Undeservedly Underserved

The quest to get my autistic, nonverbal, pathologically sensory defensive child’s diseased teeth taken care of so he can be out of mind-reeling pain and safe from dangerous infection? Have we discussed this? It's been one clusterfuck after another and I can't remember where I left off. I’ll skip over the whole debacle back in the fall when we drove him an hour to Valhalla, NY, to their special needs dental clinic associated with Westchester Children’s Hospital.. Yes, we got our 6 foot 5, 310 lb gentle giant to fight past his monstrous fear of all places unfamiliar, especially medical, and sit in front of their dentist without trying to leave through the nearest window. Then we got said dentist to sign off on the fact that, yep, this child needs dentistry under general anesthesia and he seems to have a painful infection, so let’s get to it. Got him all set up for scheduling, paperwork and paperwork and paperwork, did a load of pre-op, then got told the surgeon in charge has decided to no longer take insurance for his services. Apparently, this particular practitioner is only available for special needs families who own yachts. But that’s in the past, we’ll let that go.  Better for my blood pressure. In the meantime, grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up. And if you don’t like cussing, maybe skip the rest of this.
 
The special needs clinic at Rose F. Kennedy Children’s Hospital in the Bronx (associated with Montefiore and Albert Einstein Hospitals) was our next stop, because a few weeks ago, a very nasty, golf-ball size abscess erupted near Calvin’s lower left canine tooth, and there was plenty of fever to boot. The staff there were great, they were even able to peek into his mouth a little. And he sat voluntarily in the chair under all those lights!!!!!  Holy smokes!!! But turns out they can't treat him at their facility because of his size. I don't entirely understand, but it's something about the safety of his breathing being ok while they do the procedure in their setting. They do IV sedation, and for a guy who's maybe 180-200 lbs and average height, what they do there is safe and fine. But Calvin is way bigger than that, and his neck is big, and he won't be easy and cooperative, so that place is a no go because they worry about his breathing. At some point I want to understand better what the anesthesia difference is, but it’s been too overwhelming to grasp so far. I guess it's not a traditional OR setting and that’s why it won’t be safe enough. And of course that’s all we needed to hear. We need it to be safe enough, full stop. So what’s next?
 
The fine professionals at Rose F. Kennedy referred us to another Montefiore dental clinic in the Bronx, promised we’d hear from this other office within a day, and indeed we did.  They set us up to come in within just a few days after our first trip to the Bronx.. The surgeon I spoke to told us to make sure he was fasting, because the plan was to get the problem tooth/teeth dealt with, then put him on the 6 month wait list for a whole dental workup where they do a full cleaning and scaling and anything else that needed to be done—which is what we would have been able to get done in Valhalla if that whole deal hadn’t gone South like Sherman.
 
So this past Friday, we got to the clinic on Kossuth Ave in the Bronx. This neighborhood is like Montifiore Central. Moses Hospital, Albert Einstein, the children’s hospitals, tons of medical offices, all Montefiore. So we get ourselves into a parking structure that's fairly close, traffic and getting around was predictably nightmarish, but fine, whatever, and we gave our boy a nice little walk around the Bronx (he did great, although it was fucking freezing), then finally got him up to the office for his appointment.  He waited on a line outside the office with us like a champ, not a peep out of him, no trying to escape. The staff makes sure to confirm he's been fasting (they should have been able to tell by the way he was looking at everybody like he was hallucinating them as a hamburger or hot dog like in the Bugs Bunny desert island cartoon), They got us into an examining room, he sat in the chair, nice as you please. A couple of oral surgeons do a great job tag teaming, each gently poking around in there and peering with flashlights and they can get the general idea that the molar right behind the left canine on the bottom is a problem (but may be saveable)  and probably caused the abscess. One doc was able to feel the top right side and could tell that tooth is a goner (that was the one that was  flaring up back in the fall when we started this whole nightmare scavenger hunt). 
 
So there’s our boy, heroically letting these people work with him, calmer than Mike or I felt, and I'm so proud of him, can’t even tell you. Then Nurse Judy came in, and she started raising concerns about whether they can get this done, though, because the general dentistry and the oral surgeons have to coordinate, and then the head honcho surgeon came in to evaluate, and before we knew it they were telling us there's no way they're rolling him into the OR and doing this today. After we were told we were coming in for a procedure. After we'd been making him fast all fucking day. It's like noon now. And we're now on our third 120-mile round trip excursion in our quest to get our child medical care he desperately needs and we’re still nowhere.. 
 
