Happy birthday to our darling girl (and what I'm thinking about today)

She and her husband went to Napa for her birthday. I love that for them. Send me many pictures, I said, because thirty one years ago today I was working hard too. “Pretty sure you were doing most of the work,” she laughed. Sometimes I’m just gobsmacked by how lucky I am that I get to do this life as her mom. 

She told me the other day that she and her brother went to dinner and, both of them having been in therapy, they had a fascinating conversation. They realized that they both had savior complexes. His is to save people in a physical sense, hence his calling to be a firefighter and paramedic, and his choice to come over weekly to train his dad in the gym and set me a regimen of steps per day by walking from the front of the house to the back bedroom and back around to the kitchen at least once each hour when I'm writing, so that I achieve a minimum number of steps daily, even if my joints complain. Hers is to save people emotionally, hence her soothing empathetic nature, which invites people to pour all their troubles into her care, and we do indeed feel remarkably better after she listens and offers whatever thoughts she has, even when the circumstance has no cure. How did they come by these complexes I wonder. I don't think my husband and I gave it to them, at least not consciously, certainly not intentionally, which makes me wonder, do our souls come here with a such impulses already baked in, even knowing they will take their toll? Because in more ways than they will ever know, my children have definitely saved me, much as I might wish they would not ever have needed to.

So that's what I'm thinking about on the birthday of my youngest, and about how lucky I feel to have birthed these two, and how hard I pray for their hearts and souls and bodies and lives to be protected, restored as needed, and loved in full, always.

Witnessing

Things are just getting worse. I don’t know which thread to pull, everything is unraveling at such an unholy pace. Top brass leaking war maneuvers ahead of time in a hackable group chat when they don’t even know who all the participants are is certainly egregious but I’m still stuck on the detainments and deportations of students for attending a protest on their campus. This week there’s the saga of a South Korean born Columbia University student who has been a permanent resident since she was seven years old. She was the valedictorian of her high school and is a straight A student at Columbia and she was not even a player in the Gaza war protests last year. Maybe she stopped by on her way to class. Earlier this year she took part in a protest over how Columbia was treating students exercising their first amendment rights. She was among 100 students arrested and released with a ticket. 

Suddenly, ICE appears at her parents’ home with a warrant to arrest and deport her. This happened the day after they arrested Mahmoud Khalil, who is still in detention in Louisiana, despite a judge having ordered that he be brought back to New Jersey so that his case can be adjudicated. Now the government is saying Khalil lied on his green card application by not disclosing that he worked at the Syrian embassy in Britain and that he was a member of a Palestinian affinity group at Columbia, or some such trifle, and that's why they are deporting him. His lawyers say they are bringing this new charge because they are trying to duck the first amendment argument as they know they cannot win there.

But back to the South Korean-born green card holder, she was not at her parents' home when the ICE agents showed up. ICE hasn’t been able to find her, despite tearing apart her dorm room and another Columbia residence in their efforts to arrest her. Her lawyers have sued the government to stop pursuing her, arguing she has done nothing wrong. Yesterday a judge ordered the government to stop all proceedings against her. Sadly, we have seen that this administration simply ignores court orders. I hope this young woman is able to stay hidden, but now her whole life has been disrupted, her education stalled, her future imperiled. Imagine men in plain clothes showing up at your house, showing you a piece of paper and claiming to be government agents but providing no proof of that, saying they are there to take your daughter away in an unmarked car to who knows where and you have no rights but to let them do so. No, really pause and imagine that. 

My friend shared an interesting thought last night. She said the targeting of student protestors worries her most of all. We all know 47 doesn't care about anti-Semitism, she said. She thinks that these detainments are obviously a preemptive strike to shut down future uprisings when things get really bad. They don’t want campus protests like they had during the Vietnam war, so they are choking it off in advance—which signals to her that they are planning to do something much worse than we have so far seen, and they want students too scared to fight back. Her words gave me chills. 

Poster art is by Greta Andreica

Bench sitting

I was in an Uber on the way to have dinner with my friend Isabella and I saw what looked like two old friends sitting on a bench, catching up with each other. I thought how my neighbor Jane and I do that all the time. We text and say “Fancy a sit?” and choose a garden or a park to spend a little while together with no agenda, and how I love this town where you can meet up with a friend on a public bench on an ordinary day and let the conversation roam and be outdoors and connected to the pulse of the city and after, you feel like you did something good with your day, spent time with a soul you feel easy with, who drains your social battery hardly at all, just enough that you’re happy you were with them and now you’re happy to be back home, not restless or lonely anymore, not like you were before, because you sat on a bench under trees with a friend, or maybe you met up for a meal, such simple things, and now you feel peace. 

Practicing survival

No photos could do justice to the absolute sweetness of this scene—Harper's mom was doing her hair, while two of her aunts entertained her, all four of them in a circle in our kitchen, the room in the house where Black women have gathered to brush and oil and care for each other's hair, and tend each other's hearts, for centuries. 

It was such a sacred and joyful communion, with Harper being folded into the circle of women in her family, women who will love and care for her always, who will laugh with her and smooth the creases from her garments and gaze at her with eyes that let her know even without words, that she is always loved, unconditionally and forever loved.

