Rust Never Sleeps

To distract myself tonight I turned on television... couldn't help checking in on this new Alec Baldwin reality show.  It's been so over-advertised-- teased, excerpted, meme'd and photo-bombed on various platforms, and yet we New Yorkers and NYC expats love seeing our city on camera, in nearly any context. Urban selfies.  

Years ago I double dated with Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin-- the first one, Kim.  We were at a long table in a trendy Tribeca restaurant with a few intimate friends.  They sat at opposite ends; it was obvious from their awkward interaction that either they'd not quite recovered from a pre-dinner argument or maybe they'd interrupted an intimate evening to come out.  Something was off.  I sat by her-- acknowledged one of the most beautiful women in cinema, at that moment.  Honestly, I couldn't stop looking at her face, with little make-up and ungroomed hair; she kept wrapping herself in a sort of shawl, as though she wanted to disappear.  He, on the other hand, was chatty and charming-- funny, using that voice actors learn to project confidence. Like a pointed tone.  

For some reason, that night, I was on the cusp of a new relationship and the tension depressed me. They were so familiar-- it was like a movie and I was somehow part of it. I couldn't shake her emotional shadow... which turned out to be sort of an omen.  I was a new mother and they were maybe not even quite married.

Seeing his aging, subdued persona tonight was surprising. His wife, obviously, was the host and star of the Baldwin show, despite the fact that her raison d'être is her famous husband. I realize he needs a PR renovation... and who wants to put the father of seven small children in prison for eighteen months? But Hilaria with her affectations and fake Spanish accent which she attempted to explain in the minutes I watched, well... I'm not a customer. Like most reality shows since the Loud Family era, it seemed scripted and planned and awkward and cringeworthy most of the time.  Yes, the kids are cute... and the looming cloud of the shooting incident which was clearly devastating was compelling... but it seemed somehow inappropriate for her to speak of it.  The family 'angle' is surely the most convincing plea for innocence... and as always, it is moot to keep on punishing for a tragic incident... but someone died.  The boundary between film and real life was crossed, and there is no happy ending here.  I felt manipulated by his terrible appearance, her perfect little stagey mother-moments. I can only wonder how the family of the deceased will view this.  I've had quite enough and it didn't sway me one way or the other.  At filming, the jury was still out.  Now that he's been found innocent, is there any relief? 

Lately I've been trying to find a way to honor my deceased father whose war record and heroism left him with lifetime psychological scars.  It was often tough simply being around him; as a father he was short-tempered and preoccupied. The more I read about Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, his difficult path through the war, the more I wonder that he functioned at all.  The killings, the bloodshed, the constant danger and massive destruction. He witnessed not just mutilation and death but stepped on it, parachuted down into it... experienced wounds and undoubtedly overwhelming, unrelenting anxiety.

Yet here is a Hollywood-handsome man-- with a wonderful supportive birth family, and a brood of his own here... maybe a difficult older daughter from the first marriage... but here he is in this perfect Hamptons paradise... accused of manslaughter... from what.. playing with real guns on a fake set? Is PTSD  the same diagnosis as psychiatrists assign lifetime war veterans who were ordered to shoot at maybe innocent people who were simply on the opposite side, and therefore merited death?  Kill or be killed is a conundrum and the very crux of war.

What is wrong with all of us, we humans who settle international vendettas with death and violence... who make statements by destroying monuments, who negotiate with mutilated flesh and the killing of children? There are people just blocks away shooting one another, threatening... angry. It might be more compelling to have us consider these consequences.  Comparatively, Alec is just a broken man.  The spinning narrative is how can we punish seven innocent children by removing their father and leaving them to bear the stigma of this tragedy?  It doesn't seem productive.  Nor does this reality show which hopefully will not annoy the family of Halyna Hutchins with its stilted portrayal of the privileged, happy life she will never have.

A weapon of destruction is not safe in any hands... it's not the manufacturers, it's the people.  It's us.  There is film-- a movie-- acting.. and then there are guns.  It seemed the 'Rust' set was more of a horrifying reality show than anything we will see from the Baldwins this season.

