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A Reflection on Missed Camp Experiences

My siblings and I didn’t have the summer camp experience, that potentially transformative break from regular time and space, interacting and bonding with kids of similar or different backgrounds. And, for those who keep returning, familiar “home away from home,” turf on which to enact/embody personal identity and agency building, shift from parent to peer influences. Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, et al. started lifelong friend and professional relationships and laid the groundwork for great careers while they honed musical, writing and performance skills staging camp skits and plays. (PBS documentary Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy. 2013). Judy Heumann, godmother of the disabled rights movement, incubated from 10 years at a camp where she and other kids previously sidelined into special education classes (their wheelchairs and crutches called “fire hazards”!) were empowered to push physical limits and resist parents’ and society’s control and “protection.” (Netflix documentary Crip Camp. 2020; Wikipedia). This eventually led to the Americans with Disabilities Act

Seeking Roots in Unfamiliar Places

We, my brother, two sisters and I, visited different places but not the same ones. And we traveled mostly together with our mother. Only weak connections to a home base, our other constants were the car we crammed ourselves into (an old light blue Ford for most of our travels) and baseball, wherever my dad was managing that season’s team. We’d drop into a succession of small communities for a couple months, become locally and momentarily “famous,” then we’d depart, leaving no trace behind, as if we’d never even been there. Who was that masked rider? In retrospect, it feels like a Zeno’s Paradox progression through a series of random locations, but somehow never getting anywhere. My brother could be batboy and go on team road trips, but baseball had no place for my sisters and me, just along for the ride. I talk of my childhood self now as being like a baby anthropologist, but unlike those “professional strangers,” I became a non-participant observer, stuck in the back seat, staring out the car window, daydreaming, making up stories about the passing scene.

Travel and Disconnecting

Note that summer camp wasn’t sunny fun for all who did go. Comedian Sarah Silverman has described surviving hers as a chronic bedwetter, sheets sopping wet, yet her parents kept sending her back. They both had fond camp memories and she thought they appreciated the summer break. So, we follow grownups’ path until we’re able to veer off on our own. The basic fact of my family’s life was that baseball was my dad’s true religion. Recognize a variation on a common theme: Swiss Family Robinson and Little House on the Prairie trope of restless, seeking, dads who drag their progeny out into the wilderness/frontier/ocean. Though that was probably more my mother. Single parent half the year, a total non-athlete, I suspect she felt she deserved a little excitement, if only as a spectator. Certainly never, if you knew her, a cheerleader. And she needed us around her as a security blanket. She’d write out our routes, but still worried we’d missed the turns. This even though we learned to watch for route signs as soon as we could read and recognize numbers.

Rediscovering the Body

Not surprising that I still tend to view life as an extended road trip, internal and external. Sometimes a tedious schlep, but now and then it’ll throw us surprises, around the bend, on the other side of a hill. So, not entirely unexpected that, a couple months back, I happened on a chance to sample an abbreviated version of the camp experience I’d missed earlier in life. Only figured that out after I arrived. But who says you can’t go back? Fittingly called circle dance, in fact “Sacred Circle Dance,” the festival/camp in Mexico was in its 29th year. Proved to be a wonderful, expansive, bi-lingual (Spanish and English) experience. Around 100 of us, almost all women, with a slight sprinkling of men. And many already knew each other, had danced together, some for 20 or 30 years. People kept asking how I got there. I had the same question and kept thinking of Bob Dylan’s My Back Pages. “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”

The Journey to Sacred Circle Dance

At the camp, a “rookie” (baseball references don’t quit), I felt/knew I had “two left feet.” But veterans shared the motto, “If you can walk, you can dance.” So, all right. I could do that. Not a natural, but fellow “campers” made me welcome, gave me advice on whose feet to watch. Not across the circle; they’re on the opposite foot. It was such fun and powerful, and magical. I’m told that in time I won’t need to watch; I’ll have it in my body. When people asked, I gave them the short version of my story: reconnecting with my body; my mom and dad and baseball; taking Tai Chi with the sense of internal energy; reading an article by Laura Sullivan, one of the “godmothers”; searching on google. They praised my courage for coming on my own and without previous experience. And for joining the circle, not hesitating, holding back. Striving to pick up basic dance steps. “You’re an inspiration.” A woman told me. And I replied, “If you pay your money, might as well take your chances.”

Overcoming Self-Doubt

Meanwhile, I reflected on my longer journey and two early memories. In the first, bored and barely in my body, I sit in front of looming nuns. All about keeping us in our seats, they taught by rote, had us memorize everything from catechism answers to science definitions. In the second memory, I run, released and exuberant in my body and little cowgirl outfit, down the back walk at home. In the moment for once, I feel rooted and I’m all joyous physicality. My younger self struggled to find balance, to tease out clues on how to be a girl, become a woman. And the only models available were my not very active mother and the disembodied nuns, shrouded in black and white and celibate too. Baffled, I took a detour, downplayed my body and feeling parts, lived mostly in my head—reading, storytelling, writing. Yet I always felt the gap. And, like Peter Pan looking for his lost shadow, I wanted them back. Along the way, I recalled that I had another active genetic legacy from my dad. And I started discovering resources—Yoga, Tai Chi, etc.—to merge body, spirit, soul. Wish I’d had them before. But how could I? Certainly, nothing the nuns or their “superiors” would have sanctioned. It took the pendulum swing of the ecstatic, romantic, overreaching 1960s to bring us these treasures from the east. Not that everyone would agree, but I view them as true gifts of the Magi. Isn’t life all metaphor?

Challenging Cartesian Dualism

Still me, I’d brought a book to “camp,” David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous. (Vintage. C1996, 2017). Little time to read, but I shared the message. Rejection of any “lingering assumption of a self-subsistent, disembodied, transcendental ego” a la Descartes. His brain-centered ideas have taken a beating in recent years. And why not? The most brilliant minds can concoct silly ideas that lead the whole culture down dead ends, like treating the body as a mere vestigial organ to carry the head around. But “…If without this body there would be no possibility of experience—then the body itself is the true subject of experience…identifying the subject—the experiencing ‘self’—with the bodily organism.”

Protection and Community

The final, chilly, morning, about to board the bus for the Mexico City airport, I was asked to pick from a deck of angel cards. Mine read (in Spanish) Generosidad Y Apertura (Generosity and Openness). At home, I put the card on my bookcase and found myself raised up, courage and sense of the world and possibilities expanded. Easy enough to do one-off bravery, in a place outside regular time, under a temporary enchanted spell. But can/could I carry through in everyday life? When the mundane starts to impinge? Not to lose momentum, first night back, I pulled my weary mind-body together and attended a local Jung Society talk on “Trauma and the Transcendent Function.” Not “out there,” but “in here.” Find meaning in affectively calibrated self-narrative, meaning and Identity Creation. Story about who I am. I felt the synchronicity.

Finding Guidance in Unexpected Places

Next day, I continued ongoing conversation with my Tai Chi teacher. We’ve talked about trying circle dance there when I’m ready. More synchronicity: seems I’ve established a degree of bona fides just sticking around, staying in the moment and in my body. And since no one else seems to be doing Circle Dance here (as far as I can tell), perhaps I might start? Can I muster the courage to step out? Will there be a market? Scouting out other dance resources, I’ve found a local “International Dance” group. Another sub-culture of folks who’ve danced together for years. Not quite the same, but close enough for now. Such fun and the chance to hone skills with another group of lovely and welcoming people.
Bridging the Gap

Later, I read June Watts (Circle Dance: Celebrating the Sacred in Dance. Green Magic. 2006), another of the godmothers. I resonate with her words on her own first experience. “It all fell into place, as things do when you’re on track in your life…The universe always demonstrates support when you take a step clearly and strongly in answer to the soul’s prompting….” So, “We just show up, hold hands, and off we go…great joy that it is so accessible.” The Sacred part, “works on the whole person—all levels—clearing the emotions, calming the mind, strengthening the presence of the spirit in the body.” And a fellow camper, Diane Pienta, sent me her book Be the Magic (Citrine Publishing. C2023). “…[T]he world never stops sending us guidance, nudges, bricks-over-the-head towards what our hearts are longing for, for what would bring us the most joy. If we could just remove the blinders from our eyes, we could attune to the guidance and the beauty…we could see the magic.” Amen.

Stepping into New Spaces

And so, I commit myself to continue this road trip. To keep on keeping on. And I find I have plenty of company, other folks on their own paths to embody. Probably mixing metaphors, but I can also view the path as a stream. The pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus said you can’t step into the same stream twice. I had gone away to “camp” and come back changed and my route has changed too and keeps expanding. And if I trust that the way will open ahead of me, there can be no wrong turns.

In Search of My Kitties. Part 2

Saying Goodbye to Rebop:
A while back, I wrote of having to let go of my much-loved cat Rebop. I had to do what was right for her and release her to the universe from kidney failure and cancer. It took me a couple months to process and for the pet crematory I had handle her final care to send an envelope of tributes, her paw print, and a swatch of her fur. The print is on my bookcase next to her photo and near the angel card from the dance camp I attended in Mexico.

Resettling and Reflecting:
Meanwhile, I’d been resettling, all the while knowing that in due time I’d want a couple cats again. They and I do better together. I had in mind a bonded pair of females, if possible. Not to replace, which could never happen. Loved creatures aren’t interchangeable, can’t be substituted. And I hold close all the kitties I’ve shared time and space with. Their names, personalities, souls imprinted on my heart.

Desultory Search:
But I began a desultory search for new “friends” to share my home. To continue the story, to build community together. I bought two new, more spacious, cat carriers to open space. And I opened my heart and prepared to open my home to surprise and serendipity. Not putting much energy into it, I hoped it would just happen.

Mystery of Strays:
There’s an inherent mystery to taking in strays, as I have in the past. Where were they before? Had they been treated well or badly? Were they physically abused? Had they gone without food? Had they been scared away? Being non-verbal, they can’t say, but they signal with degrees of skittish. And we can only wait to see how long it will take them to settle in, to trust. Certainly, being the food provider helps. After a while, they start wanting to cuddle, to be petted. We all do need someone to love a la the Jefferson Airplane song.

Urban Adoption Challenges:
Since I’ve moved to more suburban/urban environments, the process has grown more complicated. I’ve had to shift to rescue cats from non-profit pet adoption organizations. These cats are different, have less agency, and come with some record of recent history, though not what they went through before. There seem to be scads of such organizations. And some, frankly, are rudimentary, one-or-two person operations, a little shaky and sketchy, long in heart but limited in organization. I recognize folks operating in this sphere as another sub-culture, one of many I seem to keep stumbling over.

First Adoption Attempt:
Easing into action, but with limited enthusiasm, I went online, made a couple phone calls. I visited. First try was in a woman’s home. I sensed her kind and generous heart, but she had cats everywhere, piled in towel-lined cardboard box tops on kitchen counters, in cages. The scene was cat hording with some available for adoption. I’m sure she did her best, but the smell, impossible to keep down, reminded me of the offices of a zoo I once visited that were next to the big cat house. Interestingly, I was doing a report on animal extinctions and needed to look at their “Red Book,” the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of threatened species. Not as simple and clearcut as we might imagine. Turns out not being seen doesn’t mean species no longer exist. Survivors may just be hiding, and not trusting of humans. And who can blame them?

Evaluating Feral Cats:
At this smaller cat house, my hostess described a few of her charges as “can’t pick up.” I took that to mean essentially feral. Should that translate to unadoptable? If I wanted two, she offered to pick up one she’d been feeding on the street. I filled out the form but felt hesitant. At home, when a friend called, I shared my reservations, then withdrew my application by text. I hadn’t felt a connection with any of the cats. And how could I, would that even be possible, in the circumstances? And how would feral cats work/live in my home? Would they constantly be alert for chances escape? How destructive would they be if contained? Would/could they bond? Would/could I bond with them? And isn’t the whole point?

Second Adoption Attempt:
Second try, referred by the first woman, was a gift shop with cats to adopt. It takes all kinds in this sub-culture world. Only one caught my fancy/imagination, a lovely tan tiger stripe, but she had eye issues, fluid oozing. I filled out the form anyway. Trust in serendipity to make the match, as I had before with strays. The folks there checked my references with my previous vet, who knows I have cared for and loved multiple cats over the years. I received a follow up phone call after some delay. Short on volunteers to help, I learned. In a lengthy conversation, I learned many of the other cats also had health issues and as a result, some had been there for years. And though they posted approximate ages, they weren’t sure on some. And I, having recently lived with and cared for aging, sick/ailing, cats, have had to make decisions to terminate too often. And I don’t feel up to doing it again right now. So, once again I withdrew my application by text. Was that getting to be a pattern?

Unexpected Opportunity:
Meanwhile, a friend sent me an Instagram message offering a pair of “Rag Doll” cats—brother and sister—“free to a good home.” Not the two females I’d envisioned. But in the photo, they were gorgeous, longhair, a mix of cream, russet-tan, brown, black. They looked pure bred too, like maybe Himalayan. And, frankly, they looked expensive. And it’s a breed I’d never heard of. A little research shows a combination of Persian, Bengal, etc. Bred to be docile family cats. Have to say that I’ve often been a bit judgmental of folks who go for purebreds. Seems snobbish, that regular cats who need homes are not good enough. And were these guys “out of my league,” as a regular cat person?

