The Unbearable Lightness of Solitude

Los Angeles, California

I just spent my first ever solo Thanksgiving dinner. Joel and I found ourselves in a Love in the Time of Covid Redux situation. He was exposed to Covid by a co-worker who worked at his side for an entire day. There were masks, there was hand sanitizing and washing. There was Lysol spray at the end of the day. But there also needed to be a test, which Joel got on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I had some trepidation regarding his ability to obtain results just before the holiday. Remember, we've been to this rodeo before. But the last time he was tested after exposure at this same urgent care facility, the results came back in under 24 hours. This time, we were not so lucky. Joel had three days off, Wednesday through Friday, and returned to work on Saturday still not knowing his results. Did the lab have his results? Probably. But they were so overloaded with the proactive testing of people who wanted to be clear before partying through the holiday, that the lab's website crashed, their phones went to voicemail and though he tried at all hours of the day and night, he could not get his results.

I had not anticipated spending Thanksgiving together, until this exposure occurred along with a work schedule that gave him three consecutive days off. With testing, we could see each other. But I couldn't plan a real Thanksgiving dinner (roasting a duck in our case) until we knew he was clear. The logistics were too complicated, so I made the executive decision to prepare macaroni and cheese and an apple crisp. Good for one, but equally good for two, should things work out.

My macaroni and cheese is not cheese-sauce based. And, there is actually a recipe for it in a previous post (available here, for free!). I began making it when I was about ten years old and the original recipe came from my Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook. Could you even name a cookbook with that title in these politically correct days? But I digress... I have been making this for years, and have tweaked it a lot through the decades. About twenty years or so back, the Los Angeles Times posted a very similar recipe and tagged it as: Ronald Reagan's Macaroni and Cheese. Huh. What I love about this recipe is all the ways you can vary it by using different cheeses and substituting creme fraiche for the sour cream and tarting it up in a variety of different ways. This year I made it with sharp cheddar, gruyere and that truffle cheese from Trader Joe's. The apple crisp may very well also have originally come from that same cookbook. I pretty much cooked my way through it before I entered my teens and graduated to adult cookbooks, so to speak.

By Thanksgiving afternoon I was fairly certain that Joel was not going to join me, so I shook up a martini, prepared the casserole, and an hour or two later, I sat down on the den sofa to eat it out of a shallow bowl accompanied by a glass of sauvignon blanc. And some bleakness did set it at that point. I had planned to watch Hannah and her Sisters but courtesy of TCM, I saw it earlier in the week. So I watched Pieces of April, a different Thanksgiving-themed film. And then I watched a favorite, bittersweet film: Celeste and Jessie Forever. I didn't have to think too much about solitude because it has been with me throughout this year. And, the bleakness of macaroni and cheese out of a bowl was tempered by the fact that I had set my expectation bar low. And, while it was my first Thanksgiving spent completely alone, I have the belief that it may be my only one spent alone. And with everything that has happened this year, I can deal with that.

During this pandemic time, a friend remarked to me that the only thing she could imagine that was worse than going through this, would be to be going through it while living alone. I think I smiled ruefully. I don't know, I replied. Let's see. I get to eat whatever I want for dinner. I have total control over the remote. If I want the TV off, it will be off. ... and there is no conflict in my life. Not to say that going through the pandemic with loved ones will cause a resemblance to the battling Bickersons. And of course I intensely miss spending time with Joel. But there is a lot to be said for solitude. The downside is that I worry how and who I will be out the other end of this. Most of the invitations I have received through this time, I have turned down. And the few I have accepted have felt awkward. Even spending some time with my lovely neighbors, a happy hour while their twins nap, is a bit of a challenge. I enjoy their company, but it requires a push on my side. And this is not who I have ever been. But the experience of this year has brought changes to us all, and perhaps in many ways that we don't yet recognize.

The ability to tolerate being alone is essentially important. And not just for the reason that about half of us will end up living alone. I don't think I recognized the importance of this during my long marriage, until I began spending time on my own in Carmel. It was initially a challenge of adjustment. But it brought with it a clarity that I had not experienced in years. Our lives get so taken up with stimuli: activities; conversations; media; traffic; news. There is always something and someone there. And it's constant, and that's not good. You don't have to meditate to take time out. You just have to be alone in quiet to think. A simple thing but all too rare in the world in which we live, and perhaps the most important thing we can have in our lives.

