New Year's wishes for all, a challenge, and a sunrise

Resolutions are a poor way to start the year. They always seem to have the quality of “I’ll be a good girl next year” or “I’ll do all my homework.” They speak of fear and shame and inadequacy.

Don’t get me wrong. Reflection is good. So are goals. But they shouldn’t be remedial, and should be personal. Joyous. Exciting. It should be a time to think about what matters to you. What you want out of your relationships, what’s interesting to you and makes you happy to get out of bed, and how you want to go about getting more life out of life in the coming year.

So, I have a challenge for all of you. Think of five things you did or accomplished in the past year that made your year better. This doesn’t have to mean curing cancer, although that would have been nice, or getting a big promotion. It can be something as simple as finally learning to knit, or singing in public for the first time. Maybe you started an exercise program and now have more energy, or did charitable work or gave someone special a surprise party. You don’t have to tell me about it. Now, think about five things you’d like to do in the coming year.  Maybe you want to write a novel, although it doesn’t have to be that ambitions.  You might want to learn to bake bread, or take a family vacation or become involved with a community garden or apply to graduate school. It’s all good, and once again, you can keep it to yourself, if you want to.

If you want to tell me about five accomplishments in 2012 and your dreams for 2013, leave a comment. If you send me your mailing address as well, I’ll send you a trinket. This is because giving yourself credit, allowing yourself to dream and saying these things out loud are all things that take courage, which should always be rewarded.

So, here’s my New Year’s wish to all of you.

Dream big and rejoice in the small things. May you get to spend time with the people you love most and may you share your love with those around you. My you be kind to strangers and a comfort to your friends. May you allow yourself to see the wonder and magic in the world. Try new things while building on the old. Dance or sing or write or garden or cook; find some way to create something new and wonderful. May you reach for the sun and bask in the starlight. May you have health, prosperity, and most importantly, JoyJoyJoy.

Start the year not with champagne or lentils or herring or a party or anything else that is supposed to be a good omen, but with what makes you happy. Personally, I like going to bed right after midnight so I can be at the beach for the first sunrise of the New Year. This is sunrise on January 1, 2012.

Oh, and if you’re going out tonight, be safe, which is a good thing to remember throughout the year. Don’t drink and drive. Avoid dangerous road conditions. Look both ways when you cross the street.

Happy New Year!

(Also, Bob's wish is for everyone to have magic ponies.)

Christmas, Memories and Gifts

Some years ago, my friend Jeanette invited some of her friends to share their holiday memories. Anything, for any winter holiday, in any form: poem, essay, fiction, whatever, and she posted all submissions in an online marathon collection. This was mine, sort of. Except for the parts that have been changed, which is most of them.

We were wearing our holiday finest while squirming on our bellies under the Christmas tree, inching after Norton-the-cat; he disliked his medicine, liked hiding from it. We needed to medicate him before gathering up the children, the presents and our English houseguest for the trek from our downtown apartment to my Ex’s family on the Upper East Side. Not unusually, we were fighting bitterly, this time because I didn’t want to go. X’s family was contentious, at best; the previous Thanksgiving included a merry romp around the house when his stepmother suddenly came after his father with a paring knife. We just don’t chase each other in my family. Not even with spoons. To make matters worse, Stepmother was always belligerent on Christmas, which was her birthday, and resented any gifts that were not given to her.

On this particular year, I was excessively foul tempered. While I never liked X’s family dinners, this was even worse because after arriving uptown, we would be turning around to have dinner at Windows on the World, at the World Trade Center, less than three blocks from our apartment. “Just because you’re Jewish is no reason you shouldn’t be as miserable as the rest of us!” X screamed. I said that I thought that was the upside to being without any family traditions of my own.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have a tree or family dinner. We didn’t chase each other with cutlery or visit grandma. I imagined what families did on Christmas, and it was straight out of Currier and Ives or Norman Rockwell and certainly unlike what anyone I knew actually experienced. As an adult I got to invent my own traditions. For years, I held an “orphan’s dinner.” I had a tree, because I thought it was pretty. I learned to make Yorkshire pudding and goose, because I thought it was traditional, and learned to ice skate because of the Currier and Ives thing.

One Christmas, while sitting alone in a Greenwich Village Café, waiting to go to wherever I’d been invited, I struck up a conversation with a man sitting at the next table.  He was also alone, sipping espresso and reading a picture book.  The tables were quite close together and I could see the illustrations, which were very beautiful, predominated by ice-blues, and all of winter scenes.  The man showed me the book, which was of the carol “Good KingWenceslas,” my favorite carol, whether because of the pretty tune, which dates to the 16^th century, or the lyrics, which appealed to my sense of social justice, I don’t know. 

