Five Months Until the Mid-Terms
My friend Ben is taking the train from D.C. to LA for work, making pleasure
of virtue. Writing to the shuddering rhythm, iron wheels on iron girders.
Visiting friends (and kindly friends of friends) along the way, sleeping on couches,
reducing his carbon footprint, trying to heal the world, or at least,
slow down the burning. He’s mostly vegetarian too, these days.
I, by contrast, am taking an unnecessary flight. No professional requirement or
family emergency. An offer, a gift, and I say yes. Yes, to this flight I can’t afford,
yes to four days on an island, hopefully writing. Leaving my husband to deal
with feeding the children, cleaning the house, the parched, neglected garden.
Kevin asked last night what I’d be working on. I hesitated, not sure I could justify
the time away. He’s been a little sick too, and I was callously abandoning him.
Every other writing retreat, I’ve had a project in mind – a book to start,
a book to finish. Maybe it’s failure of spirit, or the creeping fascism, but for once,
thirty-five years into this writing career, I had no real plan.
Soon I will close the window and let my rowmates sleep; of such small kindnesses
do we build civilization. But for takeoff, as always, I wait and watch.
The delay interminable, until finally in motion. An almost imperceptible lift
off the ground, and my heart leaps with it. The miracle not dulled for repetition.
And we climb, we climb – the clouds a perfect patterning, cirrocumulus,
sardine sky. A gift, this profligate scattering of upper-atmosphere ice crystals
that my great-grandmother could never know. Soon we’ll cross the Rockies,
as fireflies rarely did. Humid Chicago evenings, I try to coax our teenagers out to watch
the scintillating dance; they choose climate control instead. As for me, I can’t think or sleep
when it’s too hot. So we turn the AC on, and hope we’re not doing too much harm.
I’m not vegetarian. I take unnecessary flights. I try to sort the recycling,
but sometimes I’m lazy about the compost. I worry that this is how
the creeping fascism takes hold – these small moral compromises. Every day,
another father is taken from a hardware store parking lot, a mother is taken
from preschool drop-off, and now they’re stationing guards at the borders,
so refugees can be physically prevented from requesting their guaranteed rights.
They can’t ask if you tape their mouths shut; they can’t ask if we close our ears
to the screaming. Don’t get me started on what we’re doing to the women,
to the girls. If I start, I’m afraid I’ll never stop crying. I’m not as strong as I’d like
– go ahead, condemn me. I deserve it. I still shop at Amazon. And even though
I think I probably should, I can’t bear to run for office again. Not yet, anyway.
Ben came and taught with me this June, in Chicago, taking the train both ways.
If I can get organized in time, we’ll teach again in August. It’s a gift,
teaching with him, talking about writing and students and how to do this better,
thinking about life and how we try to heal the world. Tikkun olam.
I am not as virtuous as Ben; I am not ready to give up airplanes, or eating meat.
He would laugh at this framing. He might point out that he is not as virtuous as me
in other ways. Maybe I will get there, someday. Meatless Mondays are a start.
We do what we can; we are small beings, after all. The sky reminds me,
and the ocean too. I am in desperate need of an ocean these days. Aren’t we all?
All I can offer is this – I’ll try to appreciate the gift. The gift of a flight I can’t afford,
the gift of an ocean to walk into, the gift of waves to knock me down,
to hopefully knock a little more wisdom into me. The gift of love – a plane ticket,
a friend who teaches with me (and teaches me), a husband who asks about my work.
I tell Kevin, inarticulate, that I think I am going to try to learn to play
with writing again, to take it less seriously, worry less about publishing
and prestige, reach for laughter and for wisdom and for joy. He says,
“That sounds good.” For a small being, maybe that’s enough? For now.
*****
June 28, 2026
