The Little Words Mean the Most

Where Rainbows End

 

Aging in America

Simone and I got career-busy decades ago.

 

Simone and I got career-busy decades ago.

Over time we pretty much stopped cooking. AND there is chef-made gourmet takeout 20 minutes away by car. On the menu, for instance? Cajun-braised wild-caught salmon and roasted sweet potatoes. In the refrigerator. Coming soon to our plates.

Our rationale: in our 70s, taking no real pleasure from cooking if not for friends — but quite familiar with 1- to 3-star Michelin-rated restaurants in France — we are at least richly supporting a local small business. And they know us by name. That's nice. Local friends we once cooked for, they faded; once we could no longer help them nor their offspring.

 

 

Dad drove

 

Dad drove.

         Superbly, thanks to many unforgiving experiences during World War II. He'd dodged German ambushes and land mines. Across France and Belgium, he'd grimly gripped the at-all-costs steering wheel of America's legendary Red Ball Express, delivering supplies to anti-fascist front-line troops. Diving into the trenches with his rifle when needs must.

------

in my tomb, my cell, my deliverance, our turquoise mammoth Pontiac > I saw this sign:

      Next Exit: Hellfire Forever.

The trees bent down.

         Take me. I am ready to disappear.

The trees beside that New Hampshire highway that day, as dad and I headed north, those pure trees bent down and pointed at me. They said that day....

This really happened to me: Sap-stiff northern pines along this highway suddenly and sharply bent down ... to point @ me, through my greasy window. They pointed @ trembling me in that turquoise car with their hundreds of disapproving tippy-tops, like fingers.

         For miles (it's New Hampshire, after all).

         For miles (it's New Hampshire, after all).

         For miles (it's New Hampshire, after all).

         This happened.

         This really happened ... to me.

         In my head. That day.

         Miles and miles and miles of treetops pointed at me and announced as we passed:

         "You're evil."

         Yeah, they did. I was there.

 

 

It Got Worse Suddenly When trees J'Accuse Puberty dawned

 

 

You remember, right? Hair suddenly emerged in your crotch?

         My chin was bare. But in my shorts I wore a five o'clock shadow. It grew and then twirled like a manured field. And damn did it itch! What a calamity. For a summer, I hosted Mardi Gras in my pants. The center of my world shifted down.

         This was my middle passage. Did you sail once, too? Since then, I've harbored doubts ... about my character and moral worth; grave doubts, reviewing certain incidents, these odd things I did; incidents I dearly wish I could completely and forever forget. "Uh? I did that? Fuck!" No. This is your penance, night and morning,

         Yeah: some of this is Catholic stuff: echoes, leftovers; reheating. (Dear Rome: your behavioral brain-washing worked!) Not all, though: some of it was just me. I behaved a certain way.

 

 

My biggest trauma pre-puberty was a parental misunderstanding.

 

Misunderstandings launch a million melodramas. This was a classic.

         Because in the nearest small city, at age 10, short and sharp-eyed, I walked with my head down > I found stuff. I found dropped stuff.

         The routine: I got out of my trumpet lesson at 4 PM. The medical theory: blowing a horn might help me overcome thorn-bush asthma; doctors agreed: couldn't hurt. Mom left her office at 5 PM. Then we rode the bus home together, sharing a fat seat. That bus ride wasn't life. It was love: her and me.

         So I had an hour to kill. I walked the blocks with my head down.

         And this autumn day I found five wet dollars, maybe 10? Some big amount of currency in the gutter, mixed into fallen leaves. I proudly brought my newfound fortune to mom, at her office. She was the head bookkeeper at a daily newspaper.

 

      and yet but

        

   Mom didn't believe I'd found the cash I eagerly, proudly handed over. My beloved, perfumed, sainted, fierce and girdled mom assumed I'd stolen the money from a five-and-dime cash register while some gulled clerk wasn't looking.

 

      Mom was firmly convinced.

        

When we got off the bus at our house, 45 minutes later, she immediately sat me down in our tiny over-stuffed, wall-papered living room ... and interrogated me.

         Then she threatened me, over and over. She intended to drag me from cash register to cash register, through that department store, until my mother found out who was missing this money I'd stolen/"found."

         Dad looked on, supporting his wife. If sister Alice (Tootsie) was around, she was gloating and sympathetic. No blame, by the way ~ I would have done the same for her: gloat, then sympathize long, long, long after.

------

Mom was wrong. I had found the money in the gutter. I didn't steal it.

 

      yet but and

        

An organ, some compass, died inside me.

         Mom's disbelief in me cauterized nerves, too.

         Faith in parents? I don't know where that went; to the dump? A few jars of personal empathy spoiled that day. I used to be so much better at empathy. So I thought; another self-delusion?

         The child-rearing guru of my mom's day was Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock. His 1946 Baby and Child Care became the second-best-selling book of that time, after the Bible. He spoke to the Boom just as it boomed. Mom read him. Don't know what he had to say about such situations: "Your son finds lost money in a city gutter ... or so he claims. What is your best move?"

She didn't make good on her threat. I was not dragged through a department store next day.

