The Loyal, True and Brave

I cannot stop thinking about this interpretation of the Civil War era “Battle Cry of Freedom.”

Bon Iver was not really on my radar (except for Justin Timberlake’s SNL impersonation with Maya Rudolph as Beyonce intoning “Oh no! Bon Iver sang himself to sleep!”) (And supposedly Jonathan Franzen’s novel Freedom features a singer character with the same Wisconsin woodsy vibe) but I knew enough of Justin Vernon’s signature falsetto to identify the band after I heard the opening chords on the news coverage of the Harris/Walz rally in Eau Claire.

And ever since I heard the three-man stripped down version of George Frederick Root’s 1862 marching tune, I’ve been swept up in its quiet power. Recordings of the song by military choirs and the such pound on the one and the three, as strident and white boi as “Uptown Girl,” but here, on this outdoor stage, in the late summer sun and breeze, the tune is slowed and caressed until it grooves.

The vocal swoops from Vernon’s high falsetto into the aching stretch of his head voice, his fist in the air at “the Union forever!“, the rapt faces of the audience, the ALS interpreters at his feet: It’s all so moving, serious and genuine, so gentle and so real, and so so unlike the rabid frenzy and sour artifice of those other rallies, the red hat ones we’ve turned away from now these many years.

The bitter memory of Trump contorting his voice and body into a vicious caricature of a disabled reporter flares once again, along with the anguish of our inability to fight back against this one unnecessary public stabbing, this one cruelty of the thousands by what became the most powerful man in the nation.

No more. We are not going back. We are moving inexorably toward care and justice, with the strength of a massive army, but this time with a conscience and integrity and the mission to protect the most, not the wealthy few.

“We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave/…and although he may be poor, not a man will be a slave/Shouting the battle cry of freedom”

Cindy's Love Life in Three Clips

Behind the Scenes of "Cindy's Love Life in Three Clips"

 "He's Cuter in Person" (Circa 1986) 

 What makes this even more delicious is that I ACTUALLY DID DO A LEPRECAUN SKIT for the McKenzie Variety Show. I even RESEARCHED the Irish accent!

looololololoollll I am HOWLING! ON THE FLOOR!

"Carrie and Big" (Circa 1987)

And what makes this one even weirder is that the names are the same.

"Kaitlyn Gets Her Ears Pierced" (Circa 1991-Present, with Gratitude and Undying Love)

But this one, this one, my dears. This is the good stuff, as dear Robin Williams says in Good Will Hunting. This is Randy and me on and about the couch on Saturday morning, the Masters on TV, the girls safely ensconced and thriving away at school, the cat somewhere about, lunch finishing up in the stove.

I am so so SO grateful. And as Dickens taught me, all of this bliss was made possible by all of the dreck that came before.

My First Ishtar, My Meeting Some Famous Bakers, and My Considering a Serious Drug

So it's Thursday night, a beautiful beautiful spring night, clear and cool and I'm driving to an Ishtar, my first Ishtar, a celebration of community and Islam, to which I have been generously invited by Bushra Amiwala, a former Niles North student, a dear brilliant girl who has grown into an accomplished shining star of a young woman. 

The dress code suggested formal and modest so a burgundy turtleneck covers the neckline of my floor length flowy sienna-patterned dress with long sleeves. 

When Bushra sees my goldenrod scarf over the back of my hair, she will coo "Oh, look at you!" and I will blush with being appreciated for trying.

I also tried to fast, as recommended, but couldn't forgo water. 

Skipping food all day was easy peasy lemon squeeze, but the occasional spot of thirst frightened me with its intensity. Like I was choking, like panic might come soon if I didn't have a swallow of water at hand.

So at the Ishtar, when the gracious hostess, or was it the hilarious comedian emcee Zaid Fouzi?, asked those who had fasted to stand, I stayed in my seat, ever the rule-follower, which now connects to that other new discovery about myself which I am learning more and more of every day. 

(Bushra, it turns out, like so many other brilliant and powerful and charismatic women, also has opened up about her neurodivergence. When our new social studies director invited her to speak to the student tutors at North, Bushra urged us to embrace our differences. She was singing my life with her words with her mic up in front of the student tutors in the Point, our tutoring center, and then when her Powerpoint flipped to her Formula for Success and the expected components of "hard work" and "passion" were multipled by "IMPULSE"(!), I had to jump a bit in my seat, and turn, and give a huge happy smile and thumbs up to the aforementioned new director who had been in A Meeting with me already to year to talk about that very quality of mine.)

(LOLOLOL)

(Laugh break, but now back to our story which is really about something else besides how wonderful the Muslim community dinner was, and how welcoming and beautiful everyone was, and how many former students and parents I ran into, but rather about what happened on the way...)