Mike got upset. REASONABLY upset. We both did. He started giving the head honcho doc a bit of an earful about the runaround we were getting, and he was absolutely right. I could see both points of view…head honcho didn’t want to wheel him into surgery without any pre-op work done if it wasn’t a life or death emergency, BUT, we should have been told that before we starved our kid and packed goddamn luggage because we’d also been told that maybe he’d need to be admitted depending on how things went. Was it that young docs made promises that old doc would not approve? Something was truly and rightly fucked.  I tried to keep everybody calm because I hate confrontation and I need to get over it. They keep reassuring us that they'll get him set up, pre-opped, in for his procedure asap, and they'll take great care of him. Which I'm sure they will. But wait, there's more.
 
I mentioned the area we were in is like a Montefiore Disney World, yes? So they told us, ok, you're scheduled for next Friday, 3/11, and here's what you do now (this is after they're all texting and emailing other segments of this machine to set this up). Go to 2400 Bainbridge Ave for an anesthesia consult, an ekg, and bloodwork. I informed them there's no way he'll allow an ekg, and they're like, ok, we get it, but we'll get the other stuff done. Great. Also great is that, like I mentioned, we were advised before we began this happy Friday adventure that Cal could possibly have to be admitted, so we had luggage, with tablets, and chargers, and toys to distract and soothe him. So there we are, trudging up and down blocks, freezing our asses off as I try to coax my phone to tell me where the fuck I’m supposed to go in a neighborhood I’d ne’er before even set foot in, while Mike and I flank and hold on to our giant son in case he decides to suddenly fake right, then bolt left to hijack a falafel truck, which I wouldn’t have blamed him for one little bit..
 
So we got to the address the nice doctor gave us, I guess it was the Moses main campus entrance, I don’t know, and it was like Grand Central station in there, we were screaming in masks to be heard, filling out covid forms, explaining why we're there, the people at the desk argued back and forth about where we were supposed to go for the lab and pre-op and anesthesia consult. We got sent to the wrong floor. We got sent to another floor where they told us, um, he's 16, he can't have this done here, it has to be at the children's hospital across the street at 3415 Bainbridge. So we're like, are you sure, because we literally just got handed a piece of paper from the referring doctor after he's emailed and texted and phoned the world about where to send us. Nope. Across the street with you.
 
Ok. Cal was getting hungry now (if you could have seen how he looked at that falafel truck), and while still totally cooperating with this fucking stupid death march around the Bronx, we could tell we might not be too far from a meltdown. But we got across the street, we got sent to the right floor, we did the bloodwork. Ah, the bloodwork. Two tiny phlebotomists, Mike, and me. Ever try to do bloodwork on the Incredible Hulk when the Incredible Hulk is in no mood for such shenanigans?  The tiny women were thankfully great at their part of the job, and Mike and I just sort of heaved our bodies over his in the blood chair and held him as best we could and somehow they got it done. And THIS time, I did not have to go to the ER because I kept my sternum away from his elbow. Fool me once…
 
Now for the anesthesia consult. Same building, the children’s hospital. MIght have even been the same floor, I forget. Beautiful anesthesiologist PA gives us a great consult, explains things, Cal let her listen to his heart. She showed us where he'll go for surgery and recovery, yippee skippy, we're done. Except, and this is fun news, we have to get him Covid swabbed on Tuesday (tomorrow) when we take him to the pediatrician for a pre-op consult (again...this may be the third one at this point, I don't even fucking know).
 
One more special detail, this is important because of a paragraph coming up fairly soon. One of the oral surgeons prescribed another course of antibiotics (Cal had finished the one he took when the golf-ball-sized abscess blew up in his mouth a couple weeks before) to make sure things don't go all sideways again. He made it a larger dose, cuz he’s a big kid and we want to be sure nothing festers. 
 
So that was it for Friday, home again home again, jiggedy jig, what a great day. Got the boy started on the new higher dose of amoxicillin, and called it a day. I might have drank all the vodka that evening, I don’t remember. 
 
