I have always lived in old houses. Not historical old houses just old.  Since I was a kid I have lived in 7 houses.  I always found comfort in each house by finding a place that made me feel safe and invisible.  As a kid those places were away from the family usually in the attic.   The attic was a place for boxes filled with previous life stuff that for some reason was not needed in whatever house I was in at the time,  but it was great for searching through stuff that used to mean something to somebody.  And in every house there was always something left there by the previous family and when I found a treasure like that I could spend hours looking through the box or examining the item and wondering why it was left behind.  Each time we moved I was sure to take something left behind by the previous mortgage holder to the next house we were moving to. 

 I felt safe nestled between the eaves looking through old boxes often mislabeled and tossed aside.  I was safe from my brother finding and taunting me, from my parents yelling at me for some chore I failed to do and the treasures were so rewarding.  As a young teenager I found a box of my parents’ love letters from the war.  They were from before I was born and I could not match the two lovers in the letters to my parents at all.  There were sweet names of affection used for each other that I had never heard.  Seemed like two different people but there they were in black and white. They were in those funny envelopes with the barber pole stripes around the edges and airplanes on the stamps.  Years later I shared them with my brother.  We sat on the floor in the cold attic and read through every single one.  He remembered some of those pet names and I remember seeing him shed more than a few tears.  Years later after my parents passed away that box wound up in my brother’s attic. 

Probably the most treasured treasure I found and kept, other than the love letters, is an old clock that was left in our very first house by the previous occupants.  It was an old two faced wall clock, a Perpetual Calendar Clock.  It was left in a corner of the attic by a window, lying on the floor with its back against the wall planks and leaning to one side.  It fascinated me because not only did it tell the time on the large face but it also told the day of the week. Underneath that was a smaller face that told the month and the date.  It is a Welch, Spring & Co. clock dated 1864.  What I didn’t know at the time and didn’t learn til many years later, it actually kept proper time and dates even in leap years!

When developers came and bought up our entire block I made sure the clock moved with us to the new house and then eventually to my first house.  It never worked and there was no key  but I had a friend from college whose dad loved to fix old clocks and offered to fix it. That was over 50 years ago and it still works today with a minor adjustment of the hands needed which I am afraid to try for fear of breaking them.  It has hung in every house, including my inn, that I ever lived in.  I have to get the hands fixed professionally so I can again enjoy its company. 

As an adult that special place evolved to sitting on the floor in front of a raging fire in the fireplace late at night staring at the flames.  I guess I no longer need to hide but it still makes me feel safe! 

Funny what your mind conjures up when you have a lot of time on your hands and nothing to do. With this crazy virus still attacking us I could sure use to feel safe again! 

A Spectral Place

George and Hen’s discussion of special places – particularly in regard to their homes – brought up a different type of recollection.

My formative years were spent in an old two family house my parents owned. It’s difficult to picture a special place in this structure, because the house was always in flux. Early days, we had a variety of boarders and my father was constantly making changes – my brother and I had at least three different sleeping arrangements, including a stretch where the whole family slept in the same room. 

Eventually, we took over the second floor and my brother and I had separate rooms… but we never felt comfortable being in this space alone. The second floor bathroom was located at the end of a very narrow corridor. It had room for one large window looking down on the backyard.  My brother’s bedroom connected to an unused upstairs kitchen through a passage that likely was a pantry in past times. All the windows in the top two floors were large and seemed to grow up from the floor, providing the sense that one should not approach too closely.

However, unlike George, the one space that we never came to grips with was the attic. It was special – but not in a good way. Access was gained through a door which was always closed. A narrow staircase led to the two-room attic. All, including the staircase, was clad in floor-to-ceiling wainscoting – likely varnished spruce. At the top of the stairs was a spacious area with cathedral ceiling tapering to six foot knee walls. Large, rattling double hung windows had sills which were knee high ((for a kid). When looking out the window, I had the feeling someone was right behind. Piles of boxes populated the main room, complete with porcelain dolls peeking out, showing cracked faces. The effect was not conducive to exploration – it rather screamed “Touch me and die!” A second room contained a bed and mattress, unused for years it seemed. Our attic gave the sense that this space had been long abandoned and never contained a happy spirit. Stephen King would have been very comfortable here.

On a number of occasions, my brother would rush into my room and beg to sleep with me because of the sounds. Oh yes – the sounds. We would lay awake listening to the footsteps walking back and forth across the attic above us. We were frozen in place, too scared to run downstairs to our parents’ room. We dreaded the time when those footsteps would find their way to the staircase descending toward the closed door. It would not be good to be asleep in that eventuality.

Naturally, we reported this activity to our parents, who comforted us. They even moved their bedroom upstairs. The sounds seemed to go away after that – except one night when our parents were out for the evening and our babysitter (Cousin Paula) was sleeping downstairs. That evening kicked off a marathon of wandering above us. I t was an episode where you felt your own pulse in your ears and you tried so hard to be small and undetectable.

Years later my parents admitted that they too, did not venture much into the attic; that the boxes belonged to the prior owner; and that the folklore was that an elderly person had died in that bed in the attic.

A few years later we moved to a smaller, more modern house – with no attic!

Places of Comfort

George describes the attics of his old houses as places of sanctuary and exploration.  As a child I lived in a two-family house in the Bronx that was shared with my grandparents, a relatively new ranch house in central Westchester when I was eight, and then my grandmother’s two-bedroom cottage throughout my college years.  I would have to say that in each instance, the place that gave me the most comfort, was in the kitchen.

My mother and grandmother were both extraordinary in their ability to prepare delicious meals and create tantalizing baked goods. The kitchen sourced the aroma of comfort foods and was the place to go if you were feeling down, or happy, or celebratory, or bored.  There was always something yummy to taste and, it was the place where I could most often find my mother or gram.  Either they were cooking or baking or cleaning up.  It seemed they spent most of their time in the kitchen; clearly it was their “happy place.”

Meals were always eaten together at a table tucked in a corner within arm’s reach of the stove.  We rarely used the dining room or went out to a restaurant and take-out was an occasional pizza on special occasions.  At the table we shared the stories of our day, tried to remember what we learned in school, renewed our membership to the “clean up plate club”, and always had room for dessert.  It was a ritual I could always count on.  And despite how routine and boring it may have seemed at the time, it provided a place of safety, nurturing, and comfort.

My place of solitude was (and still is) the woods.  There, I could stretch the boundaries set by my mom, knowing my dog Mickey would never tell on me.  I could take chances climbing a dangerous tree, set rabbit traps with a box, a string, and a carrot, jump off of high rocks, and even utter bad words!  It was a place to be comfortable with myself.  On rainy days, I was drawn to a section under a thick canopy of leaves where I felt particularly free and yet secure as I remained protected and dry while the rest of the world seemed to be relegated to their houses.  Even today, I enjoy the feeling of being in a tent in the rain especially when I’m playing with my grandchildren.

