Turning Point

Many years ago when I was in college, I took a theology course on Spirituality. The professor, Fr. Gibbons, was also a columnist for a Catholic magazine called Sign. It is a magazine that my parents subscribed to so I was familiar with his work. Fr. Gibbons assigned a few papers to his students on Turning Points. Those moments, events or set of circumstances that took us from a direction, a trajectory, and served as a paradigm shift, that is, adjusted our course to some degree. Naturally some turning points were dramatic, say if a parent or sibling died and the family was thrown into some level of chaos, or, the more subtle events that, over time, re-calibrate a direction we might have assumed we were on. Dramatic or subtle, turning points are change.

I vaguely recall what I wrote about for my paper, but what I do remember is what the course taught me. Fr. Gibbons told this class of college students that it often takes the distance of twenty years for us to recognize our turning points, and, since I was probably about 19 at the time, I didn’t have the full benefit of reflecting what changes were turning points for me, other than my birth. My point is, Fr. Gibbons was not only teaching us as his current students, he was giving us the gift of a way of looking at life to take us into the future.

I mentioned that my parents subscribed to the magazine in which my professor was a regular columnist. Along those lines, I share that the family I grew up in subscribed to many publications, many Catholic magazines, many secular, like Time Magazine and The New York Times. In fact, it was an article in Time magazine where I first encountered the term' ‘banality of evil’, coined by Hannah Arendt. She was writing on the rise of Nazism in Germany leading up to and culminating in World War II. Pardon me, I misspoke. Culminating is the wrong word. If we thought Hannah Arendt was speaking only of long dead history, we would be wrong. Her term ‘banality of evil’ was a warning that evil, such as fascism, sneaks up on us. When we let a racial/ethnic/sexual orientation slur go, for example, we are sliding into the mindset that it is okay to disparage those we consider ‘less than’. There are a million little ways we can let fascism grow and then one day a maniac loudly spouting hatred gets elected President. And people who should have known better, people who studied history and the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the Civil War; people whose fathers and grandfathers fought in WWII somehow twist their little minds enough to vote for him. And, wow!!, now many of those same people who are too smart to deny that they knew what they were doing and voted, not once, but twice, for a wannabe dictator, still, somehow, absurdly, defend him and defend his literal, violent and deadly attack on The Capitol.

So, here I am. At a turning point. I watched in horror, as many did around the world, on January 6th— Feast of the Epiphany no less—when all the hatred that had been shouted for more than four years from the biggest bully pulpit in the world was made manifest in the incitement and in the deadly rioting played out in full costume by a mob. Anyone who read James Madison knew one of his biggest fears was that this new country, this experiment in democracy, would devolve into mob rule. And here, in living color, the head of the mob is an orange coward who didn’t even risk muddying his own shoes in the shit storm he unleashed, gleefully dancing with delight in the safety of the White House, watching from a television. What a hero this mob bowed down to! What a prize to sell your soul for!

As far as having at least twenty years to process all the many turning points in my own history, well, I have the benefit of three sets of twenty and a continuous education in history, theology, philosophy and living to allow me to realize that I cannot associate with Nazis. A deep and wide line was crossed not only on November 3, 2020 when the orange clown lost the election yet the noise and lies continued, echoed and abetted by many fools and cunning power grabbers, but the events of January 6, 2021 opened an abyss.

To those on the side of the abyss who support fascism and a wannabe dictator, I must bid you adieu. This may be impolite of me, since I have been friendly with many of you for years, and some, to my heartbreak, I happen to be related to. It is difficult. But if you were brandishing a swastika on an armband, it would make this break easier.

December 23,2020

The day before Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve was always the best— heightened feelings, anticipation, a general atmosphere of excitement.

When I was in elementary and high school, depending on what day of the week Christmas fell, we sometimes had school on Christmas Eve. The last day before Christmas break in Catholic school was great. We were each given a little booklet of Christmas carols and some part of the day was devoted to singing. There was candy and high spirits. I won’t go so far as to say it was the scene in A Christmas Carol where Mr. Fezziwig (what a glorious name!) throws a party of dancing and gaiety for a few pounds—but it was a day of joy. First graders had the privilege of putting on a Nativity for the whole school to attend. There were so many children in my first grade class, that, of course, not everyone could dress as a shepherd or a wise man. The coveted role of Mary went to a tall girl with long dark hair. I got to be an usher, which was a consolation prize, but still, I got to be part of the action. I didn’t have to wear my gray plaid uniform that day. My mother dressed me in a red sweater and red plaid jumper and made a necklace of jingle bells for my role of handing out programs to the hoards of big kids who came for the performance.