Then we arrived at Saturday morning to find that Calvin was running a low-grade temp and seemed a little listless and not himself and then suddenly vomited an ocean of vomit all over the living room. We may need to throw out the couch. I’m pretty sure we should. He (blessedly) never pukes, and he doesn't know WTF is happening, so all we could do was get him safely finished up where he was, clean him up, etc.  I quickly spiralled into a full-blown anxiety attack in my head over whether he was in some severe infection mode, or having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic, or what. I was scared off my ass that something really bad was happening. But once he was all puked out and cleaned up, he didn't seem to be in any danger. Spoke to his pediatrician on call and she recommended reducing the dosage of the antibiotic to what it had been before, especially since it's prophylactic and he doesn't seem to have a bad active infection. Maybe the antibiotic was just too much and it had to come up, along with the rest of the gallons upon gallons of Mt. Vesuvius-like-lava substance that had been in his stomach.
 
[OR, maybe in one of the 85 petri-dish examining rooms we’d toured the day before, a wee bit of norovirus came home with us. Keep that in mind for later.]
 
Yeah, so panic had abated and Cal seems bleh but not dangerously so and no more puking. Which was great. Then, later that day, I got an email with his Montefiore MyChart and was happy to see that he's scheduled for surgery for the right day. Friday, March 11. HOWEVER THE ADDRESS IS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ADDRESS FROM ALL THE PLACES WE'VE ALREADY BEEN. It says 111 East 210th St., which, yes, is part of that compound of medical facilities, Moses Hospital to be exact, I suppose, but what the fuck? The beautiful lady at 3415 Bainbridge, the Children's Hospital part, said we'd be THERE. How the fuck are we supposed to know where to take him? I'm going to get a call (they say) on Thursday confirming anything, but at this point I have no faith that we will be sent to the right place, and he'll be fasting again, and it'll be a longer fast because we're scheduled for later, and I just can't, folks, I just can NOT. There won’t be a food truck in the God-Blessed borough of the Bronx, NY, that will be safe. Yeah, so stay tuned. We’ll be somewhere.
 
Ok, where am I, so then we had Sunday and I tried to screw my head back on straight for all the things we have to work out this week for "Operation Get Calvin Out of Pain and Constant Danger of Infection." BUT, guess what happened next. Sunday night into Monday morning, Mike Simon, unflagging and intrepid husband steadfastly marching us through every second of this motherfucking debacle, puked his guts up. And now it’s Monday, and there’s been more puking, and shaking, and chills, and during one of his vomiting sessions this morning something popped on his right side around his ribs, sending him into the kind of pain that makes your eyes roll back.
 
I am not fucking kidding you.
 
Urgent care thinks it's a pulled muscle, and he's not running a fever, but if he doesn't improve with a muscle relaxant (which he can't take until the anti-nausea meds kick in), I need to get him cat-scanned to make sure he doesn't have something flared up in there. And the odds of him being able to safely help me get Cal's nose swabbed tomorrow? Care to lay any bets?  The usual procedure is the nurses come to the car window, I sneak into the trunk of the SUV, Mike sits in the back seat next to him, I hear a bell go off in my head, and it’s Wrestlemania for as long as it takes.
 
I'm a lapsed Catholic, but we need all the help we can get, so if you need me, I’m in a corner somewhere, rocking back and forth, rosary beads flying through my fingers on a continuous loop, praying that my man and I are both are fit as fiddles on Friday. I'm superhydrating so that when I get this goddamn stomach bug (that I know we got from one of those goddamn germ casserole buildings we were hitting, door to door, like some kind of twisted, bizarro Halloween nightmare), I don’t end up attached to an IV pole while we’re taking care of business.
 
So that’s all the news that’s fit to print around here. Stay tuned to this channel for updates. Let me entertain you. Let me make you smile. 
 

“Well, I found the secret to life
I found the secret to life
I'm okay when everything is not okay.” - Tori Amos

Not a Word

I once used the word "veggies" in front of my grandfather. He cast aspersions on me for that transgression for about five full minutes. That's a long time to endure aspersions. 

"Jesus Christ, Trace, why did you say that, that's not even a goddamn word! People have to shorten things and make them cute, it's bullshit, it pisses me off." (Then there was grumble, pontificate, grumble a little more, vituperate, scoff, and then I slinked off sheepishly never to use a cute abbreviated form of anything in front of him again, so help me God.)

Perhaps that is why I am about to tell you something you all need to hear. Vaxx isn't a word. It's not a fucking word. (My grandfather was anti-f-word, I had to watch my filthy mouth around him, so he'd say it a different way, but bet your ass he agrees with me up there in heaven where, still, he knows everything and is always right.)

