Linnetontheleaf

On my kitchen wall hangs a charming picture of my mother, dressed to the nines, sitting at the table in our Memphis kitchen circa 1960, serving slices of lemon meringue pie to my brother and me. I’m holding my plate with a big loving grin on my adorable five-year-old face, and we’re all smiling warmly — if a bit artificially — at one another, over my mother’s magnificent culinary creation.

Many folks will be too young to remember this, but at one time regional newspapers ran a weekly column spotlighting a specialty dish prepared by a local homemaker. It was a minor honor to come to the attention of the editors of these pieces, and I’m sure my mother, who would have been about 40 at the time, was pleased to be selected. She was in fact a wonderful cook, with a real passion for food and curiosity about cuisine, which was not necessarily common in those days of fish sticks and jello. She even had an advanced degree in nutritional science and worked for a time as a hospital dietician.

But the funny thing about this newspaper piece is that lemon meringue pie was NOT her specialty! In fact, she said that she never conquered meringue; despite her culinary skill, hers would always ‘weep.’ But evidently the Memphis Commercial Appeal editor wanted a piece about lemon meringue pie that week, dammit, and my mother was assigned to make it regardless! We WERE a happy family, and my mother WAS a good cook, but beyond that, the piece was totally fabricated. Even the items arranged on the countertop in the background are make-believe — a silver tea service, a stylish hammered aluminum ice bucket. These would never have been out on a daily basis, but were probably chosen and deployed by the photographer for the photo op.

I find all this simultaneously amusing and distressing. My mother laughed it off, though I’m sure it rankled not to be allowed to flaunt her authentic talents rather than the ersatz ones demanded by the paper. Certainly it was typical of the time period, when married women couldn’t get credit cards in their own names or serve on juries in some states. Enforced meringue-making really isn’t that big a step from handmaid bonnets.

I can’t help but relate this to Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s incredible body of work on gender rights, and the insult to that effort represented by Trump’s nomination of Amy Barrett to RBG’s seat. After decades of progress, are we now to be driven backwards? — towards a society in which women’s true gifts, natures and ambitions are of no interest; indeed are openly repressed? The America some yearn to ‘recreate’ never really existed for vast numbers of Americans — it was a myth, just like my mother’s meringue.

Most of the time, we don’t appreciate growing older. I recall a few exceptions — such as noticing my agonizing self-consciousness fading as I passed my teens, or my migraines and allergies waning after several decades of suffering. Now, in the great plague of 2020, I am experiencing the most powerful example ever. I feel so very lucky that I am reaching the twilight of my career and indeed my life. (I’m 65.) I have had my run — I enjoyed the wild run of my misspent youth (just pre-AIDS), I was able to work without interruption for over 40 years, and to travel widely and freely. I was able to revel in concerts and movies and shows and parties for over six decades, and I raised my children without having to teach them algebra (which wouldn’t have gone well).

As it is, despite these manifold blessings, I feel pretty cheated right now, with the cancellation of so many activities which impart sweetness to life. But how would I feel if I were 20? Massively depressed, I’m sure! I totally get it, college kids, when you just have to go to a party or have casual sex — although of course I wish you wouldn’t, not right now.

But in 2020, it’s a relief and a blessing to be so old that these impulses have atrophied. I’m glad I’m not just starting out, with a furious hunger for the world and for experience, with everything shut down and inaccessible. I’m glad I’m not under to the gun to get a career into high gear, with so many roadblocks in my path. I’m glad I’m old enough to be more or less contented in my own company, and to have burned off most of the intense moods of youth.

My sympathies are with you, young people everywhere. I hope you get your turn at the action before you’re too mature to enjoy it!

I’m a naturally resilient person; I usually bounce back pretty quickly from psychic blows. And even when I don’t, I know how to manage my moods. I treat myself like a spoiled child who needs a lot of treats and rewards to smooth over bumps in the road of life, so when necessary, I provide myself with amusements to distract me from distress. I’m really like a toddler who needs a lollipop to divert attention from a shot. But many of my usual psychological lollipops (meals out, excursions, dinner parties) aren’t available in the conditions of lock-down, and those that remain (take-out, long walks, virtual events) aren’t doing the trick at the moment.

