Monthly Archives: January 2021

Houston & Beyond, Life

Windswept cheeks–and other bicycle delights

Dawn broke crisply this morning on the Buffalo Bayou, a luminescent full moon mirroring the still-lit lights that line the shared jogging and bicycle paths. It had been weeks since I’d ridden my sweet Schwinn 10-speed through Houston’s early morning streets to access the meandering asphalt ribbons that trace the delightful if murky Gulf of Mexico tributary.

Such joy! Such abandon! Such oneness with the ebb and flow of life!

The only damper on my joyride was self-created: floating full of joy down a steep incline, I found myself suddenly anticipating the steep upward climb that was soon to follow. Just as quickly, I changed mental gears and stayed in the exhilaration of the moment, secure in the knowledge that the momentum I gained in doing so would provide just the thrust to lift me over the approaching rise. And it did.

COVID-19, Life

When doing double-duty is too much to ask of one word . . .

. . . even when a hyphen is brought in to help.

I received early this morning a push notifiation on my phone from The Washington Post, the BBC, and The New York Times respectively, all to the effect that a dose of a COVID vaccination was proving a certain percentage effective. The first alert to arrive, from the Washington Post started with the unfortunate lead words “Single-shot” followed by “Johnson & Johnson vaccine . . ..”

As a society, we are presently in the midst of a gun epidemic piled atop a virus pandemic. Certain elected officials in Congress are claiming their right to carry guns where none rightly dared, while on the other side of the political divide, constituents are demanding the ouster of those lawmakers who cite, among other things, the extension of their 2nd amendment rights.

No sooner had I written a menatal email to the editors of The Washington Post, pleading with them to replace the word “shot” with “dose,” then, right on cue, the notifications arrived from the BBC and The New York Times, leading with the words “one-dose” and “single-dose” in lieu of “one-shot.”

In the context of the present moment, an early-morning news headline that leads with the hyphenated word, “single-shot,” is simply asking too much of the word, shot. Just because the word can do double, triple, or even quadruple duty–as an injection, or even a jigger of tequilla or a wild guess, in addition to a bullet discharged from a gun–doesn’t mean it is fair to ask it to do so. Not in the current environment. Not when context is everything.

Life

In a matter of days

It was 8 days ago that Joe Biden was sworn in as our 46th president on the very steps where 14 days before hundreds of 12 angry men (and a few equally angry women) smashed and hurled their way past the vastly outnumbered police whose job was to guard that stoic symbol of democracy and beacon of hope to generations of people around the world, the U.S. Capitol.

With an embrace of science and a steadfast belief in the goodwill of mankind, President Biden in 8 days has smashed and hurled his way through roadblocks to, among other things, vastly expand COVID vaccination rollouts and nurture a country that is a triumphant symbol of democracy and beacon of hope to countless otherwise hopeless people around the world, and whose fervent symbol of democracy is the U.S. Capitol.

All in 8 days.

Life

Committing, at my own risk

Seven days ago, in honor of our 46th president’s committment to deliver 100 million COVID vaccinations in 100 days, I committed to posting on this blog 46 times in 46 days.

Then, today, in a tweet, Andy Slavitt, the White House senior advisor for COVID response, shared the terrific news that on his seventh day, President Biden announced a remarkable increase in COVID vaccination doses planned for purchase: 200 million!

That great news for all of us means a significant increase in blog posts for me! Multiple times the 46 in 46 I committed to seven days ago. Moral of the story: be careful what I commit to. And count it all joy.

Family

A Name of Their Own

It has been six days, and so far, I am 6 (blogposts) for 6 (days). And on this sixth day, a day on which the U.S. Senate has just confirmed Janet Yellen as the first-ever female secretary of the Treasury, I am holding a creased newspaper clipping that dates all the way back to my toddler years: “House and Garden Tour To Include 5 Local Homes.”

One of those 5 local homes was my family’s, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A reader could be forgiven, though, for thinking that only my father lived there: Of the more than 50 women referenced in the article, all but 3 were known by their husband’s first and last names–with no names of their own.

In the timespan of my life, then, we have zoomed past nameless women to inaugurating five days ago a female vice president of the U.S. with a resounding name of her own, Ms. Kamala Harris.

Life

Of curly hair and U.S. presidents

Our 46th president, Joe Biden, does not have curly hair, like I do, and as far as I know, I am not related to him. On the other hand, our 8th president, Martin Van Buren, had very curly hair, and his 3rd great grandfather was my 10th great grandfather, Abraham Pieterszen (van Deursen), who arrived in New Amsterdam in the 1600s. (I am exceptionally grateful to the New York Times for producing this 2011 interactive look at “The Van Dusens Through History.”)

Family

Fingernails and headboards

Today, as I pulled the fresh, fitted sheet snug against the mattress, my eyes caught the knicks in the walnut headboard that has served as a pillow stop for generations of my family as far back as the 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes. Even as my own fingernails brushed against the resilient wood, I reflected on how our lives today, as we celebrate our 46th president, are so drastically different from the lives of those who first pulled their sheets snug–27 U.S. presidents ago. So drastically different, yet so terribly, brilliantly similar. And familiar. Familiar like the cozy cradle of a pillow against a lovingly knicked headboard.

Life

The 3rd Day

Today is the 3rd day of my 46 posts in 46 days committment in honor of our new, 46th president, Joe Biden. As I was sashaying through the corridors of my brain, opening various doors for inspiration, I strolled over to Twitter, only to see “Today is the 3rd Day” trending: various Biden friends and foes were lamenting what he has not yet accomplished. In three days. It put my composition struggles in perspective. Context is everything.

Life

Of Biden and Joyce and Gorgonzola

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Today a dear childhood friend tagged me in a Facebook post placed by the Dubln pub, Davy Byrnes, immortalized with a serving of gorgonzola in James Joyce’s literary masterpiece, Ulysses, and visited in 2016 by America’s new president. As Biden bid farewell to his home state of Delaware, and recounted Joyce’s words that when he dies, “Dublin will be written on my heart,” I, too, am connected to my childhood home of Laguna Beach, and my childhood friend, who tagged me in Davy Byrnes’ Facebook post.