A Place So Hard To Find

Last night at Westchester’s Emelin Theater, I lectured on RBG, a new documentary about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was beyond reassuring to discuss this well-mannered, succinct, intellectually rigorous, even-handed, courageous, tenacious, and scrupulous woman. Even more reassuring to watch scenes of her working out vigorously with a trainer at age 85.

We need the Justice to live to a biblical age—200, even 250. Maybe clone herself too. But right now, she’s still a key cog in the U.S. government, the ultimate antidote to  this political climate of hot air, hot heads, (not) hot messes. As I zoomed back into the city, the traffic a mere trickle at that hour, I looked at the spiny diamonds of the city skyline and just grinned.

It’s still ours.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. The world–especially the United–is still going to hell in a handbasket. But I am starting to think my prediction that Trump and his cronies will exit the White House in cuffs will be realized. Better yet, every day I continue to work on a book I’ve wanted to write for decades. Today I already have penned 1,600 words, and now am swilling an extraordinary spicy turkey sandwich and a post-work glass of vino. On my speakers Marc Dorsy is crooning: “Somewhere in life there’s a joy to be/Between the hope and reality.”  I feel the extraordinary solidarity of my girlfriends far and near, foremothers alive and dead, and Miss Grace, sitting pretty on my legs. O, if money didn’t exist, I’d be the happiest 47-year-old in all the land.

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy