Dog days of summer, sink or swim: What in the heck are the rules?

By Mary Kay Roth

July’s golden dusk lit up the shores of Lake McConaughy one gorgeous summer evening, just a week ago, as two of my grandchildren and my own two kids paddled out into the waves and watched the western sky explode.  It was the close of a sun-kissed, three-day Nebraska vacation filled with camping on the beach, fireside meals, cool quiet and time to think.

As the dog days of summer have come upon us, my simple goals have evolved with increasing clarity: When the worst of this tragedy finally passes, I’d like to look back and be proud. I’d like to do the right thing, be impactful and survive intact. 

The road map to getting there is as elusive as holding a wave upon the Lake McConaughy sand.

The morning after our sunset swim we packed the car, four hours later I was home. And before I even did the laundry, I was back at my laptop, emailing the mayor to thank her for the new mask mandate – and pondering whether I could get a haircut or go to a protest rally.

It all seemed so much cleaner and easier in the “Before Time” (thanks to Mad Max for that phrase).  Today the earth seems to wobble in orbit and I’m adrift on the rulebook – with any possible chance of control or salvation hanging in the balance.   

These days I diligently wear a mask on my weekly adventures – grocery store, occasionally drugstore – while avoiding crowds, definitely no airplanes. Yet earlier this week I couldn’t stop myself from reading a New York Times story about which Caribbean islands will still take Americans.

Perhaps I need an RV. Or an IV. Meditation.  Or medication.

Dr. Fauci has tossed out the first pitch for Major League Baseball. The Lied Center’s new season just arrived in my mailbox. And, yes, Pinewood Bowl at Pioneers Park says the Beach Boys are still planning to perform here in early August.

One moment I’m thinking to myself, “Heck, let me just get it – and be over it.”  The next moment, after a few aches and a hint of a cough, I lie in my bed, wide awake in panic: “OMG, do I have it?”

On Friday my granddaughters and I giggled as we opened our umbrellas, ran through the sprinkler and pretended it was raining. Later that night I cried in the shower because Scout will soon return to school and I’ll likely need to again separate from my wee girls.  

At least I think I will. 

I envy folks who say they have complete certainty in their journey right now. For me every single decision feels like I’m sinking in quicksand, as this invisible enemy has taken more than 140,000 American lives, infected 16 million around the world, and set new records in Lincoln.

Of course, the yin and yang of “safe” choices has always been a bit out of whack for me.  I was raised by a mother who preached the gospel of balance and strict code of conduct – and a dad who snuck us cherry bombs on July Fourth and believed the sound of a tornado siren was an invitation to head outdoors.

Ice cream cone?  Massage? Tattoo?  Filling out that blank medical directive?

We forge on, finding our footing in Lysol and six-foot measurements – baking cookies for neighbors (is that safe) and searching for ancient comets (plenty of social distancing there).  My son is an educator and my daughter is a nurse. They need to do their jobs, and they need to stay safe.  I have no clue how they do both.

I remind myself, daily, that I am a person of privilege – yet I struggle with a short fuse, a touch of pandemic melancholy and a strange weariness. I bought a bumper sticker that proclaims: “Giant Meteor, 2020, just end it already”– and drove around for days without realizing I had plastered it onto the car window, backward.

I turn to sunrises and Willie Nelson. I talk to my dogs and my garden. I look for meaningful work, and vigilantly try to fight the good fight (though I’ve lost a few Facebook friends lately, debating the inanity of herd immunity).  I believe in our obligation to read responsible journalism and detest memes that suggest we would be better off without news media.  Good lord, our only hope is informed citizens who keep abreast of accurate health numbers and scientific protocol, monstrous federal military intervention, and everything we must know to vote. As the election looms –100 days from Sunday – we cannot afford to look away.   

And yet.  I took a three-day Nebraska retreat. And looked away.

My heart and head needed to see fireflies (not headlines) and listen to cicadas (not podcasts). I needed to skip stones by day and tell ghost stories by firelight.  My son Josh calls these peak moments, times that create precious memories we will never forget, milestones celebrating the simple bliss of being – no rules allowed.  

Perhaps my favorite vacation moment was the one blessed afternoon we left our cellphones behind and tubed along the sandstone bluffs of the Niobrara River. Splashing in the water and baking in the sun, laughing with some of the people I love most in the world, I spent five sacred hours, not thinking about the pandemic.

We only needed to remember: Float, paddle, float. 

Just keep swimming. 

Sometimes I think maybe that’s the only rule I need right now.

Pomp and Pandemic Circumstance

My granddaughter, Cassidy has always been a planner. One of my favorite memories of her as a three year old child is being in the car, strapped into her child-seat in the back asking me, “Where are we going first?” Only in her little three-year-old voice it came out more like “Wayuw we going fust?”

We had a series of errands to run, and I answered her question. “Then where?” And I answered her question. “Then where?” And on and on. She has always been happier knowing exactly how her day was going to unfold.

To this day, she does not care for unscheduled surprises disrupting the plan. Conversely, my favorite days unfold in their own way, casting my fate to spontaneity, synchronicity and
the spirit of the moment.