Meeting Coco and Café:
Uncertain, but I still got in touch. Other folks in line, I was told. When I heard nothing back, I assumed they’d gone to someone else. And I’d have to resume my search, but then I got the call. Was I still interested? So, the other options hadn’t come through after all? Well, yes, I guess. Could I meet them? And so, I went. Even more beautiful in person, they’re siblings, the female Coco and the male Café’. Great choices with their lovely coloring. They’re 5 years old, a good age— not kittens who will climb drapes and scale furniture and still young enough to stay healthy for a good while.

The Backstory:
I got some back story on the reason why. The family love the cats and have clearly taken great care of them. Didn’t want to let them go but had no choice. They have serious asthma and allergy issues, the guy I talked with and the 1 ½ year old son. And there’s another baby boy just 5 months. So, who knows with him?

Unexpected Transition:
Should I come back another time, I asked. No, better and less disruptive for them to do it now. So, something did just happen. I had brought those new carriers just in case. And next thing, I had the two kitties in them—and their familiar covered litter box and a baggie of food in the back of my car. All a bit overwhelming, but otherwise they might have ended up homeless and in another pet adoption horde. Driving away, I flashed back to an early memory of a time when my mother almost died and, with no Plan B backup plan, my siblings and I were schlepped around, unasked, like pieces of luggage. There’s a photo of us, in a ballpark grandstand naturally, looking like refugee kids. So, apparently, I’m the best option.

Adjusting to the New Home:
Now, about a month in, we’re still adjusting. My policy with cats, learned from strays, is to show them where food, water, and litter box are and then let them roam, explore, discover the house. And so, I’m often not quite sure where they are at any given moment. As I was told, the male Café is shyer and more anxious than the female Coco. He shed hair from his back legs after a previous move. And he’s doing it again. But I’m assured it grows back. Both came out our second night together. She rested on the couch near me, while he occupied a patch of floor nearby. But he retreated when I got up. They started sleeping on my bed.

Maintaining Connections:
Open “adoption,” so I text the former family with updates. Send photos. I receive replies: warming up quicker than expected. I must be doing something right. And they know/sense a “cat person” when they encounter one. I text the male had found a convenient hiding spot near food, water, litter box. He has since moved on from there. Makes himself more visible. I ask if the texting is becoming irritating, too much. When should I stop, I ask. Never, I’m told. They love seeing the cats happy. I hope they are happy, but again, they can’t say. Though I take it as a good sign that they—and especially he—no longer run away when I approach.

Serendipity and Belief:
Serendipity: I believe what’s meant for me will come to me. If I can stay patient and don’t get ahead of myself. A friend suggests I manifested the cats. And though not quite strays, they are the next thing. And they need a home and I have one. And they are so beautiful, an ongoing aesthetic experience. The same friend points out they’re not really pedigree, more high-end mixed breed, like say Labradoodles in dogs. So, perhaps I can loosen up on that. Another friend notes they came into my life around my birthday. She suggested they could be my present to myself. I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Creating Special Bonds:
Since they already have names, I don’t have that option as I would with strays. But I start to coin special nicknames to make them more mine. Coco Puff? Coco Puffette? Coquette? Cocolicious? More challenging with the male in all ways, but Café Latte? Café Chai Latte? My favorite, not being a coffee drinker. He has more of the Persian flat face, wide head. And he becomes My Little Lion, because he reminds me, though his mane is lower, around his neck, like a Medieval ruff.

Embracing New Companionship:
And so, we proceed in early bonding. And I trust we’ll eventually get there. And they will gradually, by osmosis, become mine and I become theirs. That’s the same way it works with strays. And isn’t that the way life happens too?

Life Lessons from Dead Cats
New Title: Reflections on Feline Companionship: Lessons Learned and Paths Forward

Farewell to a Furry Friend: Navigating the Difficult Decision to Say Goodbye

A few weeks back, I had to make the decision to say goodbye to my last cat. Not easy: she’d been with me 18 years but had aged into kidney failure and now had a spreading skin-cancer sore on her chin. Treatment options: cutting out a piece of her jaw (!) or chemo her non-functional kidneys couldn’t handle. No, thanks to both. And I didn’t fool myself. Not in constant, yowling, pain yet, she could have lived much longer. But why wait till she dwindled down to nothing but suffering? And so, after almost 30 years living with cats, I find myself alone in my house for now. I still feel her presence, the way she knew the sound of my car and would greet me at the front door, the way she’d snug up against my hip or my arm at night. And along with her I carry memories of all my other cats who’ve gone before.

Pets in Modern Society: Exploring the Evolving Role of Animals as Family Members

As usual, personal experience led me to social trends, like when and how pets became “part of the family.” The Oxford English dictionary added “fur babies” in 2015, but that only recognized existing common usage. The Australian luxury pet brand Molly Barker (The Rise of the Fur Baby and Generation F. mollybarker.com.au) noted that “65% of dog owners completely consider them a full-fledged member of the family and social media users post on average 6 times per week just about their dogs!” And “Millennials are now becoming such fans of having pets, it’s taking over from their desire to have children.” Hence the term “pet parent,” rather than pet owner, as per a Quora Q & A? Does this reflect the epidemic of urban loneliness, alienation, and yearning for companionship, amped up during the pandemic? “Owners know that their dogs will love them unconditionally for their entire lives, giving them the same emotional attachment that can be gained from having children.”

The Cat’s Charm: Understanding the Endearing Qualities of Feline Companions

Barker, focused on dogs, noted how much cheaper pets are to raise than kids. She did not mention reductions in adolescent rebellion. But that, of course, does not apply to my preferred species. My favorite thing about cats is that they’re convinced they own us. Though small, they have large personalities, approach us as equals, if not superiors. Sweet, yet efficient and deadly predators, they’re sassy, brazen, defiant. They constantly remind us how little control we truly have in this world. On the downside, they don’t live as long as we usually do. One of those mismatches we know going in but push aside in the early, cute, healthy, years. I named her Rebop. She came to my door as a stray kitten, long-haired, black on gray. Short for Be-Bop-a-Rebop, a la Garrison Keillor’s sham ads for rhubarb pie. And there was an old rock-n-roll song. I cobbled together my own version and would pick up for a serenade-dance. “Be-Bop-a-Rebop, she’s my baby. She’s the one with the tufted toes. She’s the one with the terra cotta nose. She’s the one with the cute little pinkish chin. She’s the one who loves me so.” And I loved her back. What a gift to be unguarded and silly with a little companion.