The man and I talked about illustration and children’s literature and storytelling.  When he got up to leave, he paid his bill then turned back to me.  “Merry Christmas,” he said, and handed me the book.  He left quickly, and I never learned his name, but I still have the book. 

When I got X and the kids, everything changed. There were no more orphan dinners, no more invitations to accept and certainly no more random conversations with generous strangers. These were replaced with the endless wrapping of presents. Christmas Eve was always spent with the in-laws, attending an annual performance of the Brandenburg Concertos, less lovely after the fifth year or so. Christmas day was always spent at a birthday dinner for my mother-in-law, who each year chose someplace fussier than the last. I did not want to go to Windows on the World.

 As a New Yorker, it had two major strikes: the food was not well regarded and it was tourist destination. It had it’s own elevator, attended by people in pastel uniforms, and I passed them daily on my way to the subway. Once, I had gone during the day to the World Trade Center viewing platform, but I thought that the towers were so high and so removed from most of the city that the details and the beauty were lost in the distance.

We had an exceptionally large crowd that night at Windows on the World. Between my in-laws, some of their friends, both of my sisters-in-law and their families, our family, and our visiting British ex-pat journalist friend, we were at least a dozen. I don’t remember what we ate or what we talked about, except that two food writers were present at an unexceptional meal, and they were both writing books about salt. I do remember that we were there late; it was after midnight when we finally left.  And I remember the view.  

What was unimpressive by day was transformed at night.  Before me was a city of magic, covered with fairy dust, ley lines stretching as far as the eye could see. The rivers were twin ribbons of darkness on either side, surrounding billions of tiny lights, each one from a single office or a single apartment, each one representing someone else’s life. The view that night was all I needed to believe in magic; nothing could possibly be so beautiful if not enchanted.

As we got up to leave, I lingered, wanting to gaze longer at my magic city, unsure that I would ever again see anything so perfect and pure.  The kids were tired and wanted to go home, nagged me to hurry up, and finally, I put on my coat, took a short ride on a fast elevator, and walked across the street to my apartment.

I never again saw that beauty, never again saw that view. You won’t ever see it, either. It was gone by the following Christmas, gone when two planes flew into the World Trade Center, gone with the towers fell. Eventually, there will be a new restaurant, in the new building. It will have a view. That’s the nature of life, of memories; things change, although usually less violently.  But my magic city of light remains, a gift for everyone who cares to see it, young and old, rich and poor, tourist and resident alike.

That next year, the four of us spent a quiet Christmas Eve at home. The girls and I had spent the day baking, and the day before that as well, hundreds of cookies in a dozen different varieties. Before dinner, we packaged them up, and after dinner, the three of us bundled up and trudged out in the cold. We delivered cookies to the firehouse and the police precinct. We brought cookies to the police officers standing guard and to the construction workers on the site. We brought cookies to everyone working outside on cold winter’s night, away from their own families while watching over ours. It was our small gift to the city.

Much has changed since I saw the city lights from 107 stories high, but this has not: I wish you a Merry Christmas, or if you don’t observe, a joyous winter holiday, and I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. And when you have the chance, don’t hesitate to give small gifts of kindness.

Lawyers, Guns and Money. Also, The West Wing

I’m charming, witty, and have a great sense of humor. Really. One day I’ll write a blog post reflecting that. You’ll laugh and liquids will spurt out of your nose. Today is not that day.

20 little children, all first graders, are dead. They were all shot multiple times with semi-automatic weapons, a class generally capable of firing 45-60 rounds per minute. At the upper range, that’s a bullet per second. So forgive me if I’m indifferent to cries of responsible gun ownership or Second Amendment rights.

Here’s a thing. The United States has the highest per capita rate of gun ownership in the world, a rate of approximately 88.8%, nearly 90 guns per every 100 people. It also has the highest rate of mass shootings in the world, and I can’t help but think these things are connected.

Here’s a thing. People who like guns talk about responsible gun ownership and I’m guessing that most people who own guns think they’re pretty responsible. The man in the SUV who waved a gun in my friend’s face probably thought that was a reasonable reaction to a pedestrian who flipped him off. The man who accidently shot his son to death in a parking lot probably thought he was a responsible gun owner until that gun unexpectedly discharged. And I’m guessing that the mother of the Newtown shooter thought she was a responsible gun owner until the day her son shot her with her own gun and then pumped multiple bullets into the bodies of children.

I get the Second Amendment. Really I do.  I also get that it calls for a well-regulated militia. Leaving that aside, here’s what a gun looked like at the time the constitution was written. 