You see, I allowed myself to contemplate the size, complexity and duration of this massive obstacle in our path. The corona virus may be submicroscopic, but its impact is enormous, and today it is crushing me. This is a perfectly reasonable reaction — I’d doubt the sanity of anyone who remains invincibly optimistic just now. But oh, it is uncomfortable.

I want my lollipop!

I reached a milestone yesterday — the last wires were finally removed from my mouth, 19 weeks after they were installed at the end of January. After he clipped the wires immobilizing my jaw in mid-March, the surgeon left the so-called ‘ivy loops’ in place, in case the fracture didn’t heal and needed to be re-wired. Then came the pandemic and the wholesale closure of all such practices (for anything except extreme emergencies), and it was another three months before the office re-opened and the loops could be removed.

Of course, I’d grown pretty accustomed to them by then, but they were always uncomfortable and obtrusive: it wasn’t possible to eat without being aware of them, and brushing teeth was a lot harder. So needless to say, I’m greatly relieved to be rid of them!

In a thoughtful though weird gesture, the surgeon offered to provide sedation for the procedure at no extra charge. ‘You’ve been through enough,’ he said, acknowledging my long wait for the wires to be removed. Apparently this is not a gentle, delicate process! Even sedated, 10 novocaine shots are necessary, I suppose because the sedation is pretty light so they need local anesthetic too, to keep from awakening you. Indeed, my whole jaw is tender today from what must have been a rather aggressive procedure. But I was lucky enough to snooze through it in peace and comfort! Now I must get several broken teeth fixed, once my usual dentist re-opens for business; then I can truly put my accident behind me.

If 2020 had included only my fractured jaw, I’d probably still remember this year forever. But my traumatic personal event was soon utterly eclipsed — first by the pandemic and months of lockdown, and then by the social unrest following the police killing of George Floyd. 2020 has been a tumultuous, eventful, exhausting year for everyone. May none of us ever need to endure its like again.

Not that my psychological landscape matters in the least, but I feel better since I last wrote, because the tone of this outcry now seems different from others I’ve lived through. After many flirtations with social/racial change efforts which inevitably fizzle out, maybe we are all (especially us allies) finally irrevocably committed to the difficult, sacrificial path necessary to effect meaningful change. I’m reminded of the long-term, dedicated Occupy Wall Street and 2011 Madrid Indignados movements, but believe today’s warriors possess the mobilizing skills and vision to make dreams reality. I also see much deeper commitment from us allies. I pray so, and I am ready to follow and to work. How can I help? I’ll vote, of course. I can also march, address envelopes, make calls, donate and fund-raise. I’ll also be glad to renounce my advantaged tax exemptions and entitlements to channel my dollars to initiatives I actually support (rather than the military-industrial complex). All of this will be my PRIVILEGE.

When I left the office for the last time on March 13, we envisioned being home for two weeks. Ha! How quickly everything changed, at least for those of us in the densely populated, heavily Covid-impacted northeast. And now, just as it seemed the virus was declining from its peak, we confront something equally distressing — serious social unrest after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis (and countless prior acts of lethal brutality). I was heartened by the cooperative, community-spirited response we saw in the early days of the pandemic, but now our society seems to be unraveling.

It is almost shamefully privileged to sit here with my beloved family in a comfortable suburban home, insulated from the strife on our urban streets. And it is from a position of privilege, too, that I apologetically observe how protesting isn’t safe just now, with the public, police and possible outside agitators confronting one another, everybody with passions flaring, and a potentially deadly virus lurking about. It is also from a position of privilege that I can sit back and philosophically wonder how it advances the cause for me to join the protests to be gassed, injured or catch coronavirus. It wasn’t safe for Martin Luther King either, but he kept marching.

