Overcoming Obstacles

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At my Wednesday morning writing group check-in today, nearly everyone talked about being pulled by other obligations, from packing up the literal rubble in their house in preparation for a move, to the growing piles of put-off chores and administrivia. Yet here we all were, attempting to navigate that obstacle for a couple of hours of time to nurture and spark the vibrant and needy creative child inside us that chatters non-stop and keeps tugging at our arm.

I was no exception to the prevailing mood. In fact, I can’t ever remember a time where 100% of my body and mind were full speed ahead focused on writing. There’s always something else that some small (or large) part of my brain fixates on, and tells me I should be doing instead. The trick to my writing success lies with how much I can tune out that nagging voice–which, of course, varies tremendously.

There’s a funny cartoon by Asher Perlman where someone with a truck labeled “Writers Cleaning Service” comes to someone’s door. The caption reads: The process is simple: you tell me to get some writing done and then to avoid getting started I clean your whole house. But chores and administrivia are only a couple of the many obstacles writers can use to distract ourselves. Job responsibilities, young children, vulnerable family members, or personal health issues can legitimately take up a whole lot of our time. And many of us already have other compelling and competing interests that keep us away from our creativity. If I weren’t an activist, I’d have more time to write, but sorry, working to make the world a better place is not a vocation I want to give up on.

Even if we don’t have too many these issues already built into our lives, any project we take on from learning to knit to painting the garage can help us circumvent the feelings of fear and doubt that often arise during the creative process, giving us more reason to avoid it. My writer friend and colleague Linda Castronovo writes about this beautifully in her (highly recommended) blog Starry, Starry Kite, Projects became my Prozac, she says, a coat of armor I constantly reshaped for myself. 

Linda, how did you capture the story of my life in just a handful of words? Friends have challenged me many times on my tendency to load myself up with tasks and projects to the point of overwhelm so that I perceive myself as too busy to attend to the things that really matter–relationships and creativity.  I wish I were as clear as Linda is on the reasons why I’m always overloading myself, but knowledge of this obstacle and the desire to clear its hurdle is, at least, an important first step.

Last night another friend, a visual artist, called me to briefly touch on the malaise of being in between projects–that What should I do now feeling when you’ve managed to corral the adrenaline and engage in a creative spree that enables you to tune out the competing shoulds of daily life, but alas, the project is now done. And whether the end result is flawed or perfect, you’re suddenly adrift. I can relate to that obstacle, too. It’s one of the reasons I’ve started to shy away from longer work. It’s way easier to begin another poem or short prose piece than to figure out what to do next after you’ve dedicated years of your life to a novel or memoir. As someone with eleven full length novels and one memoir to my name, (two published, the rest, not yet) I know how painful that what next moment can be. But I guess I can give myself credit for not quitting after the first longer work and eventually pushing on. And I know that my friend, who has already completed a large number of paintings, will go on the next leg of his creative journey, even if he first needs to take a breather.

I am so glad I went to the check-in at writing group this morning, instead of following the part of me that wanted to lean right away into the administrative tasks toppling over on my plate. And I’m grateful to my fellow writers for inspiring me by example with their determination to push forward in their writing, regardless of obstacles and obligations. And, hey, I got a blog post done, which is kind of in between creative work and other chores, as it is another thing on I can check off the weekly to-do list. But it’s also a place where I can set aside some time to take creativity seriously and practice being mindful with my words and thoughts.

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Statue of Liberty

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Photo by D. Dina Friedman

Back in the 1980s when I was working as a VISTA volunteer in Brooklyn and had very little money for entertainment, the Staten Island Ferry was one of the best bargains and a most pleasant way to spend a summer afternoon. You could ride back and forth as much as you wanted back then. Now, you have to get off the boat and get back on, but the ride is free (in the 1980s it was a quarter.) If you don’t want to pay a lot of money or deal with the crowds at Liberty Island, the ferry can give you a pretty darn good view of the Statue of Liberty, which still stirs something in me–maybe even more so in these turbulent times. So, I was excited to ride the ferry again on my way to visit friends in Staten Island when I was in NYC last weekend.

Once again, as we passed through the harbor, I thought about my own history with the Statue of Liberty, which I wrote about shortly after going to the refugee camp on the Mexican border in 2020. Here’s the piece. It was originally published in Prose Online in 2023 (You can hear me reading it, here) and then republished in my chapbook, Here in Sanctuary Whirling.

 

STATUE OF LIBERTY

I.

You can’t really forget a green statue, because when you’re a kid you know that statues are not supposed to be Comet-vomit-green. We took a boat. I was little, maybe four or five, and I couldn’t see over other people’s heads. We might have gone into the statue, but maybe we didn’t because the line was too long and my mother hates waiting in lines. My mother told me you used to be able to go all the way to the torch, but they closed that part off because someone fell, or maybe they jumped. I looked up at the torch and felt cheated. That’s the only part I remember.

II.

I took my boyfriend here when I was in college. He was from suburban Illinois, a land of tall, white, blond people. It was a windy day in January, so there was hardly anyone on the boat. We couldn’t go into the statue because it was closed for renovations. Or maybe we went in and walked up all those stairs to look out the crown’s windows to the harbor, and beyond it, to the open sea. To tell the truth, I don’t remember. To tell the truth, I couldn’t see over his head.

III.

I broke up with my boyfriend because he was blond. That’s the simplified version, though perhaps I broke up with him because he was from not-New York, or because the Statue of Liberty was closed the day we made the trip, or because the statue was open. I broke up with my best friend several years earlier when I was still in high school. She was the Chinese daughter of immigrants. We were on the subway. She was reading Ayn Rand. I told her I was a socialist and she stopped talking to me. Her stop came first. She got off the train and I watched the closing doors.

IV.

I never thought I could leave New York, but I did. That break-up was harder than leaving my blond boyfriend and harder than the day my best friend stopped talking to me. Now I’m living on a farm with tall, blond people and a lot of cows. The cows have the illusion of freedom in the pasture until they graze by the electric fence.

V.

There have been many cartoons of the Statue of Liberty being compromised. There was one where she had a For Sale sign hung around her neck. There was another with the former president, the one who hated immigrants, ripping off her head and holding it as a trophy. Before he was elected, they put a statue of this president in Union Square. He was naked with diaper rash and a sagging pot belly. The statue wasn’t green, but maybe it should have been.

VI.

I think I went once with my kids to the Statue of Liberty, but they were bored and we didn’t go inside. Or maybe we did go inside and they were bored. Or maybe we just went to Ellis Island, where I remember with certainty that they were bored, even when we found the plaques my parents paid for, which had the names of my great-great-grandparents, who came to the Statue of Liberty on crowded boats where they couldn’t see over people’s heads. It’s hard, sometimes, to raise kids in a land of blond people with too many cows.

VII.

My great-great grandmother came here to escape the pogroms. My great grandmother told me her mother said that whenever the Cossacks came to the door, she would make the sign of the cross and say “Christians Live Here,” or maybe my grandmother told me that story about her grandmother. I don’t remember. What I do remember is they both said the Old Country was very bad. Other people I went to school with were children of Holocaust survivors. We played a game in the schoolyard called Concentration Camp. It was kind of like tag, except the “it” person was the Nazi, and if they caught you, they made you do unspeakable second-grade things. In school we sang, “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” and “God Bless America.” One year we did an assembly program called “Sing, America, Sing.” I wrote a satire called, “Cry, America, Cry.” Even then I had the leanings of a socialist.

IX.