Harper's mom and dad arrived back from their week in Amsterdam yesterday, and she was overjoyed to see them, but really, she'd been fine with us all week, not pining for them overmuch, just trundling along, as if she understood quite clearly they would be back for her soon, and these other people belonged to her, too. 

Her parents got matching "H" tattoos in Amsterdam, on a whim, because the tattoo shop looked like an enchanted place when they happened upon its storefront, and also, I am sure, because they were missing their girl, with whom they FaceTimed daily. The letter looks so much smaller on her dad's wrist but the stencil used was the exact same size.

We had a cast of thousands over here all day yesterday, not really but it felt that way, with us and Harper and her mom and dad, her grandma, my daughter, and one of my Brooklyn nieces, who had met up with her older sister in Amsterdam and traveled with them for the week. It felt downright festive, all the talk and chatter and playing with Harper and catching up on Survivor and hearing about travel adventures, and eating lobster rolls and soup, and joining our similarly obsessive natures to conquer a particularly hard puzzle, and the peaceful camaraderie of doing that together around the dining table while Harper was down for her nap, and it was just an all around lovely family day. 

Now everyone has gone again. The Brooklyn folks left at close to midnight, while the Dallas crew departed for the airport at 4 AM this morning, Harper in a jolly mood, ready for the next adventure. Now it's back to being just the man and me, and I initially fantasized that I would sleep all day today but here I am, awake and catching up on editing stories for the magazine, and perusing news of the outside world, and oh man, did that ever burst my sweet little family bubble. 

So here we are at the twilight of an empire, witnessing how a superpower falls. The thing is, it doesn't collapse for everyone. In this version of the Fall of Rome, the technocrats consolidate power and wealth by destroying the state, the press, and academia, thus silencing the voice of the people. They cut off all avenues of individual autonomy and freedom to elevate one's fortunes, with the goal of creating an entrenched and disposable peasant class beholden to their rule by fiat. They are already miles and miles down this road. Seen in this light, a gathering like yesterday's is nothing less than an act of resistance, a practice of survival through community, through love. 

Work life balance, what's that?

My daughter is the calmest spirit. When she is around, little Harper is so chill. She runs everyone ragged at other times, she's very high energy, especially when my son is around, as his energy just about matches hers. Everyone is running everywhere, and, granted, squealing with delight, when Harper and Uncle Raddy get going. She adores her Uncle Raddy as much as she adores her Titi Kai, but it is with my daughter that she calms right down, and becomes downright serene. My daughter has that effect on me, too. Her husband is a lucky man, and a smart one, because I think he knows who he married, and is grateful to live in the lovely light my daughter emits day to day. 

That doesn't mean she doesn't have storms like the rest of us. But she is able to meet them head on, and to be unflinchingly self-aware. She is not pleased about a work situation right now, for example. There was a big corporate shakeup and she landed on a team that feels to her like two steps backward, in that it is a regional rather than a national strategic position, and customer based rather than sales based, and sales teams are the demigods of the company as they bring in the numbers with many zeros. She and a couple of other so called "corporate stars" inexplicably got moved from that bigger pond to the regional team. "My ego took a hit," she told me. "Maybe I'm not as good as I think I am, or maybe the people high up didn't ask the right people about what I do so they don't know what I've done. Either way," she admitted with a rueful laugh, "I'm a little bitter."

I saw the corporate vision right away. They needed some strong anchors on the regional team, people who could help them shore up the business there, who could iron out problems with corporate partners, as she has proven she is able to do. It's not really a step back, she's still a manger, still at her same level within the corporate structure, she's just playing in a different pool now, and it could be she might end up preferring it. She won't have to work anymore with a couple of monster clients who always made her life miserable, and that's a silver lining. Her quality of life may actually improve, because right now, girlfriend works hard. But she can't see that yet, because keeping those monster clients tamed got her promoted twice, got her noticed, but at what cost to her personal peace? 

I said to my husband on the night she learned the results of the corporate reorg, "Our girl isn't happy with where she landed, but she's decided she's going to accept the new position." "Makes sense," he said. "She's not happy, but she's not stupid either. She'll accept it, see what it is, and decide her next move from there."

At work yesterday, she talked to one of her mentors, who put the move in the same terms as I had, and also shared that even though she will be working with even more corporate partners than before, each one is smaller in scope than the big national chains, and she will find them a lot more grateful for what she will do for them. Does that mean no more monster clients? Let us all hope. In any case, when she came over last night for some more Harper time, she confessed to feeling less bitter than she had the day before. "Hour by hour, I feel more philosophical," she said. "I guess I’ll just have to see."

She starts her new role May 1. Maybe I won't get any more tearful workday calls from her about some shit thing happening with one of her more difficult accounts. I get these calls occasionally, less often now than when she first started this job. She calls me so she can blow out the emotional storm before calling the client, or one of her bosses, and be perfectly professional as she pitches possible solutions. She is at this very moment over there in Brooklyn wrangling one of those monsters, though this problem did not rise to the level of frustrated tears needing a sympathetic ear. When I get these calls, I ask, "Am I to just listen or do you want suggestions?" and she'll let me know if she needs me to just let her vent and process out loud or if she wants me to strategize with her. I should say that these calls do not alarm me, because I know my girl is just clearing her air space. Besides, we usually end these conversation laughing. Perhaps I'll be able to gauge how well the new position is going by whether I still get such calls, which, to be fair, only came twice in the past year. Because really, she is as good as she thinks she is. 