Do I welcome the end of this time when we can once again spend time with all the people we care about? Of course. I want to spend time with Joel and catch up on all of the postponed conversations with my friend, Larry. I want Lynnette to come once a month so we can run around all day, then stay up late to play Ticket to Ride. I want my friends from northern California to come and stay in the summer for days by the pool and nights playing Sh*#head. I want to do pilates again, to see Cathy weekly as she guides me through this practice, and to have lunch with her, and more frequently, with my partner, Beth. I want to see movies and shop with my girlfriends like Lisa. I want to meet Todd and Christopher for lobster rolls at Connie and Ted's. I want to spend holidays with Connie and Curt and their wonderfully bright and interesting adult kids. I want to dance salsa with Joel in clubs, sharing the floor with my friend, Joy, surrounded by the music we love and the people in our salsa community. I want to go to The Hollywood Bowl to relive the magical night Joel and I shared there seeing Paul Simon. If I listed all of the things and all of the people I look forward to doing and seeing, this would be the longest post that I have written. But, on that list would be that I want to continue to enjoy solitude. Just not a 24/7, 365-day span of it.

I had mac 'n' cheese again the next night, then froze the remainder. That day I had begun to bring out my Christmas decorations, including my favorite mugs. I took another paperclip off the chain that will mark the days until the end of the year. We are in the home stretch of 2020. We made it this far, and hopefully more of it is behind us than ahead of us. In the favorite words of my late mother-in-law and my late mother: Better days are coming. This too shall pass. Solitude allows me to reflect on that, and to believe that it is true.  May I be the first to wish you a Happy Christmas🎄! Not your holiday? That's ok. This year we share everything♡.

Oops...

Los Angeles, California

With Thanksgiving approaching, I am reflecting upon the gratitude I feel. Near the top of the list is that I don't have relatives to fight with this Thanksgiving! In this sticky pandemic political goo, many families will be fighting over the mashed potatoes. And worse, I have friends who have already fallen out with family members over the crimes of the Trump administration. Some of the hell of what he hath wrought.

I haven't fallen out with anyone so far. I am fortunate that Joel and I are aligned on almost every moderate political point. As I recently wrote, we are all on our own squares of the political chessboard (I have to write this again, because I do love this metaphor), but even if on the same color we are not necessarily on the same square. And that is ok. It's a spectrum out there, so even those of us on the same side of it, rarely agree on everything.

Which brings me to a recent incident when a friend objected to something I had written on this blog. You didn't see her comment? She didn't leave one. She is a close, though out-of-town friend, and we catch up every few weeks with a long phone conversation. She recently texted me to ask if I was angry at her since it had been awhile since we had been in touch. But when I checked, it had only been nine days. And the text string had been left in her court. But, as with the Pirates of the Caribbean code, that's more of a guideline than a code. While responding to her text, in the back of my mind was Psych 101 (or more accurately, a lot of years of therapy), which reminded me that when someone out of the blue stamps an emotion on you, it's usually a projection of something they are feeling. So, I texted her back asking if everything was ok. I'm fine. No biggie, she responded. Ok.

During the first part of our catch-up conversation, I noticed that she seemed distracted. Again, I pushed that to the back of my mind. Then, in the middle of our conversation, she suddenly and forcefully stated that she had read my blog. And what followed was her letting me know, in no uncertain terms, how she felt about something I had written.

I don't write my blog to upset my friends. I write my blog as a practice of writing. I write my blog to keep my writing in the forefront of my life. That is the purpose and the intent. However, it should not be a surprise to anyone that politics have crept into my writing. Politics are a hot topic currently. And, frankly, I have to think up things to write about, which can be challenging. But a blog isn't Facebook. It's not social media, and it is not interactive, although comments can be left if you feel moved to do so. Friends have let me know that they enjoy reading my blog, but I am certain they don't agree with everything that I write. And I wouldn't expect them to. In fact, when I reached out to Lynnette about a recent post, she responded: Nothing new there. And what kind of a friend would I be if I thought you weren't entitled to your own opinions?