So BEFORE the Ishtar in Skokie, and AFTER I dropped off in the metal after-hour bins in front of the Skokie Food Pantry the leftover baked goods from EvaDeans the new breakfast/lunch restaurant and bakery in Wilmette run by the son of the guy who runs Bennison's...

But wait, I have to tell you about meeting that very father and son duo at EvaDeans when I went to pick up their day olds (like we used to do in New Orleans, but that was at a factory and we just dumped the trays into shopping bags, while Kristina, the lovely woman behind the counter at EvaDeans loaded up their nice white boxes with the goodies -- probably eight or so full heavy boxes at the end).

The father and son were sitting at the coffee bar towards the back in the peace and quiet of post-closing time and when Kristina told me who they were, I had to go over to thank them and do a little gushing.

"Do you have the bakery that's won all those French awards?" I asked and he demurred something like "yes," although I was grossly oversimplifying the accomplishment, and I launched into a little enthusiastic stanning about how much I selfishly appreciated the new restaurant for Wilmette and how I doubly appreciated the donation of leftovers for the food pantry that would be going into the homes of my students.

When I finished my long sentence, I started backing away to give them back their conversation, but bumped into a chair stacked upside down on the table for floor mopping and didn't even feel embarrassed as I righted it before it fell because the awkwardness was so stock Fan Girl and suited my little cosplay.

(I'll write later about the cosplaying aspect of neurodivergence. Oceana on TikTok alludes to this when she talks about High Masking Girls dressing up and wearing makeup both for ourselves and for the roles we play.)

So there I was, AFTER the bakery and food pantry (I'll be doing this run every Thursday from here on out) and BEFORE the big party in the hotel ballroom, driving in the gorgeous spring light and I had the radio on and I heard an NPR story about Ibogaine.

Have you heard about this drug?

The addiction-destroying results of the trip sound almost too juicy to be true but they're true, they're true! 

Like something out of a novel by Ann Patchett, Westerners have adopted the hallucinogenic from an African root and been carrying out therapeutic trials, first in the 1960's along with psilocybin, and lately, (get this delicious detail), trials are underway in Mexico and in BOATS off the coast of Florida because the treatment has not yet been approved by the FDA.

The ameliorating effects astound me; eliminating life-threatening cravings for cocaine and crack and alcohol with a single dose. 

But it's the hallucinatory trip one must first got through that held my attention -- because as it was described, the visions are hellish, with past traumas and fears and agonies revisited and some, previously out of reach to the unmedicated brain, remembered.

So on this Easter afternoon, post brunch with my handsome husband, safe and content in the knowledge that our two beautiful daughters spent their first Easter away from us, but together at Knox in Mia's cute dorm room, I can think about what first dawned on me upon hearing of this miracle.

I would take that drug.

I would take it, not to beat an addiction, but for the trip to hell itself. 

I would take the pill, feel the pain, go through my worst agonies in person all over again, if it would give me one more moment with Nancy again. 

I want to see Christopher once more, even if he is in pain, as a witness to the crash told me. 

If all I got from the trip was feeling fresh and raw all over again that my mother and father were gone forever and never coming back, I would swallow that capsule with relish.

Who would say no to the offer of a time machine? 

Who chooses the Blue Pill to return back to the status quo instead of the Red, which give you one more chance?

Three Writing Prompts

 The morning after…

The morning after Dianne took me out for my 20th birthday, I woke up on her hard wooden dorm room floor to January sunlight flooding through the high arched glass into my newly 20 year old face. Hungover, 20, deliriously happy, knowing already I would remember that crystal blue sky, knowing I was young, knowing more giggling nights in bars lay ahead, and more lit blue mornings like this one, so unlike and so far from the agony of 19.

Speculative Non-fiction

In my mind I now have a third child. A boy. Spencer? No, Jasper. JASPER. The children in The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew called their friend "Jappy" for short, but our better nickname for our precious little limp guy will be…Jaspy. An apt description from an antique name, as he rasps out our names from his contorted tiny throat, with lisping piping melodic tweets, as he calls us to his side. 

"What's up, little Jaspy? What's up, little guy?" asks my Mia, my little mother, my careloving oldest, her hands at the ready.

He crows at her, his eyes shining.

"Hi Jaspy!" calls Nora, ready for play. She tosses him a soft ball, knowing he will delight in its color arcing across his vision, knowing he will watch it rise and fall, knowing he will be content with only this, and loving him for all he is, just as he is, lying here before us in his big boy crib.

The Interrogative Mood

First of all, WHAT the hell? Second of all, WHAT the bloody hell? WHY? (Or don't I actually, truthfully, know why?) 