I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but as I understand it, these were muzzle-loaded guns that had to be reloaded after each shot. The guns that shot young children to death are capable of firing approximately a bullet a second. See the difference?

I get that people want to own guns. I get that the Supreme Court has upheld the right to own guns. What I don’t get is why a civilian needs this type of weaponry for either hunting or for self-defense. What kind of threat do you imagine that requires the need to pump a bullet per second into human flesh?

I can think of only one, and it’s called the Zombie Apocalypse. Those zombies just keep coming and there are a lot of them. I can imagine that a person’s odds would be better if they could just keep shooting, but the only thing that stops them is a shot to the brain, so you would either need a large caliber, one that would split a zombie skull instantly, or you’d better be a good shot and get the eye socket on the first try.

Personally, I don’t worry about this scenario and my guess is that you don’t, either. So I can still see no reason for a civilian to have multiple automatic or semi-automatic weapons. They’re never a good accessory in a movie theater, a school, a mall or even a dinner party. You believe in the right to own a gun? OK. Make them harder to get and ban assault weapons and we just might have something to talk about.

I keep thinking about a day 15 years ago. My daughter attended a Montessori-style New York City public school and the first grade class was doing a unit of study about books. Vicky’s teacher asked me if I’d come in and talk to the kids about how books get made, and I was delighted to do so. I remember sitting on the floor with nearly 30 six-year-olds, all eagerness and enthusiasm for a new person and learning a new thing. They all had questions and they were all so excited to tell me what they knew already.

I keep thinking about an alternate reality in which I went back to work and got a call telling me there was a shooting, that most of those same kids were dead.

Vicky is safely at college in Ohio, but I can’t stop crying for those kids, both the ones in Connecticut and my memory of that class at P.S. 234. I hope they’re all safe and leading happy lives.

Stop the madness. Call your senators and congresscritters and tell them you want meaningful gun control. And listen to this, from The West Wing. It's the single best minute ever written about gun control, which is why Aaron Sorkin has all those awards.

Shine On, Chanukah

No politics or economics or social activism this time, just joyous wishes for a Happy Chanukah on the first night.   It doesn’t matter if you’re not Jewish; good wishes and good will are not bound by religion or nationality. Or they shouldn’t be. In previous years, it’s been my tradition to post a song for each of the eight nights of Chanukah, but first, just a little about the holiday.

It’s ancient, dating back to the second century BC and Chanukah is one of the “They tried to kill us, but we survived” holidays. The very short version, the one that would curl your bible teacher’s hair, is that the Greeks were massacring the Jews and defiling the temple but the Jews triumphed, survived annihilation and rededicated the Temple. Oil was needed in the Temple for the candelabra, and while there was only enough for one day, it lasted for eight.

The holiday of Chanukah commemorates the miracle of lights, of the oil, which lasted for eight days, not victory in battle; Jews don’t glorify or celebrate war, or we’re not supposed to.  To commemorate this miracle, we light a candle each night for eight nights. If you want the longer version or to know more, or need to know the blessings when you light the menorah, you can go here.

I love being part of a tradition that stretches back over many centuries, love that sense of a direct link to a celebration of the human spirit. Also, I like gelt and latkes.

Chanukah celebrates a miracle; specifically a miracle of light which increases each night with an additional candle. It’s not, I think, a coincidence that cultures and religions around this hemisphere all have December celebrations that coincide with the days becoming longer in the third week of December, a fact that enhances, rather than diminishes the holiness of holidays during this time.

But I promised you a song. I’m a big fan of the outstanding a cappella group, The Maccabeats. Up until now, they’ve released songs for the Jewish holidays based on popular material, but for the first time they’ve written something original for Chanukah, Shine. If you enjoy it, please do share it.

Miracles don’t have to be big. You don’t have to part a body of water or provide food for a crowd. You can give to the charity of your choice, donate a day of your time to the service of your community, bring a bag of kibble to your local animal shelter, or a plate of hot food to an elderly neighbor. Even if these are small gestures, they’re still little miracles for someone.

Whatever your faith, shine bright this Chanukah.  Make your own miracles. For the next eight days. For each day, all year.

The dunes, a beach, global warming and a world of damage.

I’ve gone to some of the best beaches in the world. I’ve been to Rio de Janeiro and to the Gulf Coast. I’ve traveled up and down the Pacific edge of California and been to the rocky coast of Maine. I’ve even summered in the Hamptons, but I’ve never seen any stretch of ocean more beautiful than in Queens.