First, they disappeared an activist

Last Saturday night in New York City, ICE agents went into a Columbia University residential building to arrest a legal resident of Palestinian descent, a graduate of the university, married to an American citizen who is eight months pregnant. The agents, acting on instructions from Homeland Security, seemed to believe Mahmoud Khalil was in the country on a student visa, and told him it was being revoked and he would be deported. His wife explained he had a green card, showed it to them, and put their lawyer on the phone. The agents appeared confused, then declared they were revoking the green card, too. The lawyer explained they could not do that, only a judge could do that. The agents hung up on the lawyer and took Mahmoud Khalil away. They said they were transferring him to a detention facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey, but when his wife went there the next morning, she learned he had never been there. It seemed he had been disappeared.

This recent graduate of the school of international and public affairs, soon to be a father, was taken from his home in the night despite having committed no crimes. He had merely exercised his first amendment right to free speech last year as spokesperson for his fellow students, who were camped out on Columbia's lawns in protest of the war in Gaza. Outside agitators entered the campus at certain points during the weeks that the protest continued to incite trouble and spew hate, but the student action remained peaceful. Nevertheless, the university's president eventually called in police to remove the students and their tent city from the area south of College Walk. 

Many in the city gasped in shock and outrage as police in riot gear and brandishing rifles swarmed the campus, aggressively detaining students as they razed the encampment. I had a close up view because I still live in this neighborhood where I went to college and to grad school. My children played on that campus when they were growing up, splashing in its fountains, running on those same lawns, playing hop scotch on the wide library steps. The gates to College Walk were always open and welcoming to the community, but after the police assault on the students' right to assemble last spring, the campus became a locked prison. Now, students and anyone else wishing to enter its gates must show proof of their reason for being there.

With all the bad actions that have already been taken by this new administration, with all the people whose lives have been placed in literal jeopardy, somehow this abduction from an Ivy League campus of a lawful permanent resident accused of no crime feels like a chilling escalation by an authoritarian state designed to incite fear. We don't need to agree with all the political positions Mahmoud Khalil took to defend his right to take them. But we do need to understand that if the state can make one activist in a tower of ivy simply disappear, then they can disappear anyone.

On cue today, 47 chimed in that this arrest was "the first of many to come." Some are saying Mahmoud Khalil’s arrest is a test run to see how we, as a nation, will respond. Many marched in New York City to demand Khalil's freedom yesterday, and civil liberties organizations are mobilized. By last night, a New York judge ruled that Mahmoud Khalil must not to be removed from the country and that his attorneys and the government's representatives are to appear in court tomorrow. It now seems that Khalil was taken to a detention center in Louisiana, where the laws more easily support his deportation. The court has ordered that he be returned to New York. And yet, as of this writing, Khalil still has not been allowed to speak to his lawyers. Many people, some in quite high places, are keeping eyes on this, marching, making phone calls, bringing lawsuits, staying tuned.

Look who’s here ❤️

Her grandma across the courtyard will share with us the pleasure of this darling little girl’s company for a week while her parents attend a dentists conference in Maryland and then a romantic getaway for a few days. Lord, but she’s sweet, lots of words now, knows her own mind, personality and main character energy to spare. Wish us luck and lots of imagination! My daughter was going to sleep over and share in the fun with her goddaughter but she and her husband went to a wedding in Arizona last weekend and she came back sick with what she thought was the flu. She went to urgent care to get checked, only to discover she has Covid. She’s all alone with it over there in Brooklyn, because her husband had to go to Chicago for work this week. They were still under the impression it was the flu when he left, but he’s feeling fine, no symptoms at all, and by the time he gets back this weekend she won’t be contagious any more so that part is good. She was supposed to travel to Boston next week for work but will likely cancel that meeting (one still feels fatigued in the week after recovery from Covid) and come stay with us and visit with Miss Harper instead. Everyone sure is doing a lot of traveling!

Women together

Our children gave us to each other. We women first met when they were four and five years old, at that little school with a social conscience and a working farm. Twenty-five years later our baby birds have built their own nests, but we women still gather when we can, less often than we used to, because one of us lives upstate now, another has grandmother duties, a third is caring for elder parents, life does take new shapes through the years, but last night four of us got together for a meal and to share hearts in the home of one of us, the rooms so familiar from past eras of our lives that it felt like a kind of homecoming—especially as we then proceeded to remind ourselves that we can still empty all our cares into each others' rueful laughter, and not take ourselves too seriously, and rest in the company of warrior mothers who have traveled alongside us, village women who helped us parent our children when they were still just sprouts and weeds. Now, all these years later, how wonderful to know that when we come together, it is as it always was, we are still safe with each other, still deeply known, still made more whole in the comfort of longstanding, free floating, woman centered love.