When Cassie was seven, she and her brother came to live with us for a year. Their parents struggled throughout their lives with addiction and mental health issues. During that particular year, I really got to see Cassie the Planner in action. And she got to see me, the “Be-in-the-moment-figure-it-out-as-you-go” grandma inaction. (No, that’s not a typo.)

I’d come home from work at the end of the day, greeted by her wanting to know what we were having for dinner. And then what we were going to do after dinner, and so on. As her grandparent and role model, I wanted to help her get comfortable with the fact that life often does not unfold according to plan. So, I sat her down one day for a talk.

“Cassie,” I began, “you are a planner. And planning is a great skill to have that will serve you very well throughout your life. I, on the other hand, am not someone who likes to plan every part of my day. And I particularly don’t like it when other people plan my days for me.” She explained that she just really liked to know what was going to happen from one day to the next.

Over time, I came to understand that part of her need came from living in a home environment in which plans were made and then obliterated by the impacts of alcoholism. They were regularly disrupted by lack of money, by arguments that erupted, by her parents being too impaired to drive, play, cook, or interact with their kids.

I grew up with alcoholic parents, too. But the imprint on me was different than Cassie’s imprint. She developed that need to have a plan as a way to have some iota of control over the drama and chaos surrounding her. I grew up believing that it doesn’t do any good to have a plan because something always comes along and disrupts it, so what’s the point?

As I look back on all of this, I’m struck by the gift that Cassie is in my life, and how she mirrors my own childhood in many ways. While I’ve tried to help her understand these impacts in her life and make active choices around how she responds, she has given me a lens through which to examine my own childhood. I’ve since come to believe that my life would be much better if I would have put it in her hands that day and just followed whatever plan she made for me.

For each of the next six years, Cassie and her brother spent the better part of each summer with us. Each year, we could see the emotional impacts of the stress in their home life. Each year when they left us, we anguished over the hazards they might encounter. Eventually they returned to live with us, and we gained legal guardianship. We hoped the worst of their struggles were now behind them.

Various discussions over “The Plan” continued between Cassie and me. One day, when things were not going according to her plan, I told Cassie that this was a opportunity to develop her ability to be flexible and adaptable. That could have gone one of two ways. She could have become irritated, rolled her eyes, and punctuated her discomfort with a heavy sigh and a quick exit. But something in that clicked for her, and she embraced those two abilities with grace and determination.

Those words became guideposts as we navigated our different needs around the Plan. “Now, I’m trying to be flexible and adaptable here…,” she’ll say.

Or to praise her efforts, I’ll say, “Look at you being all flexible and adaptable!”  Little did anyone know how pivotal those conversations would end up being, or critical those skills would ultimately be for a young woman who will soon launch into her life in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

In the coming week, Cassie will celebrate her 18^th birthday and graduate from high school. In a month, she will leave for college out of state. She’s had a great high school experience, she’s a 4.0 student, her friends and classmates look to her as a leader and a good listener. She has earned every bit of it through hard work, flexibility and adaptability, and good planning. And now all she wants to do is enjoy those upcoming milestones.

The simple question of whether she can hang out with friends is now a daily deliberation of where the hanging out will be, who’s riding in whose car, how much those friends are spending time in close proximity with other friends, are they wearing masks, are they being careful, and you’re going to be outside, right?

It gets exhausting day after day for all of us. Even when all the “right” answers are given, as parents, we’re still left with the feeling of uncertainty. Social time with friends at this age is important. Celebrating rites of passage like graduation parties and ceremonies are important. Hanging with friends before everyone scatters to college, new jobs, and new adventures are important. But are those worth the inherent risk of COVID-19 exposure?

The answers to those questions don’t become any clearer, no matter how many times they are asked. We keep coming back to, “I don’t know.” No one planned for this.

I hope I’m around in 20 or 30 years and can look back with Cassie on this time. While we’re in the midst of this, we cannot appreciate the evolutionary significance of what we’re living through. It’s not easy to articulate or predict the long-term changes in human interaction at home, with friends, with colleagues and clients in the workplace, with the environment. And if we can’t articulate or predict it, we can’t plan for it very well. But from what I have seen in my grandchildren and those of their generation, if anyone can figure it out, they can. And maybe they will benefit from a little historical perspective from us old ones to help them develop their skill sets for the challenges and opportunities ahead.

So, to this graduating class of 2020, I want to say you’ve got this. You will figure this out. Flexibility and adaptability are the hammer and screwdriver in the toolbox of life now. For everyone. For everything. For ever more.

 

Solace

by Mary Reiman

This blog post has simply not come together as I had envisioned. I can usually find something to write about, just like I can usually find something to talk about. I wanted to write something light. Something that might make you laugh, or at least smile in the midst of this continuing great upheaval. But all the topics I’ve thought about seem trite. So, as I’ve often done in summers past, I turned to reading instead. I’ve read more books in the past three weeks than I’d read since March. For a few months I simply couldn’t stay engaged in any story, plot or character. I’m not sure what changed except that I met a new word. Well, not new, but definitely not one I used in my everyday conversations, or one I thought about very often. Until now.