Yes, Queens. More specifically, the Rockaway Peninsula. Our favorite stretch of beach is somewhat remote. Pristine. No amenities. No boardwalk, lifeguards, concessions, and bathroom facilities are a 10-15 walk inland from the beach. There’s little in the way of parking and even less access without a car, so it’s not surprising that the beach at Fort Tilden is usually fairly empty.

Fort Tilden was built as a permanent army fortification in 1917, but has been the site of temporary military installations since the War of 1812. It was finally decommissioned in 1994 and one of my old neighbors in Battery Park City was the last brigadier general associated with it. Today, the National Parks Service administers the land, which encompasses 98 acres of wooded growth, abandoned barracks and gun batteries and several miles of ocean beach. In the summer, it’s a favorite spot for naked people and surfers and throughout the year it’s visited by birders, fishermen, photographers and us.

In addition to a few parking areas, mostly reserved for local Little League and soccer teams, there’s a narrow roadway paralleling the ocean, just wide enough for a Jeep or a couple of bicycles. Abandoned barracks are dotted along the landside, and massive dunes separate the roadway from the beach itself. 

The Rockaway Peninsula is one of the areas hardest hit by Sandy and we weren’t able to visit Fort Tilden for nearly a month. When we did, we drove past the massive, downed trees to the narrow roadway that parallels the ocean and immediately knew that something was wrong. Bob figured it out seconds before I did: the dunes were gone.

Those massive dunes were swept inland for over a quarter of a mile. Those massive dunes had protected the few active houses and buildings within the park and even the abandoned barracks, structurally iffy for years, were still standing. Dunes are what made the difference in Long Island beachfront communities like Lido Beach, mostly intact, and the duneless Long Beach, severely damaged. 

This is just the beginning of what we can expect; season after season, year after year, it’s likely to get worse. Here’s a thing. Water temperatures are rising for real because of something else that’s very real: Global Warming. Rising water temperatures mean more storms, and with or without dunes, the loss of lives and homes will be more severe year after year. Sure, there have been floods before our recent era. Galveston, Texas was literally decimated by a hurricane in 1900, and the Johnstown Flood occurred in 1889, but we’re seeing a sharp escalation in the severity and frequency of storms.

There’s a Hebrew blessing to be recited upon seeing an ocean, an acknowledgment of their immense power. Storm surges, which are what caused so much damage from Sandy, are temporary demonstrations of that power; the water levels return to normal, leaving uncovered the debris and devastation. Rising sea levels are for keeps and so is the damage. This is an app that shows coastal cities and what they would look like at various permanent sea level increases. Many cities would disappear.

Here’s a thing: cities are built on waterways, both coastal and inland, and not because of the pretty views. They develop where land is fertile, boats can dock, and waterways provide transportation both for people and goods. And it’s not just oceans that rise; I’ve been to Pittsburgh and have seen flood level markers on downtown buildings nearly over my head.

New York, Cleveland, Dallas, St. Louis, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Miami, and Louisville may have little in common, except that they are all built in proximity to bodies of water. Water that can rise, surge, and inundate the cities they support.

Now, no matter where you live, it’s always monsoon season.

If you think this is scary, want to do something and have a little extra money, this is a top-rated environmental NGO addressing global warming, among other issues. This is another one. And there's always The Sierra Club.

All photos © Eleanor Lang

All photos taken at Fort Tilden

Remembrance of Twinkies Past

Hostess. The name conjures childhood, whether happy or not. Their artificially made Twinkies, Cupcakes and Snowballs desirable and like Tang, and later, Pop Rocks, had the added cache of edible technology. It was the proper food for the children of Flatbush refugees, made all that much better because it wasn’t from home and had to be bought. Everyone wanted Hostess goodies in their metal batman-with-matching-thermos lunchbox. You could eat the cellophane-wrapped sweetness, share it, or use it as the highest form of currency for lunchroom trades.  Recently, overcome with nostalgia, I bought a package of Snowballs just to peel the marshmallow topping from the cake.

As an adult, you knew that Twinkies were bad for you, but now we know that they’re bad for 18,000 American workers. Hostess has entered into liquidation, which involves the immediate dismissal of nearly 15,000 employees while corporate executives will reap the rewards of running a business into the ground: they stand to receive $1.8 million in bonuses, in addition to salary, for liquidating the company. This is on top of the 300% raise the CEO gave himself after filing bankruptcy in January, the second in ten years.

