(Do Not) Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor...

This is painful, Hillary Clinton announced at the beginning of her concession speech Wednesday morning, her emotionless voice nearly cracking at moments.  Young women were weeping; her staff and volunteers were exhausted, feeling the pain of failure, of deep disappointment.  One day and hours later, the ugly reality of our American election has spread like black slime.

Walking back from the hospital this afternoon where my friend is experiencing another kind of pain-- the relentless, unstoppable agony of late-stage cancer--  I don't dare weld the metaphor here, but it made Hillary's words just a little less poignant.  It surprises me on these days that Central Park is as dazzling as ever in the crisp fall sunshine; the skyline is buoyant and proud.  I stopped also by a building on West 69th Street where a woman I'd only met months ago had jumped from her window just a few weeks ago.  I've heard it was her heart that was broken; nothing else.  Another version of pain.

The doctor's aide wears a hijab and is lovely.  She confided that she is terrified about her immigration status and about the xenophobic sentiment of our President-elect.  You mean his bigotry and ignorant hatred, I replied?  She nodded, looking around her as though she feared being lynched.  She is feeling another kind of pain, as was the young African woman who shared my path back to the east side.  She works for a church downtown, has a limited visa, was enchanted by the beauty of the Reservoir; it was her first visit to my neighborhood.  She'd escaped a hard life in West Africa; she was orphaned, raised her siblings and was looking for a better life in the US; she'd been sponsored by a LES Christian community.   She wanted to go to college but now she was afraid and discouraged.  This was not the version of American she'd understood.

I can't make excuses for my country; I'm a New Yorker and we are Democrats for the most part.  We are disappointed, we are frustrated, we are angry.  But pain?  I'm not sure this is the correct description. Anyone who has suffered a serious wound, an accident-- even the experience of childbirth.  No pain, no gain, the sweatshirts used to say at my gym.  I've never loved that expression.

Late nights I admit to watching this program called Versailles which is sort of a glam-erotic series shown last year in Europe about the excesses and vices of Louis XIV.  His ultra-lavish spending on the palace became a symbol of the unprecedented power of the Monarchy.  I am trying not to draw silly  parallels between the Trump empire and the decadent elitist pomp of the 18th-century French court.  Of course, like all addicting television, there are plenty of women-- sequential and multiple mistresses.  His extra-marital intrigues are maybe criticized, but overlooked.  Those who fall out of favor are disposed of-- some painfully.  But speaking of pain, even the King suffered during these times.  Few medicines, no anesthetics, no antibiotics.  Childbirth was risky, illnesses were difficult and life-threatening; poxes, plagues, infections and fevers were agonizing and fatal.  There was a scene where a medic warned the King that a proposed treatment would hurt.  "Good," said the King.  I can't imagine Donald accepting such a pronouncement.  I can't imagine him fighting a war for his country or even his children, or making any kind of sacrifice for any kind of principle.  I doubt he has sympathy or empathy for anyone's suffering and I'll bet his tolerance for physical discomfort is low.

One thing the royals often did-- was to import their wives for better breeding and political reasons.  I guess Donald did the same.  Few American women outside the Stepford wife prototypes would put up with his brand of macho husbanding.  I can't figure out whether Melania is a saint or a talking Barbie.  But for a man who married non-Americans, the hypocrisy of his policies seems that much more absurd.   What if he were to seriously purge New York, for example?

The kitchen staff at half the clubs where I work--- the kind Mexicans who sneak me care packages for my starving neighbors-- they'd be sent home.  Who would cook, who would wash dishes for our hungry audiences?  The Pakistani man who sells magazines on Lexington Avenue and talks to animals like a happy wizard-- where would he go?  What waits for him and would he be allowed to bring along the feral cat who lives in the shop and bites?  The construction team in east Harlem who work at night, who sit outside and eat their 4 AM lunch on the stoops of dilapidated tenements they are renovating for sleazy landlords-- with their headscarves and home-made dust-masks-- what will become of them and their families?  They speak some strange language among themselves, they laugh and sing and smoke during breaks.  Their clothes are thick with dust-- in summer their skin is covered with grime and paint and sweat.  Their bodies are beautiful and sinewy like athletes.  The hotdog vendors-- especially the one who sold me a pretzel today for $1.50.   I would miss him. The ladies who collect cans at night--  the Mexican and the Chinese women who amicably divide the massive piles between them.  Their work ethic-- rain, snow, extreme heat-- they are out there, on hands and knees-- teaching us things-- recycling, to keep their children fed and clothed-- heroes, they are, of their young families who rely on this difficult, tedious dark labor for survival.  Will they all vanish?  Will I not hear the musical variety of uptown like a colorful marketplace opera in multi-lingual counterpoint?

