*a poem for the day and darkening season from poet, writer and teacher Bethany W. Pope. More on Pope below. It’s spooky just remembering the masks, and quarantines, in my view. How odd and unsettling that time was. To experience a pregnancy or health crisis of any kind while a global pandemic and panic was occurring, and in China? Yowsa.
We were two weeks into the quarantine and everyone was masked. Seven hours out of surgery and I had a blue and white antiseptic shield moulded to my nose and mouth. My heartbeat had grown regular again and my new son slept in his clear cradle. The nurses had wrapped him up, Chinese style, in three triangular blankets so that only his round, jaundiced head poked out. They’d propped him up sideways, hoping that the last of his swallowed meconium would leak away to puddle, safely, sticky and black, along the floor of the cradle. Matthew asked me if I was hungry, and I wasn’t – though I knew, somewhere, that I hadn’t eaten in a day and a half – but I could tell he needed something so I waved him out. He told me, later, that the road leading out of the hospital was totally blocked off, and every restaurant had been shut, so he didn’t even try to go off campus. The cafeteria was packed. A building the size of a shopping mall, loaded with two hundred tiny stalls, and seething with an undulating sea of patients and their families, all gloved, all obscured from their noses to their chins, all friendly as everyone in Nanchang always 15. He met the woman with the white streaked hair standing in the line for dumplings. She asked if she could practise her English. He said yes, of course, and that’s what they did. He almost didn’t notice that she followed him back to building six. She could have been anyone, in those clothes, behind the same blue/white air filter. He knew for certain when she joined him in the lift. She hung back a little when he entered our room, waiting long enough to hear him turn on the bathroom sink and start washing his hands. I saw her when she materialized. shadowed and hooked, at the foot of my bed, in her smoked cloud of hair. She reached for my cigar-wrapped child, saying, I just want to hold him. I just want to hold him. And I felt a flare, like a struck match, running the red length of my new incision.
*a submission to local arts and culture magazine, which will be published in August? September? Maybe, if they like it! Fingers x’ed, yet what matters is that I do. 🙂
It was Halloween, the perfect day to move from the Catskills into the big city; what’s the worst that can happen? Revelers doing their raucous Halloween thing? Car horns and music blaring? Shouting? Screaming? The unmistakable sound of fights breaking out beyond the apartment windows? Gun shots?
All of that and more occurred that memorable night, my first in NYC. Why Halloween? What were you thinking? Who does that? I do. It was time to get my life going already, post-college. Halloween also, that year, fell on a Saturday. That meant pop was able – and willing, which was more astonishing – to close the store and take me into Manhattan, dropping me off at the apartment I’d rented two weeks earlier with money I’d saved up over the previous 18 weeks waiting tables on Nantucket Island.
It wasn’t a big deal. I’d be fine. I’d lived in London, after all, another sprawling, fast-paced metropolis, and managed well; loved every minute, in fact, making that city my own. I wasn’t a helpless child. I was 22! My father counseled me never to leave my apartment after sunset, which, that month, meant around 5p.m. This admonition from dear old dad was unsustainable, but I followed his advice for a few weeks, with one exception, mostly because, jobless and relatively friendless, I had nowhere to go.
The exception was the day after Halloween, November 1, All Souls’ Day. The locksmith I’d hired once the lease was signed, found at random in the Yellow Pages, arrived that morning to change the cylinder on the door handle lock, installing a deadbolt just below my eye level as well; he then asked me out. I said yes, partly because I was in my new life, which meant taking risks and embracing adventure, but I was also a little concerned about saying no when he was inside my apartment, with my new keys still in his hand. He had all the necessary equipment to get in again, at will, right? Why was it I could never lie about having a serious boyfriend? A fiancé? A jealous husband?
Still. What’s the worst that could happen? I said yeah, sure; we decided on a time he would pick me up later that night (my phone wouldn’t be installed for another week), and handed me my keys. I think he was surprised, actually, when – buzzing my apartment in the darkness – I came out the front door. He had a vintage Chevy, low-slung and green? Maybe? I’m not a car person.
He decided to take me, a squeaky fresh newbie to the Big Apple, up the west side highway to his old neighborhood in the Bronx, where we visited a surviving bar amidst the mostly empty, burned out blocks. We played pool; he drank a beer; I sipped a club soda. After introducing me to a couple of his old friends, we left to drive around the neighborhood; he wanted to show me where he and his pals had once lived, in buildings that no longer existed. It looked like a war zone, but for whatever reason – we never met again – I felt perfectly safe the entire time. It’s also possible everything was so new to me, that I was numb. I do that, go numb, turn into a witness, only, to my own life and everyone in it.