Seven Versions of Ambiguity

For as long as I can remember, PRIDE weekend in the city has been festive and colorful. It's something to celebrate and New York feels like the center of it all.  The subways are extra crowded with excited visitors and parade participants.. the level of street noise is a little higher, and the bars, especially downtown, are packed and raging. 

This year, coming on the heels of a disastrous Presidential debate, I don't feel much like celebrating.  Saturday at Union Square I noticed only the summer homeless population-- the couple who sit outside Wendy's waiting for someone to buy them breakfast-- the beggars and signboards looking for train fare, a room for the night-- anything.  A particularly stenchy person was overturning trashcans and soliloquizing in some indecipherable angry language; anyone was a target for hurled containers and cups.  A few truly afflicted men napped on the sidewalk-- their legs swollen and oozing with untended sores. Another regular wears a hoodie and long pants with gloves, even in the late-June heatwave; his face is covered with disfiguring growths and neuromas so that he can barely see.  Children point at him, and he bows his head.  

I am failing these people, I think... where is their pride, where is their comfort?  Singlehandedly I do nothing. Yes, there are those-- mostly my son's age, who cavalierly hand out a $10 or $20, as though there is a bottomless supply. Me-- I am rarely carrying cash these days; my pathetic sympathy does nothing.

There's little worse, as an audience, than feeling anxious for the performer.  I had this presentiment all week; the very first minutes of Thursday evening's debate confirmed my worst fears.  And then it just lay there-- a kind of pathetic circus of old-man caricature versus the blustering buffoon who looked comparatively solid.  

What some of America  doesn't comprehend is the innocent celebration of freedoms and alternative opinions is threatened.  It's not just a presidential election, it's a move rightward to a platform of dictatorial narcissism.  Where is our choice?  'Either/or' no longer suffices.  And yet, that's where we seem to stand at the moment.

Pride... I thought more about the deadly sin described in Proverbs as the precursor to disgrace and destruction--that which goes before a fall.  The Lord, says Proverbs 16, 'detests all the proud of heart'. Since religion- -specifically Christianity-- seems to be creeping into politics, how does one process this? The Proud Boys-- all the participants in the January 6th incident-- will be rewarded, as democracy dissolves in an old bucket. 

My generation is proud of our children, our parents who fought wars and weathered the depression.  Some of us are proud of ourselves-- our accomplishments and our success that have enabled this version of America with its bloated wealth and alarming poverty.  Some of these people forget their roots in the 1960's and vote to preserve their own bank accounts.  They resent immigrants and social welfare programs. No one of them wants affordable housing on their block, or a shelter, or a migrant hotel. 

I know there were demonstrations during the Pride march--the suggestion of violence.  A gay rabbi boycotted this year because she was confused about the perception of her Palestinian sympathies. We are people, all of us... and yet we are polarized by beliefs. Mostly there is anger... the uptick in crime on the trains and the streets reflect this.  Any excuse-- politics, religion-- to burn off steam and maybe beat someone up.  

Pride, according to several passages in the Bible, is the root of all evil.  Not the kind of pride displayed by the June parade, but the kind displayed by the presumed Republican candidate. It's ironic to me that the Red states are reinstating much of the Church-and-State intimacy which was banned in the name of freedom. We are going backward, unraveling the path of progress that made us feel safe and proud to be American.

And the majority of people just went on with their lives today-- they went to the Hamptons, they played tennis, barbecued in the park, shopped... laughed, maybe even went to church.  At a point the sky virtually opened up and poured enough to halt the baseball mid-game. You'd think one would be reminded of our good fortune here... that we are not drowning and overcome, we turn on a faucet and water comes out-- clean water. For those of us who struggle, we can get food stamps to help with groceries... for now, while we have an inclusive local government.  

I visited my 98-year-old neighbor today whose failing eyes and ears reminded me to value what it is I have.  She worked in fashion and championed models of all colors and affiliations.  While she rarely leaves her apartment now, she could teach us all a thing or two about history. In the city today, few people were listening; they were partying, parading, drinking, eating, being happy.  Not that I am against these things, but my sense of pride in all its complicated definitions and manifestations is deeply troubled. 