And, like George, I am most comfortable in front of a fire, inside or out.  Alone or with friends and family, it is always my “go to” place.

It’s been six months since the first COVID-19 case was diagnosed in the US. Life increasingly changed during this period, with sheltering in place beginning in March and limited social interaction becoming the new normal. Now, in June, some easing of restrictions for commercial and social transactions are rolling out – with a corresponding increase of new infections.

During this time, government programs have tried to assist businesses which were closed and/or individuals who were unable to hold their jobs. In short, this has been arguably the greatest mass change in our society since its founding.

Sure, I know that the great wars, the great depression, the great recession, and the Spanish Flu affected millions of lives – and led to separations, financial hardship, shortages, rationing, and emergency government programs. But in no case I can think of, has the daily pattern of life for every American been altered as fundamentally. Seemingly, this is the first time that social intercourse has been so universally interrupted.

Masks hide facial expression and social distancing prevents casual physical contact. Distance learning isolates students. Digital friendship has surged in absence of proximal companionship – a new form of social rationing.  It is stressful, as though a pneumatic force is compressing our daily routines. The outlet for this additional pressure has led to acting out on a grand scale, whether for justifiable causes or simple rebellion against regulation.

This is a season of loss:  lost lives, lost opportunities, lost items. People are losing track of the days while on this interpersonal furlough. We have lost friends – few to COVID – most from pre-existing medical issues. But I wonder if weariness plays a role – or suffering from lack of continuity. One thing that has become very clear is the effort that people will place in maintaining a sense of continuity. We don’t like tears in our social fabric. Perhaps we’ll look back at this COVID time and appreciate the positive change that endures. Honestly, I’ll likely grieve for the missing gifts – the gifts to be free and easy.

Yeah? So’s Your Old Man!

I tend to be the nay-sayer in this group so I especially related to Wally’s perspective!  The last few weeks have been harder for me. Things should be getting easier, more normal but they aren’t, at least for me.  Then I realized I’m angry!  My entire demeanor is more aggressive and impatient.  

When this started we were hearing about what we had to do.   It was spelled out, Isolate, social distance yourself, shelter in place, wear a mask,  STAY HOME. I felt like I was being patriotic and helping to protect myself, my family, and fellow walkers on this planet.  I was contributing to the well being of all us and although it was going to be a sacrifice I was willing to do my part.  And for 2 months I rarely went out except to get food.  I wore my mask religiously and sang Happy Birthday to Me twice every time I got home. 

 But now, and I realized this is partly why I am angry, the directions are unclear.  We can go out to dine, always with masks, shopping, but with no clear directions from anybody I feel less safe and less willing to sacrifice when I see people around without masks and in groups.  Why bother?  I know the answer but why don’t we have as clear instructions now, when the danger is every bit as great as we did at the start?  Our country can’t seem to agree on what to do!  No one is telling us a consistent message and the number of cases is increasing!

Living alone is difficult, too.  Just having someone in shouting distance to share a comment with or a laugh, or even a testy, cranky exchange over some minor annoyance.  I really miss that! Someone to build you up when you are struggling is so important because by myself I don’t have the strength to be both Dr Jekyl AND Mr Hyde!  Perhaps a stronger person can do both.  And that doesn’t even mention the value of a hand to squeeze, a hug and kiss before climbing into bed at night.

Thank God for Devon, my pooch.  He got me through two stents and a scraped carotid artery years ago so I value his loyalty and companionship beyond reason.  But he doesn’t laugh at my stupid jokes, or cry with me over a sad movie.  He can’t tell me to “knock it off” when I get upset.  But he does sense when I am sad and knows it is time to climb up on whatever I am sitting on and cuddle In an attempt to make me feel better.  AND he does.  But I  still would enjoy a member of my own species for companionship!  

We will all get through this!  

Pause, Reflect, Reset

Wal captures the enormity of our present human condition.  There is little argument, that this is a colossal intrusion into life, as we knew it.  And, it impacts each of us in varying degrees of the losses Wal describes.  Of course, each of us, try as we might to see or feel from another’s perspective, cannot.  All we can do is share from our own experience.

Several facts/phrases come to mind that help me to frame my story.

1. Weather, before climate change became a global topic, has been less extreme during my lifetime, than is usually experienced.  (Our normal has been historically abnormal.)
2. It’s not what happens to us but how we respond that matters in and to our lives.
3. I grew up poor without realizing how different we were.
4. I’ve been addicted to fairness and blinded by how it unconsciously affects my perspective.

According to an article I read many years ago, we’ve been living in a relatively calm and consistent weather pattern since around 1950.  If this is true, we have lost a more long-term perspective of a violent and ever-changing planet and seduced into thinking that what we’ve been experiencing is the way it’s supposed to be.  What feels like a loss, as we move into a period of more extreme weather conditions wouldn’t exist if this is what we’ve been used to all our lives.

Epictetus is credited with saying, “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”  This simple to repeat but hard to hardwire into practice quote, reminds me that I can influence my daily life to a point but have no real control over what happens.  I can only chose to examine my best course of action for responding and then decide how I intend to move on.  I will feel the differences and, at times, miss deeply what I had but, since it no longer exists, it makes little sense to revisit or whine about it.

My mom raised the three of us, cared for my debilitated grandmother, and made ends meet without any assistance from anyone.  And through all the struggles and losses, we somehow had relatively happy childhoods, food in our bellies, and a roof (albeit very small) over our heads. We stayed home a lot but had numerous distractions and options to keep busy.  Perhaps, since that was my “normal” navigating today’s limitations is somewhat easier to accept.

“It’s not fair!” has been my battle-cry for as long as I can remember.  I don’t know whether this was learned or I created this scenario on my own, but I always believed that hard work, good will, and kindness trumped disappointment, loss, and bad beats.  Duh!  Life isn’t fair, despite what I think and the more I remember that and continue to make the best choices I can under the circumstances (See number 2 above) the less disappointed and angry I’ll be.

These provide the context for how I’ve been living through the threat of Covid-19 for me and for the world around me.  They have helped – a lot.  But, like George, I feel the loneliness.  All the logic and preparatory experiences can’t eliminate the impact of being a single senior.

But like George, I agree that we’ll all get through it.  And, as Wal suggests in his closing, down the road, upon reflection, I will remember and be grateful for the positive outcomes that emerged. 

Finally, I will also remember the suffering and loss of life that impacted so many and lament what might have been had we handled this better.  For now, I must embrace these new rules of engagement and continue to find ways to celebrate my remaining years.

