Hope on the Horizon

How is it that I, a proud pessimist, have the slightest tinge of hope for America’s future? Mostly because tens of thousands of people are marching peacefully, here and abroad, against obvious and entrenched racial injustice—day after day after day. Military leaders balk at treating peaceful protesters as the enemy. Pressure builds for the powers that be to address that injustice. And inroads are being made.

Statues honoring slaveholders and Confederate leaders are being removed, from the American South as far away as England. NASCAR and the military are retiring the Confederate battle flag, which is a symbol promoting segregation. Police departments are banning chokeholds and no-knock warrants, encouraging police to monitor each other’s compliance with new standards, and having their budgets redistributed away from military weapons and training towards supporting their communities for better health, education, and prosperity. For example, there is a movement to stop armed police from responding to situations that really call for community mediation, mental health professionals, or social workers.

I like to think that the triple blows of the pandemic, economic collapse, and social unrest have so undermined America’s unfounded belief in our strength and exceptionalism that increasing numbers of us are willing to acknowledge that we are flawed and need to change.

If Mitt Romney can march and chant “Black Lives Matter,” maybe we can hope that others will locate their moral compass and their backbone, and will be open to constructive change.

A Strange Contentment

A Strange Contentment

My emotions have been a mystery to me for most of my life. This usually bothers me only when they’re uncomfortable, because I want to understand how I’m feeling so I can do something to make myself feel better. Without that insight, I cultivate responses that can help me regardless of the specifics, usually distraction or self-comfort.

I recently noticed that my good feelings are often equally mysterious. I get this ripple of something pleasant in my chest, and notice it with baffled appreciation. I try to remember what preceded the ripple and inspect it for clues about its cause.

Sometimes I’ve just paused one activity, taken a deep breath, and turned to something else. Sometimes I’ve just figured something out or accomplished something. 

Sometimes I have a sense that my digestion is working smoothly, for a change, and my internal chemistry is in a relatively good state. Lately, I’ve been noticing this pleasant 

ripple of feeling when I get up from the throne, which also suggests a happy digestive system.

Sometimes, I can just remember the happy little ripple and feel its echo, completely divorced from anything in my environment or any particular thought. This is a lovely ability to have, and makes me smile, which is itself both a response to and a cause of happiness.

For so long I have been my own worst enemy, with an inner critic frequently beating me up and eroding my self-esteem. Maybe I’m discovering a new member of my internal committee, one who is simply happy here and now. I will call her my happy camper, and hope for her frequent attendance.

Where Do I Belong?

Where do I belong? A question of many facets. First, the literal. Where I belong these days is in my home or outdoors wearing a mask and at least six feet away from everyone else.

This question is usually asking, with whom do I belong. Where do I fit in? With whom do I have something in common? Who are the people I care for? Who are the people who care for me?

Whom did I find while engaging in common interests? Who came together with me around a common identity? Who continue to get together because we like each other, and because our get-togethers get us out of our homes and into the presence of other human beings?

Do I belong in the synagogue where I’m a dues-paying member but hardly ever attend services and no longer work in any committee? I have synagogue friends from 30 years ago, but haven’t more than greeted in passing for the last decade.

Where else might I belong? On this planet? In my skin? At the places on the internet frequented by like-minded people?

Turning it around, who belongs with me? For whom do I make a welcoming space? To whom do I give the benefit of the doubt?

So many questions and even more answers, because every moment is different and my mood varies along with my self-esteem and my willingness to even conceive of myself as belonging on this planet at all. But the relationship between self-esteem and belonging is circular: I need to feel vaguely good about myself to foist my presence on anyone else, but if I haven’t spent time interacting with anyone else I start to wonder if I actually exist.

To accept and justify the gift of my existence, I feel the need to be doing something to improve others’ lives. I take the most responsibility for my friends and other members of the intersecting communities to which I belong: lesbians, seniors, writers, liberals, San Franciscans, etc.

Anyway, in this time of sheltering in place, one of the most helpful things I can do for myself and others is to reach out and have conversations with my friends. To recognize the other as a person worthy of being listened to, to share my similar feelings and affirm that we’re both human. When I’m down, I can share that with someone who is also down and be comforted by our common humanity. Or I can share with someone who is less down, and maybe begin to hope that a better mood might come around to me in due course.

