My Own Private Alternate Reality

The first time I saw her she was sitting at a large circular table in the school’s cafeteria, pencil in hand, leafing through a newspaper and occasionally looking up at a television set tuned to a news channel. She was physically lean and had a pretty, no, let’s make that a beautiful face. She wore the usual blue uniform of the custodial staff contracted by the university. On her head was what I think of as a babushka. The scarf completely covered her hair and ears and was tied tightly at the nape of her neck. I assumed that she wore the scarf to keep her hair clean as she dusted and sanitized the classrooms and offices. I would find out differently months later.

Later that same day, she came to my office and introduced herself. She had a trace of an accent. She was fair skinned and had beautiful teal-green eyes. I again made an assumption that she was, perhaps, from an eastern-European country. I’m not going to reveal her identity, but her first name was a female name I’d always associated, being raised Roman Catholic, as a Portuguese name. It turns out her name is Arabic in origin and it means, “the shining one.” Anyway, the name was a good fit for her. For me she was an integral person at the university, who got along well with everyone with whom she came into contact, faculty, staff and students alike. Those teal-green eyes of hers seemed incapable of registering a bias to differences in age, skin color, gender, customs, religion, etc.

She began to stop by my office on a daily basis for a short chat and I grew to know a bit more about her. She was a polyglot, who spoke a handful of European languages and she had, in the year or so before I met her, pretty much deciphered the English language. She’d done this, as a emigrant from Montenegro to the United States, by “reading" the local newspapers while simultaneously listening to the televised news. To me her mastery of language was impressive.

She’d been a professional athlete in Europe and thus had exposure to European languages in her travels, perhaps that gave her a start in the English language as well. I recall the satisfaction evident in her face as she described taking the boat, or maybe it was a ferry, I forget, across the Adriatic Sea to shop in Italy. She told me that she and her companions would feign having only rudimentary Italian language skills. “You must have a pretty good command of the language of the country you are shopping in,” she said laughingly, “or they will take advantage of you, rob you blind.”

One day she sought my advice on an official university “work order” that had come into her possession. At the time the campus was undergoing major remodeling to update the aging hvac-system and to bring classroom space in line with more modern teaching methods which favor computers, wifi and electronics over blackboards and chalk. Her concern was that the construction workers, who were near completing their work, had misplaced the work order she’d found in her task bin and that the requested job would thus be disregarded or overlooked.

I read the handwriting on the official work order form, crumbled it up and arced it toward the trashcan. “Don’t worry about it,” I told her, "It’s just a joke.” With a look of shock on her face, her reflexes were such that she retrieved that crumpled paper, practically mid-air, before it hit the trashcan.  She placed it on my desk and smoothed it out. “You don’t know that!” she said adamantly, "It could be something that you don’t understand. Workers have their own vocabulary, especially hvac and electricians.” Her husband had been an engineer in Montenegro and was now working as a janitor/maintenance provider for the large apartment building in Chicago where their family resided. “Well, I’m certain you’re correct about that,” I countered, “but, I also know that in the English language the phrase 'blow job' has only one meaning.”

Through our conversations I learned that she was a proud mother to a preschool-aged boy and a 10-month old daughter. She was a great cook and we’d share recipes and samples of our cooking on a regular basis. Hands down, she made the best bread, a crusty artisan bread, such to rival any upscale bakery.

At some point a female campus security officer, who was a “scratch” golfer, started a golf clinic on campus. “The Shining One” was clearly a natural athlete. She took to the game like no one I’d ever seen, quickly outpacing those of us who’d already had some exposure to golf. Before you knew it she was assisting our security officer coach in the lessons. Thanks to “The Shining One” I know that when I practice I must always “end on a positive,” in other words, if I am at the driving range, chipping practice spot, or putting green area and I muff a shot or stroke, I must then try another ball until I have a positive result. “Muscle memory is important, essential,” she would say, “always, always finish your practice with a successful outcome.”