Fiercely independent!
Enjoys his own company
Shares moments with others on his own terms
He is authentically his own person

A biker, a hiker, he enjoys the outdoors
Windows wide open on an aging, weathered face
Like a moth to the flame, he is drawn to the horizon
A modern day cowboy, he rides solo into the sunset

A husband and father
He values loyalty, compassion, and connection
He enjoys a great love with his late-in-life mate
Wrestling with acceptance, he struggles as a dad
Tenacious and loving, he has not given up
Disappointed yet proud, discontented but fulfilled

A mentor and teacher and coach par excellence
A master trainer/presenter, he shared what he read, what he learned, what he loved
He dug deep into the why and how and challenged my growth along the way
Much of me, is because of him

A friend for many seasons
We rode, vacationed, debated our readings
We shared family, friends, and secrets
We bumped heads and rebounded, often, until the end

Strong personalities, leaders, and men often clash around things that matter least
They jockey for recognition and value around superficial triggers
Recognized or not, the core issues often go untouched, until it’s too late
For one, when the plug is pulled, there is no turning back
For the other, the friendship remains, celebrated alone

Haiku for Jerry

Press the steel softly
Peeling delicate shavings
Like downtown

Hen did such a good job with his poem… but I needed a shorter venue. Reading up on Haiku, it seemed a better alternative for me. Haiku is typically measured in syllables: five in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the last verse. The twist is that in Japanese, syllables ending in “n” may count as two. The essence of Haiku is juxtaposition, which I tried in the last line… but is explained at the end of this piece.
The Haiku is for my friend Jerry who died this week from cancer. We were woodturning partners for years and I always sat behind him in church. Not sure why, since he was a big man and hard to see around. I think it was the solidity of Jerry – I enjoyed patting him on the back – it was reassuring. A gentle man with a bone crushing handshake. He was a rock. It’s hard to believe that strength couldn’t withstand any assault.
Jerry was a Pittsburgh native, Korean War vet, Penn State alumnus, and retired math teacher. He lived 90 years and his presence blessed us. I learned from Jerry, that learning truly is lifelong, that one can have strong convictions, but still keep an open mind for new ideas. He did not press his opinions on others, but rather enjoyed an open discourse about topics. Our woodturning group on Thursdays explored many such conversations.
His favorite saying, when something turned out well, was “just like downtown”. Apparently, this was a popular saying in Pittsburgh in the 1950’s – and lived on in Jerry’s vernacular. I guess this could be a good description of his life – a life that was well lived.

The Cane Lady

She wore a long tattered woolen winter coat that almost dragged on the ground.  A black knitted cap covered her head.  She had old lady black shoes and was never seen without her cane and shopping cart- the kind people used in the city to bring their groceries home from the market.   

Everybody on the block knew her but no one knew her name.  She lived in the alley behind our building, situated under the first fire escape platform, sleeping out on an old mattress someone had discarded and covered with blankets people from the buildings had donated .  All of her worldly possessions were in that frail wire cart! The first Mobil home!

She could have been in her 40’s or 80’s, like her name, no one knew her age either.  She never spoke and many believed she couldn’t. She would beg on the street indicating her hunger by coming up to you and pointing to her mouth.  I gave her a bag of pretzels once!  My brother called her the Cane Lady and the name seemed to stick.

She scared me and most of the other little kids in the neighborhood.  Some parents even resorted to telling their kids if they didn’t get to sleep they would call the Cane Lady!

Maybe it was a more forgiving time just after WWII, but people seemed concerned for her and would give her miscellaneous foods at various times.  My brother would taunt me that he was going to bring the Cane Lady up if I didn’t do what he wanted.

The long and the short of it is that as much as I was afraid of her I had admiration for her and wondered how she could survive on the street.  I was afraid of the dark and didn’t even want to be outside after sunset but she lived out there.  She was brave! She was independent- sort of!  And I worried about her!  I hadn’t thought of her for years but then the quarantine came and with all the time on my hands and the loneliness, she came to mind. I don’t know what happened to her as we moved to the country when I was 6.  But thinking of her struggle to live, my quarantine was nothing. I said a prayer for her that wherever she is now is better than her earth life and thanked her for the gratitude I felt for how fortunate I have been.  Thank you, Cane Lady!

From early on in my life I have had people come into my life.  Some came in, stay for a while and then disappear.   Some others come and pitch camp here.  Some of those people had a heavy impact on my life intentionally or not.  Sometimes they were the people you would least expect who impacted you the most. 

When I started PS20 in Flushing in 1952 I loved school.  I soon became the teacher‘s pet until the last week of school. Anyone who knows me has probably heard this story!  As we all remember, at the end of the day you put your chair up on the desk before leaving.  I don’t remember if I put the seat on the desk upside down or simply stood the chair on the desk top but whichever way I did it was the wrong way!  Mrs. McNulty, maybe had a fight with her husband that day, but she was not happy with how I did it.  As she was reading me the riot act she probably accidentally hit the chair and it fell back and hit me.  I ran home the 8 blocks devastated. I refused to go back to school for the rest of that last week and my parents didn’t push it cause it was the last week of school.  Fast forward to the Fall and second grade.  Nope, not going! We had a round dining room table and I remember my mom chasing me around it trying to get me dressed.  I was determined not to go!  Poor mom, she would get home from the hospital from the midnight to 8 am Shift and had to deal with me.  Dad had already gone to work.   This went on for weeks. Finally the school stepped in and said I had to be home taught and assigned Mrs. Duncan To me.  Mrs. Duncan was a large robust lady with a big flowery hat, very little patience, and a stern demeanor!  Everyday though she would bring a dozen Dunkin Doughnuts with her.  She made my dad put up an American flag in our dining room and everyday I had to say the pledge to myself and sing My Country ‘Tis of Thee…..by myself! I went through most of the year that way- hating every day of it but too afraid to go back to school!

They didn’t have psychologists in the schools then but there was a thing called Child Guidance and the school insisted I go.  So every Thursday my mom and I took the Q 65 bus to Jamaica to Dr. Arciary at Child Guidance.  The funny thing is the person who affected my life was not Mrs. Duncan.  I liked Dr. Arciary (it wasn’t him either) cause we played games together and I could talk to him about anything.  At one visit he asked me if I would mind another one of his clients joining our session.  I did but he had been so nice to me I agreed. 

The following week Edward L. joined us.  Just so happened Ed was a kid who had been in my first grade class.  He was pretty severely disabled and developmentally behind.  He was a nice kid but the kids at school always made fun of him.  I don’t remember how the session went but it had a profound effect on me.  When we got home that night at dinner I asked my parents if they and the school thought I was like Edward.  My mom asked me what I thought.  I said I didn’t think I was like that but why were Edward and I going to the same place for help?  I went to school the next day. Already mid June.  My parents had to fight with the principal to make sure I was promoted to third grade instead of repeating 2nd.  To this day I attribute my success in school and my emotional well being to Edward L.  I never got to thank him!  But he turned my life around and I am forever grateful! 

