State of grace

Preface: Sometimes writing has to marinate before it is released into the wild. Such is the case with this piece I handwrote on a notepad well over a year ago. I’m finally ready to let it go.

In August of last year, I swore that I would escape the heat of the 7^th layer of hell in North Carolina for a few weeks the next summer and I booked a tiny cottage on the coast of Maine. I’m a planner by nature, but a year out was a bold move even for me. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. To be fair, I’m still far behind in the good decisions column, but I’m savoring this win.

I first came to Maine over 45 years ago when I was just a child. Never mind how old I was – I can still remember my first morning there. My partner and I arrived in the dark of night at a rustic inn at the tip of the East Boothbay peninsula – Ocean Point. This was long before GPS and we thought for sure we would be abducted by black bears or drunken lobstermen along the way as we kept driving into the pitch black over the winding two lane road until we finally saw the sign for the inn at the edge of the Atlantic.

Morning came and we stepped outside to the purest sunshine I had ever seen. The water was sparkling like a sea of diamonds, and the air was clean and crisp and smelled like a Christmas tree lot. I was absolutely smitten. Thank God some things never change.

It’s a funny thing – I’ve never really written about my love affair with Maine. I suppose because all those years in Maine were spent with my former partner. We traveled there over 20 times and dreamed of retiring there. I’ll give you the Cliff notes – I broke her heart and blew up my own life after both of my parents died seven months apart from each other. It’s a bit of a Greek tragedy – complete with a deeply flawed sirenesque character, but I’ll just simply say it is not a good feeling when your real life feels like a bad Lifetime movie.

Anyway, I’m forever grateful for so many magical years with her in the Pine Tree State, but I felt like I lost Maine in the divorce. To be clear – these were self-imposed sanctions. I think for a very long time, I thought I didn’t deserve custody of Maine because of some of the terrible decisions I made that hurt the people I loved most in the world. Honestly, I think I was almost afraid to return there – that the guilt and memories would drown me in those frigid Atlantic waters. So, I admired it from afar for almost two decades. And then, in 2021, during the pandemic, my dear wife and I took a road trip to Maine with two of our closest friends. Our trip took us further north than Ocean Point to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We had a marvelous time, and it was lovely to introduce my wife to the wonders of my favorite state. And for the record, she has always been most generous about my Maine attraction.

**You can’t post a blog about Maine without a pic of a lobster roll. This one was wicked good.**

So Maine had been tugging at me for a few years since that trip and the Dismal Swamp of the Summer of ‘24 wore me down to a moist nub and I booked a cottage in South Bristol – back to the Mid-Coast region. My best friend was supposed to join me for the first handful of days of the trip, but she got COVID and my return to Maine began on a note of heavy disappointment. Maybe this trip wasn’t such a great idea after all.

I was anxious when I departed the Portland airport and began the drive up the coast. Unlike my first trip to Maine, I had Siri giving me directions, but guess what? I didn’t need them. My rental car was almost on autopilot as I recognized so many familiar places from my past – the Dairy Queen in Woolwich near the Bath Bridge, the legendary Red’s Eats in Wiscasset – the prettiest village in Maine – and the joy inducing sign on Route 1 pointing to the Boothbay Harbor Region. As I drove, I could feel the huge smile on my face – in a way, I was coming home.

I arrived in South Bristol in the late afternoon, and the sun was dancing on the water. I felt like a self-absorbed college kid returning home with bags of dirty laundry filled with regret and shame for all the mistakes that I had made. Maine was not at all surprised to see me – the prodigal daughter – return after all these years. And it turns out that Maine is much more forgiving than I am. Once again, I was smitten.

Maine doesn’t blame – it gives you space to heal.

**On the rocks – my happy place**. **I’ll be back here next summer.**

I think maybe that’s how it works with our favorite places. I’ve always been fascinated with other people’s favorites – everyone has one. Well, maybe unhappy people don’t, but that’s just too sad to think about. You know what I’m talking about – the place you think about when you need a virtual vacation on a really bad day – your happy place. That’s been Maine for me for a very long time. Oh, I’ve flirted with other places – most especially California. My little sister has lived in some gorgeous spots there – Del Mar, Newport Beach, East Bay and Napa – and I have thoroughly enjoyed my extended visits in all of those places. There’s just something about Maine – the majestic, jagged coastline reflects the essence of its people. Mainers are not precious or pretentious – they have a rugged confidence tinged with pride and a wicked sense of humor. It just suits me. And no, I have never spent a winter there, but I do own the obligatory Bean boots.