One day she stopped by my office near the end of her shift. I asked her why I hadn’t see her all day or at least in the cafeteria at lunch. “It’s Ramadan,” she’d explained, “I am fasting.” We contrasted the requirements of Ramadan versus my Catholic Lent. Both religions suggest a period of introspection and prayer, both require a time of fasting. However, the Catholic church really has more of a mere suggestion of a fast (as I recall: on Ash Wednesday and every Friday during Lent, you are to eat two small meals that do not equal one whole meal.) Muslims are required to eat or drink nothing from sunrise until sunset for a complete succession of 29-30 consecutive days. I joked with her, “Basically, when Catholics fast, we cannot eat from the time we go to sleep until we wake up in the morning.”

Many people reading this are probably familiar with the disorder and ethnic cleansing that took place in the Bosnian War in the early-to-mid 1990s, so I will say no more except that it consisted of arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, executions, sexual assaults… my friend’s twin sister died as a result of this upheaval.

There was never a question when it came to The Shining One's work integrity. She was sharp, she was determined, she was talented, she was informative, she was fun. She had the same dreams and aspirations of any person who seeks a better life. It was my privilege to have met her and become better acquainted with her.

Remembering the 75th anniversary of the Japanese-American internment order:

"Today: I am a Muslim, too."

Just loved this photo I spotted on Twitter

Flame Out

While driving through the Carolinas seven weeks ago, I sought out several bookstores looking, in vain, for a sold-out, five-year memory book. When we arrived back home in the rural Midwest I ordered one online from Amazon. They come in different colors and my book is powder-blue. It’s compact in size. Glancing at it now, I’d say it’s about 6 inches tall and 4 inches wide and about an inch thick. A friend recommended it to me, a friend who is a couple of years into her own book. The idea is to write one line per day, perhaps an observation of your day, a troubling event, something that made you laugh, a regret, an affirmation, a complaint... Later you can look back as the years pass and see where you were, what you were thinking, perhaps notice a worry that now seems without merit, you might recall a forgotten moment of joy, maybe notice that you repeat some negative behaviors, or find that you are maturing right before your own eyes… 

Here is my problem: I have been so crippled by the events unfolding in my nation of the United States of America that I can barely pick up a pencil to jot even one single line. I manage to write a line two or three days in a row and then nothing for a week. Perhaps, I tell myself, I just need to get in the habit… but I know it’s more than that. I find myself without words. I who wrote 160 postings on my blog, I who routinely jots hundreds of notes, each thousands of words long, in my Evernote, cannot string two words together on paper. 

I’ve never been a person prone to anxiety, however my brain is currently in overload trying to process the rapid-fire events unfolding and our 45th president has only been in office for three weeks! I have only a couple of trusted beings nearby with whom I am willing, at this point in time, to discuss my concerns, but I always have the most essential, Trusted Husband, so I am blessed.

Meanwhile, I have found support from people who I've never met, never seen in-person and who I will only come to know through their tweets. These new brokers of reason have popped up for me from all across my homeland, but also a couple from around the globe. I get my news mostly from reading. Trusted Husband and I have (and have for some time now) subscriptions to The New York Times, The New Yorker and The Washington Post. I’m considering adding The Atlantic as Trusted Husband has recently dropped the Wall Street Journal.

One person, in particular, who has become a source of solace for me during the past couple of weeks has been Pope Francis. This is funny to me, funny as in ironic, being a proud ex-Catholic, who no longer believes in the dogma or tenets impressed upon her, K-12. Yet there he stands, dignified head of what I consider a somewhat outdated theology, as a guidepost, an exemplar for me. I’ve watched Netflix’s “Call Me Francis,” a Portugal produced 4-part series (in Spanish with English subtitles) -okay, I confess, I’ve watched it thrice so far and am totally inspired by this man’s dedication to helping the less fortunate. He's had  impressive first-hand experience with the events of the tumultuous years of Argentina’s Guerra Súcia (Dirty War). His present-day tweets remind me of the importance of staying focussed on providing calm and persistent aid where needed.

Other paragons of sanity I’ve discovered: Sr. Simone Campbell, Fr. James Martin, S.J., (again the Catholics stepping it up ), Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Al Franken, Senator Chuck Schumer, little Sophie Cruz, J.K. Rowling, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, numerous military veterans, artists, poets, writers, comedians, Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, SNL… they help me to realize I am not alone and that, in fact, I am in quite good company. They teach me, they inspire me, they make me laugh out loud, and my psyche grows stronger and my mind calms...