When my neighbor was born, Coolidge was President.  He was known for doing very little to curb business interests, little for agriculture and the poor.  He declined to run for a second term, and when he left office, the Depression followed soon after.  In the interest of our national survival-- the democratic cause, our current president needs to swallow his version of pride.  We need to figure this out before it's too late, before all versions of pride are confounded and damaged. 

It's Sunday; I could use a sermon. We could all use some old fashioned peace, love and understanding. And a dose of leadership. Amen.

Parallel Stories

I'm reading Péter Nádas.  'I have spent my life between imagination and reality' is the translated catch-phrase that comes up in an internet search, from a widely-seen brief interview in his native language.  Years ago, I read the Book of Memories which was highly praised by Susan Sontag and described as Proustian; it was well worth the time investment. 

This time it's Parallel Stories--  received with mixed reviews. Among these were comments on the more-than-1100 pages as 'not quite the disaster of Brodkey's Runaway Soul' (which I managed to complete), but flawed.  It took 18 years to write. Like Mann's Joseph quartet-- also under-read at some 1500 pages, the author considers this his masterpiece.  I respect that, often consider the fact that the best songs I think I have ever written receive the fewest 'listens' on streaming media.  

It's hard to explain the attraction these huge novels have for me-- Proust, Mann, Bolaño, Gaddis, etc... even David Foster Wallace, more recently. As my personal hourglass runs down, the blessing of my well-stocked bookshelves and stacks and piles of run-over compels me... while I still have the bandwidth, although one never knows when one's capacity takes a hit; my memory for long-ago titles, plots, etc... is failing. 

More than any event in my life, the pandemic altered the wiring of my brain.  Grief, shock, solitude-- the coincidence of age and eventlessness... changed things.  I found myself distance-walking often-- monologuing, singing to myself-- inventing narratives and weaving a sort of quasi-literary alter-ego in my head.  Some of these voices wrote themselves into poems-- as though all I did was transcribe.  But once the trauma of grief left me with a little peace, I substituted the intimacy of authorial narrators of literature... they became my deep companions. 

Long novels allow the writers to wander down corridors of memory, to pursue tangents beyond what one normally allows in daily life. Some of these are obsessive and uber-technical; others autopsy old loves, bare and dissect already-naked moments to the point of repulsion.  Criticism of Parallel Stories highlights  the more awkward passages and there are some truly cringeworthy ones.  Readers who grew up on Joyce are accustomed to explicit familiarity with body functions and explorations.  Few pursue these long novels for prurience or eroticism; there is way too much of that imminently accessible in all media.

But generally, I trust these writers-- I forgive them their excesses and cannot fathom the editing.  Nádas alleges that he writes in longhand and an assistant transfers to computer.  Then there are the translators. Being a diligent reader, I sometimes look at maps of Budapest and Berlin-- I brush up on the Hungarian uprising of 1956. Politics, history--  are the fundamentals and rediscovering is part of the joy of unraveling these novels. European authors have wars and bloody legacies in their private visions. 

To put some disturbing icing on the 100-page chapter of tedious sexual excess I finished, last night I watched two Michel Haneke films.  My neighbor-- a writer-- is a huge fan of Funny Games and recommended these. So, The Seventh Continent was just a brilliantly visual piece of cinematic art with very little dialogue that pulled through to what you knew would be a horrifying end... but still you kept on.  These films of personal horror-- the exploration of the range of evil-- of cruelty and sadism-- done not like Hollywood but with a sort of chilling matter-of-fact quiet-- well, they haunt one.

My physical therapist and I spend most of our sessions talking about literature.  He has just finished Paradise Lost and went on to Céline and Henry Miller.  It occurs, as he torments me in the name of rehabilitation, there's a kind of ironic parallel to the things we watch and read.  The possibilities and random incidents in a city- -the falls, the accidents, the smashes and crashes.. and the episodic street violence... discourages some people from taking daily risks.  The catalogue of films and movies-- the gore and blood and terror-- has surely anesthetized us to the massive global human suffering we see on the news.  And still I heard my neighbor scream when she cut her finger mildly with a kitchen knife... and a woman who fell off her scooter today-- nothing besides a bruised pair of leggings.  But the screams-- they stayed with me. 