Few possess such courage, and I am not among those better angels. But I need to stop doing nothing. So I’ll salve my conscience with donations to social justice organizations, and by speaking out against intolerance and abuse of power, here and everywhere. It is too little, but if we all do it, we can remake the world.

…I learned on an employee webcast that it will be early September, at the absolute earliest, before my company will contemplate re-opening its offices. It will start with smaller offices in less-affected areas and gradually move towards its most populous campuses in urban areas — probably meaning much later for my packed NYC building. I was rather amazed to hear our leaders say that they understood, and would accommodate, employees’ concerns about things like mass transportation, which used to be the last thing on management’s mind! Maybe we will see a broader, deeper shift in labor policy as a result of all this, in the same way that you always read in the history books that the Black Death was the foundation of the middle class. That would be a silver lining indeed!

…I enjoyed a very fruitful early morning bird walk, seeing countless yellow-rump warblers, yellows and a few common yellow-throats. Also the flame-colored Baltimore oriole, and  the secretive little northern waterthrush which I’d heard was lurking about but which had always eluded me. But my best find wasn’t the most glamorous bird, but the most exciting spot, because I did it by ear, a birder’s feat to which I’ve long aspired. Birding reports told me there was a white-crowned sparrow in the park, so although I’ve seen one before and it’s not a glorious, rare bird, I decided to try to find it. I knew its song was similar to that of the white-throated sparrow, one of the very few birdsongs I can identify.  It starts with the same interval (roughly, a minor 3rd in musical notation), in the same weak, wavery voice, then crumbles into less tuneful buzzing. As I stood under a magical oak tree full of yellow-rumps, I became aware of just such a song nearby, and followed my ears to a bush where I found a bird with unusually crisp black and white stripes on its head. I could see it singing through the binoculars, but  its position prevented me from catching any other field marks.  But I checked the guides at home later, and indeed this was the white-crowned sparrow I’d hoped to find! I was very proud to have succeeded in ‘birding by ear.’

…I had a slight work crisis when I was asked to rework a big project I’d labored over all week, scheduling an intricate series of introductory appointments for a new employee with several dozen busy, important people. Honestly, I was kind of furious — why did you ask me to do this and then, on Friday, with the job nearly done, give me all this extra input necessitating a major do-over? But I was able to solve most of my problem with a simple request which obviated much of the mulligan; I just had to climb out on that limb and ask, maybe not something that someone at my level would ordinarily risk trying. But it worked! I was reminded of a story Leslie Odom, Jr. tells about getting out of a TV contract so he could do HAMILTON — he was warned to ‘lawyer up’ since this was going to be very very hard, but decided to venture just asking first. It worked — the TV execs let him out of his contract, he joined the HAMILTON cast and went on to stardom, Tony awards, etc. What’s the message here? Come in peace, expecting cooperation rather than confrontation.

Not a bad day!

Today I darned a sock. This is not another piece about how we locked-down urban life-forms are all learning new skills, especially homely ones like making sourdough. It is an exploration of the psychology behind that act. I have never darned a sock in my life; it never even occurred to me. Socks are cheap and (until now) readily available — if one gets a hole, throw it away and buy more! (I do at least have the thrifty/practical protocol of wearing only generic black socks, so that singletons can always find new matching mates.)

But is a new mindset creeping into my entitled, spoiled, consumerist brain? I find myself stopping to think before using something up or throwing something away — will that be easy to replace, with all the stores closed and Amazon deliveries running late? Or alternatively, is that thing even needed? I’ve worn nothing but jeans and thrift-store tops for nearly two months now, some of them in the final stages of viability. Two favorites are fraying at the cuffs and collar. In the past, I’d permit myself a foray to our excellent local thrift store to replace them. But even if that were possible now, it doesn’t seem necessary; my remaining wardrobe is ample for waiting out a pandemic at home.

I only get antsy when I find empty shelves at the grocery store, for those items are truly essential. We’re assured there are no real shortages, just supply-chain disruptions, panic buying and delayed restocking. But having never seen a grocery store picked clean before (except when a blizzard is forecast, and then only briefly), I admit this causes me to panic a little — though I try not to contribute to the problem by over-buying and hoarding.

