I picked up Mitch Albom’s The Little Liar wondering if I needed to read another story about the Holocaust. I almost didn’t check it out. We live in a world at war. We live in a world where starvation, strife, and civilian casualties are collateral damage of those wars. Yet war continues to be waged. I am glad I checked the book out. I read it in less than twenty-four hours. A unique voice serves as narrator in The Little Liar. It is Truth. Albom masterfully uses that narrator to explore the meaning of truth and to illustrate the horror of man’s inhumanity to man. Four characters, Nico, his brother Sebastian, Fannie, and Udo pull the reader into the story and demand the reader’s attention from start to finish. In a way, their stories have been told before, but as written, they seem startlingly fresh and compelling. In the context of what’s happening in the world, their stories are more than relevant. Rather than mar the story by retelling it, I want to share what I call the wisdom of Albom. “Never be ashamed of a scar. In the end, scars tell the stories of our lives, everything that hurt us, and everything that healed us.” “But questioning a madman is like interrogating a spider. They both go on spinning their webs until someone squashes them out of existence.” “How could fishing boats keep rolling so innocently? How could the world eat when all those prisoners were starving? How could things look so terrifyingly normal here…?” Why do world leaders create scenarios where these questions still are relevant today? Read this story. Keep asking the question. Why do we still wage war?
Touched
I am not a sommelier, but I know what wines I like. I am not a book critic. I am an avid reader and hope someone will help me understand what I felt was the brilliance of Walter Moseley’s Touched. The cover, two hands held side by side with fingers upright and a face superimposed on them, compelled me to pick the book from the “New Fiction” shelves at the library. It is a small book. The 159 pages are 5 x 7 1/4″. The story, the words, the size made it easy to read without stopping until the last page. Then, I was left in wonder.
Marty awakens from what he believes was a centuries-long sleep a changed man. He believes he has been recruited and altered to play a part in the eradication of the human race. From there, the reader faces many questions. Is the narrator reliable? A few pages in, it no longer matters. Immersed in an alternative reality, the possibilities of which include science fiction to schizophrenia, the reader confronts the quintessential questions of humanity. Is Marty/Martin/Temple the infection of or the cure for humanity? For me this dilemma expanded and applied to everyman. Are humans the destroyers or saviors of this earth? Do we, as a species, have the inner strength to resolve differences and amass the resources to save ourselves? Reminiscent of The Overstory, Touched returns more than once to the concept of the oneness of the environmental and human ecosystems.
I found the ending haunting and provocative. After being reprogrammed by Marty’s intervention, a man leaves Marty’s home to get away from the sound of a howling dog. The man fears it will keep calling for his attention. I interpreted that the man feared changing back to what he had been, a hateful, racist thug, thus positing the age-old question: are humans doomed to repeat past mistakes?
Neither expert nor editor, I’ll only mention things I found interesting about the writing. Mosley’s use of names insist I examine my own moral compass. Marty’s wife, Tessa, has had relations with a man named Truth. Marty’s last name is Just. His alter ego is Temple. Mosley describes the color of people using various shades of browns and grays. I have a mentor who talks about muscular sentences. I found Mosley’s writing sparse, yet muscular. The biggest compliment I can give any author is to say I will reread this book before returning it to the library. I have been Touched.
Quiet Horror
I am not a sommelier, but I do know what wines I like. I am not a movie critic. I have friends who critically analyze movies, their production, stories, costumes, and acting. Not me. Having said that, I do not take lightly writing about The Zone of Interest. It still haunts me. I read the novel by Martin Amis before watching the movie. Usually, books satisfy me more than the movie productions of them. Not so in this case. The opening scene portrayed a family outing. Men wore swimsuits like the one my dad wore when he took me to the local pool and taught me to swim. Women and children sat on blankets spread across the grass. A river lazed in the background. What it didn’t show, but what I knew from reading the book, was this all took place in the shadow of a death camp. It registered for me as quiet horror. No audible dialogue, just the establishment of an atmosphere that was down to earth while being obscene for someone who knew the secret of the setting. Throughout the movie, ordinary people did their jobs, followed orders, created innovative machines, even fought to remain in the penumbra of Auschwitz, with little reference to the people who suffered and died. In one scene, women quibbled over who would take what from a collection of garments confiscated from prisoners. I couldn’t help but see vultures picking over the flesh of dead animals. What gut-punched me the most was a scene, not from the 1940s, but a modern scene in which uniformed workers cleaned the floors of a what seemed to be a Holocaust Museum. Again, no dialogue, just people doing their jobs as if they either did not know or had become immune to the context. Encased in glass, a mountain of shoes stood in the background. Another quiet horror. I remember my shock and grief when I saw a similar display at the museum in Washington, D.C. It made visible and real the number of lives taken during the Holocaust. I often think of The Zone of Interest in a world at war in so many places. I must wonder if, because of our responsibility for mundane tasks and day to day survival, do we become immune to the quiet horror of man’s inhumanity to man? The Zone of Interest helps keep me from becoming so.
