A Touch-Base Blog. A Ramble.

What a big pot of steaming, vitriolic poo this year has been in so many ways! The garbage and vileness, the debasement, the gore seems to gurgle up infinitely from everywhere. If you’ve ever been to Yellowstone or in any other part of the earth where hot, steaming, gurgling poisonous materials come to the surface of the earth, in a stench you can barely take, hot and lethal - you’ll get the very picture of what our world is like today... 

I don’t even think it has to do with one country or another. Sure, there are better and worse places you can be in - but as a whole, even the so-called “good people”, the people on the “right side of history” - even those ... have their blame and their contribution to the current state of the world ... 

There are people literally fighting with their bare chests for their freedom and their lives - and those are the people who are put down and made fun of. The other people, no, not just the aggressors, but the other people, sitting on the sidelines are judging and pointing and laughing and masquerading as political gurus and protectors of freedom. But they are all but actionless. ... Sickness to my stomach sometimes ... 

The world has not yet learned that demonizing the opposition does only one thing: burns the fire under their feet hotter and makes their revenge that much more gruesome. No, I am not saying we should sleep with the enemy, as it were, but we should dang-well make a better effort to understand how they have come so far as to rule the order of things. We should shut up for a minute and listen. And learn. 

It’s a game (their game)  that we (the “good” people) know nothing about. A new game with new rules. But blinded by our rage we fail to learn what the rules are. Cutting our nose to spite our face in the process ... 

Because of where and how I grew up, I know that humans against the system rarely renders humans the victors. Most often than not, the system wins, albeit for only a period of time. I still hope for heroes and wish that people would actually honor their oath. Because so many of them aren’t, right now. But life is seldom fair, and this time is one of those times where fairness has become in dire short supply. 

I decided that I am too small and too powerless to make a significant difference in turning the world on its head to make it “normal” again. I decided a long time ago that I am not of the heroic or patriotic persuasion. I know this of myself and I don’t see it as a failing. 

So, if your people didn’t win, and if you’re a little person with no power to make a difference, your only weapon is to conserve your energy and try to stay sane. You at least owe it to yourself to survive, however you can. To survive and help your kin survive too. 

So, I do what the communists taught us to do: stay low, for a lowered head is rarely severed, and try to protect your own identity. Only staying whole and true to yourself will you weather the storms. This is my full-time focus instead, because this is the only thing I can control. I try to be kind to myself and mine, and to whoever comes in contact with me. I am scared and bloody-knuckled at the end of every day, but I try to build a survival kit for us, too. It’s all I can do to stay sane or preserve some semblance of sanity. I am grabbing tight to those sharp, stoney shores while the torrents are trying to rip my arms off and carry me away ...   

But this does not want to be a political blog. This is just a  “touch-base” blog on our lives, for those who normally keep up with those things ... 

It’s been a busy year for us already, which is amazing given that half of the world would tell you that two middle-aged childless people have absolutely nothing to show for themselves ... Well, anyone can walk a half mile in any of our shoes and they’ll want their lives back, I am sure of it ... It’s perfectly OK. I would not want anyone’s life, either. 

Despite the crazy world stage and the fear of traveling anywhere, despite the fear of maybe never seeing our families abroad or of never seeing them alive or the fear of never coming back home if we venture outside the borders ... life still goes on, as it must. We find things that keep us going and keep us engaged and attentive. 

It’s been a hard year on every level - material, historical, familial, professional, global, emotional - but it’s also been a good year, too ... The blessings are many. I am still not sure if this blog will get posted, or  erased, or would render me in jail, but for now, I am going to post it. To do that - that is a gift. I am not sure if it’ll last, but when are we ever in the business of believing that anything is forever? 

We have learned to be more focused, live more in the moment, and we have learned to help more if and where and how we can. I help my family, my family’s friends, and I keep people who matter close to me. I can only hope they, too, can keep their inner circles close and healthy and so, one circle at a time, we could all become a more empathetic and healthier, and stronger, and less poisonous community. 

There are so many god-awful things in this world of ours that we have no way of changing. None. No power. No means. No reach. But what we can do, we should do. And little by little, the interconnectedness of us all will amount to something better. It must. Do two rights make a wrong? I ponder ... If there is any hope left in the world, maybe not. And there is always hope, we are told. 

We are moved by the belief that what we are witnessing is not new. It’s just humans being human. And they’ve always done this. In some shape or form and intensity, this is the human world in action. It’s just more prominent now as it seems particularly more “everywhere”. It’s not just one country or one group of people - it is everyone. And with the amazing communication we have nowadays (thanks, technology!), it’s in our faces a lot more often than ever before - and being visual is what makes it more gruesome, more real. More “there”. 

I am trying so hard to establish a healthier routine for consuming the news. I try (it is so hard, I won’t lie because my brain’s been re-path-ed already and I am old - so re-learning is not easy) to re-train myself on what to do with my time - not to pick up the phone and start scrolling.

I read three sources or so (four if you count a Romanian one) of news. Because I do want to keep up with the news to see how our lives are changing with the world (faster than ever, and not for the good, I would say). But I try to avoid social media as much as I can - because I am poisoned by everyone’s bias and opinion about the news ... I want the facts alone and I want my brain bandwidth to make up its own bias. 

I avoid Facebook but I am still there every day. I find that Instagram is a lot less poisonous. And I love pictures. So that helps. I absolutely hate memes (yes, “hate” is the right word) because some people stop there with their education. This is unfortunate and does no one any service. 

I try to write more and read more, and more consequential stuff. I subscribe to things that keep my focus captive for longer, more complex thought. Yes, it takes longer but my brain feels so much better and I feel a lot less hateful at the end of the day. 

We go to museums and book launches. We go to concerts and speaking engagements and learn. Kids, I am here to tell you that you will never in fact stop learning. And you should never even consider it. When you do consider it, consider your life over, too. 

We take weekend trips and long walks. It’s an old, rusty, moldy, decrepit cliche that nature nurtures the soul. But truly: there is something restorative in a walk in nature. We take advantage of the freedoms we do have for now - and we believe that there are no guarantees for tomorrow. We recharge to be ready, physically, emotionally, mentally, for what might come ... 

We’re planning for a long and once-in-a-lifetime adventure, and we pray that our years-long plans for this won’t be foiled. But, again ... there are no guarantees. We lead with hope and try to have patience. And still, even in this rotten world, where a big, steaming turd seems to be handed to us every day, we look forward to the good plans we work so hard to keep together. 

I am so incredibly grateful for my family who keeps us sane. We talk, we cry, we laugh, we despair together. And we take time to celebrate the wins! The health, the peaceful days around us, the beauty of our shared children, the beauty and strangeness of the seasons. We take lots of pictures - of good and bad. We want to hold on to the moments we do have, so we document. One day, they might serve as history to someone. 

We are our loudest cheerleaders and that’s OK. As people are more and more self-absorbed and guarded, or reprehensibly vitriolic, we shelter within our own selves, like snails. Waiting for the storms to pass. They might not stop during our lifetime, but we hope to be deep inside, taking care of our own and still breathing. We hope. 

Cardinals have visited us way too often lately. They usually tell me that something bad will happen but that in the end it will all be OK. So, as we all sit on this powder keg of a world, we heed the advice of the cardinals and we wait. 

There is this belief inside me that moves me every day which is made up of some simple truths that give me energy and reason to wake up in the morning.

They go like this: 

What we are witnessing is not new; we are stronger than we think, if only we’d shut up and listen to ourselves; we are deeply human, and deeply flawed - we will never win or lose the war in one battle; there is work to be done; start with the person next to you and do well by them, even when that person is yourself; smile to rejuvenate the brain; it will help you when it’s at peace, and not when it’s at war with itself; think before you do; drink coffee; smell the air after the rain, or even after a forest fire. See the difference. 

These are some of the simple, unarguable truths that move me every day. And yes, I still stray and I get lost - or else I would not be human. But I try to be back at it the next day. And I hold the candle of hope that it will all end well. One day, hopefully with me as a witness ... 

Our guardians, our hope ...

No, You Are Not Welcome, 2024!

I have always hated leap years! With a passion ... 

They roll in like an unruly teenager, full of pluck and insolence, trashing your house, your car, and emptying out your bank account before they take off into the sunset never to be found with your whole life in shambles behind!  There is no reasoning with them and nothing to do but step aside, let the damage unfold and hope it passes. Because you know, we are told that everything has an ending. Even the tragedies ... 

2024 was much like all the other leap years that have passed over me. Maybe it’s because it’s the most recent, but this one really left a mark! I feel exhausted and totally uninterested in what is next, if you can believe it ... Me, the nosiest, most curious person you know - couldn't care less about what comes next! Because this year has taught me: “don’t ever ask: what else?!” - because to you that’s a rhetorical question, but to life, that’s a challenge! 

This has been a year spent under the watchful eye of the cardinals, announcer of bad news but promise holders of happy endings, too. They greeted us every morning in our back yard and bid us 'good night' almost every evening.
At one point, a whole Vatican of cardinals flew over our heads during one of our walks, and then we knew we were going to be in for an interesting one ... 

In a (large) nutshell, this is about as well as I’d summarize this year (and you’d need a long drink if you dare be here for the whole thing): 

In January, mom collapsed alone, in our home in Romania, and was in a coma for some number of days ... We had family and friends gather around her to care for her around the clock after that. The ER doctor wrote to us that she can never be left alone for the remainder of her days.  