My conversation with the angry friend was briefly unsettling. Writing a blog is not writing an educational thesis, nor an op-ed journalistic piece. So, I don't expect to be called upon to defend what I write. I mean, I've moved on to the next topics in the next blogposts, but I suppose I could be prepared to defend the opinions stated in a previous post if I was given a heads-up: Hey, I read something on your blog that I disagree with. Can we talk about it?  Instead, being couched in the middle of a let's catch-up call, it felt like a bit of an ambush. And... it felt a bit parental. As if I my behavior was necessitating a lecture of disapproval. Afterwards, I reread the offending post. I stand by it. And, simply put, I will continue to assume that if friends and readers don't like what I am writing, they will simply not read my blog.

I did, however, feel sad that I had caused a friend to feel upset, especially in the midst of this maelstrom of Covid angst. This particular grist for my writing mill was a moderately liberal viewpoint regarding reform in a hot button issue. It certainly was not written about her specifically, nor in any way mindfully, but clearly it hit a nerve with her. And for that there was some remorse. Not for the expression of my opinion, but that it collaterally offended someone I care about.

My writing process is essential in my life. And, perhaps even more so right now. And, writing through a politically-correct filter in a fruitless attempt to please all of the people all of the time would grind my blog, my memoir and all of my writing, to a halt. I am happy to have friends who read my blog. But, in all honesty, I would be happy to have no one reading it. It's not about the reading. It's about the writing. And, frankly, it is about getting through these times which are almost insurmountably difficult. I am trying my best to get through them by utilizing all I can to help me to do so. Perhaps in better times I will write more cheerfully, and less politically. And I do believe better times are ahead. In the meantime, I took heart in what another friend wrote to me recently regarding a different post:

It's your opinion and your beliefs which shouldn't be offensive to anyone who knows you well enough to read it. I think it's very brave to open up and be so thoughtful of current issues.

I truly and absolutely love the process of writing. Without writing and dancing, I don't know how I could survive everything that has been thrown at me. Both allow me to lose myself in the complete joy of the process. And I would still feel that joy without anyone reading what I write, and most certainly without everyone agreeing with everything I write. But, on the other hand, an affirmation like that above? As Joel would say: It's the cherry on the top (or the one luciously marinating in the bottom of my Thanksgiving manhattan cocktail). Happy Thanksgiving to you, with abundant gratitude for us all making it this far in 2020, and with fervent hope for all of the freedom in the year ahead of us! Be well! 💟

Genital Copulation

Los Angeles, California

It is inevitable that I have damaged my hearing. I spent my youth attending rock concerts, and once after a David Bowie concert at the Hollywood Palladium, my ears were plugged up for at least a day afterwards. And then, about fifteen years ago, I started dancing salsa in clubs. I do wear earplugs... sure, now. But I am in that place where at times, I hear but I don't quite comprehend. Or maybe I am so used to talking to myself, that it is the only voice I now hear succinctly.

The election is over, mas o menos, and there is weak house moritorium on watching CNN. But I do check in on Sunday mornings. And that was when I heard an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci. For all that Fauci can't throw (Red Sox Opening Day reference), he has been an admirably respected voice of reason throughout this bizarrely misdirected pandemic year. But there is still a lot of polishing the stone -- going over the same material, and on CNN there is the incessant baiting to get him to badmouth Trump. Trump badmouths himself every time he opens his mouth, so this seems like a bit of a redundant gesture.

I think Fauci was being asked about the news that Pfizer has recently released regarding a 90% effective vaccine. I was only 30% listening when I clearly heard Fauci say: Genital Copulation. Ok, this is new. I mean, if we're wearing masks, and staying six-feet away from each other, what could that be about? Perhaps a reminder that we shouldn't be doing that outside our pod? I think I was folding laundry at the time, but hearing those words completely stopped me in my tracks.  Luckily in our world we have rewind, which is what I immediately did as soon as I could get to my remote.

Yeah... yeah, he's talking about a vaccine. It needs to be kept cold. They want front line workers and the elderly to be vaccinated first. And then it will go to the General Population! Ah-ha! Honestly, that does sound a lot like genital copulation.