On turning 68 in 2019
My 68th birthday looms. It creeps towards me, tenacious, heat resistant like the ground cover in my shrubs. I tear up clumps of the succulent green with baby’s breath like flowers and throw it in the dirt. In a week, it is spreading, thriving, a lush carapace for soil turned to dust by the sun.
This year I am grateful I am upright, as I am every year. My gait deviates a bit. My right leg swings out to the side when I walk; the right foot wobbles before it hits the ground. That’s MS for you. If stopped by a cop, I refuse to try and walk in a straight line, because I’ll always look drunk. I’m prepared to refer him or her to the clinic, to the doctor, where I log intermittent moments of my journey and hope to have enough time left to create a few more.
I am grateful for a partner who gives me space for my obsessions, who loves me for who I am, who still holds my hand when we sit on the sofa together.
I am grateful for the fact that the moment I sit before a blank page and type just a few words, something awakens. My mind pinballs from the present to the past to the present to the future. I create sorceresses and serial killers and murder victims. I reencounter patients and students and lovers I’ve sequestered in that biological computer known as my brain. I read books and see what I’ve missed in my stories. I revise and think to myself “Who needs drugs when the mind is immersed in the magnificent process of creating?” I want to be TC Boyle and JC Oates and Margaret Atwood and Cormac McCarthy and Octavia Butler and Wallace Stegner and Andy Warhol and Van Gogh all rolled into one.
I want to see my son perform on The Ellen Degeneres Show. His songs come up on my play list when I’m working out and my pace quickens. I can’t believe how talented he is.
Mine is a wonderful life.
Then reality abrades its noxious way into my consciousness and I mourn. I mourn for what I see as the erosion of all the progress women my age thought we made in the early 70’s.
I remember reading Our Bodies, Our Selves and began to see and understand my body as my own, divorced from the “body politic” and not distorted by “the Gaze.” I celebrated a sense of visibility and having a voice that was and would be heard. I chose a career with a “living wage.” I smugly thought, if I have children, they will be proud of what my generation accomplished for my gender. Foolishly I rested on my laurels thinking the fight was over, the battle, no the rights, had been won. Forever.
As 68 gets ready to bulldoze over 67, I mourn the current socio-political climate, which, like my ground cover, proliferates and spreads. What it spreads is not pretty or protective. It spreads ignorance, prejudice, and hate. I mourn the roll back of resources and funding that will guarantee women reproductive health and personal freedom. I mourn that money and connections allowed a sex trafficker a lighter punishment and enabled him to commit the same crime again, reaffirming that women and girls in this country are nothing more than cheap merchandise. I mourn that the top elected official in this country voiced his sense of entitlement when it comes to women’s bodies, a “man” who so misunderstands sexual assault that he deflects allegations of it with “She’s not my type.” I mourn that it took two daring sports figures to get people to face the injustices and inequities that plague our so called free and democratic society. I mourn the fact that I fear the physical environment in which my grand-children will live and grow.
My birthday wish: Let me do one thing that will make the world a little bit better.
The Way of the World, the End of the 2014 Games
The Way of the World
For some there is logic in the separation of church and state. In the vicarious excitement I experience when I watch the Olympics, the same logic follows: there should be a separation of politics and sports. I don’t care how these athletes vote (if they live in a place that has voting), who they sleep with, or the ideology of their home country. It is breathtaking and inspiring to watch athletes who have trained for years, sacrificed in all aspects of their lives, and reduced the measure of all their commitment to one competition and the acquisition of an Olympic medal. As with all things logical, there is a caveat.