I Need Thee Every Hour

I loved Hen’s organizing principle of people entering your life for a reason, season, or a lifetime. George met Edward L. for a reason, resulting in a life altering decision. Hen made a friend for a season in Bob – and experienced the vagaries of childhood loyalty. So, I will write about a person who entered my existence for a lifetime.

Of course, this will be about my partner, lover, and friend of fifty-one years. In fact, I’m writing this on our anniversary … all the more meaningful to us, because Linda almost didn’t make it. Three weeks ago, the emergency room doctor told me that they could not treat her and she needed to be rushed to a more specialized hospital. He said that in the ambulance, Linda’s heart stopped for 45 seconds – her condition was serious, he said. I needed to confront the possibility that our limitless horizons were in fact approaching rapidly. (Spoiler alert: Linda is making a fantastic recovery).

I first saw Linda on the main quad at college – -she was racing some other girls across the green. They looked happy and laughing. A couple of years later she was assigned to help costume me for a contest the college was running. We married at twenty-one and had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We simply had a resolve to co-author a life together. I guess there’s a learning lesson in that act: if you make that vow central to your being and subordinate other impulses, well, you become part of a new creation. Together we make a statement. Our shared history defines us. Sure there is plenty of yin and yang in the installation art that is our life – and times when it unravels a bit. However, our temperaments meld well on all the important aspects of our lifework. Linda is spunky, buoyant and wise, when I am dogged, dour and doubtful. I keep us grounded, she lifts us up.

Whether the time that is left to us is measured in decades, years, months,  weeks or days,  my sweet wife, — as the old hymn proclaims —  “I need thee every hour’.

People Who Leave People

George’s title immediately reminded me of Barbra Streisand.  And yes, I need her.  Unfortunately, she’s married, but this post is about people who need people, not about availability…  but I digress.

It is said that people come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.  When you know which one it is, you will know what to do for each person.

I have often confused reason and season with the idea that each positive encounter must undoubtedly be for a lifetime.  I now know better.  Not in a bad way as if, now I know not to trust that someone will always be there for me and I must always be guarded.  But in a peaceful acceptance way of understanding that life (and relationships) is fragile and there is no way of knowing in advance, how long we have to enjoy what’s before us.

When I was a young boy, I had a neighborhood best friend, Bob.  Neither of us fit into the athletic, “with it” social groups.  Both of us listened more to our parents and followed the rules than the other kids.  We rode bikes together, played in the woods, and confided in each other about the things that were on our minds.  I trusted him.

There was another group of kids in the neighborhood who were way cooler and, because we weren’t, had nothing to do with us.  One summer they built an underground fort in Pete’s backyard but still within eyeshot of the road.  One day, walking along the road with my dog Mickie, I saw Bob go into the fort with a group of them.  The feeling of betrayal swept through me. Had he been hiding his friendship with them, had he told them my secrets?  Later, when I asked him about it, he lied and told me it must have been someone else.  Now, I not only felt betrayed but began to question my sanity.  I know I saw him, yet how could my best friend lie to me?  Shortly afterwards, he confessed and explained that they enlisted him in a plot against me and threatened to beat him up if he didn’t cooperate.  While I understood his dilemma, I knew I could no longer trust him. That was my first but not the last example of how people come and go into our lives. 

What’s interesting for me is that each time someone has changed the rules and left or caused me to leave, despite vowing never to be like the others before them, I expect it to be different.  I guess being labeled a rampant optimist holds some truth.  Regardless, I try to use each of the experiences with the people in my life, past and present as a way of reminding myself to appreciate their impact on me.  Each left or continues to leave a gift.  How I choose to view those gifts is up to me. 

For me it’s letting go of the notion that “for a lifetime” is the goal and accepting that each connection, no matter how brief, adds value to my life.  Perhaps that’s what it is about after all.

Continuing George’s topic of random thoughts, I wanted to share some musings about my grandmother.

After the death of my grandfather, gram came to live with us and became an integral part of our family.  At sixty-nine, she was still a great cook, mobile, and strong-willed.  She could also sew everything and anything having been a seamstress in Bucharest Romania as a young girl.  At the time, we lived in a comfortable 4-bedroom ranch in a small but growing town in Westchester, just north of the Bronx where Gram and Grandpa raised their family.  Gram had her own room as did I.  My sisters bunked together and my mom had the master suite to herself as my father had disappeared from our lives leaving behind nothing but his empty side of the bed.

Gram was always there when we came home from school.  Food was her love language and there was always a snack or treat for us before we went out to play.  

In the summer of 1960 we lost our home to whom someone my father had sold the mortgage and we temporarily moved to a motel until the lease was up on my grandmother’s cottage.  In the fall, I went off to college, gram went to stay with my uncle in Long Island, and my mom and sisters rented a summer bungalow.  With only a kerosene heater for warmth, they managed and eventually moved into Gram’s 650 square foot, 2-bedroom, one bath cottage in mid-winter.  This is where I called home through college and into my first two years as a teacher.  Gram had one bedroom, my mom and sisters shared the other and I had the fold up bed stored in the living room closet.

Throughout my college years, grams health declined and she eventually became bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis.  She was no longer able to move around much and was unable to cook.  However, she could still hold a needle and thread and would often mend a tear or put on a button for us as needed.  It gave her great pleasure to be able to help us despite the struggle it was for her to use her fingers.

Gram had few things that motivated her to sit up or venture off her bed and into the kitchen or living room.  She loved good food and looked forward to my mom’s meals.  Of course it always needed a pinch more salt or slightly more sweetener, but she always ate it up.  And, every day at 3:00pm, Gram would will her body, aided by her small wooden cane, into a chair in the living room.  She would lean forward and pull out the on/off button on our 15” black and white TV and watch General Hospital.  How she loved that show.  She would laugh, get angry, call a particular character names, and become completely involved in the story as if it were really happening.  Her eyes would sparkle as she spoke aloud to them as if they could hear her warnings or displeasure with a decision they made.  I loved watching her watch her show.  Then, when it was over, she would use the tip of her cane to push in the button to turn off the TV and amble back to her bed hoping someone was home who wanted to hear what had just happened in the lives of those doctors and nurses.

Gram also loved money.  She loved seeing cash, feeling the bills in her fingers, and counting them one by one, over and over again.  This was the ritual every two weeks after I would get paid.  I would cash my check and bring home the bills for Gram to count.  She was thrilled that I had a regular job and was able to bring home what she considered to be a considerable amount of money on a regular basis.  But somehow it wasn’t real unless she could see it, feel it, and count it.  I still remember how animated she would get as I watched her lick her fingers to be sure she didn’t allow any bills to stick together as she checked and rechecked the amount.  

We didn’t have much during that time, but somehow Gram always gave us something to smile about and something to feel good about.  