In The Pirates of Penzance, Frederick's nurse, Ruth, has been told to arrange a seaman apprenticeship for Frederick to become a pilot. Unfortunately, she mishears and instead she apprentices him as a pirate. The words were so similar, Ruth decries about her error. Graciously, Frederick, now a grown pirate, agrees: They were. They still are!

Sometimes things that sound similar can have quite opposite meanings. And so it was when I heard Dr. Fauci casually mention genital copulation when talking about the vaccine. Ok, so you can blame my ever-escalating Covid-induced lack of attention span. Or my failing hearing. As for me, I think I'll just blame David Bowie. Rank your more leading by fog. Or something like that.

Boats Against the Current

 Los Angeles, California

I think that I expected things would be ok after the election. Don't ask me why I thought that. I'm not the eternal optimist by any measure. But I do this thing. I set this point in time ahead and decide that everything will be ok upon arrival. Sometimes I even think that everything will be... perfect. And, I never seem to learn. In this case, I waited one-hundred days. I made a pretty, colorful chain of one-hundred paperclips which I hung on a hook in a convenient location. Each day I removed a paperclip, knowing that at the end would be November. The summer felt relentlessly long as I went through it more or less in isolation. And I was longing for the fall season. And for the election to be over.

Additionally I celebrated a birthday. Well, actually I celebrated a birthday week. Joel had a six-day vacation from work. After work, on his last day, he got a Covid test and his negative results came back the following morning. During the week, we watched the Dodgers win the World Series, we cleaned my garage (my requested birthday gift), and on my actual birthday, we drank champagne and danced salsa and bachata. We didn't get out together away from my house. But for a Covid birthday, it was unexpectedly stellar.

I took down my last paperclip the morning of the election. Four days later when Associated Press called the election for Joe Biden, my neighbor texted to invite me to their front yard for champagne. It was my fourth gathering (if a gathering is defined by 2-4 people) in the past eight months. They are a lovely couple with 2-year old twin boys. While the twins napped, we sat outside, socially-distanced. We drank champagne, and talked about the awful situation in our country that we would thankfully be leaving behind when Trump left office, and about our elation at the change that would be coming. While on the same color, we were clearly not on the same square of that life's chessboard metaphor I used in the last post. They had been supporters of Elizabeth Warren. I had not. But we shared an intense desire to see the acceptance of the hatefulness and deceitfulness in the current administration become something that can never, ever again happen. But, for now it continues.

The day after my paperclip chain disappeared, I made a new one. It was comprised of fifty-nine paperclips of multi-colors, the last thirty-one alternating red and green, representing December and the season of Christmas. I cannot even remember when Advent starts. I haven't been to Mass since February, and I do very much miss it. The end of that chain will be January first. Where will we be on January first? They are reporting that Pfizer has a vaccine being readied. Hope. But meanwhile, things have not really gotten better. Yes, the Dodgers are still world champions. Yes, my garage is still clean. But the news from Washington is unprecedented. Did we expect statesmanship from this creature and his clan? Yeah... I admit I kinda did.

We're in a mess. So many people in our country impacted by this pandemic. Can you start a new business after you've lost yours as a result of this? Maybe. Can you survive the loss of a job? Barely. Can you find a new job when this is over? Probably. Can you replace a loved one who died? Absolutely not. I have feared that we were creating a populace where all that mattered was money and success. I loosely connected this to the deemphasizing of the importance of the humanities in universities. Yes, I am that simplistic at times. But the concept of higher education serving as job training, and in some cases a springboard to financial success, does not speak well to what the purpose of education should be. Training for occupations should be accomplished in graduate school, or in trade schools instead of universities. Haven't we somehow spun away from what a university education should provide, into a world where it is thought to be a conduit for a lucrative future, say, like in managing hedge funds? Maybe education isn't the offtracker, but when I try to figure out how we could have gotten to this place where our country finds itself, my eyes go to pinwheels. Thoughts rise to the surface, but nothing coalesces to really explain the complete breakdown of ethics that we have been witnessing. It can make you miss Nixon.