A Journey to Cat Parenthood: From Dog Yearning to Embracing Feline Friends

We stereotype the differences between cat and dog people. Independence versus slavish devotion? Mutual incomprehension mixed with mutual scorn? As a child, I’d yearned for a dog. I read Alfred Payson Terhune’s Lad, A Dog series, with canines often smarter than their humans. And I’d been put off by the fierce and intimidating, multi-litter, mama cat next door. So, how did I convert? It was a process. A former roommate had cats I got to know as individuals. And my husband Bob had had cats before. And to tell the truth, they snuck up and then won me over. Where we lived, in the country, locally called “down the bayou,” strays got dropped off at the head of the road and our house was the first they came to. And it was easy, not a lot of work. We had parallel lives: the cats could go outside, didn’t need a litter box, were free to roam. They’d come back to the house to eat, to hang out, for affection. I set a limit, no more than 3 at once. Reduced to 2 when I moved up to town and it became more work (those litter boxes!!) and I decided it was safer to keep them inside.

Weathering the Storms Together: Cats as Companions Through Life’s Challenges

Rebop was my Hurricane Katrina kitty. She arrived a couple months before the big storm and a little over a year after Bob died. Both unexpected and not: he had shaky health—linked type 2 diabetes, heart, recurrent prostate infections. But we’re never ready. The new kitten filled a small part of the yawning empty space. That year, we evacuated twice up to my mother-in-law’s. I had carriers for my older cats Orlando and Cleo but not one for her yet, so she rode in my lap or wandered the car. When I stopped for gas before hitting the road, I scooped her up so she wouldn’t escape. “How cute,” folks said. And I said, “She’s 2 months old, and this is her 2nd evacuation.” Many who drowned in Katrina were elderly and unwilling to leave beloved pets not allowed on evacuation boats and trucks. Real-world experience forced change in that policy.

Newly cat-less for now, I keep finding posts and stories that echo and mirror my feelings. A comfort and an expression of a cultural trend/movement. “Social media is rife with personal stories of the animal/human bond, especially how difficult it can be to say goodbye. Our relationships with our pets often as strong as and sometimes stronger than, those we have with our humans, and far less complicated.” (Marlene Cimons. My pets have stolen my heart again and again. I know I’m not alone. Washington Post. February 11, 2024). Buzz Feed offers a list of Pet Grief stories. And I get my sweetness fix reading Love Meow, heart-tugging and anthropomorphized tales of homeless felines coaxed into letting themselves be rescued and waiting to find forever homes. Sappy sentimental, but that’s marketing.
The Changing Narrative: Examining Shifting Perspectives on Pet Ownership
Striking how attitudes on animals have expanded, taken on nuances. I experienced the shift in action at the emergency vet where I took Rebop to do the deed. Sadly, I’d had occasion to visit the special room once before during the pandemic. But this time, they surprised me with follow- up rituals, sending a flower arrangement (late at night and slightly disturbing since I’m a woman living alone) and later a card with personalized sympathy messages from staff who’d cared for her. All intended to confirm, validate, that, as an individual being, she and her passing mattered.
Ancestral Shadows: Confronting Past Attitudes Towards Animals and Loss
We use the term “demographic shift” for the cusp/threshold crossed when children segue from short-term, immediate, assets, useful “hands” and informal old-age insurance, to financial expense and burden. My parents, both child labor in rural families, lived the tail end of that transition. My siblings and I, town kids, had moved just a little across the divide, with some loss in translation between generations, but potential for upward mobility. Extrapolate to animals who’ve gone from useful, “pulling their weight” functions (work horses, dairy cows, cats as mousers), to “love bugs” (as per Love Meow). Think stories like Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ The Yearling, when a child tries to break out of that pattern and keep a beloved pet but must ultimately sacrifice it for the sake of the family.
Acts of Love and Farewell: Honoring the Memories of Beloved Pets
Delving into family backstory, I surface a shadowy memory of how very unsweet things could be before the shift. It’s a Brothers Grimm kind of tale, fitting to the hemmed in place where my parents started. “A good place to be from,” my dad called it. So, when I was very young, we had a dog—a little Cocker mix named Raisin. Because we traveled and she got sick and vomited in the car, my parents left her with my grandparents. And because she chased the chickens, who’d stop laying, my grandfather shot her. I didn’t witness; this is pre-verbal. But I heard second-hand, treated as kind of a throwaway. As in, what could you do? The passive acquiescence makes it worse. And even more the lack of imagination, not coming up with a different, less violent and fatal, solution. And I feel a sense of ancestral shame, like folks who learn their forebears owned slaves on Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s PBS series Finding Your Roots. That failure, unwillingness, to recognize and admit that other creatures possess souls. From the opposite direction, the musician Moby said he turned vegetarian when he recognized his cat was another sentient being, also had a soul.
Navigating Life Without Cats: Reflecting on the Upsides and Downsides
Placing my grandfather on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I think he must have gotten stuck at the physical and safety level, didn’t manage to progress on to love/belonging. Assume there must have been generational trauma, not feeling safe, extending back to the “old country.” Had to be reasons folks left. And so, our little dog, viewed as posing an economic threat, had to be eliminated. All that may kind of explain, but it’s still not a valid excuse. To counter the darkness, I offer tales of my other cats. With Bob gone, I’m the only one who remembers, still holds them in my heart. Who knew their souls, that they had souls. Milo, a yellow tabby, not young when he came to us, was the only one to die of “natural causes,” probably a heart attack, while Bob still lived. He woke us in the middle of the night, a keening cry that went on and on. Bob held him. I asked, “What’s he doing?” “I think he’s dying.” With the others, helping them when the time came has been an act of love. My sweet little Cleo, a tortoiseshell with white, also had kidney failure and just faded away till there was almost nothing to her. Orlando, big gray and white, not very smart, but so brave, became FIV positive (feline AIDS) “defending” our property from stray cats. My wild-child Lulu, small, long-haired, gray and tan, turned out to have a congenital sacroiliac problem, one rear leg caving in that would eventually have left her crippled. She’d already become incontinent. Tanga, female yellow tabby, began not using one front paw; an x-ray showed she had a large tumor in her chest.
Towards a New Beginning: Building Community and Connection Through Pet Adoption
While the others came and went, for years Rebop seemed immune, almost indestructible. Until she wasn’t. Now, looking around the house, I’m a bit ambivalent and recognize a kind of upside in being without cats for a while. I miss her but, with non-functioning kidneys, she couldn’t absorb food well. So, when not sleeping, she’d continuously yowl at me for more food, often when I’d just fed her. And that was no fun. I also see the path of destruction she wrought over the years. First cat I did not have declawed. And inside, nothing else to do, she left her mark on furniture, ripped through upholstery. But I do miss the mirroring, face to face, eye to eye. So, there are massive tradeoffs. An older friend who’s always had cats says she won’t get another. Not fair, when she might die and leave it with no place to go. Me, I believe I still have some time and, when I’m ready, I’ll probably look for a bonded female pair. Make a little community again.