In February, mom collapsed to her second coma, this time with a very severe case of sepsis. Her doctor urged us to come back to Romania, because she was not sure she would come out of it. But mom is like a cat with about 10,000 lives so she did come out of it. Damaged, and weak, never to be herself again, but she survived it. 

March gutted me! It asked me to make the hardest decision I have made in my entire 49 years of life. It was time to find a place for mom. Even if the family lived with her, we were urged that her mental state and her health is too precarious to be at home. 

You know those idyllic commercials for “A place for mom”? They are all a bogus bunch of nonsense! No place, no matter how polished and advertised in slow motion with plenty of light and smiles is ever as good, as loving, as safe as you would want it to be for those you love. It was like someone was pulling my heart out of my chest with no anesthesia and promising me this is for the best reasons and it’ll be good! I didn’t see it. I never saw it. And for me to make this decision the week of Mother’s Day, it was just cruel! I kept asking why? What have I done? Who have I wronged to be asked to make this decision for the woman who gave her all to have me ...?

As my personal life was in this much turmoil, the world was stewing with bad news, as well. March was the month that reinstated Putin (after a rigged election) as the president of Russia - all while the world shuddered, and all but a feeble reminder of what we’re headed towards! 

In April, I tried really hard to start some semblance of a healing process ... I came back home after the hardest, most cruel month in Romania and I looked for ways to lick my wounds and heal ... We went up North to be with my sister for my birthday. Watching the total solar eclipse together put some things into perspective: when something makes you feel that small, you realize your woes are only infinitesimal on the firmament of life and the universe ... Aa. and I then headed South, to Florida, to learn more about how to advocate for Homozygous FH - the genetic disease that both my parents so generously gave to me and my sister ... I learned of new ways to help the world live with this sometimes invisible and cruel disease. You know what a smart man once said: when everything falls apart around you, look for the helpers ... I try to do that: be a helper to whomever might need me ... 

The solar eclipse on April 8, 2024 - Montreal, QC

May continued with this year’s streak of pain: mom was rushed into the ER for the third or maybe fourth time this year (in five months!). This time with pleurisy. This on top of her lung cancer and COPD, of course ... May was a touch-and-go month for her - several visits to the hospital for lung fluid punctures, a tooth infection and more complications ... The little bit of diversion we had here (a trip to the mountains on Memorial Day weekend) was always accompanied by long all-night calls with Romania to coordinate mom’s care and with my sister who was there for Easter, trying to be there for her in spirit while she handled mom on the ground through the ups and downs... 

The world continued to boil over, as the prime minister of Slovakia was assassinated in May. Trump is formally convicted of a crime the same month - the first former president to do so. In May, we also lost the Greensboro News and Record’s building, the place where Aa. and I met in 2007 - as it was torn down by bulldozers in Greensboro, NC. There is nothing that reminds you how transitory we all are more than watching something once standing proud as a beacon of truth turn to rubble. 

June was another touch and go month for mom. She went to the hospital for a week to undergo a procedure for her lungs that would hopefully prevent her from ever building up fluid again. We spoke every day, as we normally do ... and she begged us daily to take her out of the hospital - but it was not possible ... A few weeks after being released she had to be rushed into ER again because her operation stitches had become infected. How’s that for adding insult to injury?! With every painful breath she takes, I feel a pang of pain in my side. But I must keep going. For me, for my family, for her. 

July seemed that we were well enough to try to sneak in a bit of a bright spot, as we took some time for ourselves: we flew to Chicago (my first time) and then we visited with Aa.’s mom for July 4th in Michigan . But then, shortly after we came home, while we were at a baseball game in Greensboro, NC, then former president Trump is shot in the head, in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. About 5 days after that the world is back to normal, with the story barely in the headlines anymore. Whatever your stance on the matter or the person shot here, what kind of a world do we live in where an assassination attempt is just normal?! The whole event made me feel dirty for being human, really! 

The timeless Chicago and its "Bean"

President Biden announces he is stepping down from the race to the White House in the fall and is making room for Kamala Harris to replace him. This is also in July, 4 months before the elections. I don’t think this country has ever been more divided and thrown into confusion before as it is now - but of course I was not here for The Civil War and for the 60’s ... It’s like: just when you thought you got your balance this year, here’s another punch in the gut! 

And even worse news came from people much closer to my heart: my best friend’s mom dies at 70 from complications of lung disease. The streak of sadness would not let up this year, I figured, by this point ... But I stopped counting a long time before then ...

August came roaring with another piece of bad news from home: my only aunt also moved into an assisted living home after making the decision that she can no longer care for herself either ... On the backdrop of my family just falling apart this year, I didn’t want to be anywhere for my sister’s birthday in August but with her. So, we surprised her with the only surprise I have been known to successfully accomplish in my life when we showed up at a restaurant in Boston for her birthday dinner ... Everyone that knows me knows that 1. I hate surprises and 2. I am just about the most predictable person you’ll ever meet. For me to pull this one off successfully was an accomplishment of a lifetime. But we needed each other, my sister and I ... She gave me some much needed strength for my April birthday when I got to go up there and spend it with her, that I just wanted to give her that gift in return. I hope she felt the same as I did in April ... 