I gasp when I witness the flight of skiers and snowboarders. I marvel at their lack of fear. When the skaters spin and leap and lift, I feel dizzy from their speed and height. I love the wild helmets, the beauty of the designer costumes, and the almost alien looking accouterments of the hockey players. Olympic competition represents a celebration of athleticism, work ethic, health, and the global community. Unfortunately at the end of the competition, there are other channels, other conduits. I see and vicariously experience the devastation of Syria, oppression and death in the Ukraine. Appreciation of stellar athletes becomes moot.
As the Olympics close, these thoughts plague me. The press covers the adoption of homeless dogs by an athlete while Syrian refugees starve and wonder where to go for safety. A Canadian journalist, as well as a competitor, complain about judging known to be subjective for years, while citizens in Kiev are judged and shot to death in the street. A team that has practiced with another for two years charges their coach with favoritism, conveniently not apparent until the pair gets into the national spotlight. A snowboarder nurses his failure to win a medal by touring with his band. In the aftermath of this great sporting event, what are we missing? So many questions arise. What will be left behind when all the athletes are gone? What social and environmental detritus will the Olympics of Sochi have generated? Considering all the money, energy, talent, and resources invested into the sports events, is the world a better place? Is there less domestic violence? Is there fresh water for all the people in Africa? Is the nuclear clock any less close to striking the time for Armageddon? The Olympics brings the world together in a microcosm of competition and comradeship on a stage in such isolation that it does little to bring the rest of us to a peaceful co-existence where all become good stewards of the earth and its people.
All complaints and hubris aside, it IS just a sporting event. And it IS time to move on.
A Matter of Life, Death, and Miracles
In the weeks since the cardiac arrest and the declaration of death for Jahi McMath and brain death for Marlise Munoz, the media has conducted a discourse with ethicists, an elementary school class, the grieving family, and medical professionals. Maybe I missed it, but nowhere have I heard anyone speak with health care professionals, specifically nurses, assigned to care for either of these patients. In this group of care providers, a continuum of emotions and opinions about what is ethical and humane would abound.
After forty years of nursing, I still find most disturbing the provision of care to those who have no chance of a meaningful recovery. I have cared for a patient who was declared dead. The Harvard criteria for brain death includes: unresponsiveness, apnea (no respiratory effort), absence of movement, no reflexes, a flat electroencephalogram, no central nervous depressants in the body, and a core body temperature greater than 32 degrees. The beside nurse observes more subtleties. There is a vacancy in the eyes, an emptiness, and a lack of recognition of the outer world. Many times I have sensed an absence well before the body declared itself done with this life. No one can verify if the spirit transcends the body, but in my experience it seems that way. And it feels that way. Does this change the type of care I, or any professional, provides? No. I still talk to the person as if I’ll get a response, and I handle the body with the upmost tenderness and respect. This doesn’t change the lack of reciprocity in the human connection between this nurse and the specific patient.
Part of the conundrum with end-of-life decisions stems from the failure to differentiate life from living. In the cases of Ms. McMath and Ms. Munoz, a heartbeat defines life. But when she was alive, Ms. Munoz defined living by her ability to do certain things. She did not want life maintained by mechanical means. Each individual defines living differently. For many people, work and certain activities define who they are. For me, I am a nurse, a fitness nut, a reader, a writer, a wife, a homebody, a thinker. I am not sure which roles I could give up, which things I could stop doing, and still feel life had enough value for me to want to live. For me a heartbeat is not enough of an existence to justify the consumption of finite resources that would better serve another human being. These things I have discussed with my husband, my attorney, and have set down in an Advance Directive.
“What about miracles?” you might ask. Have I seen them? Yes. I still cry when I remember walking down the hall with a patient who suffered a catastrophic brain injury. When I saw his father’s face morph with the recognition it was his son coming down the hall, I knew I had been privy to something divine. I can give you all the scientific rationale for why the boy got better: his youth, perfect timing, a tenacious, committed doctor and team of nurses. I can only speculate about a force present, not prescribed by any medical practice. My question to you is this: “If it truly was a miracle, would it have happened had we done nothing?”