These massive historical novels, years past the events they reflect, remind not only of the horrific immediacy of battlegrounds-- of the aggressive and shameful human tendencies wars and violence force men to summon... but of the consequence... of the future.  It's not the event but the echoes, going forward-- the psychological scars and warped behaviors we humans tend to invent to somehow repair old wounds we never deserved in the first place.  Impossible to go through life unscathed, but so much we could do in the name of prevention. Football players wear so much padding; the rest of us-- especially the children of war... are so unprotected.  When the blood dries and the limbs heal-- or not-- there will be some indelible residue of evil-- of endless disturbing parallel stories. 

Jane of Kings

Scrolling through random TV, channel after channel is routinely showing some film or series of extreme violence... pain, human aggression-- terror... blood, injury... death.  Either some scenario or elaborate criminal plot which involves weapons and retaliation...  or war;  science fiction monstrosities with hostility and vicious hatreds. Then there are the natural disaster movies with catastrophic occurrences-- widespread destruction and damage, global tragedies... 

And then there is this unprecedented newsworthy human year: watching images of the Ganges River swollen with corpses, the 23rd psalm came to mind--- the valley of the shadow of death.  Yea though I walk there, the psalm dictates, I shall fear no evil.  

My friend Jane passed away just ten days ago... her 'moment of decease', that is, because for weeks she had been something less than living.  She'd forbidden me, knowing my inclinations to confess and reveal, from mentioning her name in my poetry or blogs.  This was difficult.  Since I was small, I have loved the name Jane as though it were a sheet of prismic glass through which to view the world.  Queen Jane, Bob Dylan wrote... and she was.  Ravaged by a cruel diagnosis, she met her fate with courage and relentless bravery, like a good Catholic.  

Nothing to declare, the hospice priest categorized her, although she tried to muster a few lightweight sins and omissions just for the process... she was true and honest, empathic and observant, smart and acerbic.  Even my son liked her... and he doesn't comment on many people.  At my behest he willingly took her home-baked care packages and always came away with some worthwhile wisdom or TV recommendation.  

The worst part about a long farewell is that the ending overshadows the rest-- at least temporarily.  While we all drudge up past memories and tendernesses, the horror of illness hangs in the air like a low ceiling.  My father died at nearly 97; my mother survived another 16 months without him.  I remember too well the  'old man' claustrophobic smell of the room where they both sat year in and out in their nineties... although they were clean and neatly dressed. When I visited my mother during her last months the air was lighter without him... but I began to realize that she was sitting there not in her own scent but the lingering scent of her husband, like a cloud or a shroud.  She'd befriended death; she was trying to find the doorway. 

While Jane and I had some fun afternoons after her diagnosis, the treatments were erosive and the day ends early for the terminally ill. It is all they can do to go through motions of living while they are being observed.  Being Jane, she fussed and worried over me-- was I eating, did I want a coat-- boots... hats?  These things became important; she lectured me on the merits of make-up and hair arranging since we no longer had our former beauty to conceal our flaws.  She dragged me to shops and stocked up on the junk food she loved despite my protests that she choose healthy options.  We even went to a senior center one day with me shaking my head... she insisted we'd each get a free pair of glasses and she chose some wild blingy glam frames.  The finished pair never materialized.  Later she playfully threatened the staff:  I'll be dead before those glasses appear... and she was.  But it was funny.  She repeated it during her last weeks.  

She was funny.  She was vain and always wore her make-up though she cared more for her birds than herself.  Her things-- her personal treasures-- were copious and carefully selected.  She surrounded herself with a kind of beauty.  But she had no partner... prohibitively selective she'd been... one of a breed of city eccentrics who live this way-- in a sort of community, in a sort of cocoon... knowing neighbors, generations of friends and neighborhood characters... and pets of all kinds, none of whom, save the pair of birds, outlived her.  

She was kind.  She understood things... we talked and laughed on the phone... we'd neglected one another for years until her illness gave us this opportunity for sisterhood.  We shared things-- youtube and films and books... she read my work and gave praise when it was due. She pushed me like a mother. I tried to be uplifting about her diagnosis; there are miracles, I insisted... no one can predict your outcome.  I began to carry her name with me-- like a song-- a prayer-- a constant mantra, as I do... all day... when I walk, when I run, when I clean house or lie awake at night.  Please God or Jesus or Mary... make her well... Jane... I coopted her name like a lyric.  