Unexpected Positive Test Before Christmas

Two days before Christmas, I took a home test that confirmed I have Omicron, rather than the bad cold I thought. That cancelled plans with friends, and I was supposed to bring the main dish. Very grateful to be Moderna triple-dosed, so it was breakthrough, not too severe. But it dragged on, forcing me to give up on my traditional New Year’s corned beef and cabbage as well. Coughing and blowing my nose, I wondered where I caught it. Most likely at the gym, where almost no one wore a mask. I have complained, not that it does any good. A bright spot was losing some of the weight I’d gained during the lockdown. Frivolous and silly, I know, but vanity never takes time off. Today, I went to a public test and confirmed I am now COVID negative. Hooray!!

The Lingering Impact: Post-Christmas Tale of Recovery

Over the past couple years, the pandemic has wrecked the whole world’s plans. It’s turned our very human need to be together against us. It’s propelled us toward a very unexpected and unclear future. No surprise then that we haven’t always made the best choices. Gaurav Suri, who studies human decision making, summarized the challenges of a world in flux. “Humans are tuned to making decisions around stability. We are not used to rapid changes in the context around us. And it takes time to adjust.” And I’m hoping part of the adjustment will be acknowledging, even if reluctantly, that we’re all in this together. The great sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson, who died the day after Christmas, said empathy is our only hope. Call that enlightened self-interest. And how might it look going forward?

Pandemic’s Global Disruption: Decisions in a World of Flux

We have models for thinking about how we might change together. I start with my battered copy of Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). “Paradigm Shift” has become familiar shorthand for how we reinvent ourselves and our sense of the world, when new, disruptive, and contradictory information or tech unsettle existing concepts of how the world works. The pandemic and vaccines both certainly qualify, ready or not. For me, this specific book has its own backstory around life-altering illness. The new friend who loaned it to me back in the early 1980s was soon diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. What do you do when your body starts to turn against you? I didn’t need to imagine; I’d witnessed my aunt’s decline with MS. Facing existential “Who am I now?” questions and with few treatment options back then, my friend applied for disability, and decided to move away to be nearer to her family. We lost contact in the shuffle, and I never had the chance to return the book I still consider shared property.

Models for Change: Paradigm Shifts and Existential Decisions

Thinking about existential decisions, I have no doubt my aunt and my friend would have grabbed with both hands any cure and/or any improved treatment. The virus’s contagiousness expands the scope from treating single patients to attempting to treat the community, the country, the world. Yet huge ambivalences persist around vaccines meant to protect and prevent. Are they too risky, even toxic? Are they products of unproven technology? Are they dangerous to children? Do they even work? Suspicions amplify already existing reluctance and conservatism. Everett Rogers in Diffusion of Innovation (also 1962, 2003) identified the now familiar Early Adopter, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggard spectrum of willingness and readiness to accept new tech and ideas. And, of course, in the pandemic, each decision is not just personal, because it affects all of us. And yet the rhetoric has tended to emphasize individual liberty rather than safeguarding the community. Again, there’s that missing sense that we’re all in this together that I hope we can grow up and into. At first because we have to, but increasingly, when it makes things better, because we want to.

Oddly, for me, though the virus was not at all welcome, it actually helped me feel more deeply that we truly are all in this together. That I was one among many with fellow sufferers, none of us immune, and more alike than different. No going back, we’re moving into that different, as yet largely unmapped, future. And we do better when we share. If that all sounds like something we might have learned in kindergarten, it’s probably a good place to start. Think of it as beginner’s mind.

Bracing for Impact: The Familiar Dance Before the Storm

Hurricane Ida arrived August 29, 2021. That’s sixteen years to the day after Katrina. An eerie coincidence to folks elsewhere, but I live on the Gulf Coast and trust me it’s a pattern. Katrina (2005) and Gustav (2008), plus a list of others between and after, were Labor Day storms. So, I keep the weekend circled in red on my mental/emotional calendar. And cross my fingers, at the start of each hurricane season, that we can slide by the date. If that ever works, this year it didn’t.

Hunkering Down: Riding Out Hurricane Ida’s Fury

Ida was big, topping off the Saffir-Simpson Scale at Category 4, with sustained winds at least 180 mph. Some friends who grew up here insist it was an even stronger Cat 5. While my husband lived, and for a while after, I’d go inland to my mother-in-law’s. But circumstances changed and took away that option. And I didn’t relish getting on gridlocked roads without a definite destination. So, by default I hunkered down with my two cats. Not well prepared, no way to board up windows, but with an external charger for my phone, I could watch the track and text with family and friends. Though the storm kept shifting east, it never zeroed in on my area. And I thought we’d probably be okay enough.

Surveying the Aftermath: Morning After Hurricane Ida

Hurricanes have timelines—before, during, and after. Before can turn frantic, a kaleidoscope of traffic seeming to come from every direction, with adrenaline pumping as folks rush around picking up supplies. I did top off my car’s gas tank. With long lines extending along the sides of roads, I tried a couple stations and had to pay premium price. Gouging starting already (?), but worth it if I had to make a quick exit, since pumps won’t work once the power goes. During is just sitting and waiting for the storm to pass. Electricity went out mid-afternoon, amid warnings of possible tornadoes, and that left us sweating and then near sightless in the dark, as day turned to night without streetlights. Grateful for good flashlights, I fell into a mix of sensory deprivation and a sound collage of winds swirling and whistling, interspersed with the crashing of unidentified objects blown away or knocked down. Too dark, the few times I tried to peek out, to see what was happening.

From Darkness to Light: The Journey Back to Normalcy

After comes the following morning when we crawl out to assess damages. The high winds hit roofs and trees hard. I got lucky: a swath of shingles ripped from my roof, the backyard shed, and parts of the fence knocked down. Other folks had it much worse. No electric yet, but we’re used to going without for a while after. Then we got even worse news: the whole electric grid was wrecked and needed a complete rebuild that could take a month or longer. Thrown into primitive survival mode, we had no “modern conveniences”—lights, air conditioning, refrigerators, TV, internet. Nothing else to do and nowhere to go, folks sweated picking up debris from our yards but couldn’t wash or dry clothes. Water safety was questionable; can’t run treatment plants without electric either. I drank bottled just in case, but still assumed I could take showers to cool off some, till my upper arms turned pebbly. Good thing I put off washing my hair. The upside was the feeling of community, with folks helping each other. Restaurants and church groups offered free meals. I loved the way Ring Doorbell messages homed in on shortages of gas, ice, and food, identifying and mapping sources, then segued into tracking where power was coming back as it did. When a few stores came back, I got into the spirit and bought and gave neighbors DampRid to help combat mildew and mold.