That winter was brutally cold; my landlords, 3 friends in their late 30s, all new to the business of multi-unit property ownership, were unable to pay the oil bills on the building they’d bought. My upstairs neighbor’s pipes froze and burst, bringing the ceiling down, flooding my kitchen. I kept warm-ish drinking innumerable cups of tea, and by turning the oven on; I read novels by flashlight under the covers fully dressed in layer upon layer of my clothing. My parents sent an electric blanket, but I couldn’t shower; I saw my breath every time I emerged from my wool and cotton cocoon. What an adventure!
I tried to help an upstairs neighbor learn to read after discovering that the notice on the front door – a building-wide meeting to be held that week (Rent Strike!) – was news to him, because it was indecipherable. How could you live, I thought, without being able to escape into books? Into other worlds? He was in his 40s and took my genuine desire to help the wrong way, sliding hand-decorated love notes under my front door almost daily, which put an end to our lessons. His loneliness was a monster he carried like Casper carried the burden of being a ghost; he was childlike, scary sad yet kind, just looking for friendship, and love. While I was not afraid of his monster, or him, I was also not the solution.
My immediate neighbor on the first floor disappeared for several months, which I knew, or surmised, by watching newspapers and flyers pile up in front of his door. Hearing his keys jingle, I opened my door to welcome him back, but was stopped short by the sight of him, hobbling on crutches. He was in rough shape, one arm in a sling, but said he was glad to be home, and lucky, he told me, to be alive. He’d been beaten by his boyfriend so badly he’d been in hospital all these weeks. I’d heard them fighting at times, through our shared wall, but said nothing. He left the building not long after.
I got a job that frigid January at a diner on 25th and 2nd Avenue, Big Nick’s Burger Joint 2, where I was the counter girl for several months; they put me there to test my skills, but also because that’s where other lonely men like my non-reading neighbor on East 1st St. would sit to bolt or nurse their breakfast, lunch or dinner, or maybe just a piece of pie and endless cups of coffee. Let’s give them the new girl to gawk at. Why not? At Nick’s, as on the street in general, the sexual harassment I endured was, like the weather that winter, brutal. Unlike winter, however, it never went away.
Nick’s manager made it clear the busboys and short order cooks with their tongues hanging out and constant, running chatter about my various body parts and what they’d do to them were much more essential to the running of the restaurant than I was; if I didn’t like it, I could be replaced in a hot minute. I still thought that if I reasoned with them, minds could be changed; I was that naive. Eventually, I learned how to deal with the men who insisted on sharing their thoughts and feelings at me, cat-calling, flashing, stalking me throughout the city. Don’t ask. Use your imaginations. Niceness is not a viable strategy when dealing with pig-persons.
One of the other waitresses at Big Nick’s, Lulu, gave me a tutorial on how to surreptitiously punish obnoxious busboys and customers (I’ll never tell, be nice to your servers!), as well as how to figure out the subway without getting turned around each time I resurfaced, including how to not get on a downtown train when I was headed uptown. She was a heroin addict, as were – I discovered – my building super and his wife; they were all only a few years older than I was at the time, 26 or 27.
Both Lulu and the super’s wife were pregnant that spring; the risks they were taking were terrifying, but what did I know? Who was I to say something, or to judge? They were, all of these humans, kind to me, and I was grateful, having landed myself in a soup of much murkier complexity than I was used to. A roommate I’d had, briefly, in London – a girl with the glorious name of Cinzia Splendori – had also been addicted to heroin, a drug that gave her the one thing she’d always wanted: skinniness. An older brother arrived to bring her back to Rome, and rehab; she wrote me several times, and I responded hoping – hoping what? That being a curvy girl would cease to upset her, making her feel less than? I doubt I wrote that, although I know I wished her well. I still do, all these years later. Don’t go out after 5p.m., Cinzia. Just say no, Cinzia. Just say no, Lulu.
It would be almost a decade before I met my actual tribe of NYC friends who were – whatever their issues, and we all have them – not on drugs, illiterate, cray-cray, or in relationships that were dangerously abusive. Water, and we’re all about 60% water, finds its level; they, my best friends for decades now, are of and on the same level, the same wavelength. My newish friend Frank would say we’re in a bubble, and he might be right, but please don’t tell him; he’s male and Italian. Compliments go right straight to his head.