A.K.A—Gamma

Baby Girl: Maria Matiacchio  ……Born June 21, circa 1881(birth records a little sketchy back then)  …..Cirigiliano, Basilicata, Italia.

A.K.A.— Gramma

Definition- unconditional love

Where do I start?  I never knew my grandfather.  He had had a stroke and was bedridden from before i was born til he passed away when I was 2.  My first memory of Gramma was when I was maybe three or four.  Gramma and my two aunts lived on the corner of 1st Ave and 23rd St on the Lower East Side in a 6 story walk up apartment building.  We lived a few blocks away then and every Sunday we would walk to their apartment for Sunday Dinner. I remember turning the corner and we could see Gramma sitting in her fire escaped kitchen window waiting for us to get close enough to throw down sugar cubes for my brother and I.  As silly as it sounds it was very exciting for us.  She said it gave us the strength to make it up the 6 flights of stairs!  I question the science there but if Gramma said it it had to be true!

She was unconditional love and I would feel totally safe wrapped on her lap, she in her house dress and b old lady black Italian shoes.  For some reason my dad was the patriarch of the family and relatives from far and near would come to see him to get permission to get married, or buy a house or move out of the area.  The only person who had any kind of authority over him was Gramma.  She was a tough old broad, and I mean that in the best of ways.  She loved American tv!  Her “shows” were sacrosanct and everything had to stop when The Millionaire came on and she would keep listening to hear someone walking up the stairs to the apartment with Mr. Anthony who she was convinced was going to give a check for her a million dollars.  She would always remind us that John Bears Fatipta would provide for us.  You have to be old enough to remember that show to know what that was.  And above all shows was her all time favorite….Hopalong Cassideetch!  You could not make a sound when good old Hoppy, as she called him, was on the tiny 13 inch screen with the rabbit ears on top.

Life was pretty simple back then and routine was rigidly enforced so we saw Gramma every Sunday til we finally moved out to the country when I was 5.  My folks wanted me out of the city before I started school and we bought a house in Flushing, Queens.  My dad soon after found an apartment for Gramma and the aunts two blocks away from our house, so I could now stop in and visit on my way home from school to see if they needed anything from Bohacks or the A&P just around the corner. 

She and I had a special bond.  On my 12th birthday, a few months before her death, she got me a miraculous medal.  Most Catholic kids in the city had miraculous medals, but this one was special.  My dad worked for a prominent doctor in NYC who had high end clients.  One client that my dad became very friendly with was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. (He is currently up for saint hood).  He had a TV show called One Life to Live and he was a very controversial, sort of liberal, Catholic Bishop who was expected to become the next Cardinal for the city, but he did something to tick off the powers that were and Cardinal Spellman got the promotion.  My grandmother insisted that my medal be blessed by Bishop Sheen and so my little MIraculous Medal that to this day still hangs around my neck was blessed by Bishop Sheen.

Several months later, just before midnight we got a call from my aunts that Grandma was having one of her spells.  Dad and I rushed over to the apartment and even I knew as a 12 year old that this wasn’t just a spell.  Gramma was trying to hold on but I remember her saying good bye to my two aunts, my dad and then me.  She took my hand, squeezed it as bet she could and said good bye.  My dad got on the phone and called Bishop Sheen and within 45 minutes a limo pulled up in front of the apartment and His Eminency came rushing up to the apartment to give Gramma the last rights.  She passed quietly shortly after he finished and I saw my dad close Gramma’s eyes for the last time.  It was a very intimate moment and I will never forget my dad’s face, my aunts silently crying in each others’ arms and Bishop Sheen’s hand on my shoulder.  But for the last 52 years that medal hangs around my neck and at difficult times I still hold it in my hand and conjure up the one person who always made things better for me!

Pop

I envy Hen’s relationship with his Gram.  My maternal grandmother died when I was three or four and for a number of reasons we did not have a close relationship with our paternal grandparents. Luckily, our paternal grandpa was a treasure.

My grandfather was a man small of stature, but solid. He led a physical life – as a farm worker, shepherd, navy cook, iceman, and masonry contractor. He was an orphan, unschooled, who taught himself to read and write, both in Italian and English. As a young man, he prided himself on his luxuriant handlebar mustache – bright red. No wonder he loved my red-haired, blue-eyed brother so much! By the time we knew him, the mustache was trimmed and gray.

This man was always cheerful, whistling and singing Italian folk songs. But perhaps this was not always the case. In early pictures, you could sense a steely-eyed gaze. Grandpa had one distinguishing physical mark: his nose was crumpled with a pronounced scar, the result of a fight. Supposedly, his opponent had tried to bite his nose off. That had to be painful! I read somewhere that a guy had bees sting him all over his body to measure pain – and he reported that the nose was clearly the most painful place (thank heavens for such pioneering research).

Well, this is the stuff of legends — and hard to reconcile with the gentle, happy-go-lucky guy everyone call ‘Pop”. And when you think about it, what kind of fight results in someone trying to bite off your nose? I mean, seriously, who gets close enough to do that? Sounds like a last act of desperation. Let me ask you, would you want to bite off someone’s nose? Food for thought. Okay, enough about that…

I have many memories about Pop, although we did not see him regularly. He lived with my aunt, cousins and second-cousins in a stucco three story block building in Rockaway Beach – two blocks from the ocean.  The place looked like a white fort, built flush to the sidewalk with a courtyard behind the building. You entered the rear of the building through a stucco arch, which is generally where we would be greeted by Pop with an orange and a dime. He had an apartment in the back where he kept his fig tree and goat. 

So many stories: Pop was the one who had his own method of potty training (taught me to pee in a bottle – a habit I’ve since broken, but may be revived in further old age). He considered wine quite healthful, so he started my brother on 8 oz. glasses of wine – at seven years old (‘Mom, come quick!’). We had our first taste of raw goat’s milk from Pop’s goat. I remember him staking out the codfish on a board in the sun to make Baccala – salt dried codfish (another taste sensation – not!)

Pop used to make coffee in an open pot on the stove. He’d bring the water to boil, then add coffee grounds to the pot and liberally pour in Four Roses whiskey to make sure it all went into solution properly. I guess that’s how the pre-WWI Italian Navy rolled…

However, what I remember most about this man is how he took my brother and me aside for a discussion one day. In his broken English he told us “You be good men”. This was not a throw-away line – it was a moral imperative which we took – and still take — very seriously. It’s the prime value I assign to people: is this person a ‘good person’; am I acting like a good person? I hope so, because I’d like to please him. 

