3 January 2021
[Above photo: Kelly contemplating our recent Fresca Box delivery with fear and awe.]
I have become unconscionably lazy during this period between teaching my classes. Yesterday I slept until 9AM, something I haven’t done for 30 years. Of course, Kelly and I stayed up until midnight watching “No Direction Home” about Bob Dylan’s career. It was mesmerizing and recalled to me first hearing Joan Baez sing at 47 Mt. Auburn in Cambridge in 1961. And Ravi Shankar gave an electrifying concert at Sanders Theatre at Harvard about the same time. The place was packed, I’d never heard of him, and everyone was transported. We were all so young.
Drifting along here, I arose at 7 this morning and worked for an hour before joining Kelly for breakfast on the couch, as usual. We looked through the window at the garden, and the jungle beyond it; both are lushly green and lovely and filled with birdsong. It is a striking contrast to the pages of the NY Times, where DT is bullying election officials to “just find me 11,780 votes”, an inflatable Christmas tree at Kaiser-Permanente Santa Clara Hospital has inadvertently spread coronavirus to 40+ people, including to one who died, and small businesses are simply shredded and abandoned by these viral times. The above hospital is where I had surgery and chemotherapy for lung cancer 10 years ago; the care, and the facility, were incredible. I feel a certain responsibility to repay that remarkable care and skill through the way I carry out my life. I’ll spend less time reading the newspaper and watching political videos, to which I seem drawn, and more being productive.
I had supper two nights ago with friends—-he is Burmese and she is British. In two weeks they’ll fly to UK, settling in Sussex where her parents are, where she grew up, and where her granny left her a cottage. She’s been here, doing peace work, for 15 years. He spent 10 years in Lowell, Massachusetts, doing community work with the large SE Asian refugee population there. He’s an American citizen. Returning to Myanmar has not been easy for him, as it is not for many who live in the West or Australia for a year or more. The quite rigidly defined roles of men and women here, the traditional restraint and indirectness of communication, and other cultural expectations make transition back very difficult. I anticipate it may be a challenge for them to go to UK, where she has a dream job working for an international star in the peace movement, Dr. Scilla Elworthy, and he has yet to obtain a work visa. This switching between cultures can be tough. Plus, you have amazing and exotic experiences for which those at home, not surprisingly, have a brief interest only. As they told us when we were about to return from Africa, “A little Peace Corps goes a long way.”
Thinking about all this, plus discussing it with my daughter, has helped me to decide to find a winter residence, when I decide to hang it up here, in a town of sorts. Summer will be on Beach Island, all meadows and forests and beaches. Being in proximity to Ari, yet not breathing down her neck, is important to me. The appealing towns are Belfast, about which I hear good things, and Bar Harbor. The latter has The College of the Atlantic and Jackson Labs and their faculty, in addition to the town itself. Bar Harbor is the more expensive. Perhaps I’ll rent for a year, from October through May, and see how I like it. I am so unencumbered I could easily rent in Ushuaia or Ulan Bator.
Kelly, with phone assistance from his wife, Diane, in California and a vegetarian cookbook she sent to him, is creating wonderful dishes in our kitchen. It isn’t difficult for me to be vegan, although I do miss cheese. We cheat and use a bit of grated parmesan on pasta dishes. I can torture myself by imagining feasts I’ve had—-roast leg of lamb with mint sauce for Sunday supper as a child, ribs at Everett and Jones in Oakland, a Jack Daniels-marinated rib-eye steak at the Protea Hotel in Blantyre, and, of course, lobster at Beach Island. But if I don’t think about it, if I live in the moment with what is before me, I am perfectly happy with our diet. Kelly isn’t rigid; he’s a “Flexitarian”. But we never buy meat and rarely eggs (pecan pie) or milk (for coffee only). I suppose it feels a bit virtuous, not needing animals to be raised and killed to keep me fed. Mostly, it feels healthy.
We had a Fresca Box, a selection of fresh vegetables for one person, delivered weekly for 4 weeks. It was overwhelming and we’ll take a break for a bit before signing up for another 4 week set. It takes organization and planning to use all the vegetables when they come simultaneously. Wednesday supper is always a challenge, because the box comes on Thursday. We now know to make vegetable broth from anything left around; it makes a nice soup base. My thinking is impulsive, not linear, but I see the advantages in cooking from a tested recipe. “Secret Santa” brought me a book on Burmese cooking and I’ll find dishes there to cook and use the veggies.
I recall the Onion headline when Obama was inaugurated: “Black Man Gets Worst Job in the US”. Inheriting two wars and a deep, vicious recession, it did seem pretty awful in comparison with his predecessor. Shrub had a $500,000,000,000 budget surplus and we hadn’t yet invaded Iraq. DT inherited a growing economy and recovery but leaves us with massive unemployment, an inadequately tended, worsening pandemic, and an economy in tatters. We may soon have tens of millions of families homeless. A banner saying, “Kind, Elderly White Man Accepts the Worst Job in the US” could decorate Joe’s inaugural stage. The most trying part will be to gain the trust of those fearing “Socialism” but wanting, and needing, government assistance, healing the tribal rift, and discerning a way to identify and de-fang disinformation on the internet. For every Alex Jones making millions off of “Silver Supplements”, survival packs, and conspiracy theories, there are thousands who seem incapable of critical thinking and who are vulnerable to following anyone who promises a quick release of their fear and anger.
There are, thankfully, enough reasonable people across the political spectrum who can pump their brakes, like the past 10 Secretaries of Defense. Imagine Dick Cheney initiating that letter, not jumping on the Trump bus to hell. This nightmare is ending, although not without a coda, which will be on January 6 as the Electors’ votes are counted. I do hope the Proud Boys “stand down” on that day. The inauguration will be welcome but it will be an anticlimax.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 