What is it then? What is vaxx? I will tell you. It's a clever buzzwordy way to denigrate, vulgarize, and dismiss a segment of the population as a bunch of hopeless, despicable creatures not fit to live. Oh, hold on, you have to throw the prefix "anti" in front of it to make it work...ahhh, see, now you get it.

And don't start with me. And don't mean-comment me, I'll just delete it, so fuck off with your hate. Because the truth is, I am not anti-immunization. I am very glad we don't have to die of diphtheria or tetanus anymore. It's good that we're not getting sterilized by mumps. I'm VERY happy that a bite from an angry, foamy mammal doesn't have to be a death sentence. If I, or anyone I love, ever needs a rabies shot, bring it on, please.

But.

I have found myself to be vaccine-cautious. I've developed an annoying tendency not to believe everything I'm told by a certain industry that is worth more money than a yacht-load of Bill Gateses. And because of that, just attaching my name to these words will likely make many of you point and laugh at me (at best), call me horrible names and wish to ruin me (at worst). 

Yet that's where we are. We aren't allowed to be vaccine-cautious. If combining too many too often on a tiny baby makes me nervous, tough shit. If I want to know why a newborn needs to get Hep B, I can go fuck myself. If I screw all my courage to the sticking point and ask why I can't get just a measles vaccine, or just a mumps vaccine, or just a rubella vaccine, or a tetanus shot without anything else riding along...well, I could probably be jailed for that question at this point. Because science.  (Um...what if I find some science that backs up my worries, may I ask about that? No, I may not? Mmm-k.)

So no worries. I'm not asking any questions anymore. I pretty much feel all my questions have been beaten out of me....and it started long before Covid. I have children who got certain shots in the early to mid aughts, and "things" happened. Just some "things." I've since learned that such "things" are all in my active imagination, I need to have something to blame, and wondering aloud about these "things" at all makes me bad, stupid, and dangerous, so I don't anymore. I truly don't. Call off the dogs, I've given up.

Oh, speaking of having given up, I'm fully Pfizer vaccinated (of course you can see my card) so that I can participate in society without wearing a scarlet A on my chest and being perceived a scourge upon humanity. And I feel great about it.

But let's get one thing straight, ok?  Call me an anti-vaxxer, to my face, go ahead, see what happens. 

It's not a word.

Encountering George

I need to write this one down before it gets away from me...and in case I'm ever called to testify in court about any of it.

I was in my front yard getting ready for my walk, getting earbuds adjusted, all that, and a boy happened by with his dog. The boy looked to be about ten years old, and the dog was pulling him hard. Couldn't really tell who was walking who, and she was one of those dogs who wants to say hello to everybody and won't take no for an answer. So the boy asked me if I like dogs. I told him that indeed I do. He replied, "She's friendly, her name is Star," and I proceeded to crouch down and say hi to Star, who was indeed very friendly, and I figured that would be the end of it. 

It was not.

"Are you going for a walk?" the boy asked, making a swirling motion with his hand, because we essentially live in a big circle, and I told him yes, that was my plan.

"Can I walk with you?"

What do you say? "Um, no thanks, I'm out here to get away from my own kids and listen to podcasts and get as many steps on my Fitbit as possible before I start my workday." That's what I wanted to say. But what kind of ten-year-old kid, walking his dog, wants to pal around with a middle-aged lady doing her power walk? I kind of wanted to find out. And it felt like it would've been really mean to say no.

My new friend, let's call him George, talked a blue streak and it wasn't easy to follow everything he was saying. It felt like a combination of things going on with George...perhaps some speech issues, maybe an autism spectrum issue, and definitely a "George's mind moves too fast for his mouth to keep up with his thoughts" issue. The information I got from George, as far as I can tell, included the following:

He's in fifth grade and lives with his dad in our development. I asked if he's lived here in our neighborhood long, and he told me, "No, I moved here in fourth grade because my mom can't handle me." 

When he told me tidbits like this about his life, it was very matter-of-factly. He was neither sad nor overly chipper, just conversational and friendly. He'll see his mom this weekend, she lives about a half hour away, and he'll also see his fourteen-year-old brother who lives with his mom. There's a cousin named Sally who lives with him and his dad, and his dad's girlfriend whose name is Gina. He has a six-year-old sister, I asked if she was in kindergarten, he replied he's not sure, he hasn't seen her in a long time. 