So, I go back to my own philosophy that I should concentrate on the micro: my health; my home; my family of friends; my neighborhood and community. But this requires a lot of energy and the effort to be mindful while in the swirling mess. The mess leaks in and has an impact. Life should not be as it is.

So we beat on, boats against the current... is from the last sentence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. In literature, in fine films and in theater and opera, we find the experience of others; their struggles, their tragedies, their triumphs over adversity. Maybe you are drawn to the humanities because you already have empathy, and it gets fine-tuned through the syllabus. Or maybe it helps develop empathy which was lacking in you. In the 80s there was the common saying: Life is hard and then you die. And, life is hard, especially now with so many dying. But there are many other layers to all our lives, and to how we live together, that should not be dismissed as one-dimensionally hard.

I have had to turn away from the news. It is just too dispiriting. Do I think things will get better? Yes. I hope. Joe Biden is a good man. A kind man. It takes a lot of strength to be kind. It takes the strength of getting out of your own way; getting out of the way of your ego. Anyone can be tough, and the weakest of the tough are the bullies. Things will certainly be better with a strong and compassionate leader. And a vaccine may eventually pull us out of our homes, back into some semblance of the lives we used to live. We will shop in malls, eat in restaurants, dance again in the clubs. But, until then we will beat on, boats against the current, and though still yet hampered by the maelstrom of the Trumpian storm, at least now we are able to see the shore. Thank you for reading my blog. Breathe. We will get there. 

Left-Right-Center

Los Angeles, California

I was raised with the teaching to avoid talking about religion and politics in polite society. This way there be dragons. In my youth, people attended church or temple, or not. Holidays were celebrated either religiously or secularly. My elementary school displayed a Christmas tree and a menorah. Macaroni and cheese and fish sticks were served in the cafeteria on Fridays. When elections rolled around, people were to vote their conscience. People were not so forthcoming about what they did in the ballot booth. Clearly this has changed and the landscape is rife with conflict. Have I broken with any friends or family over our current state of politics? Not really. But it has required, at times, patient avoidance.

It is not easy to talk or write about politics nor religion while skirting the possibility of offending someone, which is not my intent. So, acknowledging the slippery slope, I will try to use care. I might also add, it's not easy to write or speak about anything anymore, unless you keep happy company with your clones.

I see both political parties threatened by the extremes in their party. While I am relieved to hear that there are Republicans who do not like the party of Trump, and who would like to see the GOP returned to its pre-religious-right platform, it is clear that a lot of them got into bed with Trump (ok... Ick, why did I write that?). When did the GOP become the party of counterfactualism? Constitutionally-given rights like the right to peaceful assembly gets characterized as unpatriotic on sports fields, even though respectfully demonstrated. While the majority of the BLM movement is perfectly peaceful, they get tagged as rioters and looters. Who made it okay to characterize the whole by the few?

On the left, you see the entire Democratic party being painted with the colors of the progressive wing of the party. For myself, and I am guessing others, the democratic party is the party of the workers and civil rights. In the same way that many Republicans might want Trump out of their party, many Democrats would like to see the Green Party coalition back in the Green Party. I am alarmed by one-issue voters. For example, people who talk about environmental issues as if it is the only issue that matters. How do they not get that when you don't know how you are going to feed your family, you don't give a flying fuck about the climate? In the movie The Graduate, when the partygoer issued the famous line to Benjamin: Plastics; had Dustin Hoffman replied: But, sir, that's bad for our environment, the movie would have ended there.

And now, for the religion side of this coin, because in for a penny, in for a pound. First, from only my own viewpoint and experience, I feel it is important to have a relationship with God. And from that same place, I believe it is wrong to be judgmental about whatever faith leads a person to God, or about the lack of faith in a good, secular person who manages without belief. Faith is personal, as is the lack thereof, and every single being on this planet has a right to their own belief. Where I see religion getting into trouble is when they tout that they are the only true faith. Worshiping, or following the teachings of a beneficent being or higher power, makes you a person of faith. We find God first in faith, not in exclusiveness.