Concession for Hillary is 'painful', she claims… but she will have some consolation-- she has money, she has a foundation… a husband, a legacy… For the rest of us it may mean something else; we're not certain.  Surely this has been a misdiagnosis of some sort-- missed symptoms, bad medications-- poor management of a societal disease or lack of preventive care here…  and the prognosis? Will all these protests, the voices who spoke too late-- will they have any bearing on the outcome?  Will the ailing patient of America survive a round of toxic Republican treatment?  I'm afraid the pain is yet to come-- with or without gain, with or without cure.  God Bless America.  We've never needed it more.

Grave New World

I watched a disturbing film the other night in which a British photographer, mourning the death of his teenage son, takes revenge on one of the local gang members who has been terrorizing his alcoholic grieving existence with acts of violence.   In the end, there is a bizarre twist and change of heart…. it was difficult to watch.

So many of my friends 'forgot' to have children.  It could have happened to me; I was sailing through a relatively self-centered existence when I found myself unexpectedly pregnant.  At first it seemed a little 'conceptual'… not much change in my day-to-day.  I ignored it, denied it… and suddenly in my 5th month or so, I thought I was miscarrying.  In the ER, the Drs. scolded me a little for my callow attitude.  It was a hot summer night; walking downtown I began to acknowledge that I was carrying life, and by the time I got home, I was teary and praying.  Cricket, I called the baby-- because that's how it had felt… don't leave me, Cricket.  I got on my knees by the bed and begged my version of God to give me a chance.  Next day I began eating well, frying liver for lunch-- making better choices… talking to my child silently, singing-- chanting, whispering in the dark, sending internal messages and listening.

I'd never felt this sort of intimacy before… I even dreaded the separation of birth, but that turned out to be another revelation.  How could anything, anyone… be so perfect and fascinating-- so miraculously lovely and infinitely compelling?  Instincts kick in… protection, love, compassion, empathy… the utter dependence and trust of an infant… the complete fulfillment of maternal devotion.  The smallest discomfort is a challenge-- a pain or illness is your own wound… you will lie down in front of cars for this being, give up blood and organs, sacrifice all creature comforts for a train set.

As they grow and separate further, you obsess over their daily absences and little independent lives-- you worry, pace, long and miss.  Their sweaty face after a ballgame is like celestial radiance.  Their victories are joy, their losses are devastating failures.  My son had a seriously trying teenage spell.  Arrests, troubles, suspensions-- he was cooler than cool, gangsta-tough, but so vulnerable.  I spent scores of sleepless nights; days were worse.  An illness or flu which kept him in bed --- my only respite.  There were panics and police visits… one night where I had a terrorizing call from a weeping mate of his who informed me after many minutes of distress that he was in jail.  My relief was beyond anything I'd ever felt; for a moment I was sure he'd been killed.  That moment-- the paralyzing, gut-shaking wrench of perceived loss-- taught me something about the impact of this kind of news.  The emotional range between life and death-- is massive.