At the very end I distanced myself a little.  I didn't sit by her bed waiting for the finale.  I sat a couple of times, but I had to separate myself from this Jane-- from the dying Jane.  Then maybe, I thought, she will live.  I sat in churches-- the hospice chapel, St. Patrick's, St. Vincent's...  I talked to birds, to statues of the Virgin... to my ceiling at night... my various crucifixes.  I tried some Hail Mary's.  

And while we try to remember her now.. it's blurry.  I'm not sure to whom I speak, when I conjure her image... I try to erase the scent of death-in-hospice, the stale bedsheet smell, the disinfectant and the coldness of the nurses and aides.  I don't know what death is supposed to be-- the preferred version is that one 'dies peacefully' but I am not certain Jane did not rage a little in poetic fashion.  It is a relief when suffering ends.  I miss her more these days as I miss Alan and many others and walk truly in the shadow of death this year which has altered forever my own heart, my own trajectory.  What I realized today-- like my mother who sat in the room of my father... I walk with her... it became a habit... and while I will add another name to the litany of my private prayer-chain, and I have formally grieved and repented... lit candles, wept, recited... I am left alone with the Prayer of Jane.  

G(RACE)

Saturdays have become classic movie nights in my household.  Either post-gig or not, it's still a work day and I try to clear my mental clipboard in the 3-5 AM time slot watching something from either my or someone else's past.  The television somehow offers plenty of quality films, without pay-for-view.  So last week I picked The Great White Hope.  I'd been fortunate enough to have seen that on Broadway, with the larger-than-life James Earl Jones, and Jane Alexander-- live-- in the lead roles, well more than 30 years ago.  It was brilliant-- resonant-- devastating.

Yes, I've been re-reading (the great) James Baldwin... Richard Wright-- but watching the theatre version of hard-edged racial tragedy was jarring and upsetting in a way I'd not expected.  In context of the current discussion of reparation and debt... everyone needs to go back and re-evaluate their African-American history course.  The juggernaut of the 'Me Too' movement stirred up some memory of that book title (acknowledged in a Lennon/Ono song) Woman as Nigger.  Even my laptop did not want to type out that phrase.

Now I'm a white woman with a prosecutable Me-Too incident of my own-- a life-warping, hideous, morally reprehensible, humiliating disgrace I have never brought much to light because, as we women well know, the procedural justice process can double-indemnify the victim.  We are sole witness... testifier, prosecutor, injured party-- and we set ourselves up, in the legal system, for the pillory.  Ask Robert Mueller.  But the ethnic and massive cultural wrongs against a group of people brought here as captives-- against their will--- enslaved, mistreated, and then left-- misplaced, without tools and respect in a foreign country-- unable to go back to their homeland, deprived of comfort and dignity-- and identifiable and stigmatized by physical characteristics that were interpreted by status quo as 'less-than-equal'-- well, it's a disgrace beyond comprehension. For most of us in the current culture where Beyonce is American 'royalty'... Hip Hop dominates the music industry-- fashion-- this is not simple.

Maybe the largest lesson of the Trump presidency-- and I see it as a huge disgusting presidential finger in my face every day-- is the survival of racism.  It's still everywhere.. in spite... despite.
I grew up a relatively privileged little white girl in New York... I had an Irish nanny some of the time, but like most middle-class households in the 50's and 60's.. we had a black housekeeper.  I've written about her many times-- more than a caretaker, she took me to church, sang to me-- loved me in a way no white mother ever did... I used to pray I'd turn black and live with her.  I envied the kids in the projects-- they had a community-- they hung out summer nights playing ball wth friends-- they barbecued and every night seemed like a party.  It seemed so 'safe'.  Little did I understand.