There was also a story I couldn't quite follow about him being in the QuickCheck and "someone" phoned Gina about him...he kept repeating "someone" with air quotes..."someone" phoned Gina and then Gina was there at QuickCheck asking if he was ok, if he was safe. Not sure what all that meant.  Of course I have theories. Did "someone" leave him alone in QuickCheck and ditch? And maybe that's why "someone" phoned Gina and that's why he's living here now with Gina and his dad?  The more gentle, friendly, nonchalant questions I asked, the more confusing and complex George's life was starting to appear, and I wasn't sure how much more I wanted to know, or should know. I did get his full name. Seemed like a good idea.  

I've definitely never met anyone quite like George. He was too likable for me to be too annoyed about him hijacking my power walk. So was Star, who kept on having to take breaks to stop and catch her breath on the hills. George voiced his concerns about people in various homes he could point to who are having parties that they shouldn't have because of coronavirus. And he talked about not being sure about if he'll get to go do sixth grade in the middle school next year because of coronavirus. 

George and Star know where I live now. Not sure how I feel about that. But damn if it just didn't seem like a person who wanted to walk with and talk to another human being, in a friendly sort of way, and there I was. There could be the "special needs" vibe thing happening...more times than I can count there've been children I've never met before in my life who've almost knocked me over to hug me around the knees for dear life in public places, or try to sit next to me in restaurants, or take my hand in Walmart or Target or CVS...maybe some of us just give off a "this one's safe to be around" signal and certain kids pick up on it. Or maybe George is just an old chatty fellow in a ten-year-old's body and saw a fellow life form willing to talk to him and jumped at the chance. He mentioned that some nice person in one of the homes here in the neighborhood gave him a Gatorade and he hopes he gets to see her again.

I guess we're living in a world where people like George may be really really lonely for human contact. George used to get on a school bus and spend the day and interact with so many people. Now he's home an awful lot more than he's used to...but when he goes out to take a walk with Star, there are people he can talk to and it looks to me like he's not the type to squander any such opportunity.

Anyway, stay tuned. I feel like I haven't seen the last of George. I might wear a small backpack with an extra Gatorade in there next time I go walking. 

You never know.

This Is Where We Are Right Now

So sometime last week, husband mentions ordering something off of Amazon—just talking generally.

I go, “What’d ya order?”

He goes, “I’m not telling you,” with a little bit of attitude, emphasis on the YOU, like I’m not allowed to know about it.

I look at him blankly.

He goes on to say, “Yeah, you know, there’s this holiday that’s coming up in a few days...”

I continue to look at him blankly, but now I’m wracking my brain trying to figure it out. I was born April first, is that here again already? There's no lit-up tree in the corner...how long was I asleep for...have I Rip Van Winkled my way into late March 2021? Or Christmas?  What the actual FUCK?

I had NO BLOODY IDEA WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT.

And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why my family could have gotten out of Mother’s Day this year.

I mean, I have NEVER been so “what the fuck” in my life as I am right now. And I have been “what the fuck” many, many, many a time. Yesterday, honest to God, I was trying to decide whether it was Thursday or Monday. I’m serious. (It was neither, by the way.)

“Doesn’t matter,” you say, but it does. It DOES. Trash goes to the curb Monday night, recycling on Thursday night. Still happening. (Just thought you might need a comforting little reminder that there’s still a civilization, kind of.)

And my very large, brawny 14-year-old-son likes to run around completely naked, any day, any season, so I must bid you a civil adieu pretty soon and tend to that. He doesn't understand how many years ago that stopped being adorable, and also, he does not care. One thing about autism, or at least Calvin's kind of autism...no body image issues WHATSOEVER. Free as a bird. Calvin’s 16-year-old sister, Grace, on the other hand, would gladly lead a campaign to have her beloved brother neutered so she doesn’t have to spend so much time averting her gaze and washing her eyes.

“Pants on, Calvin. PANTS ON!!!!”

You’re likely to hear that uttered, muttered, or screamed at any time of any day around here. Naked knows no calendar.

Maybe we should all be naked. There are protesters that want to end the quarantine. Here’s an idea. Protest naked. There are about 3 or 4 humans on the planet that anybody would want to see naked. The rest of us, no-ho-ho. Bet that would do the trick. “Jesus Christ, put your clothes back on and YES you can go back into Starbuck’s. For the love of God, COVER THAT UP!”