The JFK Library in Boston, MA

September was another bleak month. One of my sister’s best friends from work passes incredibly young with two small children after a short and cruel battle with cancer. My former philosophy teacher dies in his 70’s from many complications from a stroke he had over a year before. My aunt is sent to the ER from the assisted living facility with respiratory block caused by her heart condition. 

On this backdrop, I fly to Romania to spend mom’s 71st birthday with her. Her birthday was a bright spot during that trip, as she got to come out of the place she is in and have lunch at her favorite restaurant. As I was trying to leave my home town, at night, the Tarom (Romanian airline) could not find my ticket for the flight out of there. I was livid. Their own app showed the confirmed ticket, the app where I bought the ticket showed it, too, but the check-in agent said a passenger by my name does not exist on his flight and the flight was full so they could not just give me a seat. Huge scare, but averted because they had ONE person NOT show up so after check-in was closed, they snuck me in at the insistence of my uncle who is a retired Tarom official. Glad that the universal “knowing people in the right places” still works sometimes. Also in September, Trump manages to survive another assassination plot - this time averted with no shots fired. September also brings unprecedented weather to North Carolina, too, and absolutely trashes the West (yes, not the ocean-front East) part of the state, the mountains, after the passing of Hurricane Helene. 

And just because pain gets lonely and needs injury for companionship, I test positive for Covid in October. Yes, folks, this is still something real and this is still going around! North Korea ships 10,000 troops to fight in the Russia war in Ukraine, while the US lifts all restrictions on how the Ukrainians can use the arms and ammunition that they bought from America. I am not even brave enough to imagine what kind of world we would wake up to the following morning - every morning ... This feels like the ultimate straw. Except it is not ... 

On a personal level, I meet with a new vascular surgeon for an update on my abdominal aorta and he pretty much waves me off that I am OK, when the CT scan he ordered and never reads shows the status of my aortic stenoses is worsening. I am used to medical doors slamming in my face, but it’s especially hurtful when you know the situation is worse ... The fight continues, I can tell you that much! 

We all know what November brought at a national and even international level ... It brought a new (old) president to the US for the next four years. Everyone I know is mad or sad about this - regardless of what side of the fence they both stubbornly hug! Some people are mad at the result, some people are mad at the loss of identity of one party, some people are mad because they lost friends and even broken up families in the process. The vitriol and hatred continues to boil as the world seems to  continue to not figure this out at all, but instead, to dig us all into a deeper grave. 

My mom’s last living aunt was hospitalized (she is 86) with a ruptured large intestine in November, as well,  and has been very slowly healing with several complications for over a month now. She is now bed-ridden and without a clear future yet. 

To get away from it all, Aa. and I decide to take a bucket-list trip to follow the sites of the Twin Peaks series in the Pacific Northwest. It was a trip much like a Lynch movie: part mystery, part dream, and all real ... I need a whole book to document this as one paragraph would not do it justice. 

My happy place: Kiana Lodge in Washington State - filming location for Twin Peaks

The pay-back for having a breather came when we got back, when we had a small cancer scare that ended up being benign right here, in our home ... But sigh of relief on this one for now! Then, also in November, the same out-of-control political nightmare that threw America into chaos earlier in the month repeated the feat in the Romanian elections. Foreign interference, social media manipulation, and all other means of political corruption thwarted an otherwise free election to cause it to be canceled by the Constitutional Court - an unprecedented event in Romanian history. But this is how leap years roll, I tell ya! Remember 2020?! 

December rolled in with a bang. Quite literally, when the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was assassinated in New York. It feels some days like this country sees only two solutions for every problem anymore: a lawyer, or a gun. Nothing besides or in-between. 

Aa.’s closest friend’s wife spent most of this month in the hospital between this world and the next one (including during her birthday), and another one of my best friends broke her leg in New York at the end of November. This left both these women out of commission at this time of the year - either in bed or in a wheelchair ... Pain and sickness is emotionally contagious, so we cry and mourn and suffer with those we love, here and far ... And always, always feel helpless. 

All of late fall, early winter has been peppered with more international instability and bad news: from the war in Israel that’s spilling into several other Middle Eastern countries, to the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, to the second collapse of the French government and the turmoil of Canada, and of course, through the long, bloody, and painful war in Ukraine which is next door to my other “home” - miles from my home town in fact ... it feels like this Titanic is flooded and going down fast ... 

And now, as I write this, I am getting ready for my third trip this year to Romania to be with mom, my aunt, and briefly with my sister and nephews for a few days ... I am even scared to put that foot down outside my front door and start this journey, but life has always taught me that hiding is how evil wins! So onward is the only way ... 

