PUBLISHED IN MEDIUM
Tendrils reach the living room window. The tree, a friend, beckons. It was here sixteen years ago when Sharon and I bought this Brooklyn apartment. Sturdy through blizzard, hurricane, drought, the tree comforts me now. It brought joy in past years at this season, as early buds renewed the tree and my spirit after winter cold and school stress, but with the pandemic's third week upon us I stare out for solace.
One should collaborate with nature, not act as its master, a Zen tenet says. I still greet the tree each morning and honor its endurance. A long limb can almost reach my window. Two men from the city's Parks Department halved it with a buzzsaw last year as I cried out in vain. That resilient branch now extends itself in my direction. It entreats me to accept from its example that our health crisis, too, shall pass. I nod in affirmation though uncertain.
My father taught me as I grew up in the Sixties to solve my own problems. Manhattan's Upper West Side, where we were, was politically vibrant, racially diverse. Intellectually stimulating and conscience-pricking throughout the Vietnam and Civil Rights eras, the setting made me sense and want to show my potential.
“A man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures, and that is the basis of all human morality,” President Kennedy said at that time. His insight has been my beacon light.
Stuffing envelopes for Mayor Lindsay's campaign at age twelve after school, the West Side Democratic Club's youngest voting member at fourteen, in student government throughout middle school, pitching in with my peers for a bus rental to the Vietnam Moratorium in Washington, I lived by what my two heroes had said.
As a young adult I served as a Senate aide and Peace Corps Volunteer. I've since started a school, hosted a talk show, advised politicians. Sharon's encouragement and steadfast support saw me through graduate school at night while with children and working full-time to earn teaching credentials. I willed myself, at my career's midpoint, to oppose a corrupt high school principal who retaliated against me but was removed from his position.
I’ve always leaned into a challenge, but our unique health crisis of uncertain duration defies a lifetime's “can-do” practice as hand-washing, mask-wearing, hydration and staying six feet away from my neighbors masquerade as great deeds.
It would be well for a national humility to emerge from our present predicament. May we care more for one another across colors, creeds and customs when it's done? Might the self-professed “greatest country in the history of the world” ban that phrase from parlance so we perceive ourselves as part of a world community as the United Nations at its founding intended?
So many people face hardships beyond illness now. Syria's once-promising Arab Spring revolution, has become a ten-year civil war. Our thirteen years in Afghanistan squandered lives and wealth with no signs of stability.
Congressmen Max Rose and Greg Weeks last night extolled doctors and nurses as “front line warriors in our war against an invisible enemy.” It's appalling violent rhetoric, typically male, directed toward frightened citizens by elected officials who should focus instead on providing first responders with adequate ventilators and proper protection.
The tree shimmers outside in late afternoon. The day's sunshine is soul-nourishing, but a terrible beauty surrounds us — abroad, the world in turmoil; across the hall from our home sits a neighbor self-quarantined, health compromised by having been exposed to the virus.
A beloved soup kitchen friend, vital at 89, lies in hospice with injuries that a car collision inflicted. “She has a collapsed lung and the hospital could do nothing more,” an email informs. “They had to use the 'jaws of life' to get her out of the car.” She should not have been driving but did so to fill the car's trunk with the potatoes that with pasta and vegetable-leavened shredded chicken would become Wednesday's hearty soup.
Her sparse but well-chosen words brought us close: “You're always right there with whatever needs to be done,” she once said in passing. Clearly in charge of the meal preparation, she respected everyone's personality, space and commitment.
“I love their music,” she whispered when I told her in December, to make conversation, that Sharon and I looked forward to the Paul Winter Consort's winter solstice performance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine — so I bought a recording that I silently slipped in her hand as I sliced the next week's gnarled spuds. She's had a good life, I'm told, as a forty-year first-grade teacher with thirty-one years in the soup kitchen, but she deserves a better death.
Beyond my window, the tree branches shift in the breeze, waving their gentle farewell.
The tree's endurance helps me trust mine.
