my mind. It might be a new season but I will still cling to the vestiges of the old one while I can. Suck it, 2020. 

*****

Yes, I know that I said that I wasn’t blaming 2020, but a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. There’s nothing bad that 2020 can’t make worse, including my decision-making skills.