One of my first days in South Bristol, I drove to Pemaquid Point Lighthouse – an iconic fixture in Maine since 1827 when President John Quincy Adams commissioned it. I pulled up to the tiny gatehouse and the old man selling the admission passes looked straight out of New England central casting – he had a white beard and was wearing a faded Red Sox baseball cap from before they won their first World Series. He leaned out of his little window and smiled and asked, “Have you been here before?” (you must read that with a Maine accent) and I said, “Yes, sir, about a hundred years ago.” He didn’t miss a beat as he gave me my pass and handed me a map and said, “Well, welcome back. You’re due for a visit.” I wanted to get out of my car and hug him.

**How can you not fall in love with Maine?**

And so I spent the better part of two glorious weeks letting the beauty of Maine wash over my old wounds. I spent hours staring into the breathtaking view from the deck of my cottage. I never touched the television and hardly looked at my phone. I listened to Mother Nature’s symphony, and it was a balm to my soul – the muffled purring of the lobster boats in the early morning hours, the echoes of children splashing in the water, and the haunting wail of a lone loon at night. I was entirely present to the splendor before me, and I felt held by it in the most tender way.

And then it finally came to me – that exquisite feeling of contentment and safety – and I realized that Maine loves me unconditionally and I let out an exhale as deep as the ocean before me. Maine had forgiven me and it was time to forgive myself.

There’s a classic Maine expression “you can’t get there from here” – it’s a humorous way to give someone directions to a place that’s so hard to reach and filled with so many obstacles that you might as well give up before you start. Turns out, you can get there – it just might take you 20 years or so.

Ayuh.

**Sometimes you just need a little help getting there.**

**Some paths are rockier than others, but you better enjoy the scenery along the way.**

French kiss

Zou bisou bisou

Mon Dieu qu’ils sont doux

France is a song you hear all day long. It begins in the morning with the cheerful bonjour from the beautiful young woman behind the counter at the boulangerie. It’s a playful, melodious greeting that bounces with happiness – as if just the idea of procuring a warm croissant wasn’t happiness enough.

I had the good fortune of spending three weeks in France last month and I may never get over it. Honestly, I don’t want to get over it, but re-entry has been challenging. My first morning back home, I was in the drive-through at Starbucks and heard myself saying “bonjour” to the barista when he greeted me through the speaker. I fear I have developed a rare form of French Tourette’s, and I can’t stop finding ways to use the twelve words of French that I know.

**Bonjour, Paris! My dear wife and our dear friends/travel guides Lori and Sue** **– let the games begin!**

To be fair, I did work on my French this summer using the Pimsleur app. It was challenging but surprisingly fun to shake off the thick cobwebs of two years of high school French. And to be completely honest, all I really cared about was not sounding like a hayseed from the USA when ordering in a French restaurant. I’m pleased to report that I did pretty darn well. I even made a dinner reservation by phone with a French woman who spoke no English. That was probably the highlight of my adventures in speaking French. I was usually okay until someone would ask me a question in real speed French. That’s when I would look like what the French would describe as un lapin pris dans les phares – a rabbit caught in the headlights. The other person would always smile sweetly and rescue me with their annoyingly efficient English.

**Flat with a view in Honfleur in the Normandy region – yeah, I could live here**

**Or here – Hautot-sur-Mer – a seaside commune in the Normandy region**

**This would be fine, too – Saint-Emilion – near Bordeaux**

I know it’s easy to fall in love with a place on holiday when you’re away from the boring chores of your everyday life. Be honest – if you’ve been lucky enough to travel abroad, how many times have you been somewhere and wondered if you could live there? And then we go home and make our Shutterfly books and go on with our lives and get over it. Well, I’m not over France yet – I catch myself fantasizing about cheese and chateaus – and then at night, I have gauzy dreams where I’m zipping around the beautiful French countryside like I’m Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road. Hey, my dreams, my casting, and these nocturnal flights of fancy are so much more enjoyable than the apocalyptic end of democracy nightmares I often have.