I married a black man.  My first husband-- yes, he was kind of a rockstar.  I'd never dated or been intimate with anyone but white men-- and it was different-- the chemistry was undeniable and the ceremony was like a dare.  I was actually surprised not one member of my family showed up at the wedding.  My parents had seemed like liberal democrats... no, they had no black friends; the soft boundary between me and our housekeeper made my mother nervous, I could see that;  I never told when I went to hang in her 'hood.  And as an aside-- no one in her hood ever made me feel unwelcome or different.  She referred to me as 'My Aimesy' and I loved it.

Was I trying to prove something?  I was not.  I loved the guy.  I was disowned by my family.  They clearly and verbally pronounced that they had one less daughter-- the Princeton/Harvard daughter.  Why was I surprised?  This was bigotry and racism in my own little clan.  It was real.  Was it difficult?  It was.  Even in Harlem people looked at us funny.  He had dreadlocks then and that was not part of Northern American black culture.  We went on a car trip and people in rural New England yelled out their windows at us-- 'Bob Marley go home'.  My girlfriends asked me inappropriate clinical questions about physical traits and ignorant narratives.  I learned things.  Among his people I felt comfortable-- but it was clear they would have preferred dark skin.  We struggled with the normal marital difficulties of rock musicians touring-- separations and misunderstandings... there was no communication technology in those days... just a rotary telephone and letters.

In the end we divorced... yes, we are still very, very  good friends; I am godmother to his 'black' children with his black wife.  I next married a British journalist-- couldn't have been much whiter-- and he was a 'dog' of a husband-- a cheating, hard drinking rogue who never paid a ha'penny of child support.  In the end-- a white non-present baby-Daddy with ghetto behavior.  Do I have the right to talk about racism, bigotry, issues?  To draw conclusions? I do not.

My son who is white British-American might have preferred to have been born black.  He was immersed in basketball culture and Hip Hop from an early age.  He was an incredibly talented young athlete-- was recruited and acknowledged-- and once snapped at me that he had zero chance of becoming an NBA player because of his color.  Not true, but it was his teenaged truth; he was occasionally the only white boy in the better leagues.  His friends are racially diverse in a way that should be normal here in our country.  He was raised just a few blocks from Harlem, and I often walk the streets of my James Baldwin world, remembering and fathoming.  The idea of being a cultural icon in those difficult days, where incarceration and physical threat was a constant-- where inequality and injustice was so ingrained no black person could walk safely down his own street.  Where-- then as now-- white authority represented the biggest threat of all.  Life-stopping.

Last week in the rain I went to cash a check at my bank on 126th Street.  They insisted I remove my hoodie... for the cameras.  Me-- an old white lady.  I retorted I had a hole in my head that would make the customers wretch.   In the end, they let it go.  I showed my ID.    I don't know where this fits in, but it sits there on the pile of racial profiling nonsense we all walk among in this century.  If I'd been a young black man I would have kept my mouth shut-- or I might have given the security guard a reason to put me in a fatal chokehold.  I thought about this on the way out-- how I had the freedom to make a disrespectful quip at what I found a ridiculous and inappropriate request.  

Tension has lightened a bit in the 21st century, but it's still there.  It was still there Friday night when I walked uptown to buy groceries and a kid was shadowing me on the street for whatever reason.  I apologized, in my heart, but I crossed the street.  One hour later on my way back, he was handcuffed and bent against a cop car.  Was he guilty?  Was I guilty? Me and my stupid James Baldwin and my compulsive apologies and my love of blues and black men in white T-shirts...

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.

Je suis.

Several of my friends have criticized the fact that I have not substituted the 'Je Suis Charlie' logo for my profile photo.  Of course I am a supporter of freedom of speech, in all forms; it's just that I'm not sure I can truthfully substitute my allegiance for my identity.   I've always been fonder of the Descartesian 'Je pense, donc, je suis'.   I am really not Charlie; I am Writerless.  In English we say 'I am….'; the French actually say 'I call myself….'.  There's a difference.  Personally, I prefer to call myself a given name and to 'be' without the object.

Terrorism is irrational and unfathomable to me.  Violence in the name of religion is doubly absurd.  While I believe staunchly that everyone should be allowed to express themselves, to write things, to expose things, to disagree, to disbelieve--   I avoid offending the sensitive.  There are some issues--- religious, personal, whatever-- -that offend people.  I don't need to make fun of people who have no sense of humor, and I don't need to  hurt people who seem to be easily injured.