And I remind myself to listen to friends who call me or share in a Zoomed meeting, not just to reassure us of our common humanity, but also to notice any particular need that I can help with.

Dana Vinicoff

Liturgical Pieces for Pride

Blessed is the Rainbow

Blessed is the rainbow: the variety of bright colors, the individuality of each color. The grouping of these colors into a symbol of unity, of pride, of variety, celebrating the unique identity of each of us, and the strength in our unity.

Peace in Pride

Spread over us the shelter of your peace, O Eternal. Let us march and sing and chant wrapped in your protection and love. Let us spread your peace as we march and sing and chant, that all our scattered queer ones may come together in peace and pride.

My Brilliant Career

My Brilliant Career

I wanted to be the best student in my high school class, or at least to be recognized as a “Scholar of the Month.” I came in second in my class of 997 students; I was salutatorian instead of valedictorian. I did give the valedictory address at graduation, though; it was awarded by audition. I never made Scholar of the Month. As various of my friends received the honor, I gathered that the award was based on extraordinary achievement in a specialized area. Although I won some scholarships and awards in English and public speaking, I must have been too much of a generalist to shine in the way they wanted.

Fast forward past college, law school, and a judicial clerkship. I settled into a career in legal publishing where I got to be a student for my living. As a writer, I got to study a variety of legal topics under the law of various states, to synthesize my understanding into a structure, and to lay it out in the most accurate and reader-friendly words and paragraphs I could build. I loved figuring out each new subject: moving the pieces around until the picture was complete, tidying all the connections and edges, and wrapping it up with a bow.

Midway in my career, the writing was moved outside the company to independent contractors. Editing wasn’t as satisfying as writing, but at least I had the last chance to tinker with the writing and put my stamp on it.

Eventually, they bumped me up to managing increasing numbers of publications. I got to spend less and less time with the words and paragraphs, and got less and less satisfaction at my job.

I managed my finances so I could retire early. Now I can spend as long as I want writing and tinkering with my own words and paragraphs.

Body and Spirit

Body and Spirit

When my mind is a blank, a remembered fragment of spiritual direction suggests I pay attention to my body. OK. I have itchy wrists from sun allergy, muscle knots lining my right shoulder blade, and, perhaps related to this, a tingly numbness in my right forearm alternating with achiness there.

None of this is of any great import, certainly not life-threatening. But they keep my attention focused on these little things, distracting me from thinking about the risks I took today to see my friends in person. And they keep me from dwelling on the Covid tests I took today. Even remembering them I dwell on the physical discomfort, instead of appreciating how scary it was for me to acknowledge the reality of this disease enough to get tested for it. To acknowledge that I have factors raising my risk of dying from this if I do catch it, and to remember that people have caught it despite taking all the precautions.

There is no assured safety, even if I am in the 90^th percentile of precaution-taking. Invisible particles of virus land where they will and follow their own imperatives. All I can do is the best I can without driving myself crazy. Take all sustainable precautions, and reach out for as much of my normal B.C. life for which I’m willing to bear the risks. And, of course, reach out to help my friends maintain their sanity within their chosen levels of risk avoidance.

Tim the Postman

My letter carrier is the only person from before Covid who is still in my life in the same way. When I retired, he became the person I saw most often. And he still is.

Our relationship began this way. My living room is at the front of the house. I could hear him opening the mail boxes. I opened the front door once or twice after he had put the mail in my box. After that, he started knocking on the door so he could hand me the mail directly.

I learned that his name is Tim, which I find easy to remember since my cousin Tim was also a mailman before he retired. If I wasn’t home and Tim had a package for me, he would give it to a neighbor or put it somewhere safe and leave me a note written on the back of an envelope. We greet each other if our paths cross outside my home. When I caught him at his truck once, he remembered that he had a package for me and handed it to me. I give him a tip at Christmas.

Post-Covid, he still knocks on my door and hands me the mail, wearing no mask. His cheery smile is the last lingering piece of interpersonal normalcy in my life. All other encounters take place over the internet or from six feet apart.

I ran across him the other day while walking six feet from a friend; I hailed him “There’s my man Tim,” and we smiled at each other. I cherish his presence in my life, my last link to the old normal whose loss we all grieve.