Alright then, why NOW? (Don't I kind of know the answer to that one too?)

Okay, then, WHAT were you thinking? (Although I kind of know what you were thinking,) WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

How about HOW? HOW ON EARTH did you think that was a good idea?

How about when? WHEN did you get the idea that that was a good idea? After your third cocktail? After your fifth beer? After you got your dose of liquid courage and lost your dose of better judgment?

How about WHO? As in WHO do you think you are?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

And how can we forget about WHERE? WHERE DO YOU GET OFF? Where is your mind? Your conscience? Your memory of us and the way we were?  

Neurodiverse Will Hunting

Jesus Christ, I'm recognizing something.

Bear with me and the intense emotions this realization is bringing up, please, dear friends, but my brothers and sisters in this situation with me have suffered immensely and I am only just now this week coming to the understanding of who I am and the powers, both natural and conveyed by protection under human rights and manmade law, I have.

God bless you all who have loved and enjoyed and appreciated me, and I pray you will continue to do so. Now that my commonalities with a particular community and a rightfully protected class (up to 10% of the population, says a recent New York Times article) are dawning on me, so so SO much is slipping into place.

I feel fucking split wide open and the brilliant light pouring out is blinding me while I bathe in its warmth. I weep, I weep.

A million thanks to my dear colleagues with and without training in recognizing exceptionalism who have extended compassion and understanding to me and stuck with me through the last few hellish years. I am fortunate to be blessed with a freaking hot gorgeous whipsmart hubby and two brilliant daughters who seem already in their own ways to surpass their parents in thinking and creativity. This support system kept me going despite the threats and ostracization from the non-comprehending that have prevented much sleep over the last years. To be honest, when the adrenaline strikes me wide awake at five, I have no complaints. I love the energy rush and I love the early morning light.

“You’re like an SNL skit,” said a dear friend. We laughed. I felt so seen. And loved—for exactly who I am. I was sitting with friends around our dining room table, the huge wooden six-footer that Randy and I bought from a Mexican furniture store on Milwaukee Avenue in the 90’s. “Gordita” is the table’s name, for the luscious curves of her fat carved legs. She still bears the Magic Marker traces of Mia and Nora’s artwork — a few years I considered sanding her tabletop anew, but now I treasure these precious marks. Some may see the colorful traces as mars; I do not. Earlier in the conversation, another friend, an internist, mentioned how necessary it is “to be patient with people’s thought processes.” I yelped with recognition. “That’s me!” I squealed. “I have to be more patient with people’s thought processes!”

Reading the literature and learning from the Tiktoks this week has been a rollercoaster experience, to say the least. My sisters in this sorority have been discriminated against, misunderstood, sexually abused (it’s a thing! who knew!? you can look it up! Jesus!), and many also have reached the heights of success. Hilary Clinton looks very different to me now. So does Beyonce.

I’m tired now so I’ll wrap this post up but, damn. Damn. I understand so much about my past now, and I am so fucking excited about tomorrow.

IlliNOISE!!

 Illinois at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, a story told through dance and Sufjan Stevens’s immortal music from the album of the same name, is a BANGER.

“Did you know someone in the show?” asked the woman who sat behind me after the last of the audience’s wild applause and affirmative shouts had died away.

I laughed and said no (even though Ahmad Simmons had blown me a kiss during curtain calls), I just loved this album and hadn’t she had it on repeat when it came out?

She may have been referring to my shoulders shaking with sobs I muffled with my hands during “Casimir Pulaski Day” or maybe the way I chanted along with “I made a LOT OF MISTAKES” or perhaps my calls of “BRAVA” after Rachel Lockhart tore down the stage in “Jacksonville.”

Regardless, if the producers are billing this as a dance/CONCERT hybrid and if the players insist on bringing such brilliance, then you better bet they’re gonna get some pretty passionate responses.

But our audience emotions weren’t all jubilant — after the John Wayne Gacy song faded away, with its excruciating lyrics “Oh, the dead/Twenty-seven people/Even more, they were boys/With their cars, summer jobs/Oh my god” still resonating, the entire packed room sat in stunned silence. It was only after the first notes of the next song broke the spell that we exploded into cheers.

I'm grabbing strangers on the way out, asking for a hug, sobbing with joy, babbling about the goodness of it all, and when we hit the lobby, there's one more thrill through the floor to ceiling windows -- the sight of our glorious city and resplendent lake spread out before us in the afternoon light. The crowds on Broadway who flock to this show will never have this unique Illinois experience.

“I’m still vibrating,” said the man in the lobby who witnessed my selfie with Dario, and I know he is not alone.

Here's the New Yorker review, and the