Anthropologists talk about the strength of the ‘skip-generation’ relationships. It makes some sense in that grandparents can be life coaches without the day-to-day authority issues parents have to deal with. My life coach kept it simple: ‘Be a good man’. I still have his beat up fedora and briar pipe…

Thinking for me was always a form of worry.  Even as a kid I used to worry about my dad coming home late a night after drinking with the men at the Knights of Columbus.  Or wondering if I would have to go to Mc Auliffe’s Tavern to bring him home for dinner.  But whenever I had a spare moment there would always be thoughts to fill the time.  It wasn’t all bad! I was a creative kid which would sometimes get me in trouble like the time Steven Bell from across the street and I decided to play mailman and we collected all the mail from the entire block and redelivered it to other people’s mailboxes. It was fun and we were just trying to see what it was like being mailmen. Unfortunately, our neighbors didn’t see the humor and Steve and I and my father redelivered the mail to the 30 or so houses on the block along with sincere apologies!  I decided I wouldn’t be a mailman even at age 6!   I did dumb stuff like this growing up, even after much thought that at the time seemed very logical!

Now some 70 years later I am still thinking a lot cause during this quarantine there isn’t much else to do.  My thoughts go back to those years sometimes and sometimes they look foreword.  There is a big bay window in my living room that looks over the neighborhood.  I stand in the window each morning just checking things out.  I have observed things I probably would not have noticed without this down time.    Everything is viewed through the lens of a street kid who grew up In NYC.   The first thing I realized is kids don’t play in the street anymore. We used to play catch or stick ball in the street, and when a car came somebody would yell, “Car,  Car,  C-A-R” and everyone would scatter to the sidewalk til it passed!  We picked sides by doing Boo Boo Boo, One Potato, Two potato…..we Used Spaulding balls and we always had a bucket attached to a pole to retrieve the ball after it rolled down into the sewer.  But the streets are quiet now and  empty.  There isn’t even much traffic!

Today,  I look for neighbors to wave to or yell to.  Just a connection to make me feel like part of the neighborhood- any kind of connection to help me feel like I belong.

Then my mind wanders to my family.  They have all passed except for my kids but now, with all this
time on my hands I have a bunch of questions for them.  Like I wonder if my grandparents ever became American citizens.  What made them settle in NYC?  I have a hundred questions for my dad about being on Iwo Jima during the war.  And how did he get to write a column in Semper Fi Magazine.  He never talked about the war.  And my brother who was 8 years older than I ( pre and post war babies)  said that he wasn’t the same dad who came home. They called it shell
shock back then not PTSD!  Later, he wrote a column in a little local magazine called The Gramercy Graphic in NYC.  My mom used to play the banjo!  I never asked her why.  My aunt was a tatter in a sweat shop on the lower east side. And another aunt, my mom’s sister, had a wing in the Mahanoy City Public Library named after her..  And I don’t know the answers to any of these questions!   

The remainder of my day’s thoughts move to life after Corona!  What will school look like?  Maybe kids will start playing in the streets again?  I imagine a world where people are kinder, more neighborly, helpful and friendly to one another. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions will be played out in the future.  I hope when it does that younger generations can look back and remember with fondness the way I remember stoop ball or I Declare War!

Ode to A Spaldeen

George’s memory has gotten me to thinking about street play. Perhaps many of us share the memory of playing stickball in the street… if the ball went two telephone poles it was a homerun… in a fly past the second baseman (if there was one) it was a double – and so on… Sometimes we would walk to the park a couple of blocks over and play two person stickball, using the cement wall as the backstop – drawing the strike zone in chalk. 

The one thing in common with many of the games – stoopball, stickball, or handball – was the gold standard Spaulding (or should I say the “pink standard”?). It bounced the best and felt just right in the hand – neither too hard nor too soft. We never bothered with the marketing name ‘hi-bounce’, but did call it the ‘spaldeen’. 

When we used the spaldeen for handball, it was usually Chinese handball – that is bouncing it once before it struck the wall. Sure I know, a real handball is black and much harder, but we used the Spaulding. However, we did watch the ‘old men’ play American handball (hit the wall on the fly) with their gloves and hard little black sphere rocketing around – looked fierce and painful to us eight year olds.

You could bring a Spaulding to school and play against the brick wall at recess or after school. I mean, the Spaulding wasn’t the be-all and end-all – it was simply a requirement. You had to have one. And of course, inevitably they would get lost.

Each week, my brother and I were granted a 75 cent allowance (do you realize that there isn’t even a ‘cents’ key on my qwerty keyboard anymore?) and our aim was to trek two miles into the hobby shop and buy a plastic WWII airplane model to build. The two of us would sit on our front stoop and glue it together. However, when the Spaulding was hit into the undeveloped lot, rolled into a storm sewer or landed in unfriendly territory – well – we’d have to divert part of allowance (was it 15 cents?) to getting a new one at the hobby shop and possibly forego the airplane model. I guess the Spaulding was like a utility for kids… we didn’t pay electric bills, but we had to have bounce energy.

I have read that the pink Spaulding ‘hi-bounce’ was discontinued in 1979 due to decreased popularity of stickball (or maybe it was the rise of disco), but it was reintroduced in 1999 in a variety of colors. Amazing that such a simple object can be the source of such enjoyment.

The New Thinking

George opens up another facet of this pandemic that also affects the majority of people around the word; what are we all thinking about during our minimal interactions and limited options for mobility? Are some of us simply contemplating more of the same kind of thoughts? Are some of us more reflective, now that we have fewer distractions and obligations? Are we turning to the past for comfort and guidance, or are we thinking this is the opportunity to break old habits and move forward?

Depending on the day or my mood, I can accept responsibility for being in each of these categories. Most of the time though, I’m inclined to use this experience of isolation to rid myself of actions/reactions that don’t feel good. It is a perfect time to reflect. I find it easier to focus on what I’m doing and being present. My daily mediation (from The Daily Stoic – Ryan Holiday) is devoted to paying attention to a habit or behavior you wish to diminish or eliminate. The process involves setting your intention and then marking off each day you can accomplish it, extending your streak for as long as possible.  My progress is painfully slow but moving in the right direction.

But, like George, I also find myself drifting back to my childhood.  I recall many days of wandering about in nature, more often with my dog than with friends.  And today, as a senior citizen living in New York during the Coronavirus pandemic I spend my days wandering about in nature and only with my dog.  However, unlike my childhood, instead of sprinting down a hill or climbing a perfectly laddered sapling, I stroll down the hill and simply gaze up at the tree. Every once in a while though, as my boyish sense of adventure wells up in me, I smile and think, maybe tomorrow I’ll sprint and climb. But then I remember that I haven’t yet taught Duke how to fetch the first responders from my driveway and bring them to my side if I should fall and break a bone or two. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll teach Duke, or take a chance like I did when I was a kid.

I also think about how much I miss sharing my space and my adventures with friends and family. As much as I receive intense satisfaction from my daily escapades, it’s never as grand (this word’s for you Laur!) as sharing them with others.

And again, like George, I think about post stay-at-home life. I try not to think about my re-emergent world without hugs and handshakes. I remind myself to be grateful that I’ve lived a long and happy life without restrictions, extreme cautions, and with great freedom. And now, I’ll prepare myself for appreciating what remains.   At least that’s what I think right now.