So, what I am doing, increasingly consciously, is examining my landscape and deciding what is truly necessary and of worth, in these conditions in particular, but also in the post-pandemic future. There are deeper layers to explore; I am only scratching the surface with my tiny exercise in self-awareness, darning a sock.

During the last couple of days, I’ve finally gotten around to doing some of the sorts of things I thought I would do during this ‘stay at home’ period. When I first quit going to the city to work, I took on a few projects, such as refinishing the dining room table and spring-cleaning the garden, because the opportunity seemed so unusual and precious, and I figured it would be short-lived. But as the crisis mounted, I lost my appetite for household projects; I’ve even lost my taste for reading (usually a favorite form of entertainment), unless it’s about corona virus. So, like many folks, I bet, I’ve gotten a lot less done than I would have expected.

But I’ve taken a few emotional hits lately and my usual response to such events is to get busy. So in the past few days, I’ve cleaned and starched a set of placemats crocheted by my grandmother (an exacting one-by-one job which I’ve put off for about three decades), scraped an old security-firm sticker from a window (another task postponed for years, when I realized how cemented it seemed to be; indeed, the process consumed about an hour!), and sorted a messy under-sink cache of ziplocks, food wraps and the new, ecologically-sound waxed-fabric food coverings. These homely pastimes are the sort of thing that would have once inspired great satisfaction — I finally got to that, hooray! I’m free! Now it won’t be hanging over my head for another decade.

But that’s no longer the case. I mean, I’m glad I’ve accomplished these things, but under the circumstances, who can get even mildly excited about such things? The mere fact that I have such things to do underscores my privilege — I have a home to hunker down in, and possessions to Marie-Kondo; I don’t have to spend my nights in a homeless shelter petrie dish. I can work from my spare bedroom; I don’t have to don protective gear and care for the sick or pick up trash or stock grocery shelves. I don’t even have any stricken loved ones to worry about and grieve for. The sufferings of this plague are very unequally distributed.

There’s lots of hunkering-down advice out there, and most of it is offensively romanticized. Considering the cataclysm that Covid-19 represents for so many people (many of them already exploited, disadvantaged and vulnerable), it’s no wonder I take so little satisfaction in my refinished table and starched placemats.

The other morning in the park, I happened upon a parent mourning dove feeding a pair of fluffy fledglings with the ‘crop milk’ secreted by several species of birds (mainly pigeons and flamingos — both sexes), which they regurgitate into the mouths of their young. I was puzzled to see this happening in April, when I’d have thought mourning doves would have barely courted and paired, so can’t explain why this one had young still to feed. (Maybe the youngsters came home because of the corona virus?)

Because the behavior was interesting, I stood a long while observing the birds through my binoculars. I have probably seen mourning doves nearly every day of my life, and would have told you I knew exactly what this bird looked like — but I doubt I’d ever looked at one through binoculars.  The bird was also at eye level, not on the ground at my feet as usual, so I had a different viewpoint.  What a revelation!

Did you know that mourning doves have azure-blue rings around their eyes? They are quite spectacular! Did you know they have a dusting of iridescent yellow on their necks? Have you ever noticed the pretty rosy-buffy color of their underparts? Probably not, as you’re usually looking down on them. How about the dainty spots which adorn their backs and wings? All of these characteristics had completed escaped me, in a bird I assumed that I knew well.

As I stood there taking all this in, I even began to question if this was a mourning dove at all, or perhaps some special, unfamiliar sort of pigeon. I had to come home and open the guidebook and the Cornell bird site to be positive that I had actually been looking at a ubiquitous, utterly familiar mourning dove.

I suppose this is what happens when we stop and consider long and thoughtfully about something which we assume that we know — we discover that we don’t at all. There’s a lesson here for our present Covid-19 episode, when our experiences are so limited. Maybe there are only mourning doves to look at, but if you really look at them, you’ll find yourself surprised by their unexpected beauty.