I blame my lovely friends and travel companions Lori and Sue for my current status as a Francophile. Stay with me – I’ll connect those dots in a bit. My dear wife and I have traveled quite a bit over the past several years – usually with a tour company and we’ve had some marvelous adventures in five continents and over 25 countries. Tours are great – you get a lot of bang for your buck, and you don’t have to sort any of the details. And best of all, someone else schleps your luggage to the next stop. The downside is that you often wish you could have more time in a location.

Lori and Sue have traveled the world together for 45 years and have navigated most journeys on their own. They’ve been to more places than J. Peterman – Elaine’s eccentric globetrotting boss on Seinfeld. I mean, who goes to Bhutan or Mongolia? They do – and they are an unflappable duo who would slay on The Amazing Race. One early morning in the Bordeaux countryside, a wild boar leapt across the narrow road right in front of us. Sue – affectionately known as Baby Driver – never flinched – well, maybe a wee bit at the girly screams from my wife and me from the back seat – as she avoided une catastrophe. Lori was her steady co-pilot – monitoring the GPS – if we had internet connection – while looking at an old school map. And to make matters more challenging, Siri – for no apparent reason – would sometimes speak to us in French – charming but not that helpful.

**Mont Saint-Michel – seeing your dear wife cross a biggie off her bucket list – priceless**

Lori and Sue’s extensive plans for this trip rivaled the D-Day invasion. We began with two days in Paris – a short stay since we had all been there before. From there, we (they) rented a car and spent the next 18 days and 1500 miles exploring the French countryside – no interstates. You can really get to know a place this way. I can report that every little village in France has at least a dozen roundabouts and a cathedral or two. Oh, and they all look like a fairytale. Time travel is easy in France – and we traveled back centuries every day. We stayed in Airbnbs – with the signature never-ending European staircases that would have challenged Sir Edmund Hillary. They all had televisions and we never even turned one on which only added to the enchanting atmosphere. And I was never certain what day it was because it only mattered if it was a market day wherever we were.

Which leads me to the food in France. Food is truly art to the French, and we enjoyed several masterpieces during our stay. It’s no secret that French cuisine is famous for its elegant technique-driven methods – think boeuf bourguigon and coq au vin – and classic sauces – butter is its own food group there. We had some gorgeous meals, but I think our favorites were the ones we had at home – with a fresh baguette and an embarrassment of cheeses. So many cheeses – even former French president Charles de Gaulle famously asked, “How can you govern a country which has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?” We even named our personal bistro Chez Fromage. The French do not fear carbs and bread is as essential as air – or wine – to them. There is no such thing as bad bread in France – the breadmaking is highly regulated – and you can even buy a fresh baguette at a petrol station. We never did, but it was much more tempting than a bag of Cheetos.

**Forget the flowers – say it with fresh greens!**

The French are not careless about food and they value fresh, quality ingredients. Going to the farmers market is akin to the Louvre of Produce – fresh greens that looked like bouquets, finger shaped radishes that were almost sweet, and carrots – don’t get me started on the crispy carrots – my favorites. Every salad we had – even in modest off the beaten track restaurants – was Instagram worthy. And market days have a festive feel – the locals with their bags on wheels in animated conversations with their familiar vendors. I swear I could hear Eartha Kitt singing “C’est si bon” in the background as we stuffed our lone tote to the tippy top.

**Chez Fromage – have cheese, will travel** **– reservations strongly recommended**

Our favorite meal out was at a small restaurant in Saillans – in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region near Bordeaux. The owner was our server, and she spoke very little English, but she described each dish to us in exquisite detail – in French. It was like having Catherine Deneuve narrate our dinner and even though we understood very little, she was so passionate and intentional in her descriptions that we were absolutely mesmerized. We all sat there smiling and nodding as she slowly told us about every artfully arranged item on our plates. I joked later that she could have been telling us we were having braised roadkill in a sawdust reduction sauce and we would still be smiling and nodding. It was absolute magic and we were there for almost four hours. There is no grabbing a quick dinner in France and we were all in – even if we had to stay up past our bedtime.

**I’m still not sure what it was, but it was delicious in any language.**

If France is a song, French pastries are poetry – sweet, buttery elegance. The only challenge is choosing which one(s) to try. Every region of France seems to have a distinct pastry that highlights the local ingredients and techniques. We did our best to be fair and sample as many as possible – with one of our favorites being the canelé from Bordeaux. It looks like a mini bundt cake and has a crunchy, browned outer shell and soft custard center flavored with rum and vanilla. Honestly, all of the pastries in France looked almost too good to eat – almost.