The failure of Hostess may have been about antiquated equipment or an inability to update and diversify product offerings or even the fact that all Hostess products have the names of either low-rent strippers or third-rate clowns. It may be that, like a stolen car, Hostess is worth more chopped and sold than as a whole entity; corporate assets are expected to be worth around $1 billion, more than twice the assessed value in 2011. It’s a variant of The Producers as acted by corporate bakery, and Ho-Hos will still roll off some assembly line, despite the gutting of a company and the loss of many jobs.

But this isn’t about politics, or even my predictable pink diaper baby pro-worker position. It’s about a party I attended in 1986, when I was young and wild and fearless. Back then, I went to after-hours clubs and to bars where people dressed in rabbit costumes or like rock stars. I went to gallery openings and readings given by pretentious writers who probably weren’t any good. And I went to a party given by my friend Jack Womack.

Always an excellent host, Jack had prepared for this event by trying various recipes from Jane and Michael Stern’s excellent Square Meals cookbook, including a dessert that consisted of Twinkies embedded in green Jell-O. Honestly, it was worse than it sounds, since the green goo was absorbed into the moist cake, and it’s no wonder that party guests were reluctant to give it a try. But I was young and wild and fearless, and hell, it was TWINKIES! So I ate one, the only guest to do so. It was gross, but it remains my fondest Twinkie memory.

The next year, Jack gave me the copy of Square Meals that he had used and you can see his inscription here:

Twinkies, I’ll always love you. I’ll love your memory in the same way I love the memory of training wheels, roller skates with keys, Jell-O salad with canned fruit and the long, dull afternoons of suburban childhood.

Why you have today off and probably won't die at work tomorrow

When you go back to work tomorrow, consider this: your workplace will not be locked from the outside. You can leave when you want. You can go to the bathroom when you need.

To be fair, in 1911 it was illegal to lock employees in their place of work. That was the year of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, which killed 146 people, mostly women and children, who could not escape the fire because the doors were locked from the outside and fire escapes ended several stories above the street, to prevent employees from sneaking out. Because it was illegal, the owners of the factory (the “job creators” of their time) were fined $20. They had insurance, which covered the fine, miniscule even 100 years ago, and compensated them for employees killed at a rate greater than their families received.

Because of the fearless work of the International Ladies’Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) committees were formed to look at safety in the workplace, public opinion was changed, child labor laws were passed and the American Society of Safety Engineers was formed.

Let me say this again: when you go to work tomorrow, you will not be locked inside your office or shop. Your children will go back to school, not to a twelve- hour shift at a factory.  And it doesn’t even matter if you yourself are a member of a union; they’ve improved the workplace for all of us. Things like the eight-hour day, the five-day week, minimum wage, meal breaks, worker’s compensation, sick days and employee health insurance would not be available without the work of unions.

If you work for a paycheck, you’re a member of the labor force. You deserve Labor Day. You deserve a living wage. You deserve to be treated fairly.

My mother used to sing this to me. You know, like a lullaby, only different. Written by Woody Guthrie in 1940, this is a 1963 performance by Pete Seeger.  

This Labor Day, remember what unions stand for. Remember what they’ve done for you. Enjoy your time off.

Where are the men?

In the fabulous land of Theory, Rush Limbaugh has apologized for his remarks about Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke. In the world of Reality, it’s not much an apology, more of a justification. Limbaugh’s remarks included the following:

“I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability?”

By social activity, he means sex, and specifically, sex between a woman and a man, which is the only way pregnancy can occur. So my question to Mr. Limbaugh is this: Where are the men? The ones who are having sex with the women wanting contraception? The health insurance industry subsidizes the sex lives of older men, paying for drugs to treat erectile dysfunction. Younger men who “get around” are revered by both their peers and by popular culture.  Yet somehow, women need to be more personally and financially responsible about sex.

Let’s assume a culture and enforceable legal system in which every single time a man had sex, he knew that there was a possibility of pregnancy. DNA testing can confirm paternity beyond a doubt, and let’s assume that every single pregnancy would require a man to pay for 18 years of child support, even if he was already married, paying off student loans, had met the woman only once before, or had to take a second or even third job to support the child. Let’s assume a cost of effective contraception high enough and an economy tight enough that married couples had to supplement responsible family planning with a hope and a prayer, the latter method by some politicians.

Here’s what I think would happen: politicians and economists would talk about on-demand contraception as a keystone to building personal and family wealth. Easy access to contraception would be hailed as an important step to our country’s financial recovery. Men would routinely make financial donations to Planned Parenthood and they would be on the phone with their elected officials, requesting that birth control be included in all health plans.

Mr. Limbaugh, the problem that exists is not that there is no “personal responsibility” about sex, but we behave as if only women are involved in these “social” activities. Sex is about all adults, not just the 51%.