With heavy political arm twisting and multiple crews working, restoration moved much quicker than originally projected. Even so, my neighborhood still went powerless for close to two weeks. Halfway through, a friend decided I’d had enough and made me a reservation at a pet-friendly hotel farther inland. I did still have that full tank of gas, the roads wouldn’t be as clogged and now, I had a definite destination.

Bold Ventures or Wasteful Escapades? The Controversy Surrounding Space Exploration

Private sector voyages to the edges of space have attracted lots of attention. Of course, they have. Presumably the whole point for the billionaire proprietors—Bezos, Musk, Branson—is to show they can “conquer” yet another sphere. So, are these just escapist stunts and shameful wastes of funds that could be more productively spent addressing critical problems on earth? Or are they thrilling previews of an expanding future in this time that feels so constrained, so hemmed in?

The Silly Season of the Stars: Celebrities, Romance, and the Billionaire Space Race

Maybe they’re all of the above, depending on your perspective. And I’m thinking we might be witnessing a nuanced version of what in the UK is known as the “silly season.” That usually applies to slow-news times, which clearly this is not. But with no relief in sight, folks seem increasingly drawn to big gestures and fantasy a la “lifestyles of the rich and famous.” So now, alongside news of celebrity romances and splits, we have the spectacle of rocket launches, takeoffs and returns.

Privatizing the Cosmos: From Government Territory to Billionaire Playground

Outer space, once the preserve of governments, has been privatized and colonized by super-rich entrepreneur showmen. And the enterprise turns out to be far more manageable than trying to solve stubborn, complex, earth-bound problems. In fact, space travel is an extension of the big tech businesses they’ve already grown and run. And so, Bezos, Musk, Branson, et al. add another dimension to their personas, morphing into billionaires in space, superheroes sans capes. Did they always have sci-fi dreams? Or did they recognize “the next frontier?” Branson was already famed for efforts to circumnavigate the globe in hot air balloons. Bezos is Time magazine’s current “Man of the Year.” And our heroes, who’ve made their money on tech we can no longer do without, are busy monetizing, coordinating pricey space tourism into the lower reaches for those who can afford it. William Shatner was comped a subsidized ride to live out his Star Trek role in more or less real time.

Tech Tycoons Turned Space Explorers: Morphing into Billionaires in Space

So, is this a dystopian or a utopian trend? Is it a kind of fatalism about our future that’s gotten out of hand? It’s not as if nobody saw something like this coming. Of course, there was Flash Gordon, and Stan Lee’s Marvel Universe and Star Trek and Star Wars in pop culture. Back in the 1960’s, President Kennedy called the space race with the Russians “the moral equivalent of war.” There’s also the illogical foresight of song lyrics. David Bowie’s Space Oddity of 1969, the same year as the first moon landing, with Major Tom lost in space. Elton John’s Rocket Man of 1972 was inspired by Ray Bradbury.

Dystopia or Utopia? Unraveling the Trend of Space Tourism

Hannah Arendt got there even earlier, in 1958, when she called Russia’s 1957 Sputnik launch an “event second in importance to no other not even the splitting of the atom.” And the immediate reaction was often relief over the “first step toward escape from man’s imprisonment to the earth.” Official, respectable, attention could no longer ignore what until then had “been buried in the highly non-respectable literature of science fiction (to which, unfortunately, nobody yet has paid the attention it deserves as a vehicle of mass sentiments and mass desires).” Well, that certainly seems to be changing.

Ahead of the Curve: Heroes, Marketing, and the Limits of Science

So, our self-styled heroes are likely onto something, ahead of the curve, as they’ve so spectacularly been in their previous ventures. And they’re far better at marketing than science, which as Arendt noted, can demonstrate in mathematical formulas and proofs, but becomes tongue-tied with “normal expressions in speech and thought.” We’ve seen that again in the pandemic. Elton John sang as much in fewer words. “And all this science I don’t understand. It’s just my job five days a week.”

Aspiring to the Cosmos: Balancing Dreams of Space and Earthly Realities

Arendt might have been referring to our heroes when she wrote that we, “who are earth-bound creatures have begun to act as though we were dwellers of the universe.” But of course, even with access to huge shares of the world’s wealth, there are limits. Realistically, Bezos, Musk and Branson may have made it to space, but only for short visits. And they can only haul a few people at a time and just to the edges. And even if they could go farther, there’s no place livable to go to.

So, perhaps these are stunts, but they might also be potentially aspirational. There is that human urge to go farther. Consider the Age of Exploration (read Colonization). But for now, and far into the foreseeable future, we will be here. And perhaps, not expecting any miracles or quick fixes, we could, to quote another song, “Brighten the corner where we are.” And do what we can, a bit at a time, to chip away at some of our stubborn earth-bound problems. Maybe not as exciting, but more realistic and effective for now.

The Modern Appeal: Baby Elephants in the Spotlight

The other night, I saw a TV ad appealing for donations to help save baby elephants who’ve lost their mothers to poachers in the worldwide ivory trade. Interspersed with visuals of “harvested” tusks, the little guys were extremely cute. They trotted along, big ears flopping, small trunks reaching trustingly to their very large and now presumably deceased elders.

Origin Stories: Tracing Back to “Ransoming Pagan Babies”

I recognized a trope/model, a universal staple of charities involved in retail “everyone gives a little” fundraising and marketing. Subscribe and for only $$ a day/$$$ a month/$$$$ a year, you can help save and/or rescue these irresistible creatures. Thinking about origin stories, how tropes and models emerge and become absorbed into the culture, I recall my own first encounter with an earlier, cruder, form.

 Nuns and Fundraising: A Fagan-Like Zeal

“Ransoming Pagan Babies,” that’s what they called it. Very “white man’s burden,” but it was not a self-conscious time. I was in second or third grade, seven or eight years old, in a Catholic school in the early 1950s. Our teachers were nuns. Back then, I took their hovering/looming presence for granted, but in retrospect they seem like alien creatures better kept away from little kids. Dressed in contrasting black and white, in between rote teaching, they exercised Fagan-like zeal in throwing us into fundraising schemes—selling cards at Christmas, filling mite boxes during Lent, selling Easter seals. Then they’d pressure us to bring in the proceeds asap. Did not complying somehow get tangled up with sin? We were so very young, vulnerable, malleable. I did the minimum, only moving two boxes of cards a year, one to my mother and one to the lady across the street. Paralyzingly shy, I found even the idea of going to strangers’ doors unimaginable. In contrast, one boy in my class regularly sold at least 20 boxes. To family, I assumed. Even that young, he resembled a cadaver, so I imagined, if he went to unfamiliar houses, the residents might have paid him to go away. Zombie invasion!