But one of my favorite things about France was something that I couldn’t identify until after a few days there. I would find myself a bit distracted sitting in a restaurant – a feeling I couldn’t quite discern. And then I became aware of the sound of my own voice and I finally got it – the noise level in the restaurant was so subdued that you didn’t have to struggle to be heard over the other tables. The background music was merely a suggestion and there were no TVs draped over the bar. Oh, and in three weeks in France, I never once heard someone talking on speaker phone.

**A picnic lunch at Chateau Prieure Marquet – a luxury estate and winery in the Bordeaux region**

It’s not just that the French speak more quietly than Americans, it’s their whole approach to dining out. They aren’t in a hurry and if you are seated at a table, it is yours until you ask your server for the check. Yes, they value fine food, but they also thrive on conversation with their dining companions. Eating out is much more than a meal – it’s a choreographed social ritual – starter, main, cheese course and dessert. Amen. The portions are not supersized and there is a pause between courses – leaving room for your appetite for deliciousness and conversation. Every one of our dinners out felt like a special occasion – beyond just being in France – we were all in the moment. And this is the unique souvenir I wanted to cram into my carry-on bag with all those dirty clothes to take home – presence.

There is a famous French proverb – “La vis est aite de petits benheurs” – that translates into English as “Life is made of little joys.” It perfectly captures my time in France. Yes, I saw some beautiful and deeply moving things – the restoration of Notre Dame, Monet’s Giverny, the magnificent Mont Saint- Michel, the devastating beaches of Normandy – on and on – and they will remain vivid postcards in my memory. But it is those little joys that I have revisited the most since I’ve returned home and they shuffle through my mind like an old school Kodak slideshow – and I see the little French children with their backpacks holding hands as they walked to school with their mother on a bright Paris morning. And I smile when I remember the dog walker at a busy intersection in Paris somehow effortlessly walking eleven dogs at one time – two not even on a leash. I can hear the beautiful French girl singing a sweet song to the mannequin of a WWII soldier at the Museum of the Battle of Normandy – as if she were trying to cheer him up. Oh, and the light – when we were so lucky to catch the pastel sunset over Bayeux from our fourth floor flat – and the divine kaleidoscope the sunlight created through the stained-glass windows in the Basilica of Saint-Sauveur in Dinan – and the pearl full moon illuminating the night sky when we left our fabulous dinner in Saillans – these exquisite images are all on rotation in my carousel.

**I wish I knew the song she was singing – I just know it made me feel happy.**

I want to be more present to these tender treasures of beauty and kindness in a country where the volume of the discord bombards us every freaking hour. I am certainly well aware that the French are experiencing their own turmoil these days, but we’ve been mired in ours for over a decade and the cumulative weariness is palpable. I mostly avoided the news on our trip, but before our flight home I learned that I was returning to a country where an execution was going to be live streamed and the president had encouraged the bombing of the city where my beloved sister lives. My time in France was a balm from the madness, and I want to steep in it for as long as possible.

**The Normandy American Cemetery – 9,389 graves are a chilling reminder of the catatastrophic cost of preserving freedom**

Ernest Hemingway famously described Paris as a “moveable feast” – an unforgettable experience that you not only carry with you, but you can revisit time and again through indelible memories. Papa was right and I have a feeling I’m going to be feasting on France for a very long time.

Bon appetit!

**Marta, on the left, was our delighful host in Bordeaux for six nights. She sent us a text on our drive back to Paris wishing us good luck in our upcoming elections.**

**As rare as a Big Foot sighting – Sue and Lori sitting still – in Saint-Lunaire – Brittany**

**Dear France – Stay magnifique. We’ll be back!**

A daughter looks at seventy

I’ve been writing this post for almost 25 years. Sure, I’ve been known to procrastinate, but that isn’t the case this time. No, this post has been – just like me – a work in progress. You see, I’m turning 70 at the end of the month (please act surprised) and that’s a daunting milestone for most folks, but for me, 70 has been the Demogorgon shadowing me since my mother died in 2002 – at the age of… yes, 70.