This isn’t about me, per se. I don’t think our 45th president (or his puppeteer Bannon) can hurt me, in any but a superficial way. I am retired so they cannot take away my job. Will they slash my Social Security? Will they take away the Medicare to which I become eligible to use this year? Perhaps, yet I am at peace.

However, that does not stop me from worrying about my fellow citizens who may be squashed under the 45/Bannon thumb. And apparently I am not alone. Millions of Americans have figuratively and literally stood up to say, “Enough! We will not sit silently while you strip away our democracy.”

When I was an 8-year old child in 1960 our teacher encouraged us to memorize Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, the Preamble to the United States Constitution and The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus, words then coded by my brain as useful information and still stored in my cerebral cortex, under tons of useless junk like the one and only time I viewed The Apprentice because one of the finalists was an alum from the university where I was employed.

I’m fairly certain that the 45th president sees his term as nothing more than an opportunity to personally profit financially. It is his puppeteer Bannon who concerns me. From what I’ve read he is a very intelligent person with a possible white-supremacist slant, who is hell-bent on wreaking enough havoc and destruction upon his own country that it will necessitate figuratively, and possibly literally, rebuilding from scratch.

At some point Bannon had read, studied and then recommended to the transition team the reading of Halberstam’s “The Best and the Brightest,” a book that uses the title ironically, to show that surrounding yourself with the most brilliant of experts will not always yield the best results when it comes to solving the world's problems.

So as I view the 45th president and his puppeteer’s antics and their little missteps I wonder to myself: Bannon, is it possible you could have so mistakenly misinterpreted the American people? Did the feedback from your fervently-hateful Breitbart followers give you the completely wrong impression of the majority of your fellow Americans? Did you think that an elder white woman who is fortunate enough to find herself comfortably ensconced in retirement in the rural Midwest, where the livestock outnumber the humans, did you think she would not give a darn about those less fortunate than herself? That she would not open her checkbook to support the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and such organizations? That she would forget the words she once memorized as a child? That after the shock had settled she would not again find her voice and add it collectively to other voices? Did you underestimate our judicial system and people like Maura Healey? And don't even tell me that you were counting on any action or reaction from your arsenal-totin' Breitbart followers? Is there not now, visible to you, the chaotic infighting you'd hoped for, as we, the majority, set aside our differences to stand up for our democracy? Could it be possible that you think that "the majority" will tire of standing up and fighting for our rights and the rights of others? Because I’m certain that will not happen, not for me, not for others. No, puppeteer, you have woken the slumbering, fire-breathing dragon…

***

Just last spring, just before the election candidates had been decided, I sat with my 2 1/2 year old grandson and told him about the Statue of Liberty, how she'd stood proudly in the harbor and welcomed newcomers to the United States, we looked at photographs of her on my IPhone and I recited, in a theatrical voice, the part of The New Colossus that I could still remember from 3rd grade:

 “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breath free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these the homeless tempest-toss to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

He liked hearing my dramatic recitation, but I could tell from his face that he didn't really understand the meaning. "Liberty holds the lamp and says, 'Welcome' ," I said to him, "She is holding the light and saying, 'Welcome! Welcome to the United States.' " A big smile of satisfaction came across his face.

***

Sorry, puppeteer Bannon, you may be well-read and the brightest in the room (for snicks though, take a look at the people in the room with you & then tell me, "How is this working for you?"), however I am of the opinion that  your time as a Navy Engineering Duty Officer (and yeah, I'm duly impressed that you know how to use a sextant), your stint as junior staff at the Pentagon, your investment banker duties (BTW, your comparing the Jesuits with Goldman Sachs is similar in its unfairness to the comparison of the U.S.A. and Russia as far as political assassinations by "45"), and being "executive chairman" at Breitbart do not qualify you to be on the National Security Council anymore than my experience having applied ointment, bandages and kisses to my children's boo-boos years ago now qualify me to suture a wound. I just hope you don’t cause too much destruction before this is all over. 

I love how John W. Tomac’s illustration “Liberty’s Flameout” says it so much better than I can!!!

I pick up my little 5-year memory book and leaf through January, 2017 looking for a line and find this.

Ye gods, it doth amaze me

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world

And bear the palm alone

William Shakespeare

Julius Caesar, Act 1, Scene 2