Recent acts of terror-- the relentless sequential delivery of statistics and details-- have stacked up into a skin-thickening coat of familiarity.  In countries of civil distress, violence and death are a fact of life.  In New York, we live with daily shootings, muggings, elevator shaft accidents, crane collapses and drownings.  Domestic abuse, rape, cruelty and gang wars, concert violence and pediatric cancer-- heartbreak and suffering, neglect and wheelchairs.  We read, we watch news, we speak of it… we cry at movies, at ASPCA commercials, at sad songs and when our boyfriends or husbands stray.  But when I hear and see recent news of these mass killings, I think only of how every tragedy everywhere has a mother, a father… how the very possibility of my own child being taken from me is beyond any tolerable grief.  Unbearable:  this is the operative word.  We have all lost parents, friends, husbands… but our own child-- the thing we created and nurtured and carried as our own-- this is an unfathomable hole.  In the moment where I misunderstood that phone call, so long ago… I experienced the unbearable… and have never fully recovered.  I don't know how the parents of the Trayvon Martins and the Eric Garners-- of every single child in the Orlando incident, in the Paris incidents-- Nice-- the shopping malls, the schools and movie theaters-- of 9/11-- how they can go on.  I have seen them go on,  with varying paths of bravery-- some wanting revenge, some choosing forgiveness and mercy, some using medications or alcohol, seeking some peace or cause to fill part of their 'hole'… some discovering nothing but suicide relieves the pain.

Looking back to our own childhoods, so many of us find them lacking; possibly my own son will dis his childhood-- after all, he grew up without a father.  My own father the hero failed to protect me.  Times were different, he was not a natural parent, and he missed things-- people who wait in the wings to take advantage of children's innocence-- bad people.  We grow up and must learn to cope with these violations.  Some people hoard possessions to compensate for things they missed-- they collect lovers to try to forget their own neglect-- they seek new pain to purge that which someone inflicted on them.

But we devoted parents-- who take a vow every single moment-- for our babies, for our toddlers and adolescents-- for our naughty, bratty budding gangsters and our angelic young men with sparkles in their eyes--  we swear we will not let these things happen to our children.  We speak gently to them-- we touch them with tenderness,  we listen to their tiny terrors and bad dreams, we dry their tears, we cheer them on and share their defeats and try hard to give them some independence and core while we fight for their innocence and defend them with all we are.

And then there is a random train ride… or a subway psycho… a black plastic bag underneath their foot… an assault weapon at a rock concert-- a plane crash during a happy vacation… rifles in a classroom.  How do we process this, we careful, passionate, doting parents?  Every single senseless murder and death is a tragedy of incalculable proportion-- a catastrophic event-- a searing, ripping, unsealing pain that scars over only temporarily but opens like an unhealed wound with every memory.  Statistics are a leveling, distant thing… but death and grief are relentless bedfellows.  The dream of gravestones, of blood and tears and the remembered joy of birth-- how does one reconcile these things, how does anyone go on from such a gatepost?

The end of the film-- the hideous staging of revenge-- and the victim was clearly a perpetrator of heinous evil-- provided nothing but further grief, twisted non-closure, the sick panicky epiphany of regret, of human frailty and the utter fragility of even the roughest child-- of the line between death and life.   And the power of the crossing only reminds us that all this violence has a kickback-- a reaction, a consequence-- a hideous rippling brushfire effect--- and how the sorrow from an unnatural, premeditated murder or random death-- for the mothers-- gentle or tough--  is an utterly crippling, indelible life sentence.

Walkin' Blues

I took one of those epic late-afternoon city walks with my niece last week… from the new Whitney Museum all the way up to East Harlem.  She observed that wherever she goes, there is inevitably someone crying on the street.  I'd definitely seen some criers at the Whitney-- really, really sad versions of performance art, as if the vibrant exhibitions, the architectural spectacle and the hoards of tourists and hipsters weren't enough.  We found ourselves dodging these traveling little passion-plays and mimes who seriously cheapened the art.  I pitied them-- they were embarrassing, amateurish and annoying.  In a city like New York, where the blocks are dense with every kind of entertainment and scam artist, the last thing anyone wants is to bring this carnival inside.

Outside there are the girls and their cell-phones-- gesticulating, yelling… boyfriend drama… couples coming together and coming apart… hungry, cranky babies… the Greek-drama variety of street beggars who screw up their face into a bawl to make us all dig deeper into our pockets.   Something just incriminating and wrong about this; no one of us really wants to 'wear' our tragedies in public.  Crying is an intimate and private privilege.  It has a reason, a story-- an aura.  On the street there is way too much competition.