We know that religious extremisism is scary. We know that in some fundamentalist and orthodox sects, women are secondary to men. We know this, because men wrote it. My friend and blog namesake often said that she didn't follow that which was decided by the men who came after Jesus. She was a wise woman; the only true Christian I have known, in that she treated all people with kindness, charity, and without judgement, for her, this was according to the teachings of Christ. I think some "Christians" have forgotten that Jesus was someone who spent time with the poor and those cast out, including women, and treated them respectfully. It was later, when the misogynistic (and homophobic) men wrote things up, that women got short shrift in the dogma. If you need a playbook for your faith, you can always find one. But my belief is that faith is fundamentally a connection to God; not a blind following of someone else's program. My faith is with God. Religion is just a road; a conduit for that important relationship. The Bible is a good book. It's The Good Book. But it should be taken in context.

I have respect for any faith which treats all people respectfully and kindly. For what kind of a Christian hates Buddhists? What kind of a Christian hates Moslems? Christ taught goodness towards each other. And from what I know about other faiths, many teach the same. It's just when you get out to the fringes that the trouble starts. There's no hate in the middle, nor only one right way to be with God. If you belong to a denomination or sect that tells you there is, then you are pretty much in a cult. True faith accepts ecumenicalism. In fact, it reaches towards ecumenicalism. It's the my way or the highway that gets things sticky. The highway should be the high road. That is what we should be taking in how we treat each other as humans regardless of gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, political party, or religion. Until we get to that point, there is no we. Only you and them. And then faith, like American politics, follows the example of sports radicals. You're either supporting my team or you are my enemy. And look where that's gotten us. We can be better. God help us.

A friend once remarked that she thought the Millennials jumping so fervently into causes was as a result of not being raised in a practicing faith. I heard David Brooks say something similar, back in the day when he was a guest on Charlie Rose:

The kids want to be part of a moral crusade; they want to have morally meaningful lives, but they are growing up in a meritocracy that treats them only as instruments, as human capital, to get a job. And they've not been given any moral categories or moral instructions. So if you create intense anxieties about the world, loss of faith in liberalism, and no moral education, what you end up with are sort of 'spasms' and a sort of an absolutist moral panic.

I realize that many of the environagelists, people who are the most fervent, indeed the most fundamentalist about the environmental and animal rights movements, have not been raised within the structure of practicing faith. And many of these come at their beliefs in these movements as radically as any Bible-thumping Christian or extremist Moslem. If you are not in their movement, and I mean in it to the hilt, you are a heathen. Truly, life without religion can be meaningful. But life without meaning is lifeless. And while it is all around us, we see that searching for meaning particularly fervent in millenials.

I am a believer in many things, including the teachings of Christ. So I don't want be told that I am not Christian because I am not a certain kind of Christian. And, I don't want to be told that I am not doing anything for the environment because I use plastic straws, or for animal rights because I don't use vegan cosmetics. I believe that the environment is an important issue, just not the desperately singular issue that some are presenting it as. And those who vehemently push that it is should know that they are creating an equal and opposite reaction in me and probably many others. Hence my continued use of plastic straws. Further, these environangelists should recognize that those of us who did not bring any resource-depleting progeny into the world are way out ahead of them. I wonder why these environangelists didn't feel the environment was important enough to practice zero population growth. While saving the planet did not factor into my decision to live a childfree life, it does mean that I have a greatly smaller carbon footprint than even the most conscientious whole foods family. We have all made choices in life, and should not be prosylatized by anyone's evangelicalism whether it be religious or political.

I am fine-tuning this post on November 3rd without a clear idea of how the election will be decided. The tribalism has become astoundingly entrenched. So, what can I do about my dislike of that? I can try harder to treat those in my circle with kindness and acceptance: My family of friends; my neighbors; my community. When all is said and done, that is who we have. I can hold them in my heart, while bearing in mind that we are all entitled to feel and to believe differently from each other. I am on my own square on life's chessboard. You are welcome to share my square or occupy the square next to me. But you are not entitled to drag me onto your square. Right now, as much as possible, I will strive to stay open and centered. And today, on election day, I will continue to pray: Protect me from all anxiety as I wait for joyful hope. And, readers, be my guest to take that in any way that works for you. Thank you for reading my blog. Ever play the game Left-Right-Center? Very fun, though plastic is involved.