Audio Moves

I am 53 years old, and I’m not sure what that means.

When I was a kid, 53 was “getting up there.”

When I was a kid, few people made it into their 90’s.

These days, I may or may not be middle-aged. I’m just not sure. In my heart, I feel incredibly young. Some days, in fact, I feel that I’m just “playing office” or “making house.” Some days, I look around the home I’ve established (an apartment, granted), and I wonder, When did I get to be so grown up? Who told me I should put those spoons in that drawer?

And then there are those other moments – those moments when I arise from the couch – and I hear the noise of my age.

I hear the noise… a noise that says, I’m standing up now.

When did I start doing that?

When did I start providing a soundtrack to my ups and downs?

… Back in 2008, I had the resources and time to take a wonderful trip back east. It began in New York and ended in Virginia. It spanned three weeks.

While I was in NYC, I moved about. I spent the first two nights with some friends in Queens. Then, I cashed in some Amex points for two nights at a Radisson on West 33rd. And I spent the final two nights with some college buddies who always have room for me at their place. (Their place happens also to be on 33rd , but in their case, it’s the east side.)

During one of my Radisson days, I’d made arrangements to hook up with my friend Alyssa – another college buddy. She agreed to meet me at my hotel, and we’d take it from there. I emerged that morning and told her that I had two interests: either the World Trade Center site downtown or our old campus stomping grounds uptown.

Alyssa (perhaps influenced by her own emotions) shared that there was not much to see at Ground Zero. We headed north.

During our walk up Broadway, we had a great time catching up, and the eighty-plus blocks passed by quickly. Before we knew it, we’d arrived at the famous Columbia gates, and we entered College Walk.

The Columbia campus is something to behold. Remarkably imposing buildings. At the south end, Butler Library – with its columns and with the names chiseled into its façade: Homer. Herodutus. Sophocles. Plato. Aristotle. Demosthenes. Cicero. Vergil.

And facing Butler is Low Library, a domed structure that rises above the rest – the campus centerpiece.

Between the two, and leading up to Low, are “the steps.”

The Steps.

Just north of College Walk, there is a group of about seven steps. Then, after a bit of even pavement, scored with a nice brick design, there are probably 30 or so more steps.

Back in the day, that first group of seven was the place to meet.

Those were The Steps.

Back in the day, we’d plan to hook up with our friends between classes.

We’d hook up on the steps.

And more often than not, we’d pass a joint. That’s what the steps were about back then.

The Steps.

… So when Alyssa and I entered College Walk, just three years ago, we each were probably entertaining memories. (I know I was.)

And when we decided to just sit down and take it in for a minute, we were both feeling nostalgic.

We climbed three or four rows up.

Then, we readied ourselves to sit.

As we descended into our positions, we each made a noise.

Once we had settled, I turned to my friend.

“Alyssa,” I said, “I think they lowered the steps.”

A Few Thoughts on Last Month’s Top News Story

I feel fortunate to have attended a liberal arts college.

I also feel fortunate that, during those years, I wasn’t fixated on some specific future. Unlike the pre-meds and pre-laws who could rarely stray from their focused, discipline-specific requirements, I had the freedom of selecting courses for the most personal of reasons. And when I chose Introduction to Art History for one of my second-semester freshman year classes, I had such a reason: I wanted to understand why people liked to go to museums.

By the end of that semester, I had aced the Art History course, and I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a regular basis. I “got it,” and I also knew that I owed my parents an apology. So, that summer, when I was home in Virginia – regularly donning tacky polyester for my minimum wage cashier’s job at Hardee’s – I expressed my regrets to Mom and Dad. “I’m sorry,” I said to them, reflecting on the summer we’d gone to Europe, back when I was nine. “I’m sorry that, shortly after we entered the Louvre, I announced – in my headstrong way – I’ll just sit on this bench until you’re done.”

But that wasn’t the first time that I had behaved stubbornly, and it would not be the last.

… By my senior year of college, I’d declared my Poli-Sci major, and I had identified my particular interest in electoral politics. As I selected courses for the first semester of that year, I had some leeway, and I once again applied a personal reason as I selected a particular course.

The course was Introduction to International Politics, and the professor, whose last name began with a Z, was known as a force to be reckoned with. She also included, in the syllabus she distributed year after a year, the requirement that her students read The New York Times – front to back – every day. Having never been much of a newspaper reader, I needed that requirement. And it was for that reason, and that reason alone, that I signed up for the course.

Unfortunately, Professor Z was on sabbatical that year, and the mousy, young, untenured so-and-so who was hired to lead the course not only made no mention of our reading the Times, but she provided me with little incentive to meet any of the course’s requirements. I ultimately took advantage of the college’s rather lax rules on attendance.

Since I wasn’t going to class very often, I totally missed the announcement: we were to have some big Mock International Conference. We would be assigned countries to head and conflicts to confront. And because the instructor had distributed all our phone numbers a good week or so ahead of the gathering, we were empowered (or maybe encouraged) to conduct a lot of mock diplomacy prior to the actual three-hour faux event.

One night, in the suite I shared with five other students, the phone rang.

It was for me.

I sauntered down the hall and perched myself on the stool that was within reach of the wall phone and just outside the bathroom.

“Hello?” I said.

The guy at the other end immediately began talking about armies and factions and allies and enemies and treaties and… I was quick enough to realize he was from the International Politics class; my disinterest was profound.