I'll never forget my own father telling me many years ago on the phone 'If you want to give me a birthday present, don't ever call me'.  I cringe if I telephone their house.  He hates me for something I'm sure I never did.  It's a form of personal discrimination I could never resolve; nor would I ever apologize or ask.  I definitely avoid ridiculing the guy; he was a war hero and I respect his right to resent me or dislike me or whatever it is.  Probably it's some form of shame that he's twisted into this vendetta, because I witnessed things I wasn't meant to, and like Charlie, I am unwilling to keep quiet or lie.  Nothing in life is more heinous than disguising a vicious truth.  I just don't draw cartoons that make fun of my father's flaws.  I do write poetry that he would never recognize.  His parental rejection informs my creative life in a way that liberates me.  I don't have an allegiance; I am free.

My friend has an art gallery.  She has a point of view and has struggled over the years, but she's on the brink of some huge success and suddenly she has hired a consultant to help her with her 'brand'.  All of this is so offensively absurd, not to mention that the consultant charges a massive fee to essentially take the unique POV which has taken years to develop and round the edges and file down the points so that it resembles something she can describe with other people's familiar adjectives.  This is to take her over the threshold of massive success and international 'presence' which essentially puts her in a contest with similarly branded entities and makes her eligible for a piece of the massive economic pie.  It's like people no longer have a dog; they have a breed.  Je suis Fido.

Last night I was reading a poetry collection on the way home.  It began with a section of new poems.  I had to keep looking back to make sure this was the poet I'd loved.  Then at about page 45, there was a poem about going home that took my breath away.  It was from 1981.  And another one--- same collection.  Every line was like a rocky beach that dug into the soles of your feet as you walked to the irresistible music of the waves breaking and the misty solitary horizon.  It made me cry, and wince, and fall in love with words.  Here was the poet … his 'je suis' moment… emerging-- crying out, writing as he was compelled, into sleepless nights, melancholy long afternoons, hungover mornings.  And as they progressed into the present, it was like looking back at some passionate love; they receded.  J'etais… whatever.  It was sad, because the guy has become sort of a brand-- for a poet, that is… a best-selling, award winning teacher and laureate.  But you knew that if he was a real poet, he knew, too.

Lately I've been lamenting the deaths of some older musicians.  Some of them were part of magical times that will never come back.  They were privileged to have emerged at a time when music was rare-- not the cheap, over-marketed commodity it became.  When a music store was a small shop that had a few old instruments and a bunch of eccentrics who hung out and traded records.  When the blues was something that grew out of a culture and a tradition and the pure need to sing and play your heartbreak and frustration like a religion.  Some of these guys I was privileged to meet--- some like Muddy had worked in cotton fields, had been the sons and grandsons of real slaves.  Their limbs were hard like the trunks of trees and their hands felt rough like bark.  They'd grown up in poverty, and you could feel the landscape of their roots.  Few of them could read let alone read music… they had old guitars and they played the shit out of them.  Each one sounded like himself.  Je suis John Lee.  Je suis Muddy.  That's who they were-- not their given name but the thing they became.  The thing that they were--- not a brand, not a style, not Eric or Joe or Kenny Wayne but Slim and Wolf and Bo and Mississippi.  By being themselves, they were larger than they ever could have been.  People can collect them, and imitate them, and take their names--- but they can't touch the original.  But they can receive, because the original goes on giving, if we will only receive.

So while we need to sympathize and love and support what is right, protest what is wrong and cruel, what is most important is that we tell the truth-- that we tell our own truth, and that we are not afraid to think for ourselves, and be ourselves, and while we march for our causes and other people's causes, we don't forget to see how hard it is for disabled people to get through a day, and how everyone is losing someone, and thousands of innocent Nigerians are being massacred, and we will not forget what came before, and who taught us these things, and we will go on and become ourselves, we will not take anyone else's thoughts or beliefs for granted, but we will become what we are.  We will let ourselves listen and look and think and feel, and we will not be deterred or deceived because nous ne sommes pas, but each of us… Je suis.