I have recently returned from the refugee camp in Matamoros, Mexico, where there is no Statue of Liberty. Instead, there’s a tall guard at the bridge who won’t let anyone put a foot in the country to claim asylum, or see over his head. A man in the camp tells me of intruders coming to his house with guns. He tells me about being shoved into a car with his eight-year-old daughter by kidnappers demanding ransom. He tells me about being taken by immigration authorities and locked in a cold, windowless room. At least, the statue still has windows. I did climb it at least once. I remember clearly, the day I looked out through the dirty glass.

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Beware Your Darlings!

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Last Tuesday, as we were walking in the woods, my partner said to me. How come you don’t show me so many of your poems any more? There are some I don’t even know until I see them published. 

He was referring to a poem I’d published the day before in Second Coming, a poem-a-day protest against the current administration’s fascist regime, which we both subscribe to on Substack. I’d mentioned how surprised I was that the poem got so many likes. I’ve published there before and usually only received only one or two reactions. This poem had already gotten 13! And they were mostly from people I didn’t even know.

I was touched that he wanted to see more of my poems. Not that I thought he wouldn’t want to–after all, we met at an open poetry reading in Greenwich Village, and love of poetry has always been a connector for us. But he doesn’t write many poems any more and I have strong connections with other writers, so I don’t generally make him the first stop for feedback. Also, these days, I’m more centered in my writing process and don’t usually share my work with people until I’ve given it a chance to simmer and revised it myself. I also have less of a need for validation for the many things I might jot down in a fit of emotional angst, some of which might end up being publishable poems, but many of which will not.

So, I explained that all to him, gaining my own clarity as we talked about it. And then he told me he had made peace with the idea that he’d likely never be more than a mediocre poet. You’re more of a journalist who occasionally writes in poetic form. You have some great images, but I think what’s often missing is that oomph, I told him.

Our conversation morphed into an exploration of the crevices of mediocrity, and how I also had finally made peace with accepting that I would never be more than a mediocre pianist, though I still feel that as a writer, I can rise above mediocrity by touching people, even if I likely will never make it to the “big leagues.” Then we happily reminisced about our days involved in that Village reading, and the poets we knew there, one of whom had made the jump into national recognition.

It was only after we got home and were in the kitchen trying to declutter the abundance of cucumbers and zucchini, that I asked, So, did you like the poem?

He hesitated. Well… I don’t think it was one of your strongest. 

Really? What didn’t you like?

He hesitated again. Actually, I don’t really remember it. Let me read it again. 

He disappeared and returned a few minutes later. It’s kind of like journalism. I mean I already know about the MAGA fortress on our corner. 

It is true that a lot of the images in this particular poem come from our shared experience. But that didn’t seem like a helpful comment. Maybe he was getting back at me for my comments about his journalistic poetry, but he’d agreed with my assessment. And it’s not his style to be passive-aggressive.

I just don’t think it’s your strongest poem, he repeated, cramming his foot farther into his mouth. I did like the image of the girl in the pink dress dancing. 

I write this not to garner sympathy. Truth be told, I was more inclined to laugh at my partner’s floundering than cry about his lack of support, because I knew he was genuinely trying to be supportive, even though this poem clearly didn’t grab him. He even deliberately went to back to Substack to give the poem a like and make a comment, as he makes a point of doing on many of my posts. However, it is a cautionary tale. Be careful about what you ask for from those you love and whose opinions have extra weight. In other words–beware of your darlings. (This is different from the phrase, kill your darlings, a standard trope of writer advice that warns you not to let something something stay if it doesn’t belong in a particular piece, no matter how precious you might find your crafting of a particular phrase.)

This is why I don’t often share my writing–especially writing that is more raw and still-in-progress–with close friends and family. Instead, I depend on my writing communities, where feedback structures have been specifically designed to provide support and all members share mutual goals and a common understanding, coated in respect without other interfering baggage.

But once something is published, it belongs to everyone. That’s what publishing means–making public. All cards on the table. All comments allowed. From anyone who happens to see it. I’m just happy I haven’t gotten very much hate mail.