And this is where we are right now. At least here in my head. You can come in if you like, but it can get wild in here. Maybe show up naked...if you're a dude whose last name happens to be Hemsworth...otherwise Friday casual is fine...

It's Nice Out...

I've decided it's time to resurrect Everloving Mess, the blog. I don't know what happened. I just sort of abandoned her. She's been calling me back. So here we are.

We're in, I don't know, day three million and two of the coronavirus quarantine, nobody knows what day it is, or time it is, and nobody cares. I sometimes put Baileys into my first coffee of the day and think nothing of it. And such is life.

But today. OH TODAY. So far we've had a spring that hasn't known what it wants to be, but today, oh GLORY, today! It's sixty-something degrees. The sun is drenching us with his molten heat like a lover returned from the war, and the breeze...I can't even talk about it...it can blow all it wants to and you're never too warm or too cold. You could lie down in the grass and die and be totally hunky dory about it.

Well, can't waste that kind of day, can we? It was coming into noontime, I took a look at Calvin and I said, "Buddy, we are going outside to play. Shoes and socks, let's go."

"Shoes and socks" is Calvin's way of telling us he wants to get the fuck out of the house for crying out loud, so that's the only prompt he needed. He was into it and good to go.

So off we went, across the road of our townhouse complex, and into the playground. It was empty, so no worries about having to play keep away from the other kids on the jungle gym. A few neighbors were walking dogs and had stopped to have a socially distanced chat. Every now and then the breeze wafted their conversation to me, it was something about how they like to work out. I liked the fact that people were talking to each other about their lives, out in the most perfect day imaginable. 

Oftentimes when I take Calvin to the playground, I get a little bored, I want to read a book or play a stupid game or watch Netflix on my phone, but not today. Nope. Felt too good to bask in the sunlight. It felt good to watch my boy and wonder about all the things he was thinking but can't tell me out loud. I was enjoying watching him spin his bright grass-green ribbon, making perfect spirals like some kind of perpetual motion machine; he loves to do that. Every now and then he'd stop the twirling and look up to see what the bird sounds were all about. Sometimes he'd stop and just look like he was drinking the wind. 

By and by he wandered over to the swings. All the swings had big mud puddles under them, and he was eyeing the situation a little disconcertedly. I told him, "Sweetie, no worries, I don't care if you get dirty, swing on the swings if you want to." And so he did. He loves the swings. I do too. 

That's when I looked down for a sec. I wanted to check out the pictures and videos I'd been taking....seeing about which ones I should share with my people to show them this perfect day...inspire them to come out and drink the wind and soak up the sun like we were doing. It was maybe two Mississippis. When I looked back up again after those two Mississippis, I saw that Calvin had kicked off his shoes and socks and was merrily kicking at the mud puddles with exuberant abandon. Two seconds, that's all it took. Oh well, I sighed. It's just good, clean dirt. Not going to dampen my mood. I went and gathered up the shoes and socks and let him have his way, swinging up into the sky, kicking at the filthy muddy water every time he splashed down to earth, soaking his pants from the hem to over his knee. Who cares. It's a beautiful day. How long have we waited for a day like this. Two million and three days, that's how long.

Sooner or later, the boy was done with swinging and made his way over to the jungle gym--one of those typical newfangled plastic things with the slides and the different ways to climb onto it and plenty of room just to sit and hang out on the little platforms at varying levels. Cal likes to make that thing his own, and on a day like today, having it all to himself, he was a happy camper. He settled himself on the edge of one of the platforms, got his bright green ribbon going, swirling and swirling, reminding me of DNA helixes, getting a little hypnotic to watch...so much so that I must have closed my eyes for a few seconds. It was so nice where I was. There's a gazebo in the middle of the park, and I was sitting on the little concrete floor on the outside perimeter of the thing. Didn't want to be in the shade, not on a day like today. So I sat there, like a happy kid on a porch stoop on the first perfect day of the year, and let myself drift. For a few seconds, though. Not for long. I have a fourteen-year-old autistic, nonverbal boy to look after who has at least 6 inches and about a hundred pounds on me, so it's not like I took a nap or anything. Just closed my eyes for a brief moment, breathed in the day, let out a contented sigh, opened my eyes....