Solace. Two syllables. 

As a noun: comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness. 

As a verb: to comfort. 

It’s not a word that rolls off my tongue easily. Solace. Comfort in a time of stress. What has been my comfort in this time of stress? Masks have been made, gowns have been sewn, the garage has been painted, and more plants than usual  have been planted. And no, I still can’t go and sit beside my mom yet (although I did get to wave at her through the window for her 97th birthday).

Perhaps it is time to think about how to embrace the word. Solace. To think of it every morning, (how

can I provide comfort to someone else today) and every night (what gave me great comfort today). Perhaps it will help me sleep. 

Luckily I find great solace from others. I find solace in believing goodness will continue to prevail over evil. Yes, there is meanness and ugliness in the world, but there is also great kindness and goodness and caring. Not with the Pollyanna belief it will just happen, but because of the strong voices and diligent action of all of us. Yes, all of us. Even in the midst of the pandemic. As we listen, learn and act. 

So for now, I’m listening to that inner spirit reminding me that each of us needs solace, internally and externally. Each of you gives comfort to others in so many ways, sometimes in words and sometimes in actions without any words, when no words are needed. Some of you are so intuitive, you can just sense when someone needs the comfort you can provide through your words and/or actions. The strength we share, the comfort we provide will come back to us ten fold, hundred fold. And also, in this time of unrest, now more than ever we need to be gentle with ourselves. 

Solace as a noun, solace as a verb.

May you find solace every day.

We all have our reasons ... or should

By JoAnne Young 

I took a walk this July 4^th morning through a quiet Lincoln neighborhood and for most of the hour thought about my adventures in the America I have lived in since birth, throughout my 18 years as the daughter of an Air Force sergeant, and the ups and downs of adulthood, as a woman and as a journalist. 

One thing stood out: For the vast majority of those years, I have been a voter, the privilege of our American culture. I am aware that some working journalists don’t vote, to maintain a stance of objectivity, and because they don’t want their names on a list that political parties can see. 

I have been a registered Independent for a number of years, my strong preference. I have at times registered as a party affiliate – in one or the other -- in order to vote in a local primary election, but wasn’t happy that I could not do that as an Independent.

But I’m not willing, even as a journalist, to give up my vote. I have many reasons. 

* I saw two houses on my morning walk where at one a woman came out of her front door to collect a newspaper lying on the porch. And at the other, a man sat on his patio reading a newspaper. I wanted to yell from the street, “thank you, for wanting to be an informed citizen, for whatever reason.” Instead, I thanked them silently, and crossed my fingers that people will continue to understand the importance of local journalism. 

I vote to maintain freedom of the press. 

* About 88 percent of Nebraska residents rely on groundwater to provide their drinking water. In addition, the state has 30 threatened or endangered species: plants, animals and birds. Other endangered birds migrate through the state. The top environmental concerns in this country and the world are biodiversity, water pollution, deforestation and climate change. 

I vote for the future of my children and grandchildren. 

* In my 14 years of covering the Nebraska Legislature, I have heard a lot of speeches by Sen. Ernie Chambers about the discrimination and threats, and treatment by police of people in his north Omaha legislative district, and beyond. For those who say they weren’t aware of the suffering of people of color in this state, they have only had to pay attention to the debates and hearings in their Capitol, broadcast live every day. 

I vote in the hope of fair treatment for all and to end racism.

* The United States is in the middle of a pandemic and not faring so well, with COVID-19 surging in the majority of states and threatening the lives and wellbeing of many people.

I vote to put people in office who believe in science. 

* When ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment came up again last year, I looked up Nebraska legislative transcripts to find out why my state was one of the first in 1972 to ratify the amendment to the Constitution, and then in 1973 the first to rescind that vote. Sen. Richard Proud of Omaha led the way on the withdrawal of ratification, saying: “If you ask a woman what the Equal Rights Amendment will do for her, how it will help her, she has no answer, and the reason she has no answer is because the Equal Rights Amendment will not help her.” Women, he went on, would lose their legal protections, like financial support from husbands. They would be able to keep their own names upon marriage. "No country puts women on a pedestal as the United States does," Proud said. “They can pretty well get their way on about anything they want.” He implored senators – Shirley Marsh the only woman among them – to follow the wishes of the people, not the minority of “Women Libbers.” And so senators voted 31-17 to withdraw ratification. 

I vote to ensure women have as equal say about their lives as men do about their own. 

There are many people in this state and country who don’t vote. This year, out of 1.2 million registered voters in Nebraska, less than half, 40.5%, voted in the primary. 

In the 2018 Nebraska primary, less than 25% voted. In the general election, that rose to 58%. But only 36% of voters ages 18-29 went to the polls. That’s an improvement over the 20% who voted in 2014. But don’t they have the most to gain or lose in their future? 

As a journalist, I give up my right to have public opinions. And as long as I work, I am content with that. 

But voting? It's a 100-year-old right I won't surrender.