This was the least productive year for me, literary-wise ... I felt no desire to write, no reason to do it, it all seemed useless and futile. I also probably read the least, because I cannot focus enough to go through a book. Not really ... 

There have been some (not many, but a couple or five) bright spots this year that made the going easier, at times - and for that I am so grateful, of course ... 

Despite the sadness and the back-paddling, besides the aging and the sense of loss, this is also the year when we saw Bob Dylan and Alanis Morrisette. The year that I followed in the footsteps of David Lynch, one of my brilliant guiding minds. As technology and science are still advancing, this was a year of partaking more of their new offerings for a better, more efficient life; the year when I finally found a more stable (albeit painfully expensive) cure for my HoFH (the only thing that ever truly worked for me - a new once a month infusion called Evkeeza thanks to medical discoveries). I am grateful that the world still innovates despite all the calls to the contrary. Or maybe it does because of it ... 

It was the year I saw a full, total solar eclipse, the Aurora Borealis and a comet - all in the span for 3-4 months. The year I saw the most architecturally beautiful city that I have ever seen (Chicago) and the year I met up with a long-lost friend from way back in high school that happens to live in the Pacific Northwest. Through some kind of a blessing, he and his wife were available to meet us on our Twin Peaks tour. I don’t like surprises, but this was one of my favorites, to be sure.

Above the clouds: Mount Rainier, WA - challenging us to always reach higher

Unrelated to the leap year, as I get older, I am finding out with every year that I have fewer and fewer friends ... Especially in times like these, where you feel like you’re barely hovering over the abyss, I have felt most of my “friends” drift away. I am sure everyone is busy handling their own tragedies, perhaps, so I am not too bitter about that. But it does get quieter and quieter in the friends zone for us ... I have no judgement to add. It’s an observation, and nothing besides. 

The people we did get to see and spend time with this year, whether in good times or bad, were God-sends. They made the journey more manageable by sharing the load. For that I am forever grateful. Even those we cared for in sickness and even those who had sadness of their own were a welcome balm, to be able to share their sorrow as much as they shared ours ... To them all, I owe the lessons I have learned and the energy that I have to keep going ...

Everything does have an ending and so will this wretched year. Good or bad, much more sad and painful than light and joyful for sure, it is part of my life. Like any link in the chain - the whole life would not make sense without it in it. I am changed. I am morphed into whoever this new person is now. I feel in my body like I am still 10, but in my heart and my mind, I feel 120. Don’t even dare look in the mirror ... Most days I am scared of what stares back at me - this scared mouse, afraid for her and her loved ones’ life, with only a glimmer of what used to be hope in her eyes. I am not too convinced the actual hope is indeed still there most days ... 

But ... at the end ... we don’t want evil and sadness and death to win. At the end, as long as there is breath, we move on ... At the end - always remember: tragedies are not endless ...

Now for the next year, the only promise I am making is this: I will work the hardest and the most diligently that I have ever worked to see that there is a next year and a next 50, even. 

Happy new one, all! I hope we all meet again after the threshold - braver, stronger, and readier ... 

(Photo from the Londolozi reserve - South Africa)

Birthday Blues

I am 47 today.

In the words of Anne Lamott, born tomorrow, an Aries who has been put on this planet just to remind me who I want to be when I finally grow up, “God, what a world. What a heartbreaking, terrifying freak show.”

I open the news every morning and I cringe, I shrivell in a little tiny ball, ready to crawl back into bed and not ever open my eyes again. There are people torn apart  by bombs, ethnical cleansing in Africa and Asia, and who knows where else. I had coworkers who grew up in Venezuela and told me stories about putting mattresses in the windows to shelter them from bullets. I read about women raped and submitted into bondage every second of every day, by the hundreds and thousands. A new book that just came out proclaims that we’re raising now “The Trayvon Martin generation: a generation of kids who face death every day. Kids who know about death before they start living.” How do you start your day and keep finding purpose with this?! 

We have white supremacy and terrorism at home. Forget fighting terror against America. Whatever happened to fighting terror right here, at home. Terror from our next door neighbor, our kids, our teachers. We have people smacking flight attendants for doing their jobs. We have kids hitting teachers in school with little more of a consequence than a slap on the wrist or a shrug. We have world leaders primitively and cruelly fighting just like we’re in the Middle Ages right in the middle of Europe. William Wallace of Scotland would be amazed how little we've come since his time. We have NATO and the EU, we have UNESCO and UNICEF and the UN; and we also have Putin. 

I have three friends fighting breast and head cancers. My own mother has been battling cancer for five years and she’s going and going and going - with what energy, I do not know. 

I have friends who sleep in high-rise basements and metro stations in Ukraine to shelter from the constant bombings, because they could not escape the country - no one wanted to allow them to stay with two dogs. I have friends who have loved ones in Ukraine who might be  stuck there - because they put off leaving thinking they’re enough away from the capital and they'd be safe; now they might not be able to escape because there are no roads left. Because they are not safe, even far away from the capital. 