And proceeded to shoot across the green, green grass of that playground between the gazebo and the jungle gym so fast that I KNOW it looked like a special effect from an episode of The Flash. I don't run to get out of the rain, but right then, right there, I  was Jessie fucking Owens. 

Because when I opened my eyes and directed my gaze to my beloved boy, there he was, COMPLETELY NAKED FROM THE WAIST DOWN. No pants. No underwear. Nothing between his adult-sized man genitals and the beautiful beautiful day but a gentle spring breeze.

Yep. My boy, All six foot something, 240-plus pounds of him. Hanging brain in the bright sunlight--swinging pipe in front of God and all the world. (In case you're wondering if we'll be on the news...probably not...someone up there doesn't totally hate me, there were no witnesses other than the birds of the air and some creatures that creepeth upon the earth...squirrels and whatnot).

His pants were wet, you see. From the mud puddle. He doesn't like the way that feels. I should have thought of that. And when the pants come off, well, the underpants just kind of go along with sometimes, now, don't they?

Jesus Christ on a Bicycle. 

My Uncle Dan used to like to say, "It's nice out...I think I'll leave it out."  I'm willing to bet his spirit was delightedly whispering just that very phrase into his great-nephew's ear, just to see what would happen.

So ended our idyllic trip to the playground, on day two million and three of the quarantine, first perfect day in forever, worthy of Adam and Eve before the fall.

And me with no fig leaf.

How To Do This

Let's face it. Our hearts are in tatters. How do we handle it?

Seriously, I'm asking. I'll take any ideas. I'll work through a few here, but I'm open to suggestions.

I have this picture of us like we're crawling along the snowy ground like the soldiers at Valley Forge, clothes reduced to rags, spirits all but crushed, in danger of losing the thread. That frayed, barely there thread that connects us to...everything real and true and right and worth living and dying for.

I rarely get this melodramatic these days, but these are melodramatic days. I mean, honest to god, I woke up this morning out of a dream that I was a player in a Shakespearean masterpiece, just one of the zillions of men and women merely players.. Felt real as this chair I'm sitting on, costumes and all, iambic pentameter, the whole nine.

I'm not here to talk about the president because I'm too sick of him for words and it gets us nowhere. I'm here to talk about us, because we're all we have, and we're the ones that are going to save us. No great exalted savior rising up to take the reins and make it all go away. Just us, here on the ground.

Here's what I do, you could try this. 

I smile at people. If I'm out at CVS and someone is walking out as I'm walking in, I smile at him, at her. If you're not one to usually do this, and you try it, you might be surprised to see the look of slow delight that comes over someone's face as they smile back. Anyone can do this.

I also joke with people in check-out lines. Check-out lines can be insufferable. People get homicidal in check-out lines. Everybody hates being there. But there's always something funny to touch on. Often it's a tabloid headline. "Oh look! The Queen of England is pregnant with quintuplets!" Before you know it you have a gaggle of people giggling with you. The last time this happened, my 13-year-old daughter was with me, and when we got out to the car she told me, with a sweet grin, "Mommy, you're so cute, you have best friends wherever you go." 

This was the highest praise anyone has ever given me. And for those of you who knew my grandmother, Rosemary Foley Baker, you know where I got it from. I didn't come into the world knowing how to do that. And I haven't been good at it my whole adult life. And I'm not good at it every day. But I work at it, because of what she taught me by being who she was, by doing things like bounding off a 500 mile train trip, 4 hours late because the train had "uncoupled," with stories of a dozen new friends she knew by name. To this day I remember two of them were Tyrone and Randy and they were "real dolls."

I'm perhaps the whitest of white folks you ever will see. Maybe you are too. But I have friends, loved ones, who aren't. I bet you do too. They may fall within the confines of the groups that some psychopaths think don't have a right to be. When I see them, run into to them by surprise in town, or meet up for coffee, we hug. One of my best friends wears a head scarf, I see the wary side glances she gets, I know what some people think of her. When I see her, I hug her tight and kiss her cheek, because I love her...but don't think I don't mean to send a message. This woman is MY friend, MY sister, I dare you to fuck with her. She belongs here as much as I do, as much as you do, make no fucking mistake about it. 

One night when my husband was away I fell down the stairs getting my son a drink, just before dawn, and thought I'd broken my back. Guess what friend came flying to my house at my distress call, got me into an ambulance, made sure both my kids stayed safe and cared for, including my autistic nonverbal one...oh by the way, two out of her three kids at home are autistic too, but still, there she was, so anxious to get to me that she'd forgotten all about her scarf, just raced out the door to get to me, her friend who was in trouble. That's what real Muslims are like, in case anyone was wondering.