When Jahi McMath’s family prays and talks about God’s miracles, I wonder if they could surrender to their faith, remove all life support, and wait for God’s intervention? At a time when they were most vulnerable, experiencing the worst grief parents can endure, the media spotlighted decisions of the most delicate, private nature. I wonder where the reporters will be six months from now. And I wonder if the family will rethink their decision once they have begun to deal with, not only what they have lost, but also with what they have begun.
You may say: “It’s easy for you to say, you haven’t ever been there.” But then you don’t know me or the kind of nurse I am. I remember the first patient I “lost” on my first Christmas Day on the job. I remember my father, my husband’s son, my neighbor, saying they were ready to go when the quality of their lives became intolerable, all for very different reasons. My mouth went dry and I felt embarrassed and sad when I read an article in the newspaper about my own challenged grand-daughter who suffered a brain injury at age six weeks. She is seventeen years old, requires total care, and has never uttered a word. She receives tube feedings, never to enjoy the delightful taste of chocolate or grapes or a well-cooked steak. She passes urine, stool, and has gone through adolescence. Someone must attend to all of her bodily functions. I believe all of us have “been there” at some time and bear the wound of loss deep within us.
Perhaps that is the point of this discussion. These situations are so personal, so private, that people calling the hospital to get information must have a security code. Then how has it come to pass that the law, bureaucrats, and outsiders, who have no knowledge of the people involved, impose decisions on virtual strangers about life and death.
Each person’s definition of living or quality of life determines the path he chooses to its end. I demand this as a sanctified, inviolate right for myself and exclude input from all other external sources. Life, death, and miracles, all very private concerns.
Steubenville and Feminism
I love The Walking Dead. Once I get past the gore, I see it mirror the brutality of a modern world. A world, where in one country, a woman is raped every 20 minutes.
Amidst the rehash of and a promise to appeal the Steubenville rape trial verdict, I ask myself “Where is the outrage?” What, in our culture, has allowed us to generate people who have so little regard for their fellow human beings? Do the cavalier personas exhibited by impaired teen-agers violating a passive victim illustrate a sort of zombie apocalypse? Living, cognitive humans treated another person like a thing. Without empathy. Without sympathy. Without compassion. Is this type of behavior symptomatic of a society infected with a pandemic of maleficence?
I ask “Where are the women?” Where are the young girls of the victim’s social group? By their lack of action, they behaved with complicity. Was there no one to stand up for the victim? For their futures, they should scream for real justice and watch in shock as verdicts and light sentences define their value as assessed by this tragedy set in Anytown, USA.
What happened to feminism? Yes, dated, outrageous, but angry, bra-burning feminism! Forty years ago, young women associated that term with choices, not just about birth control and abortion, but careers, marriage, buying a home, living independently, competing, achieving, and fighting back. I remember a nurse friend of mine helping another nurse, abused by her husband, move out of her home in the middle of the night. Women supporting women. Is feminism dormant? Or is it so changed that its modern focus on climbing the corporate ladder and the economic indicators of success has marginalized the common woman. She comes from a modest background, hopes to get to college, graduates with a $40,000 college debt. She aspires to live alone, buy a car, and have a little left over. She is the one with the right to jog alone at night without being touched and without being labeled as “asking for it.”
Where were the parents? In the late sixties, I hosted a party planned strategically on a night when I knew my parents would be away. We snuck a few tastes of liquor, watering it down so the level in the bottle didn’t drop. I considered myself defiant and daring. I didn’t realize how well my mother knew me. She mastered the skill of paying attention. Two hours after my friends arrived, my parents did as well. Unexpectedly. Something I had done, something I said, too many phone calls by a person who usually talked to just one or two friends, alerted Mom’s radar.
Our children are blitzed by movies and television with adult content at a time when parents seem less and less present as parents. When did it become all right to have hormone-enraged teen-agers party without supervision?
In The Walking Dead, a human knows where he stands when he is surrounded by “biters” or “walkers.” They eat. They survive. It is among the humans that each character must watch his back. Welcome to the teen culture of Steubenville.