In the early grades we were given ‘mite’ boxes to collect the coins we would have spent on candy to be collected to give to charity. It occurs to me that a large part of our education in baby-boomer Catholic school was consciousness of the poor. In preparation for Christmas the re-telling of the story always involved the reduced circumstances of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus. Part of our preparation, Advent, in those early years was to forestall indulging in things like candy as a preparation for the great celebration of Christmas. This tradition fell away over the years, I think around the time stores started hanging lights and trees and. playing Jingle Bells as soon as Halloween costumes were put away.

I don’t remember Christmas being about what presents I wanted. I was part of a big family, the fourth of six children. In those days, almost everyone I knew was one of many children. The fun of it was the element of the supernatural, not just of Santa, though Santa was important, but the angels and shepherds and wise men. sitting near the lit Christmas tree in the dark, grandparents coming over, the good dishes set out on the table, dressing up for dinner. On Christmas Day my father made Manhattans for the adults—sometimes we had the three grandmothers— Aunt Jule was counted as one of the grandmothers— and Aunt Loretta and Uncle Charlie. We little kids would pick an old person and sit on the floor near them in the high hope of being gifted with a Maraschino cherry that marinated in the bottom of their Manhattan. I wonder if Dad put in more than one cherry for this little ritual?

December 22, 2020

i’m going to try something new: I’m going to try writing directly on the website. I’m 63 years old. I married at 22, had my first baby at 23. I didn’t follow through on some of the things I should have done before I had children— I cannot go back in time and fix that, but I can decide to go forward and not let the winds of chance blow me around as much as they once did.

I was married and a mother for all of my adult life. Give or take a year, that is a true statement. I have been a widow for nearly five years. I have had to do a great deal of adjusting in these past few years, but, by the grace of God and the habit of living, I am still here.

So far, I have survived Covid. So far. I don’t take this for granted. I realize that can change at my next trip to the grocery store. There is growing in me a new energy to get on with things. My children are all grown, and part of me hopes that maybe this year I might leave this house and find a nice little cottage to get going on the next chapter. I will need the cooperation of the health of the country and the economy to achieve this.

Some part of me would love to move away from the place that has been home for 30 years. As lovely as it is, I have felt like a visitor. This is not my native land. Not that I want to go back to NY, no, it is too crowded, too noisy, too much. What do I think I might like? I would like to be near trees and water and perhaps a mountain. I would like four distinct seasons. I have been saying that since we moved to Texas thirty years ago.

As much as I don’t like being cold, there is something wonderful about dressing in layers of coziness that is very appealing. Childhood memories of playing in the snow, pushing against a brisk wind, being spattered and chilled by a good rain storm, even getting miserably chilled and wet, for a time, is invigorating. You feel alive in these small challenges of nature. Your whole being gets a little exercise. A little victory; a little defeat. Alive. I might be romanticizing weather, but when most days are sunny and warm, you might be surprised at how much you miss a good snow storm. Ah, I must correct that. In the early weeks of the lockdown, the skies in Dallas were dark and grey. This went on for weeks. It felt like purgatory, or at least, limbo. A dark heaviness; the weather expressing its opinion on the state of world health.

Where I live now, in Texas, there is the season of summer, and when it is supposed to be spring or fall or winter, mostly, it’s not summer. Not ever really spring or fall or winter. Kind of a meh. I know, a silly complaint.

Fortunately I have the luxury of an air-conditioned home. I don’t think we would have lasted our first summer without it. I don’t like being hot. I spend a lot of time indoors.

When I say I have felt like a visitor these years, that’s not entirely true. I have made wonderful friends here and had adventures I would not have had if we had stayed put on Long Island. I doubt we would have gone to Colorado for vacations. Certainly we would not have gone to San Antonia the first Sumer we were here. Our youngest son took his first steps in an Embassy Suites near the Alamo. No, our world certainly opened up by moving across the country.

One thing you learn very quickly being a transplanted New Yorker: the rest of the world does not think New York is the center of the world. That was quite a lesson we didn’t know we needed. Wow, this country is big, really big, and full of wide open spaces and not every one cares about subway strikes and fast talking Yankees with our funny accents.