I have coworkers in Armenia who are sheltering Russians running away from oppression. In our daily meetings we start with things that they need to be able to put these people up - things like pillows and blankets. They talk about the hatred the Russians see abroad, the way they can’t use their credit cards and how they cannot get jobs because no one hires Russians in Europe, at large, or in the former Soviet republics. Everyone forgets that they ran away from the same things we're sanctioning their leaders for.

A friend’s mom, from work, went to the hospital to treat a foot infection with a small surgery. She died of cancer (which she didn’t know she had) three weeks later. My family members, my loved ones are coming out of Covid and we don’t know quite yet what this means in the long run for them. I have friends from work who are battling long Covid and some who have 30 year olds in their families on dialysis for life because of long Covid. 30! And the CDC tells us we can unmask, the numbers look better. 

We have no current vaccine that fights the current variants. We have no treatment for Covid. Much of the world is not boosted yet. Some have never been vaccinated. They said in the news that the continent of Africa will not be all vaccinated till 2028! 2028, people! But Covid is over. Unmask! Unmask on planes! Half of the US Congress seems sick with it right now, but unmask away, I guess. They are 30! With 3 little kids under the age of 10. They were the only income earner in the house but now they are on dialysis and in need of a kidney all because of this stupid, unfair, unrelentless, smart virus we’re (still!) dealing with. (Sorry, not sorry, CDC!)

I adopted an older cat with a history. I wanted to do some good. I wanted to give someone who is hopeless some hope. It turns out she is sick. She will be forever sick and need constant care and medication just to survive. 

My husband went to the doctor the other day with a toothache. He came home after a “small surgery”. When is this pain going to stop? The cutting? The bleeding and all ... This world is breaking my heart. Chipping away at it every second. 

I woke up this morning, on my birthday, to go to a memorial for a dear colleague, another plucky Aries woman who made a difference in the world of journalism who I was lucky to work with a decade ago. Another one of those that came into this world to show me who I want to be when I grow up. We talked about death and God and how peaceful death is. And mostly we talked about life. Her life and what she left behind for others. It woke me up. It was truly the perfect birthday present, considering this world today and the crass awareness we all live in. 

I wake up every day and read the news and honestly, I am not sure where to start walking. I have hope that Elon Musk will find some ways for us to live on other planets, because I don’t think there is a safe place here. (Yes, I am only half joking here). I have two citizenships and I want neither one, truly. The human condition is no longer a safe place. 

Yeah, the world around me is pretty grim right now ... and has been for a while ... 

And yet, today, on my birthday, I feel very strongly that I made out like a bandit in this life. 

I am sheltered and there are no bombs flying over my head. For now, although close, there are no bombs flying over my family’s heads in Europe, either. I have had the good fortune to choose who I married. Twice. I have had the good fortune and blessing to be able to get a divorce and leave an abusive marriage. To make that choice, when millions of women can’t. How lucky is that? I am reading a memoir by Madeleine Albright right now. One of her daughters is an international lawyer whose one of her first customers was a grandmother of 26 years of age. Just let that sink in for a minute. A grandmother. At 26. 

I have been able to get an education. As a woman, I have been able to choose where I went to school and do something I loved. I can read. I can write and I can speak two languages. I can write this blog and I am not scared they will lock me up. I just want to cry with joy for all this! 

I have been able to travel on four continents and learn from other cultures how to look at this life through the kaleidoscope of possibilities and not just through one lens. How lucky is that, you tell me?! 

I live every day with so much love and understanding, so much respect and peace at home that it makes me choke up. I am so blessed and so lucky I feel grossly guilty! 

I have a hearth full of birthday cards staring back at me now. And my cat just sat down, leaning painfully into me with a sigh. Best present I can think of yet.

I have managed to see 47 years of age when everyone has been telling me for 39 of them that I will never make it past 25, and after I made it to 26, that I'd never make it much longer ... There is a blessing bestowed on me that keeps showering  me with bliss.

The reason I am not crawling back in bed after reading news or emails or Facebook posts every morning is because we're supposed to stay in the pain. We're supposed to go through hell, and let it hurt us, and let it change us. This is how we change, and how we grow, and how we learn, and how we get to come out on the other end stronger, and more complete, and maybe, just maybe, even better.

I am 47 and feel like going on 90. I swapped my reading glasses all around the house today (I went from 2.00 to 2.75 in a hurry!), I feel old and slow, but I am still here - and old or not, I am still living my life and trying to keep fulfilling the purpose I was put on this planet for. I hope I know what that is. But like I found from my friend’s memorial today, they might realize what it was when I am gone. And that would be OK. As long as that purpose is fulfilled. 