My niece's current issues are with her family-- the difficult declaration of independence.  I know this family: they are, like so many others, way too invested in emotional incest-- in relying on their own members for acknowledgement and the American family version of 'happiness'.  She is sensitive and struggling and she cries.  She wants to break free, but she is not quite ready.  Crying is a symptom of metamorphosis from one stage to the next.  On the street, criers are hyper-aware of one another, the way addicts and users recognize each other.  For me, it can be contagious.  I am way softer than I would like and any kind of sorrow usually elicits my sympathy.

Our walk evolved from practical transportation into a sort of journey where you feel swept into something larger, and you can't stop.  We are different people-- her landmarks were very different from mine.  But one thing we had in common-- neither of us could bear to turn down the parade of panhandlers.  The stories-- the props-- people hadn't eaten in weeks, newly-released prisoners, veterans, fathers of handicapped children-- a woman with a lump on her face that looked like she'd sewn a golf ball into her  cheek--she needed $7,000 to have it removed and she was a mere $1,200 from her goal.  I have often to remind myself that these people are choosing to be beggars… and feel more sympathy for the couples kissing and separating at the train station-- for my friend whose business partner was getting on a plane after a casual goodbye, even though they'd been lovers and her heart was no doubt breaking a little.  I thought about another friend who refuses to hear about illness, funerals-- he seems so hard, so insulated and unfeeling-- but maybe he is stretched so thin, is so brittle, so fragile, that anything will set him off, and he must step over the criers and avoid the beggars to keep himself from melting.

When I was growing up, we had a black housekeeper.  She came most days to clean, to do laundry.  She was generous and large-spirited.  She sang while she worked and brought little packs of M&Ms everyday.  My Mom left her $40 a week underneath the kitchen radio.  She called me funny nicknames and she loved me like one of her children.  I often sneaked downtown to her 'hood where there were no white people… where there was no air conditioning but plenty of shared kool-aid and lemonade.  She sang in her church choir and sang Odetta and Etta and Aretha while she ironed.  The songs made her cry.  When I was older I played her my records and she listened and we sang along, together.  She knew what was good, and she knew exactly who she was and where she was going.  I trusted her; In a way I loved her more than my own mother.  She was safe, she was strong, she was pure and clear and had answers.  I followed her to church a few times-- the only white face in the congregation, and she introduced me as her child.  People sang and cried and testified.  She played me my first B. B. King record, and it was like musical crying.  The Blues, she explained.  I couldn't really grasp it-- blue was a color,  it was black people's music (she called herself a Negro).  But it was so good.

I often feel that my sense of being loved and accepted as a child was born in that church; that somehow the music was the blood and the mortar and the glue.  My family was too emotionally tangled to be able to let go-- they were figuring out how to be a family, but seemed always to be reading someone else's instructions.  I shared this with my niece, who is too preoccupied with her issues to really listen.  I thought it might help because really, we grow up and find that what we need is out in the world, and what we need to become is outside our little fucked-up family circle-- even when they resent and hate you for this… and the antidote is not in substances or a bottle or pharmaceutical, or psychiatric-- but in whatever we embrace and become.

When I got home I learned B.B. King had passed away, maybe even while I was walking and listening and counting the criers, and hearing that first vinyl in my head….'When I wake up Early in the morning /Blues and Troubles all around my bed'... and the sound of that guitar like nothing I had ever heard before then, and him calling someone Baby, with the record noise.  Young B.B. with his pompadour on the record cover, 'wondering what is gonna become of me'…

And what 'becomes' is that all these people have passed-- my housekeeper, the singers in her church-- Odetta, B.B. and the rest.  But what a rich life they had, some of them, with their sorrows and blues and rough nights.  The criers on the street and in their rooms must remember that their end comes all too soon, and growing up and leaving is painful. We all weep and mourn in our own way-- we are all criers-- but more important, we must try to reach out and listen and live, and leave when we must, and love the ones we're with, but not too much... and care, but not too much… and get up and start walking some days when we're not sure where we're going-- just walk out that door and see, really see the landmarks on the way, and brush ourselves off and sing.