So I just listened. And he talked and he talked.

And when he was finally done, I said, with little inflection, “You know, I really don’t care what you do with your troops or your forces. Just be sure to put those little soldiers back in the toy chest before you go to bed.”

And I hung up, thankful that college transcripts do not allow comments on whether one “works and plays well with others.”

… That course didn’t teach me to read The New York Times, but it did teach me this: I do not view myself (or most people) capable of understanding international politics adequately, and where wars or other forms of global conflict are concerned, I will never "get it."

But I also know that we need for people to get it.

… At the end of April, I was experiencing blogger burn-out, so I opted to run a four-part piece during the Wednesdays of May, when I would usually post something new. A week after that decision, I experienced another type of burn-out: NPR (which provides me with all the information I don’t read in The New York Times) was dwelling on the biggest story in ten years: Osama Bin Laden’s death. The accounts of what happened were reported, and when those accounts changed, they were reported again. The questions arose. The news was non-stop, and I got tired of hearing about it. Yes, I agree that it was a moment in history, but there is a whole lot of evil out there. One really bad guy being done away with is not going to make everything suddenly peaceful and right.

Two weeks later, I was visiting my Mom in Virginia, and the news had died down. Maybe because it had, a question popped into my head: if the exact same scenario had played out under Bush II’s watch, what would I believe?

Would I believe that he was really killed? Would I be pissed off about the fact that he was killed as opposed to being taken captive? Would I question the burial at sea? Would I wonder what really happened at that little compound where he had managed to live, undiscovered, for five or six years?

I’m grateful that what happened did not occur under Dubya’s watch, because – frankly – I wouldn’t want to dwell on those questions. But the fact that they came up for me, in that what if context, reminded me of the importance of trust. When it comes to the complexities of international politics, we must trust the “deciders.” If we don’t, it will be impossible not to entertain conspiracy theories and the like.

Mom - Faith, Sapphires, and White Light: Part Two

A NOTE BEFORE READING: This is the second of a four-part piece, divided so as to keep each entry short. To begin at the beginning, go here.

Perhaps the emotional plate was just too full then. After all, ours was quickly becoming the House of Hormones. Though still in her early forties, Mom was beginning to go through the early stages of menopause. Martha was well on her way to adolescence, and I was just beginning to flirt with its whiplash.

So while Mom confronted hot flashes and other assorted symptoms over the ensuing years, my sister and I confronted our own burgeoning beings. Not surprisingly, our confrontations were as different as the two of us. Martha’s response to the simmering crockpot of adolescence brought to mind Sarah Bernhardt – weepy drama played to the hilt. My response was more in synch with the times – denim-clad rebellion in search of mind-altering drugs.

When Martha turned eighteen, Mom gave her the emerald and diamond ring. And, I’ll admit, there was nothing at all about the gesture that seemed inappropriate. There was something about Martha that already seemed middle-aged at that point, and for that reason, she always struck me as a bit of an anachronism. A cocktail ring – so clearly representative of another era – fit well on her hand. It also would fit well on the campus of the Southern women’s college that she would attend (not coincidentally, the very college where our father taught).

My turning eighteen was another matter altogether. I would not be celebrating the big milestone with my family in Virginia. Rather, I’d be five weeks into my college adventure – in Morningside Heights, just south of Harlem. And while sending the ring via UPS or something of that ilk was certainly an option, Mom decided instead to give it to me early. With no fanfare, she presented it to me in New York, the late August night before our harried day of getting me into my freshman dorm at Barnard.

I remember the look on her face when she handed me the box with the ring in it. The look was hesitant. Tentative. It was a look that said, “If you lose this, or if you sell this for drugs, I will never forgive you.”

I took in that look, and I responded with what had become my trademark, my weapon, and my armor: merciless sarcasm. “Thanks, Mom!” I said, smiling. “And I love it that the blue of the sapphires goes with my jeans!”

She didn’t have a comeback, but she also didn’t need one. She was clearly the stronger party in that scene. By entrusting me with that ring, she had demonstrated that, between us, she could be even more of a risk-taker than I.

I immediately slipped the ring onto my finger. And since that day, I have worn it always.

At the time, my rationale for wearing it was this: if I wait until I have an occasion to wear a sapphire and diamond ring, I will never get to wear this ring. Complementary reasoning went as follows: if this ring is not on my finger, I cannot honestly say that I know where it is.

And so I justified wearing the ring.

But, God, it must have looked awfully silly on me those first several years.

I still have the first college ID that I was issued (the picture probably was taken a day or two after I slipped that ring on my finger). I have kept the ID because I always want to remember the person in the picture. My facial expression then revealed a curious combination of anger and sadness. To go with it, I had short, androgynous hair, no make-up, and the hints of a tee shirt that made no statement whatsoever. Oh, and there were the zits, too. Not a happy camper.

I was an unlikely candidate for a sapphire and diamond ring, and in retrospect, it is no wonder I was never mugged for that particular piece of jewelry. Probably, any mugger who saw the ring then looked at the rest of me and thought, “Nah, those stones can’t be real.”

Yet, I continued to wear it. Ultimately, I grew into it.

And during that decade of shedding anger and sadness, and replacing them with grace and enthusiasm, something else happened: I became friends with my mother.

to be continued on Wednesday, May 18th.