I didn’t know it was bullying
I witnessed bullying in elementary school. A boy named Peter was the target. By changing one letter of his last name, we spoke of him using a derogatory nickname. I remember him as a quiet boy, bigger than most, with eyes cool and blue like a pristine arctic sky. I envision khaki pants and plaid shirts, never tucked in, always a bit sloppy. The same outfit day after day. His hair declared independence from combing by falling in patterns directed by several cowlicks. He spoke softly. In retrospect I wonder if he feared being heard.
I don’t remember who came up with the idea. But someone suggested we put a thumbtack on Peter’s desk seat. After lunch, a group returned early to the classroom and rearranged the bulletin board, liberating a tack from a map, or a drawing, or a vocabulary word. I watched it take position in the center of the polished wooden seat. Metal frames housed fine grained wood with a sloping contour to accommodate the curve of the buttocks. Back then it never occurred to me it might hurt him. His trousers had pockets of thick material over each butt cheek, American made, sturdy, no reason to think something so small would penetrate two layers of fabric.
Students filed into class. Those of us in on the secret made eye contact then faced front. Peter straggled in. Did I smirk or cover my mouth in glee or with relief that it was Peter, not I, about to experience an insidious humiliation? I can’t remember. I suspect I watched with carnivore anticipation until the horror of reality hit. Peter went to sit down knee first. He bent his leg, put his knee on the seat, and curled the leg around until he sat half-Indian style at his desk. No one remembered this habit in the rush to pull off this prank.
If he screamed, I blocked the memory of the sound. I assume the teacher reacted with anger and compassion. I dared not look around at any of my friends.
Peter didn’t jump off a silo to his death. Perhaps he knew “What fools these mortals be!”
But today I read the news with sorrow. A pall of hopelessness for our young people taints the present and future. How have we become a culture where who someone dates in their early teen years result in deadly consequences? Who decides what is a socially acceptable weight, the best outfit, or the prettiest hair? A current phone commercial depicts head butting and deliberate violence by adults in their quest for the best pictures on their phones. What are we teaching our children about the importance of acquiring things and pushing ahead? Who teaches our children the value of being different, having a clearly defined identity, and respect for others’ choices? Who is teaching the basics of right and wrong? How can parents become more vigilant, more sensitive to the fact that what a child believes about him or herself affects behavior and socialization significantly more than what the parents know to be true? It frightens me to observe the disdain some of our young people have for their fellow human beings and for life itself.
I have always felt different. In high school I was athletic before it was chic. While others practiced with the drill team, I went to swimming practice, before school, after school, week-ends. I didn’t have much time to be social. The chemicals in the pool turned my blonde hair green. Lap after lap added two inches to my chest circumference. I envied the curves and bumps of voluptuous friends and compared my upside down triangular body, broad shoulders, flat chest, boyish hips, and flat feet, to them. I felt short changed. I’d never be a cheerleader or a prom queen. I did get to travel every week-end during the swimming season. I met people from around the country and enjoyed a comradeship with my teammates.
At home I enjoyed the freedom of aloneness. I spent time reading and imagining. When I was a child, it was safe to play outside alone. I rode my bike and walked along the railroad track behind our house. I never felt lonely, just solitary.
I don’t know what empowered me not to be destroyed by the cruelty of others. Did people make fun of me because of my androgynous build? Sure. Did I get tired of people wanting to touch my green hair? Yup. Did I gape in shock when an older girl in the shower room slapped me because of my smart, but in her case, deadly accurate mouth? Of course. But I never felt the need to apologize for who I was or to remove myself from the equation known as life. I don’t know who to thank for that. I credit competitive sports and parents who fully supported my participation in them. I also feel my inner life taught me the peace that comes with singularity.
Back to the case of my classmate Peter. Silence and inaction made me an accomplice. Shame and guilt ate away at a childhood innocence I would have preferred to savor a little longer. In elementary school in the 1960s, we called it a prank. In reality we committed a cruel and vicious act that injured someone physically as well as mentally. I witnessed bullying in elementary school. I will never forget the role I played. To be a voyeur is as harmful as being a proactive perpetrator. I am 62 years old. I hope Peter has forgiven me for my part in the travesty. I promise to never act as a passive witness again.