Lately, I’m increasingly aware that many of my daily routines have taken on added significance and meaning beyond the need to get them done.  They have become rituals.  Perhaps it’s the reduction of distractions during this time of sheltering in place that has allowed me to be more mindful.  Or, it could be that without regular stimulation of ideas and interests I seek them from within the confines of my home.  For example, rather than allowing my mind to wander while rushing through the task of raising my window shades, I now often think about, well, just raising each shade and welcoming first light into my home as I begin my day.  As I slowly pull the cord of my kitchen window, I watch the shade fold into itself as it reveals the unique perspective it affords of my backyard.  Then I move on to the next window that will allow additional light and a slightly different view.  It sets in motion an action that often impacts how I feel about my day.  This routine and others, now receive more of my intention and deliberation.  They have taken on a level of significance that positively influences my initial disposition.  They are new rituals.  They are no longer chores to be completed, but actions that add significance to my life. 

In an article written by author, writer, and coach Steven Handel, he describes routines as things we need to get done on a regular basis but that are not necessarily meaningful.  Rituals tend to have a sense of purpose and their meaning is often symbolic.  He further illustrates the difference in this table:

As I thought about the things in my life that are chores and that are now taking more of my attention and thought, I remembered the notion of the Japanese Tea Ceremony.  The tea ceremony in Japanese culture represents purity, tranquility, respect, and harmony.  It is a great illustration of the singular focus given to the performance of serving a simple cup of tea.  It is a grand collaboration of art, discipline, attention, and care.  Philip Stanhope 4^th Earl of Chesterfield said, “In truth, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well; and nothing can be done well without attention.”

I also thought about the commitment of the Samurai in their attention to detail and purpose in everything they did.  There was an unrelenting focus on mindfulness in even the most basic actions and routines. 

Zanshin is a word used commonly throughout Japanese martial arts to refer to a state of relaxed alertness. Literally translated, zanshin means “the mind with no remainder.” In other words, the mind completely focused on action and fixated on the task at hand.  In practice, though, zanshin has an even deeper meaning meaning. Zanshin is choosing to live your life intentionally and acting with purpose rather than mindlessly falling victim to whatever comes your way.  It was as if everything in their lives was a ritual.

Now, as I spend more time in silence and thought, I’m able to better recognize the significance of preparing food, letting light into my home, and attending to things that require my attention.  Of course, my mind still wanders…often.  But I’d like to think that this time has afforded me a way to elevate at least some routines from tasks that must be done so I can get on with my life, to appreciating the things I do in my life because they matter.

Have you noticed any shifting of routines or rituals in your life?

Traditions, Rituals, and Routines

Hard to know where one ends and another begins!  Perhaps the definitions intermingle and have very subtle differences.   Perhaps it has to do with what Henry said, that rituals have an importance that routines don’t.  Traditions may then define the need for rituals.  For example, my family had a tradition at Christmastime of setting up the Christmas village which necessitated the ritual of laying track and checking out the engines and cars of the train and organizing the town.   The routine then became sitting down in the evenings and my brother and I running the trains around the village, while the engine smoked and the whistle blew.  We had other rituals associated with the Christmas tradition- like hanging stockings on the fireplace, and decorating the tree.  Routinely we hung the tinsel one strand at a time or my mom would yell at us.   

When I taught school for years I had a tradition of wanting the kids to know the day and date.  Every morning ritually, I wrote the day and date in the upper right corner of the blackboard and the kids routinely wrote it on their daily assignments.  I also had a tradition as an educator of wanting the kids to expand their vocabulary so each day I would write a new word and its definition on the board.  It was a ritual that helped me as much as the class. The routine came when the kids used the word either in their writing or in discussions each day. 

Right now, when I’m not sure what my purpose is anymore in the time of COVID-19, tradition and ritual have pretty much been pre-empted solely by routine.  Wake up, shower, take pills, which helps me remember what day of the week it is, let out the dog, eat, wash yesterday’s dishes, eat, nap, eat, nap, eat, nap!  Tradition now is out the window.  Without some direction old traditions don’t necessarily apply and new traditions can’t start because they may not have the time to develop.  Without the traditions rituals devoted to the traditions can’t find air.  Routines are all that is left and in my case they tend to be diminishing!  I may be going crazy but this makes perfect sense to me!  And I didn’t have any author to quote so this unfortunately was entirely concocted by me during the routine boredom I face daily during this crisis!

Wrinkles

I am seventy-two years old and a dishwasher in a restaurant. I am looking at the pile of skillets in the deep sinks and preparing to start the process of transformation. Today, I have driven for four hours to return to my post and I’m an hour later than expected – I like to keep ahead of the curve, but the chef has already started to prepare sauces. So it’s catch-up time.

Surveying, the scene, there are remnants of carbonara sauce, Thai chili sauce, a large pasta colander, and several pans with a series of brown sauces for schnitzel, and a garlic laden food processor. Okay: Carpe Scrubber! Wait — a drop of water bounces off my bald spot – and then another – What the… It has been raining heavily for a good part of the day; looks like a leak in the roof over the kitchen. All right – note for tomorrow, get on the roof. I reach for the faucet and — no water. This is irony for sure: unwanted water dripping on my head, no water from plumbing. What’s the old saw: the opposite of irony is ‘wrinkly’. This is wrinkly. Life is wrinkly. The topography of our lives is full of wrinkles. That’s why we have rituals: to smooth out those crenellations.

A ritual is structured behavior in support of a magical or symbolic result. ‘Magical’ being a placeholder for all those things we don’t quite understand… like the Pacific Islander cargo cult. My ritual actually begins much earlier than reporting to the job. First, I must shower. This is less about cleaning than it is about cleansing – starting the day like a fresh page in an old book. Consecrated.

Then, as head (and only) dishwasher, I assemble the mise en place at my work station: wet and dry towels (from Morgan Linen – remember them from college?), gloves, washing tub, spray station, stainless steel scrubby, long brush, and putty knife; prep the dishwasher and lay out the drying station. Our dishwasher has sliding doors and trays that carry objects through infeed and outfeed. The pots, pans, containers, spatulas, stirring spoons, tableware, and dishes all go through the washer for the extra cleaning and sanitizing cycles, but first anything that experiences direct flame is separated: cleaning the carbon on the bottoms is a parallel process and uses different cleaning aides. When this is complete they join their comrades through the main process. 

So, the main process involves soaking the pots, pressure spraying, brushing, and then scrubbing. All the detritus goes into the 1000 gallon grease trap. The restaurant ware is sanitized in the dishwasher, air-dried and returned to its station. Routine or ritual? It is necessary – and it is done mindfully. I fantasize that I am the director of a halfway house for skillet rehabilitation. I am a social worker for the stockpot family. My goal is to return each cooking implement in better condition than I received it. Some of these old boys have dents or loose handles – or are a little crowned due to direct heating over an open flame for years. I clean them up so that thirty or so skillets and a dozen assorted stockpots greet the next meal with a fresh face and new sauce. That’s what it’s all about! I say it is Ritual – with magical results!