**My movie star mom set the bar high for birthdays. I only wish she had been able to celebrate a few more of her own.**

I was 45 when I lost both of my parents. Correction – they weren’t lost – they were stolen by cancer. My father was 79 – not a bad run – but my mother was only 70. And I’ve carried around a chip – more like a cinderblock some days – on my shoulder about it for a very long time. Even after all these years, it’s still an automatic equation I do in my head when I come across an obituary – how many years longer did that person live than my mother. Grief math is real and it’s even more painful than Algebra 2. It made me resentful for a very long time, but I’m grateful for some good friends whose own losses have helped mollify my perspective over the years. Like my friend Maryanne who was five years old when her mother died at 35 – unfathomable. And Jen who was only 21 when her mother died in a car accident when she was 53. By the way, both of these women grew up to be extraordinary mothers – which seems just right.

Look, I know I’m not special – well, maybe to a few people – lots of folks surpass the age at which a parent died. And for many, just like me, it is a landmark event that makes you scrutinize your own life more intensely. It’s a bit like taking a selfie from a low angle and it’s not always a pretty picture.

I thought that my overwhelming feeling about reaching the age at which my mother died would be relief – I made it. I wasn’t prepared for the existential dread of it all. It began the first of the year with sudden waves of sadness and anxiety. I could feel myself missing my mother more than usual – a physical longing to be in her presence again. And I started revisiting her illness and death in ways I had not done in a long time – vivid images of her beautiful face wincing from the hideous pain that was strangling her. I’ve been so lucky over the years that when I see my mother in my dreams she is never sick. I mean my dreams are not always the gauzy fluff Hallmark movies are made of – sometimes she’s cranky and we argue, but she is beautiful and well.

**Memes are so funny – until they’re not.**

It took me a while to realize that part of my anxiety was the reality of facing my own mortality. In the haunting lyrics of the late great John Prine – I am an old woman. Me! Sweet suffering Jesus, how did that happen? And even with my superpower of denial, I couldn’t hide from my angst because it seems like every other person I know turned 70 this year. I guess that makes sense. I’m on a group text chain with about 10 women I went to high school with – including two I’ve known since elementary school. The group doesn’t overshare and usually just chimes in for birthdays, news of grandchildren, and more so in the past few years – illness and death. Two of the women in the chain have been widowed recently and more than a few have had some serious health issues. One of my closest friends from the group was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s a couple of years ago. That one shattered me. She’s no longer able to participate in the group chat, but her husband checks in with us now and again to give us updates – and a whole hell of a lot of perspective on living.

Carol, Lee Anne and me – We were lucky to be seated alphabetically in Mrs. Crabel’s 4th grade class at Spotswood Elementary and became lifelong friends. We celebrated Lee Anne’s 70th in April at a 70s music concert. We may have danced like no one was watching.

So there have been a lot of sweet and funny 70^th birthday wishes and memes being exchanged this year. I think I’m the last to go and I hope I can still find the messages amusing. It’s a diverse group of women – we certainly don’t all align politically and I’m the only gay in the village – but we share a unique history. We have known each other through braces and acne and weddings and funerals. And it is a great comfort to me to still be connected with people who knew my parents.

**This is Tom – one of my very favorite men who also happens to be my attorney. Fun fact- he’s a real life Atticus Finch and we celebrated his 70th a few weeks ago.**

My mother was big on birthdays and everyone in our gang looked forward to my party every year. To be fair, I think their enthusiasm had more to do with my mother’s amazing crème puffs than me, but it was always a fun day. My last birthday with my mother was spent in the hospital at her bedside. She had been put on a course of steroids and was feeling downright perky – not gorked out on morphine as she was for so much of her last months. A friend brought a beautiful box of pastries to her room, and she was able to eat a bit. It wasn’t my best birthday, but I will always be thankful for the gift of her full and pain-free presence that day.

**Mom’s puffs were the life of the party!**

Even my esthetician, Chagit, turned 70 last month. I’ve known her for longer than either of us can remember, and I think of her foremost as a friend – not the person who gives me bitchin eyebrows every month. Fortunately for me, she’s great at both. Like my high school mates we have been through a lot together – like turning 50. We have laughed ourselves silly about how we totally freaked out all those years ago about what we thought was a milestone. If we make it to 80, I’m sure we’ll still be laughing about it. We’ve both gotten older, but oh, so much wiser. Just ask us.

**Chagit is the Rembrandt of eyebrows and the Jewish mother I didn’t know I needed.**

As my birthday draws closer, I’ve been thinking a lot about my life – especially my regrets. I have plenty of them and for the record, I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t. A life without regret is one without reflection. I have a long list of minor ones – like not learning to play the piano and those tragic perms I got in the 80s – and a shorter one that often haunts me – the one that includes things I’ve done that hurt people I deeply loved.

Author Ann Patchett beautifully captures my relationship with regrets in her novel Tom Lake when she writes, “We remember the people we hurt so much more clearly than the people who hurt us.” I am grateful that I remember. Regrets are phantom scars that never quite fully fade away. I think that’s a good thing. They remind us of when we needed to be better – and I hope I have been.

And here’s a little inside elder wisdom for you – don’t fret too much about those people who hurt you. In my experience, karma has been stealth but highly efficient. Patience, Grasshopper – and stay on the high road.

All the cool kids turned 70 this year – even Hope from *thirtysomething*. Time for a reboot? *Silver Yuppies?*

Lately, I’ve also been thinking about legacy. My dear friend Sue who has been an “other” mother to me for a long time, turns 84 later this year and she asked me to help write her obituary. Sue is in good health for the most part, but she’s a lifelong educator and has her lesson plans in order in all phases of her life. She’s accomplished quite a lot in that life and it’s hard to condense it into the standard obit template. Working on this task has made me think about what I would want people to remember about me. Sue doesn’t know this, but she has helped me write my own obituary. She sent me a beautiful birthday card a few years ago that still sits on my desk. The front of the card features an image of poet Amanda Gorman above the words Be the Light. Inside the card, Sue wrote some lovely things to me, but one sentence stood me still and I revisit it like a touchstone on days when those regrets get the best of me.

“I doubt that you have seldom met a person or cause that you did not embrace in one form or another.”

That’s it. That’s my obit. And it’s enough, but I do hope you don’t see it anytime soon.

**I’m so lucky to have Sue as a role model for aging gracefully – with fabulous eyewear.**

My mother’s mother lived to be 90. Go figure – no Fitbit and steeping vegetables in bacon fat served my grandmother well. I can’t recall her ever talking about being old, but I do remember being at her house and watching Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. That was in July of 1969 – a few months before she turned 70. My family were all upstairs asleep – Grandma and I were the only ones who had stayed up late. We sat on the couch together in the dark watching the grainy coverage and when Armstrong took his one giant leap for mankind, my grandmother shook her head and softly said, “I never thought I’d see the day.” I think that’s how I’ve felt about turning 70 for a very long time. I’m not a fatalist at all – I just couldn’t imagine what living longer than my mother would look like. I’ve never been great with maps or directions, and I will soon be entering unchartered territory. I guess I’m lucky I have so many good folks a wee bit ahead of me on the trail. I hope they drop a few Werther’s from their pockets along the way to guide me.

**Grandma saw some things in her 90 years.**

I thought long and hard about how I wanted to celebrate this biggie birthday. The last thing I wanted was a party – too loud, too much. I knew I wanted to be near water – close to nature and far away from the madding crowd. It’s a bit tricky because my birthday falls at the end of summer when it is still beastly hot where I live. And to know me, is to know that if I’m hot, ain’t nobody happy. So, if all goes well, I’ll be on the rugged coast of northern California on a deck that hangs over the Pacific – wearing a hoodie and holding an Olivia Pope sized glass of red wine. I’ll be with my dear wife, my beloved sister and my best friend from college – who, of course, also turned 70 this year. Her brother – her best friend – died last year. He was 72. I can do the math, but I detest it.

The consistently wise Anne Lamott wrote an essay for The Washington Post a few years ago on the occasion of her 70^th birthday and said, “I think I am only 57, but the paperwork does not back this up.” I would say neither do the knees, but here we are. And I’ll take it with abundant gratitude – and maybe if I’m lucky, a crème puff or two.