That was another thing to learn: accents. We moved here in 1991. The first World Trade Center bombing was in 1993. Of course, on the street reporters interviewed people coming out of TWTC, shaken from the explosion. The accents!!! Oh my!! It seemed like we were watching a movie and actors were hamming it up for the cameras. Did we all sound like that? No, but I realized what we must have sounded like to our new neighbors.

So, time will tell if I come back here regularly. Today I say I will. Hopefully, just for my own sake and discipline, I hope I do tomorrow.

Au revoir. A demain.

Hold Me Back From What?

I wake up nearly every morning with a prayer. I pray to not let this energy I have be wasted, again. There is a ball of energy lodged in my chest. I feel like it is a bomb about to explode. There is no outlet for it to flow in a good productive way. Just balled up energy. Frustrated. 

When my husband died, I heard him say to me “I don’t want to hold you back”. I screamed back at him “hold me back from what?!!!” It’s been 4 and a half years. I still don’t know what he didn’t want to hold me back from.

We were married forever. Sounds romantic. Sounds silly to some. Some who don’t know the forever thing. We recognized each other from the first. Again, sounds silly to some. But, I can’t and don’t, care about sounding silly. The poets know what I mean.

We always said we saved each other. Again, drama. But, it was true. We saved each other. From what? Well, that’s a whole lot of something. We saved each other. We were the instruments of each other’s salvation. Again with the drama.

To say Gene gave his life to us, to me and the kids, is not an exaggeration. His job killed him. (That, and smoking.) It was a good job, so that’s not it. It was a good job that paid him well enough to keep us housed, fed, cared for. That’s a lot. He was good at his job. And he did it for us. But it was not soul satisfying to him. He had a mind, a big mind that could have been directed in many creative and technical ways. Left to his own devices, without his family to support, Gene could have been many things. He was brilliant. I know, wives say that about their husbands all the time, don’t they? No? That’s a shame. We thought that about each other. I had more cause to say that about him, but he would challenge that. Love. Powerful stuff.

He said, often, too often, that if it wasn’t for me he’d be dead in the street. No, I’d say, you’d have met a nice girl at St. Mary’s (St. Mary’s was the ‘sister’ school to Notre Dame— he started at ND in 1976, they were still calling it sister school then) and have married and had a family. No, I wouldn't he’d say. He meant it.

We were destined for each other. 

Doesn't mean that all our energy, our ambition, our great yearnings were fulfilled. Nope. We each of us had dreams and ambitions and the seeds of other lives. Lives not lived. There was not time. We had to pour our energies into each other and our family. Sacrifice. Yep. Sacrifice sometimes means putting aside what you think you might rather be doing and do what needs to be done. And it needed to be done.

We needed to have our four children. We needed to read and read and think and talk to each other and to others about our thoughts. For many years, our Friday night dates consisted of dinner and bookstore— bringing home bags of books for each of us to read— either end of the couch— reaching out once in a while to hold a hand, squeeze— smile. Yes.

A kiss on the head. A fresh cup of coffee. Our eyes lit up when we saw each other. What treasures are these? Unmeasurable. Precious. 

We met young, very young. 16 is still a baby, isn’t it? yes. But, there it was. We recognized each other. When I would get mad at him in those early days, I’d get mad that he made all those other perfectly nice young men look small by comparison. Competition? Not much. 

Our last conversation: we laughed and talked about how we preferred to be with each other. Of all the options in life, we preferred to be with each other. Very simple. I went to get him coffee. And then he was gone. Gone. Lying on the floor, the Blessed Mother lifting him to herself, the light, the light of love lifting him, his wounded body, like a baby. Like a mother lifts a baby to her breast, She lifted him. Don’t argue with me. I saw this. As real as anything I have ever seen, I saw this. As she lifted him, I saw wounds, as though a broad sword had pierced him through, large wide wounds. She’s healing him. That’s what I knew. She’s healing him with her light. That’s when he said ‘I don’t want to hold you back’ and when I screamed—within me, I screamed, ‘hold me back from what?!!!”

So, each morning I wake with this prayer: show me what I am to do today. Too many nights I go to bed, wondering, have I done enough, have I done anything? ‘Hold me back from what? is my constant refrain.