Decades later, I returned to live in the Catskills on Christmas Eve. Who does that? I do.
*My progressive column for the month of October, and the last to be published in print (on 10/21) prior to the election November 3rd, which is NEXT WEEK, peeps. Have you got a plan to vote? Checked your registration with your state or local board of elections? Voted early? All elections matter, and all of them at present are the most important elections of our lifetimes, because complacency is simply not an option when democracy is being set on fire and corruption is blatant, common, and so over-the-top it’s staggering. Anyone out there have a $100K AmEx bill they need paying off? And that scandal is minor compared to the grift going on elsewhere with crypto, Witkoffs, Musk, FIFA (who rented out multiple units in Trmp Tower that stayed, oddly, empty) – ICK. Ick. Ick. Crikey. Elect a corrupt, soulless clown, get a corrupt, soulless circus. VOTE, and please, please, please VOTE BLUE.
When I was in public office, a member of the local GOP committee regularly told me what a great job he thought I was doing; this often occurred after public Town Board meetings. Every single time, he would then beg me not to tell anyone he’d said so, because he was a staunch Republican, and loyal, long-time committee member.
His craven squeamishness rendered his compliments meaningless; I didn’t and don’t need praise from two-faced types, especially those who belong to what is now an entirely spineless, unprincipled political party full of worms and maggots from its orange hued, combed-over-head – You-Know-Who – to the bottom, folks much-like that nodcock GOP foot soldier, my fellow Middletonian.
My grandfather once led the local GOP committee; my dad was a life-long Republican who married up (a Democrat) and voted for Barack Obama in ’08 because with all of the challenges then facing America, he believed the presidency was of necessity a younger person’s game; he thought John McCain was too old. Plus, why in the world would a clever politico like McCain choose that whacky Alaskan broad as a running mate? Pop was one smart cookie.
If either my grandfather or father were alive to see what’s become of their party, I’m confident their heads would explode. Gramps because he had a healthy distrust of those who inherit wealth or slavishly crave money and power, and of “TV personalities” in general. My dad thoroughly disliked George W. Bush, who, in his view, was a mediocre, privileged putz, so I can easily hear him saying, “That guy? We elected that guy? Twice?!! You gotta be kidding me, kid?!” Yup. We did. Sorry dad. Sorry gramps, too, but the once proud party of Lincoln that you loved is now the party of You-Know-Who and a host of other bottom-feeding grifters and con men. It’s rotten from top to bottom.
Roman Giertych is a Polish lawmaker who, earlier this year, compared You-Know-Who’s pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Emperor Nero, saying that “The times when Nero, under threat of punishment, demanded recognition for his musical talents have been regarded as the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.”
It’s sure starting to feel like we’re in decline. Our golden bling loving Nero and his gross court are laughing while the known world burns, as are their billion and trillion-aire cabinet members, tech titans, and corporate hacks, relegating the vast majority of folks to “Non-Player Character” status. None of these people seem to know right from wrong, or what democracy and our constitution require; they know only what profits themselves, their families, and their cronies.
But the MAGA-verse has been corrupt from the beginning, with even so-called “normie” Republicans demonstrating how little decency, principles, and our democracy matter.
The good news is we, the majority of the people, are not corrupt, and our democracy is worth saving. Remember Tricky Dick’s “Silent Majority”? These days, that’s us. That’s all of us, the steady, steely backbone of this and every other era and country on earth: working folks who pay their bills on time while juggling all the complicated aspects of our age with as much grace as possible.
Most of us NPCs don’t think about politics that often, and wish we didn’t have to. Thanks to Orange Nero, however, we’re reminded every time we go to the pump. And for those NPCs who live in the colder parts of America – the sting of war-of-choice-inflated heating bills is already being felt, and it hurts. A lot.
This November, let’s rebuke the mad wanna-be king by sending him a congress as blue as I imagine some of our fingers, lips, and noses might be this winter as temps fall and crude oil prices continue to fluctuate or rise. Let’s win the Senate, too, passing a few overdue checking and balancing protections for our under-siege and badly in need of a refresh constitution. Folks: every single vote matters next month, now that we’ve hit the real “find out” phase of Orange Menace 2.0! Vote Blue.