We live in a world where a hug, a kiss, a smile for chrissakes, can be an open act of rebellion against hatred. And that's tragic in a sense. But it's also an opportunity. She's not alone, my friend who wears hijab. She's got me, and I'm not the only one she's got.  And your guy-friends who are couples, or girl-friends who are couples, the ones married to each other, or engaged, or dating, and having the nerve to exchange loving looks and/or gestures in public, or (gasp, god forbid) hold hands, they're not alone either. They have you, and me, and legions of others. 

And the Mexican migrant workers in line with me at the bank to cash their checks. Guess what, they're not invisible ghosts-drones. If you know a little Spanish, look what happens to their faces when you compliment them on their adorable kids in your broken, insufficient Spanish, or offer a tissue to the one with the runny nose. It takes a millisecond for the shock to wear off, the shock that a white person has noticed they they're people too, and the smiles come, and the warmth comes, and they even compliment your lousy Spanish because you tried. Their English is a lot better than your Spanish, but at least you tried.

And I may be a lily white girl, but guess what. I have a disabled child. A mentally disabled child. One of the brightest lights this world will ever see, he is. Don't think I don't know what Nazis would do to him. Don't think I don't know. We all know. Do you love someone with a disability? Do you think they're safe from the insanity we saw go down in Charlottesville last Saturday? If we want them to be safe, it's up to us to keep them safe. To keep all the groups they target safe, groups that any of us could fall into, at any time. And that means coming together, as one body, and affirming the following, without exception:

We are all the same. Exactly. The. Same. The ones who act like assholes, and the ones who don't. The ones who root for your baseball team, and the ones who don't (it took a lot for me to admit that one). The ones who have hardly any melanin in their skin, and the ones who have lots. The ones who are descended from slaves, and the ones who are descended from the monsters who were the enslavers. The ones who grew into sexual feelings for people with different kinds of private parts or the same kinds of private parts. The ones who think the Messiah came already, and the ones who are still waiting, and the ones who don't give a shit. People who were born within someone's arbitrary borders, and people who were not. People who think the government should stay the hell out of their business and people who want the government all up in their grill (p.s. there's seriously no difference, at the top of the real pyramid of power they're just using us all as cannon fodder to hurl at each other, wise up.) 

Particles and/or waves, blinking in and out, mostly the space in between...that's all any of us are, and by some unfathomable miracle we get to be alive. Not just alive, conscious. Conscious!  What are the odds???? And so what do we do, notice fake differences between your wave/particles and my wave/particles and kill each other over them? Well that's pretty fucking stupid.

We can do this. I have faith that we can do this.

Keep the faith. And let's do this.

I love you.

T

Soldiering On

Anyone familiar with the Schrodinger's cat thought experiment will understand why I didn't want to sneak any looks at the election results when I woke up at 3:30 this morning. No matter how dire it looked at 10:30 p.m. when I unplugged from all electronics, as long as I kept not checking, the state of the union was either a Trump presidency or a Clinton presidency. Either/or was better than finding out it was Trump.

But sooner or later, you have to look in the box, and...yep, seriously dead cat. 

I haven't had a gut-wringing, soul-drenching cry in a while, so that was overdue. I needed to get it out of my system before the kids could wake up and see me. It's only 5:00 a.m. now, and I'm cool, so that's done.

So now what?

I'll tell you now what.

What I'm going to do...what all of us who wish things had gone differently are going to do...is this: 

We're going to do that thing that Michelle Obama told us to do. Her words weren't for nothing.

Go high.

Do I want to spend the next several months wearing a T-shirt that says "I didn't vote for him" so I can look Muslims and people of color and women and Hispanics and the LGBT community and disabled people and war veterans in the eye? Yes, I do. But that's not really an option either. Go high. That's what I can do. That's what we all can do.

I can kick ass and take names regarding all the things I have in front of me, all the things that are my job. Taking loving care of myself, my man, my babies, my home, my family, my friends...that's what I can do. The outcome of an election can't take that away from me or from you. If anything, it can galvanize me, and you. To be great. Not again, but as we've always been, whether or not we've had the wherewithal to notice.

I have the wherewithal to notice. I'm great, not again but still, and so are you.

Love you.

- T