Now to prepare for the next day’s ritual: water pump repair and preventive maintenance.  

As sheltering and snacking in place is becoming routine I sometimes find myself on my knees and leaning my head on my arms resting on the windowsill like the cartoon where the guy says to his dog that he now understands why he always barks as people pass the house. It is an event! I don’t have many events about now unless getting the cookies or chips out of the cabinet classifies as an event!

But recently I have been trying to figure out what it is going to be like when the quarantine is lifted. At first I thought we’ll all race to the local establishment and drink a toast to the death of the virus, clinking glasses, shouting “salud!”, slapping friends on the back, hugging and kissing folks we’ve missed for months. But I don’t think it’s going to work that way now.

Our Governor, who has become a guiding light in leadership through this darkness, uses the term “reimagining” how it is going to play out. The thought of returning to post quarantine life as being a return to normal is probably far from actuality, hence reimagining.

So my thoughts go to how will young love be expressed? New emojis online? Pulsating red hearts and lips after each text. We probably won’t be kissing anyone soon. Kids playing on the playground won’t be playing tag cause we can’t have kids touching each other! How will detectives catch criminals cause fingerprints will be a thing of the past! Rubber or polyethylene gloves have replaced skin So DNA must be encased on the body. I worry that a generation of kids who don’t play outside much anyway will have even fewer experiences interacting with humanoids. Will we just keep to
ourselves and be reduced to written communications with LOL’s and OMG’s expressing our emotions?

Life is going to be different. But hopefully with time touch will return as a venue for interaction. Human contact can once again comfort people in need. Laughter and tears will return as ways of expressing our emotions. And maybe even a renewed urgency to put the electronic technology down and reach out to those we have desperately missed. My reimagination I’m afraid is limited but I long for an earlier time when my scraped knee could be healed by my mom or dad’s hug. I hope our grandchildren will experience this again and future generations will talk about the time when people had to isolate as a dark spot in history they have only heard about!
However, we can’t forget that the air over LA is breathable again, the canal waters of Venice are clear enough to see the sea life that lives in them. That’s part of the reimagining that we have to take advantage of and protect. I’ll take one from column A and several from Column B! Call me old fashioned!

The Macro

Both George and Hen focused on the intimate details of person-to-person interaction in a possible “new normal”. I think their comments are cogent. The effect of the virus on physical closeness will certainly outlast the current edition of the corona. For instance, we can imagine that hand, mouth and nose coverings will morph into enduring fashion accessories. Perhaps grooming and fashion styles will gravitate toward the easily cleaned and maintained – maybe lapels and pleated layers give way to smooth lines and treated fabric.

If we look down from 5,000 feet, the macro influences of surviving a pandemic – and the fear of the next one — says the future is a less tolerant society. Individual choice vs. the ‘summum bonam’ is in constant tension. As we experienced during the New Deal and World War II, the tendency for central control and larger government seems like powerful leverage to attack economic – and perhaps social — problems… and I don’t speculate in this manner as a fan of big government.

But, after all, will we be able to tolerate not having universal healthcare in some form or another? If we cannot assure that every citizen will have effective access to health services, how can we assure the containment of future outbreaks? When the dust settles, our infection tallies will show large discrepancies by race and economic variables. Will this place more emphasis in future on large, homogenous public policy solutions? Certainly it is doubtful that piecework approaches will be encouraged, when disease crosses borders and governments. 

It’s probable that we won’t return to past behaviors quite as readily as we’d like, but we will move forward. Even now, dating apps have apparently been successful in hosting virtual dating experiences. I’d guess this fad subsides, but lingers as a bit of dating rehearsal while individuals try to ‘qualify’ one another before investing in a more physical relationship… unless we can have virtual careers, babies, and parenting experiences all from the comfort of your own couch? (Sounds like the old ‘Second Life’ application experiment). 

At the end of the day, I sign up with George and Hen – soothing behavior is a basic need — and that behavior is an experience of touch that is unlikely to be abandoned for long. We are smart enough and resilient enough that solutions will be invented to allow kids to be kids, friends to be friends, and loved ones to all come together.

It’s How We Respond

I’m with “Old-Fashioned” George when it comes to physical touch.  If I’m suffering from anything these past two months, it’s likely from hug withdrawal.  Of course, there is an old fashioned way of forgetting the hugs that I miss.  It’s called a bourbon old fashion!  I’ve had one or two of those “quarantinis” over the last few weeks.  They helped!

I appreciate the notion George brings up of reimagining what our new future will be.  At first, my thoughts go directly to what I’ve lost: not necessarily a positive or proactive endeavor.  After all, transitioning from no direct social interaction to spending time with others in groups will take a very long time and will likely require a transition phase of wearing masks, no touching, and physical distancing.  I can easily equate this to a negative.   But if I push past the loss, and, as George reminds us of some of the gains we made, we might be able to reimagine a way of being that can benefit us and future generations.  And without this global “pause,” the idea of exchanging old habits for even better ones, would have been near impossible.  In his New York coronavirus briefing this morning, Governor Cuomo reminded us that it often takes a crisis to wake people up.  And Dave Pelzer, a contemporary American author, said, “Something good comes out of every crisis.”  So how do we revise our behaviors and spaces to make life even better?  I believe each of us begins with what we can control:

The evidence of a healthier environment for all living things is enormous.  I will continue to make changes to use fewer fossil fuels, create less waste, and to be more aware of my purchase power regarding products and their environmental impact.

I will be more aware of the direct contact time I have with family, friends, and colleagues.  I will work harder at being more present and attentive when I am with them.  I seek to remember not to take any handshake or hug lightly.

I will create a set of reminders for me to continue the relationships I’ve re-established during this time of remaining at home.  

I will strive to remember that it’s never about what happens to me, but how I respond that grants me to happiness and contentment.

And you…?

I’d like to end with the essence of a story I recently read written from the perspective of a senior citizen who was a child during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.  He was responding to his grandchild who had just studied in school about this horrific time in history and how difficult and troubling it must have been for him.  His response was something we can still create as we live out this moment in time.  Grandpa said it was a difficult time for many indeed, but in his case he remembered it differently.  He remembered more time for playing with his mom and dad.  He remembered baking with his mom and fishing with his dad.  He remembered his mom coming up with new ideas for him to try and without the need to rush or to put them off until a better time.  He remembered impromptu games of tag, barbeques, and peanut butter and jelly picnics when the weather turned warm.  I hope many of today’s children will remember this episode similarly, when their grandchildren ask them about it.