Here's what DID happen:

         Mom unwittingly murdered part of me that evening. Something never came back: that small part of me that was sweet and trusting and loving. That small hoping-for part of me disappeared that night, into that customary wallpaper; into our cramped living room; my, me steamed, demeaned out. I was now excluded.

         Trauma isn't a moment. It's not a screen door slamming; the crack of a baseball bat hitting the perfect home run.

         Trauma is a lifetime of response. When mom killed herself less than 10 years later: I was devastated. Yet I also remembered that night she reduced me to nothing worth living....

 

 

What matters

 

Simone became an official adult during America's "women's rights" movement; 60s-70s.

         By 2001, she'd established herself as a consultant to nonprofits, specializing in fundraising and governance. That same year, she co-founded, as a volunteer, the RI Women's Fund (WFRI); inspired by a group she'd worked with in Tucson, AZ.

         The RI Women's Fund aimed to help local women attain public office, among other things. The founding board was exclusively female; thick with proven political heavyweights; stridently diverse.

         Ultimately, did it make any huge difference in any specific election? It didn't hurt. The RI Women's Fund surveyed, polled, wondered ... and issued scorching reports. It trained grassroots candidates. It lobbied. It challenged. In its early years, rabble-rousers mobbed to join: the annual RI Women's Fund gathering was volcanic.

------

Here's what's worth knowing: change can happen; sooner than you might expect.

         What WFRI learned in its early days: female representation "only" needs to constitute a third of any legislative body (your general assembly; your parliament; your what have you). Good global research by the Women's Fund of RI found that "a third" was the magic tipping point.

         Are you listening? We're talking MAGIC.

         You don't need 50/50 gender representation. Once a third or more of your legislators are female, global research found, the agenda quickly shifted. It moved from male preoccupations ("If we had a big-enough cross-bow, could we wound the man in the moon?") to issues more daily and humane: universal daycare for working moms and such; early childhood education; a living wage; a healthy future.

         In 2001, RI's state legislature was 31% female — just shy of that "magic third." The percentage even went into a bit of a swoon for a while, in the years following 9/11. But by 2018, 38% of RI's legislature was female. And in 2014 Rhode Island elected its first female governor; in 2021, she became America's new Secretary of Commerce.

         And so times change, step by step by push by shove by people who commit: the original RI Women's Fund among them.

 

Simone Joyaux > originated RI Women's Fund > & that Fund's founding board was stellar

 

> MISSION:

 

... to help local women seek statewide office.

 

> OK: In 2014 RI elected its 1st female governor.

> OK: In 2021, she became Secretary of Commerce U.S. under Biden

> Thanx, EXCLUSIVELY, to the Women's Fund? Get serious....

 

> NO!!! But a pipeline fills...

 

... Getting elected is about

what's between your ears. Not about other stuff....

 

When you try to count the raindrops

 

you hear

tinfoil rain

cat scratch rain

sand through your hand rain

runnels of rubber roofing nails

drowning rain

rice rain

cranberries rain

snare banging rain

monkey paw rain

rainy rain rain

 

and you hope it never stops

 

 

2020, January: A Year Ago

 

A sweet volunteer gives me a self-sticking VISITOR badge. Please follow me. January in New England. I stick the badge on my LL Bean puffy coat. Which I shed because suddenly I'm hot.

My gentle volunteer leads me though the maze of an overtaxed urban hospital; he'll be a doctor himself in a decade. He introduces me to Jeff, the upbeat ER nurse overseeing Simone.

@ 1 PM, I'm holding Sim One's hand. She's in and out.

A young doctor with dark red hair arrives; there's another nurse and an X-ray technician. Doctor asks me to wait outside for a few minutes. I disappear. The ER entry is full of uniforms: EMTs, fire fighters, police, hospital staff. No place to rest your eyes. Patients moan on gurneys.

---

Then the tests are done. I have her hand again. Nothing to it; might as well be a latex mitten. Simone's in a lofty, windowless room with lots of equipment jammed in; charming as an oil-change garage. It's all business. And busy. She's on a drip. Small, clear pearls of pain relief shuttle down the tubing. Things simplify. Beautify. Headache? Jeff says she's on something called a "migraine cocktail." It's a "try everything, see what happens, adjust" cocktail.

I'm in the corner where they drop the mop. Us: a couple. The patient with her other. Without super powers. The patient pees a lot. I'm just there to nod. Spousal unit; there, to sign forms as needed.

 

 

 

Modern medicine

 

Modern medicine.

         I'm amazed repeatedly.

         Had the privilege of interviewing a pediatric heart surgeon: a long-distance runner since college, he successfully fixed a newborn's heart; a heart no larger than my adult thumbnail; a heart the size of a "be my valentine" drugstore candy. He made that heart whole and healthy.

         Had the privilege of interviewing a unique (on earth) research physician, daughter of an Italian paint manufacturer (her dad coated winning Ferraris, when paint mattered to victory). She'd cured Bubble Boy, a child born without an immune system (neither his family nor his friends dare touch him ... until her complicated, unpleasant cure; now, let's go sledding!). That was just the beginning of her miracles.

         Miracles walk the earth all the time. If you don't keep up with science, you wouldn't know that (certain asshole politicians you can probably name without a second thought hope/pray you're that ignorant).

         But science has surrounded the modern world.

         With real-world "saints."