So have at it. Would love to hear your stories–the good, the bad, and the ugly–about sharing work with those you love. Or if you want to read the poem in question, it’s here. And BTW, I did share this with my partner before posting to get his okay, out of respect and the deep love we have for each other.

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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…

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When I was around 6, I never felt that any of the images I saw in the mirror, twirling around in my powder blue party dress, school bound in my navy blue jumper with the gold buttons, or lounging in my light cotton pants and Danskin turtle-necks was really me. Other children in my class looked like themselves–in and out of the mirror–but I could barely recognize myself as a body with a face and curls and skinny limbs. Who was that apparition that stared back at me? It didn’t look anything like the way I envisioned myself. What did I–whoever I was–really look like? When I ran the “me card” in my mind, there was no face or body. “Me” was a wispy, invisible thing rooted in my brain’s fuzz: airy and intangible. And even after decades of body-grounding practices, that little germ of me is still that flighty, fuzzy thing, nearly impossible to see.

So, for this reason, I’ve always been wary of mirrors, or any item like video or audio recorders, that attempts to cast some aspect of myself back at me. It’s hard for me to watch images of myself in motion or listen to myself speak. When I taught my classes on Public Speaking, I told my students that while recording themselves could be helpful in noting areas they could improve on, it would be better not to record if they didn’t have the stomach for stepping out of their own self-perceptions and seeing themselves as others saw them.

Over the years, I’ve grown more immune to this schism in self-perception. Now, when I look into a mirror, I have an expectation of what I’m going to see, and the resulting reflection doesn’t surprise me, even as my aging body is becoming more angular, my hair slowly more gray. I can laugh when I see interviews of myself using my hands when I talk, and enjoy listening to myself reading poems. While I still don’t like my voice, which seems to be growing grainier and more old-ladyish by the minute, its New Yorker inflections continuing to underly my roots despite 40 years out of the homeland, I can appreciate my expressiveness as well as the echoes of my family legacy–poignant inflections that sound so much like my mother and grandmother.

But last night, I took a big step into the void between self-perception and reality. I recorded myself singing.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I completely lost my ability to sing without croaking a few years ago, and it took a year of lessons before I could get my voice back. This felt like a big investment because didn’t have a strong solo voice that felt worth preserving. But I missed being able to sing in choruses or community gatherings so much, it felt essential to my mental health. One of the most fun things about voice lessons was practicing solo songs, so since then, I try to devote a couple of evenings a week to doing vocal exercises and singing along to Karaoke tracks or accompanying myself on the piano. It’s a blast!

Truth be told, when I think of myself as a singer, I’m kind of like that picture of a cat who looks in the mirror and sees a lion. At least, that’s what the wishy part of me wants to see. Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose the fairest singer of them all? I knew that recording myself might quickly put a pin in my inflated self-perception, but I felt that it was finally time to do what many public speakers do: listen to themselves with minimal self-deprecating judgment, but a clear focus on what they can improve.

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So I turned on my cellphone recorder and hit play, totally prepared to delete the recordings if they were too painful to listen to.

What did I hear? Yes, my grainy, New York, old lady voice. But good breath control and good vibrato. On pitch nearly all the time with just a few flat notes I could work on.

Did I sound like someone I’d want to listen to on Spotify? No. Could I sing competently in a group, or lead a song if I wanted to? Absolutely.

And that’s what I used to tell my public speaking students. You may never speak like Martin Luther King, but that’s not the point. You can get to a place where you feel more competent, more confident, and hopefully begin to like what you’re doing.

Truth: I did delete the recordings after I listened to them. But not because I was ashamed. I think I just wanted to hold onto the illusion of the cat seeing the lion in the mirror. Better than the little girl who couldn’t see herself, even when she was dancing.