**My mother loved this quote by novelist Henry Miller and even found it on a fridge magnet. I’ve kept it close for almost 25 years and** **understand it more fully now that I’m of a certain age. I think it sounds like a worthy mission statement for my next decade. Cheers, Mom!**

Scorn on the 4th of July

The 4^th of July has never been one of my favorite holidays – especially as a grownup. I mean, I don’t eat meat and I hate the heat, so a day centered around BBQs and being outdoors holds limited appeal to me.. I mean, sure, as a kid I was into it – especially the sparklers. I have fond memories of dancing around the backyard with my siblings making circles with a flaming wire stick while our mother continually droned, “Be careful.”

That was then and this is now. The 4^th of July where I live was 98 degrees with a heat index of 110. In short, it was the seventh layer of hell – and I’m not just talking about the weather. It was America’s 250^th birthday that somehow got hijacked into a partisan state fair that was so lame that even Milli Vanilli canceled out. To be fair, one of that duo died in 1998, but still – this Fourth turned out to be like the movie version of Cats – wildly anticipated, but terribly disappointing.

I’m old enough to remember the excitement surrounding the Bicentennial in 1976. I was working at a summer camp in a small town in Virginia, and there was a parade and everyone in the little town came. Honestly, almost the entire population of the town was in the parade. I know we all carried small flags, but I had to Google to double check who the president was then – Gerald Ford. That tells you how nonpartisan life was back then.

If you know me at all, you know I’m a radical left lunatic – a proud one – but I’m also a patriot who cries at the Star-Spangled Banner – every damn time. I worked for the Paralyzed Veterans of America for eight years and gained a deep appreciation for the sacrifices so many of my fellow Americans made for our country. I became friends with one Marine veteran who told me the story of how he was shot in Viet Nam along with several of his platoon members. He was paralyzed from the chest down and put into a body bag because the medics thought he was dead. Somehow, he managed to move one hand high enough to indicate that he was alive before the body bag was zipped up. You don’t forget stories like that. And I have no idea how he voted.

My father was an Army veteran and one of my most sacred possessions is the flag that was presented to my mother at his memorial service. I was working remotely from home on September 11^th and after the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center, I didn’t know what else to do, but to hang out my flag on the front porch. George W. Bush was president then, and I think he comforted all of us – even those who didn’t vote for him – in those raw harrowing days. Do you remember that feeling – that there were no sides? We were all just heartbroken and frightened Americans.

So, I woke this 4^th of July filled with anger and that soon turned into despair. I felt inconsolable. I know I’m not the only one. I texted with some friends who were not in a great place either and, as always, I talked to my sister on the phone for a very long time. And my dear wife gently asked me what she could do and I told her softly to just leave me alone. She nodded and settled in to binge the last five episodes of The Pitt – which I don’t have the stomach for watching.

I spent most of the afternoon in my office. I had an hour FaceTime conversation with my two oldest friends from fourth grade. One of them was turning 70 the next day. We talked about family, various aches and pains, and plans to get together later in the year. It was all so delightfully normal and comforting. Not at all like what is going on – what has been going on – in our country for what feels like such a very long time.

And then I watched one of my favorite movies – an old one (1978) – Same Time, Next Year. It stars Ellen Burstyn and Alan Alda as a young housewife and accountant that meet at a charming inn on the coast of California. They have dinner, talk for hours and end up in bed together. They’re both happily married with children but agree to meet every year at the same inn for one weekend together. Don’t get bogged down with the moral issues of this scenario – it’s an almost 50-year-old rom com with a Johnny Mathis soundtrack. Anyway, the story advances five years at a time as we see the couple and the country change. The film is certainly dated (as am I) but it has a sweet and hopeful aura about it. I can’t really explain it, but for $3.99 you can stream it for yourself. I got my money’s worth for sure and somehow I felt better and I’m pretty sure it was the hope part that nudged me out of my Fourth funk.

You can never underestimate hope. Michelle Obama knows this and it was central to her magnificent speech at the opening of the Obama Presidential Library a few weeks ago. She put it is a simply as possible when she said, “Y’all, hope is all we have.” I want to try and remember that when I start to sink into the deep end of despair over the current state of our union. We’ve been through a lot these 250 years and somehow we have managed to survive – but it’s going to take a lot of hard work and a lot of that hope Michelle was talking about.

Because hope is the essential spark that lights the fire of change. But hope is a choice. Whether or not we use our voices to speak up is a choice. Voting is a choice. Being a decent human being is a choice. Believing that we still hold the power to build a country that reflects us is a choice. ~ Michelle Obama, June 18, 2026

Okay, I’m in – and I’m bringing sparklers.