Also in the words of Anne Lamott: “I have warm socks and feet to put in them”. Today, in this cold, unfriendly, deserted day, the 9th day of April, and the 99th day of the year 2022, I am infinitely grateful for this! 

We drove past a billboard today that read “Hope is not canceled”, and I felt a twinkle in my eye. Hope is never canceled. I’ll live to that thought! 

Where Are We Now? After 20 Years.

Random thoughts on the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks ... 

20 years ago today I was in my parents’ kitchen in Romania, watching with stopped breath and open mouth the horrors of the 9-11 attacks. I lived in the US at the time but I was on vacation for two weeks, visiting my family in Romania. I had climbed to the top of one of the Towers less than two years earlier and when I saw that plane hit it all I could think about was how massive a number of people that meant would be dead! You knew when you saw those sky-scrapers how many thousands of people it housed. I could not imagine what would happen to them now. When the buildings collapsed, the unknown faces of those thousands of people kept playing in front of my eyes like a morbid slideshow. Unstoppable. Horrific.

Another thing hit close to home for me: when I watched the towers collapse, the anchors repeated the names of the flights that had been hijacked and they kept saying that the flights had taken off from the  Dulles airport in DC. I realized that that was the airport where my flight to Europe had taken off only days earlier. I had chills down my spine: I was in the same airport as those terrorists! Oh, God! Could that have been me on those planes? Everyone who has ever flown could have related to that fear but especially those, like me, who were in-between planes at that time, knowing full-well, they’d have to brave another flight to make it home.

Lots of people died that day – at The Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, too, but for some reason the collapse of those two towers is what stopped the hearts and the breathing of an entire planet! As you watched the images on TV  of people jumping out of the windows of The Twin Towers towards their sure death, repeatedly, ad nauseam, you could feel how every soul of the world was looking for someone else’s hand to clutch, for someone, anyone, to hug, to ensure they are not alone and not abandoned in that vacuum of sheer pain. You could feel that everyone who had any heart left felt the same horror and the same grief, and the same anger as you felt. This was the togetherness people are talking about now, that we should be awaken to … the togetherness that we all need, as humans, as compassionate beings when times get tough.

I remember as if it were yesterday my first two thoughts after watching the events unfold: first, I was thinking that the US will never allow me to get back to my home which at the time was Greensboro, NC. I was not a citizen yet. I had gotten my temporary Green Card just the year before, so I was for sure not going to be allowed in the country – the announcements that the US does not allow anyone but citizens to return to the US was made by many  US Embassies in many countries including in Romania  almost immediately after the attacks. I remember this scared me terribly as moving to America was my life-long dream. My husband was in the US and my new life, the way I had built it. My hopes for the future were all here, in the US. I was terrified this one act of terrorism would kill my future for me, my life-long work and would ground me in Romania.

The second thought was “oh, man, America will first get together and pray after this. That’s what they do: they first, pray. But man, after that, they will be pissed! They will crush whoever did this. I feel sorry for them.” We did not know right from the beginning who had done this. I was sure, though, this was another country, another power, not the US. I knew a war would be coming but never in my worst dreams did I think that war would span for the next 20 years! I knew whatever war was coming would be brutal, given the 20^th century’s advancement in arms, and I feared what that’ll do to the world and to each of us, individually. I was wondering if we would be able to travel freely anymore, if I would be able to come back to Romania and see my family there, in the future, if America was going to wage war on … whoever did this … and involve other powers in this war as well?!

America did pray right after September 11. Country-wide vigils and charity concerts abounded. Charity to 9-11 victims sprouted everywhere. People looked up to the heroes of 9-11. Everyone swore they would never forget.

Giuliani, the Mayor of New York at the time of the attacks, became “America’s Mayor.” For all his faults, lies, and illegalities, for all of his Republicanism, my liberal friends loved him and touted his accomplishments and how he brought the city, the first responders together and what an incredibly great job he did handling the aftermath of this tragedy. How can you handle it, really?! But that, he did. After that, it seemed like we, as a people, were not divided in camps, anymore – albeit very briefly. The lines that separated us because of different political views, different tax views and views on how one should handle the economy and what it means to be patriotic faded. We were all thinking as Americans, together in one common thought: “who did this to us? They would pay dearly. Let’s hold out hands together and pray for those that we lost. Let’s be together. It hurts less when we’re holding hands.” – it looked as if we were saying …

As I was in Romania, my US friends, coworkers, and relatives flooded me with messages of “come back home, safely”, “how are you?”, “what do people say there?” (meaning in Europe, in Romania). I never felt alone. I was with one half of my family, my blood half, but my other half, the one I had chosen for myself, was hailing back, not forgetting me, from across The Pond. For all our differences, we were all one. And I am sure that what brought us together was not our true belief that all of a sudden Giuliani was  a nice guy and Bush stopped being an idiot overnight, but  that need for togetherness in front of horror, that need for holding another’s hand to cross the dark pit left in front of us by those planes going down. That simple, human, vulnerability, unaccounted for by much fanfare or glamor, but our simpleness as humans that needed to be held …

I have always believed that what sets Americans apart from many other nations is their individualism – their obsession with themselves, their lack of awareness that they are not alone in the world, that the consequence of their actions affects others. But during those days, I saw an America where people stopped for just a minute and started to be aware of their neighbor’s pain, of their neighbor’s loss, of their ability to help or be compassionate. All because it could have happened to any of us.