The Birth of “Mary Ann”: A Mysterious Mission

I recall one of those cardboard stand setups, with a slotted box for donations. There was probably a picture, but I have no memory. When did we have the chance to slip in our nickels and dimes, since we weren’t allowed out of our seats much? Yet somehow, by the end of the year, we’d reached the magic number of $5. We voted to name the baby “Mary Ann” and the nun announced the money would be sent off to the Confraternity for Christian Doctrine, which handled “the missions.” No one offered us any details. And, young as we were, we didn’t ask. But now, I wonder where our $5 actually went.

Cracks in the System: Seismic Shifts and Changing Traditions

The word “catholic” is supposed to mean universal. I therefore assumed selling and shilling was a regular part of Catholic school experience nationwide, even worldwide. But a friend who’d attended in another city said she’d never had to. And then I remembered another long-ago friend’s description of having to march out at the end of the school day to military music. So, there was room for a range of bizarre behavior and exercises of unlimited power over very small humans by women who had given up control in all other spheres of their lives. And, I later learned, were often not paid, or hardly paid, and so subsidized the Catholic school system with their free labor. That’s emblematic of the Church as it was then, authoritarian, insular, almost medieval. It seemed solid, immovable, eternal. Yet, in a few short years, the Vatican II Council would start a seismic shift, cracks began to show, and everything changed. And the nuns who’d ruled over us would come out of habit. Some would even leave the convent all together.

Modern Parallels: Fundraising Then and Now

Today’s world would be unrecognizable to my younger self. But judging by the baby elephants, fundraising techniques and methods haven’t changed much, though they’ve expanded with the media—TV, online, Facebook, Instagram, etc. Charities have also grown more adept at humanizing, using stories to build and maintain relationships rather than expecting we’ll take them on faith. Our “Mary Ann” would have had to be fabricated, something like a shared imaginary friend. But these days, actual children are identified, and letters and photos regularly dispatched to keep sponsors engaged. Though baby elephants can’t communicate directly, of course, photos specific and generic, can be provided to show happy outcomes like their being adopted back into bands of their own kind.

Maturing Perspectives: Facing Realities and Funding Overhead

Charities operate based on our trust and willingness to believe they will do what they say. And it’s up to us, no longer children, to do our homework, ask bottom-line questions. Like what percent of funds goes to the direct, helping, mission and what percent goes to overhead and expenses, and research where applicable?  And, given some recent high-profile abuses, executive staff living large on their charity’s proceeds, it’s important to check out what charity watchdog organizations have to say.  (Megan Cooper. Discover What Percentage of Your Donations Go To Charity. Nov. 2, 2023).  And that way, we might realistically maximize our chances of having the positive impacts we hope.

The Shocking Vulnerability: Hurricanes, Freezes, and the Electrical Grid’s Collapse

In August 2021, Hurricane Ida completely collapsed the Louisiana electrical grid around New Orleans. Winds over 150 mph blew down trees, tossed lines and poles around, splintered poles, toppled a high-tension tower into the river. Only eight months earlier (January 2021), a deep freeze hit Texas, with temperatures so far below expected norms that they knocked out the electric grid. Talk about rolling blackouts. Many folks sat without power for weeks, in the dark and cold in Texas and in the dark and heat in Louisiana. So, what’s going on? And can we expect more of the same? Probably, if business models continue to prioritize deferring maintenance and stretching life cycles over investing in regular improvements and updates. Power pole replacement in Louisiana happens on a ten-year schedule. The fallen tower made it through previous storms but hadn’t been replaced, despite being heavily corroded.

A Déjà Vu of Failures: Climate-Induced Disasters as Warnings for the Future

Events like these remind me of the fragility of the systems we rely on but take for granted and often neglect. Back in the early 1980s, I wrote my master’s thesis on the “Infrastructure Crisis.” I’d read Pat Choate’s then recently published America in Ruins. If the country kept failing to invest in upkeep and renewal of vital systems critical to commerce and daily life—water and sewerage, electrical grids, roads, highways, bridges—we faced a rapidly diminishing future and loss of global leadership and competitiveness. Forty years later, we’ve made only spotty progress and seem to be easing closer to Choate’s dystopian forecast, further amplified by the challenges of climate change.

Echoes from the Past: The Infrastructure Crisis of the 1980s and Unfinished Business

I did my graduate work in an early environmental studies program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Recruiting a committee to oversee the work took shifting perspectives. My first invitation drew a refusal, too much urban and not enough environment. I moved on and found a political-scientist-environmentalist and an urban planner, both intrigued by the urban-environmental links, with infrastructure the buffer between. Though I didn’t realize then, I wonder now about the ways ideas start to float, long before they coalesce. It took another decade (1994) before John Elkington proposed his “Triple Bottom Line” model, reframing corporate social responsibility and sustainability to shift focus from profits to factor in planet/environment and people/equity. Progress on those fronts has been even spottier. And Elkington himself says companies have missed the point, still haven’t got the balance right.

Buffalo’s Tale: A Case Study on Fiscal Stress, Infrastructure Decay, and Public Will

My thesis featured a case study of the City of Buffalo, struggling then as now to square fiscal stress and a dwindling tax base with crumbling infrastructure. I’d worked in City Hall, so I had access. No surprise, while lining up interviews and diving into research, to discover this was as much a fiscal as a physical problem. Learning about capital budgets, general obligation and revenue bonds, state constitutional debt ceilings, I also recognized a public will problem. Choate’s recommendations came up against budgets too tight to accommodate all the urgent needs. And unless there’s a crisis, “out of sight, out of mind” infrastructure can seem like it could wait till next year or the year after.

Disaster Amnesia and the Urgency for Regular Upkeep: A Nation at the Crossroads

Stack up enough next years and there’s no affordable getting ahead of the backlog. So far, we’ve been lucky. Systems, typically built to be redundant, have proven remarkably forgiving. They’ve been patched and pushed way past their original expected lives. Still, this can’t go on indefinitely. And, as increasingly vulnerable systems intersect with more extreme weather, we can expect more failures, more public pain and outrage, more political pressure. And then the rush into incremental, more expensive, “putting out fires” emergency repairs and replacements. Call these Andy Warhol “15 minutes of fame/attention” moments. But spotlights and adrenaline soon fade and “disaster amnesia” sets in, with a return to old, seemingly comfortable, habits until the next crisis catches us off guard. And with more severe weather more often, that’s likely to happen more often too. Regularly scheduled upkeep is so much more cost effective, but there are those public will and money problems.

Choate’s book featured the ruin of a Greek temple on the cover, a not too subtle reference to the “white city” buildings of the nation’s capital. And now, the national “Build Back Better” bill has stalled and probably died in Congress. And I can’t help but notice that the country, with far greater resources, is no better prepared to take effective action than beleaguered Buffalo.