**My great nephew at his first fireworks gave me hope, too.**

Matinee manifesto

**My hometown theater in its glory days**

I have loved movies since I was a child. I grew up in a small town that had a beautiful old (even when I was young) theater downtown – the Virginia – and nothing was more exciting to me than going to see a matinee on a Saturday afternoon. The Virginia had burgundy velvet roping attached to brass fixtures in the lobby and a heavy ornate curtain that opened slowly before each show and an older gentleman in a uniform with a bow tie would take my ticket. It all felt so glamorous to me – a kid in a little town 2,500 miles away from Hollywood.

I know I must have seen a lot of Disney films there as a kid, but they aren’t the ones I remember. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is one of the first films I clearly recall seeing. It was such an adventure – and to be fair, I probably fell in love with Katherine Ross on the handlebars of that bicycle. I also vividly recall an older cousin taking me and his brother to see Rosemary’s Baby when I was around 12. He was almost ten years older than us – I guess that’s how he got us into an R rated movie. He was supposed to be “watching” us while our parents were shopping or something. By the way, that cousin went on to become a MAGA – so his inappropriate decision-making tracks.

**How could I not fall in love with the movies?**

Anyway, I remember being terrified, but also intrigued by the whole look of the film – so different than anything I’d ever seen before. And even if I didn’t understand the story, I think that’s when I first realized that movies don’t have to be technicolor and cheerful. My mother was furious when she found out and I had a few nightmares, but seeing (okay, I may have hid my eyes a few times) Rosemary’s Baby only increased my curiosity for films. That said, horror movies are not my preferred genre at all. I mean, just hearing the opening notes of “Tubular Bells” (the theme from The Exorcist) creeps me out a bit.

But I did find myself at The Bride! last weekend. The film, written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, is a wild reimagining of Mary Shelley’s Bride of Frankenstein storyand doesn’t neatly fit within the horror genre. Honestly, it doesn’t fit into any genre. It’s a musical, a comedy, a romance and most of all – a scathing narrative about agency that explores consent and self-definition in bold, violent, and visually spectacular ways. Is it messy? Sometimes. Is it slow? Never. Did it make me have to process a lot of my own feelings? Yes. And I loved it!

My wife and I sat on the end of a row near the back of the theater and five young women – all in their 20’s – stepped over us to take their seats right before the film started. After the movie, we went to the restroom and from my stall, I could hear a bunch of women excitedly talking. When I came out, I saw that it was them. One of them was saying how relatable the film was to today’s issues. I couldn’t help but jump into the conversation and we all kept chiming in about things we loved about the movie. Later, I thought about how cool it was that two women in their 60’s and five women four decades younger, were united in their impressions of a film.

Alas, The Bride! opened to mixed reviews and very poor box office. And honestly, that pisses me off. I sat through seven trailers of upcoming films on Sunday – most of them loud apocalyptic mashups of mayhem that have already been made – mostly by men. So freaking boring.

The dismal box-office of The Bride! is getting a lot of attention because of the film’s $80 million budget and the fact that it’s written and directed by a woman. The Oscars are this Sunday and in the 97-year history of the Academy Awards, only nine women have been nominated for Best Director. This isn’t breaking news – the film industry, like most industries, is male dominated. And women are held to a different standard – a storyline as old as time – and when they are tagged as a fiscal failure, the stakes are even higher.

Maggie Gyllenhaal is an acclaimed actor and her directorial debut, 2021’s The Lost Daughter, was a critical success on Netflix – and was made on a shoestring budget of $5 million. I hope she is given the opportunity to direct again – soon. She gives voice – with vivid imagery – to aspects of the female experience that are often drowned out by the mob mentality of the herd. And I love that she is not afraid to take big swings – I find that exhilarating.

She’s also one strong broad. I saw her on Late Night with Seth Myers on Monday night – mere hours after the crushing weekend box-office numbers were reported. You would have thought her film had broken all records – she was so confident, assured, and vibrant as she talked about her film. And she seemed terribly amused by the comments that she had made a fearless and daring film. She laughed and said, “This is a movie made for a movie theater. If you love movies, go see them.”

What she said – just don’t take your 12-year-old cousin.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.

State of grace

French kiss

A daughter looks at seventy

Scorn on the 4th of July