Vote blue to end the war in Iran, returning (knock wood) the strait of Hormuz to its pre-war status as a toll-free, safe and viable international waterway. Vote blue to return Venezuelan oil to the suffering, needy Venezuelan people. It is, after all, theirs. Vote blue to once again show appropriate support and respect for capitalism (a.k.a. market-driven, free trade policies), NATO, the Eurozone, Ukraine, Greenland’s sovereignty and our terrific neighbors in Canada. Let’s vote blue to release all of the Epstein files, honor green card holders and asylum seekers, regulate A.I. and data centers, end gerrymandering, get big money out of politics, and help those few Republicans who will listen regrow their spines.
Hey Kurt, don’t take this personally: I didn’t tell anyone. I told everyone.
“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming. to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula – the name – literally means little she bear, and Le Guin means the white, or the fair. I love this, not least of the reasons why is that I knew what Ursula meant from the PBS show, Poldark, which I ate up. Costume drama, romance, star-crossed lovers, hot men, long-standing conflicts, desperate times, amazing folk songs sung beautifully enough to make me (along with the story!!) weep? Irresistible.
Names and their meanings have always fascinated me, perhaps because of the way they were imposed, endowed, gifted and wielded in my family. My little sister and I were both named after members of my father’s family, and we were both given, essentially, the same name, whose meaning was ‘pearl’; mine was the Scottish version (Marjorie) and the other, the English (Margaret). That we were born in Margaretville might’ve also invited my interest, not least as this was clearly going to be a problem at some point, right? Marjorie and Margaret from Margaretville? Yeesh.
My older sister was named for my mother’s deceased mother, as well as for my mom’s living and favorite sister, our Aunt Polly (there were 3 other, less favorite sisters). My older brother was named for my dad’s great-uncle and grandfather (both deceased), as well as for my mom’s living brother Fred, 1 of her 7 brothers; he was not her favorite brother, that was Bob, but still, he and his wife, both over 40 by the time her only son was born, were childless. This taught me that naming can also be strategic, calculated.
My mother’s name meant Beloved of God, and my dad’s name (he had been given no middle name), meant strong leader, although that is not something my dad ever said; it was – like the Beloved of God stuff – a tidbit I heard from my mother, the Latin teacher. She also gave our dad the middle name Quintus, which made my dad laugh, as he was the 5th of 5 children.
That my mother prioritized and favored my older siblings was obvious, although when asked she would lie, emphatically stating that she loved all 4 of her children equally!! My mother told these kinds of lies quite often. My penchant for pointing out her inconsistencies and hypocrisies might be a contributing factor in her dislike of me (it definitely was), but after a while, I learned to zip it, observing, merely, her dance, her deception, her white lies of various, different proportions.
My little sister was meant to be named Elizabeth after my dad’s deceased grandmother, his living older sister, and my mom’s younger sister Betty, but mother liked to tell a brief little story about how, just before her c-section was to take place, they changed their minds. I knew this meant she changed her mind, which also meant their minds. This change had occurred – she said – because she fell out with a close local friend, yet another woman named Elizabeth.
The true story was and is that she didn’t like her sister-in-law, Betty; she also didn’t much like her younger sister Betty, with whom she was locked in a life-long competition for attention, respect, and favor, numbers 10 and 11 amidst the dozen of their parents’ children. I know this because my mother liked to speak truth to me when no one else was listening. My mother needed to rid herself of the burden of truth in a confessional box whose exposure would have little weight, should the actual story, later on, come from me, her reputedly defiant, difficult, damaged middle daughter. Right?
I don’t keep her secrets any longer. I haven’t for years and years. Name that.
Pearls symbolize wisdom gained through experience, purity, emotional resilience, and the power to turn adversity into beauty. Because they grow layer by layer around an irritant inside a shell, they represent patience and personal transformation. – From our soon-to-be Overlords @ A.I., or do I mean ‘Super Intelligence’ – no, I damn well do not.
The word of a snail on the plate of a leaf? It is not mine. Do not accept it.
Acetic acid in a sealed tin? Do not accept it. It is not genuine.
A ring of gold with the sun in it? Lies. Lies and a grief.
Frost on a leaf, the immaculate Cauldron, talking and crackling
All to itself on the top of each Of nine black Alps.
A disturbance in mirrors, The sea shattering its grey one ——
Love, love, my season.
*Sylvia Plath. What we lost (we, our culture, our fellowship of readers, our literary world) when she took her life is so immense, it’s unimaginable. She was born on this day in 1932. <3