The US did allow me to get back – they opened the borders for US citizens and Green-Card holders alike in the following days. I remember boarding my flight from Germany at the time and military American personnel with automatic guns were supervising the boarding. They made us empty all of our carryon bags, and even questioned whether we were hiding explosives in our (film) cameras, they body-searched us (a first of many, many others to come), and questioned us for hours before they allowed everyone to board. It was terrifying and reassuring at the same time.

But it was then, in Germany, only about 10 days or so from September 11, when the American individualism showed itself again: people were frustrated and angry that they were being searched. How dare they think I’m a terrorist?! Completely missing the point! Although there were American soldiers flanking the departure gate, although a United Airlines flight (the same airline whose planes had been hijacked 10 days earlier!) was waiting at the gate, Americans were upset that they are treated as if they were terrorists. To me, this was reassuring. To everyone else, it was an infringement to their freedom, forgetting that what the military was protecting was precisely that freedom.

Ever since, I wonder: when we do say we come together in times of crisis, do we really come together, or do we say that as some sort of a slogan that just sounds well; as some sort of generic statement that we know sounds good, but which does not truly come from the heart?!

And do we really come ever together, despite all cost to us? Or do we come together when and if it’s convenient to us? When it’s not infringing on our freedom?! Is patriotism not a selfless display of altruism? A complete abandon of the “I” in favor of protecting the “many”?

20 years later today, people all over the internet are saying we need to remember how we came together then. We need to remember how, despite all of our differences, we all have a common goal – that of being free, protected, and that of ensuring we all live in peace. This is all true. But do we even really believe that we can strive for that common goal anymore?

I have felt so defeated and so alone in the past few years, the whole country growing angrier, and more violent, more inconsiderate, more careless, and more disconnected, that I really don’t see how we could ever think of the other selflessly, and purposefully taking our own person from the equation. What’s worse: I don’t think we can even acknowledge another’s merits, when we see them as different in any way than us. I feel like the first thing we do nowadays is look for differences between us and not commonalities.

Some folks are saying today that they pray that we can see again our togetherness from 20 years ago before another tragedy happens to remind us how we can be all one and be there for one another. But has that tragedy not already happened? Have the past 5 and 2 years (and before that, even!) not been anything but an ongoing tragedy, and open wound, bleeding, for all of us, and we still, don’t see one another?! More than 650,000 people died of Covid alone in the past year and a half. Add to those people who died of hate crimes in the past few years, people who died in wildfires and hurricanes, people who died from hunger and lack of medicine because of lack of healthcare, just to name a few … Those are infinitely more (possibly preventable) deaths than the ones we saw at 9-11.

When the cameras are off and the social media sleeps (does it ever?) and we’re not trying to fit in with the rest of the world by saying what everyone says (“we’re in this together”, “we’re one”, etc), when we dive deep into our heart, do we ever really feel like we did then, when we watched the towers collapse for the first time: do we feel in the dark for another hand to clutch on? For another person to be close to us so we can share the grief? Or do we stubbornly believe that “I” is enough in this mad world?

I believe we too often forget that grief hurts the same whether you’re this nationality or another, of this political belief or of another. Grief sees no color, no sex, no culture, no age, no country … Somehow, we have become blind to that.

What elevates us as humans, what we all (should) seek now more than ever is that simple, heartfelt, visceral togetherness of not being alone in the face of grief, horror, and pain. What brings us together is that first instinctual thought of “oh, God, can that be me out there?”  - that is where true compassion springs from (“Do onto others as you would have them do unto you …”): that however dark a tragedy is, it could happen to any of us. So, step with care …

Can we find that now deep, deep into our souls? Not because it sounds good or it looks good under a hashtag, but because we truly filter the tragedies of the world through our hearts and we know how it would feel if it were us?! Can we do it?! Or are we too shallow and clueless in our ivory towers to allow us to even ask these questions anymore?!

I am not trying to belittle the 9-11-2001 attacks. Saying they were horrid, unnatural, and mind-stopping is an understatement. But what I am trying to say is: we should pay attention to our every day and just re-learn to be human again, the very same way we were so painfully reminded that we are human on that dark day in history.

I hope humanity is not completely lost and I hope that one day soon we would wake it before all is lost. Because this is the only thing that might get us through the pain that is here now.