A Neighborhood Tapestry: Layers of Stories

Every neighborhood is a story, a layering of inside, outside, and shared sidewalks and streets. When I bought a small house four years ago, I chose affordable enough and safe enough (crime, flood risk). I understood folks would be more conservative. It’s David Duke territory (former KKK leader). Beyond that, I had minimal backstory, but figured I’d weave my own tale going forward, avoid talking politics and make it work. I’m an introvert, unobtrusive, a writer, an observer, not all that neighborly, spend most of my time inside, and have friends elsewhere. So, I’m unlikely to give offense, except maybe in print.

Decoding Civic Virtue: Flags, Signs, and Neighborhood Dynamics

This tactic served me well enough until after the 2020 election, when Trump signs and American flags multiplied. I read them as code, like a secret handshake. Evolutionary anthropologist David Solan Wilson calls the ways we signal connection and mutual recognition “civic virtue.” Think Halloween decorations and how kids sense which neighborhoods are best for trick or treating, or Christmas and, around here, Mardi Gras decorations. I wouldn’t call election signs and flags virtuous, but they do either connect or divide, depending on surrounding opinions. So, I was unsurprised, a little bothered, but still kind of detached so long as they stayed outside my immediate vicinity. But then a Trump flag appeared right across the street. A day or so later, the house next to the first raised a Biden-Harris flag, below the American flag they’ve flown since before I moved here.

Navigating Ideological Currents: A Delicate Dance

So, opinions were not as solid as I had assumed. Might we hope to achieve some kind of balance, even tolerance? But not so fast. The first house switched to a Confederate flag. Whoo! I assume that was a reaction to the Biden-Harris flag. But I wouldn’t/couldn’t ask. I’m invested and need to live here, so didn’t want to confront neighbors who were hardly even acquaintances. We’d chosen our houses, not each other, after all. This happened post-election, so I tried to imagine inside conversations over the urge to send a message, to “take a stand.” And now, having committed, would taking the flag down feel like losing face, giving in?

Winds of Change: Mother Nature’s Intervention

I worried the situation might escalate, that my safe neighborhood could implode. Would we see a rainbow flag next? But then, in an inspired and graceful maneuver, the folks in the Biden house defused the situation, switching to a state flag and an “All Lives Matter” yard sign. And I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. Next time I saw the man from that house outside, I crossed the street to say thank you. He appreciated that someone else in the neighborhood had similar, “let’s just get along,” feelings. I clued him in that the young couple next to me also felt the same. So, for now, I assumed the Confederate flag will stay. Over time, it might tatter and fray as, I hope, will the urges behind it. And then perhaps we might inch closer to the balance and tolerance I keep hoping to see.

Follow up: no matter what political affiliation, folks in my neighborhood were very kind and helpful after Hurricane Ida. The storm blew away the Confederate flag and staff and neither has been replaced. So, we could say Mother Nature intervened. Perhaps that came as a welcome relief to the owners, who did not have to decide. It certainly came as a relief to me.

Navigating the Bureaucratic Labyrinth

A couple weeks back, I signed closing papers for a small SBA loan to finish post-Hurricane Ida (August 2021) repairs on my property. The man I met with said he averaged a dozen closings a day. That volume of activity has me thinking about the many thousands of us inching along the same path. Bureaucracy is a great leveler, designed to fit us into standard categories. On the downside, we each become numbers. Hard to feel special at such scale, just when we could use a little customized TLC after being hit literally where we live.

Fluidity in Identity: The Dichotomy of Official and Personal

It’s said that our society lacks rites of passage to mark the transition between stages of life. Perhaps that’s why, in adulthood, we tend to view identity as fairly constant. But it is in fact quite plastic and elastic, especially as we age and even more when we face major, unpredictable and disruptive events that tear us away from regular life. Yet we go along, still affixing the same signatures to documents like the loan papers. Well, maybe not exactly the same, as described below. So there’s a split between official identity and far more nuanced personal experience. And who are we now, when we’re at home in those houses still in need of repair?

The Evolution of Names: A Symphony of Signatures

The ancient philosopher Heraclitus said we can’t step into the same river twice. We change and so does the river. Social customs and expectations shift as well. Women’s identities have been especially fluid; until very recently it was taken for granted that we’d give up our own names and assume our husbands’. Mine left it up to me. I kept my birth last name as middle, but without a hyphen. Still a large part of my sense of myself and it connected with my professional identity too. And that’s the signature I use on documents like the loan papers. With the shorter version, just my first and his last, I also liked the alliteration of the two “j’s.”

Rites of Passage and the Ever-Changing River

Our biggest transition, adolescent to young adult, is a time of reinvention and rebellion, stepping out of parental visions of who we are and into self-discovery. Native Americans often had robust rites of passage and did much better with transitions. Vision quests opened space for individual transformation, from provisional birth names to discovery of the real and true in young adulthood. I imagine gender-crossing processes, done with sufficient support, allow for similar personal discovery. And I wonder how it might work if we were a little more flexible, didn’t cling so tightly to official identity and allowed for periodic shifts. But that would probably require a hard to achieve level of trust in our mobile society. I have my own experience with legal name change, which I think of more as reclaiming. According to the family story, my mother anticipated having another boy, so when I arrived instead, she didn’t have a girl’s name ready. But then the priest wouldn’t baptize me with the one she chose, and I ended up by default with my grandmother’s name, which I hated. Not that I hated my grandmother, whom I never knew. Though I might work up a little resentment against the priest, if what mother said was accurate. Who made him the arbiter? At home, I was called by a nickname of what would have been my name. All sounds like a fairytale, doesn’t it? One of those where the hero/heroine is rediscovered, revealed, named. Perhaps that’s where my interest in stories began. Oh, and this time, as you’ll notice, I did insert a hyphen.

The Art of Reinvention: Signatures, Nicknames, and Legal Shifts

Back when I made my decision, I assumed I was unusual, rare. But not so, the lawyer I consulted said. I had to attest I was not changing to duck out of debts or other obligations. There’s that level of trust thing. Since then, I keep discovering both men and women who’ve recalibrated or even discarded birth names. Mostly, they’ve acted for professional reasons and around professional names. Easy, no paperwork involved, the face shown to the world, while the legal name can keep ticking along in the background and trotted out as needed. Like for signing loan documents. Marilyn Monroe was Norma Jean DiMaggio when married to the famous slugger. Andy Warhol, famous of his “15 minutes of fame” comment, shortened his last name. Ralph Lauren shifted from his original. A preppy name made it much easier to sell preppy clothes.

And so, I understand the impulse to reinvent. For me, carrying through cost a little time and money. And it felt right from the very beginning, that I’d come home to myself.