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Superstition

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I have a designated airplane outfit, which I need to wear each time I fly so the plane doesn’t crash. And the minute I get on the plane, I have to do a complicated 4 x 4 sudoku puzzle and not pay attention to anything else until we reach 10,000 feet, even though I’m not particularly afraid of flying. Nor would I call myself superstitious, other than carrying the inherited “wisdom” of my Jewish ancestors: Don’t make up lies about bad things; otherwise they will happen. For instance don’t say you can’t do something because your grandmother is sick, and—God forbid—don’t say you missed class because your grandmother died, because then she will.

But despite positioning myself clearly in the quadrant of “not superstitious,” it’s still a long road between there and the end of the axis: trusting that the universe will take care of you.

A few days ago, in Burlington, Mass., a six-year-old girl was on her way to her kindergarten graduation. ICE grabbed him out of his car, and brought the two of them to the holding site where my friend was one of several hundred people who show up several days a week to witness. She watched as the little girl came out alone with an ICE agent, crying and screaming, Mami! Papi!

What superstition could this man have adopted to prevent ICE from ripping him away from his family and severing his dreams? If he ends up on the fast track for deportation, which, thanks to two Trump-appointed judges on the DC Circuit Court, was reinstated after being blocked by lower courts, what shirt should he wear to keep the plane from crashing?

Congressman Jim McGovern visits the ICE holding facility in Burlington, MA. Photo: D. Dina Friedman

And the little girl: What inheritance will she carry from her Papi, locked in a crowded room never meant to be a jail, with no showers, one exposed toilet, and no food except what can be bought bulk from Amazon and put in the microwave. Will this girl ever attend another graduation without thinking of this day? What was she wearing? A pink dress? Or overalls—taking the first necessary step we all must take to buck the little girl princess stereotype? What will she carry in the deepest cavities of her heart—an inheritance that will be hers forever? Will she remember the shadow face of the agent who ignored her screams and smirked as he handed her off to a neighbor to bring her back to her mother and baby sister? Will she remember the faraway voice of her Papi in a distant land? How carefully will she choose her clothes to keep her mother safe? Will she trust in a divine benevolence as so many of the people I met at the border did, despite the rapes, the gangs, the loss of loved ones?

Can superstition save us? Any of us? All of us?

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All or Nothing

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In these turbulent times in the world, I’ve seen the point of celebrating the wins and not sinking too deeply into the quagmire of yes-but…

But in my own personal life, I’ve realized that one of the key manifestations of my struggle with perfectionism is the way I can so easily frazzle into an “all-or-nothing” mindset, berating myself for the things I didn’t get done, rather than acknowledging with gratitude what I’ve accomplished.

Take the last few days where I feel I’ve been spinning my wheels, unable to ground myself in my writing, eschewing any activism-related task that didn’t affect other people or didn’t have a deadline, and once again putting the pile of administrivia I told my partner I’d finish last week (or was it last month) on the I don’t have the mindset to deal with this right now pedestal. And yet, I still felt so harried and busy I didn’t even have time for walking the ersatz dog in the woods, a nurturing and healthful habit I’ve resolved to keep up ever since my four-legged personal trainer passed away many years ago.

So, what did I do instead? I took care of my grandson; worked out at the Y (where I need to do weight training for osteoporosis), did some PT exercises and yoga/cardio at home, made an elaborate dinner trying to use up as much cilantro as I could from our generous farm share, tried to catch up on a week’s worth of local newspapers, had a long impromptu strategy call with an activist colleague, picked several pints of blueberries and raspberries that are coming in and ripening faster than we can gather them, and pulled just enough weeds in the garden to keep them from taking over.

And I cleaned the garage.

This mucky job has been so low on the list it’s underwater. But we’re getting some work done on it, and our contractor offered us quick and easy debris removal if we could clear it out now.

(Everything has been moved to the middle in order for the contractors to complete their work, but about half the stuff is gone!) Photo by Shel Horowitz

So, for the first time in years our garage looks habitable, though sweeping the floor alone took at least 45 minutes and required a good dust mask. We’ve added considerably to the heap of construction debris and put a few things out on the corner for people to take if they want them.

Photo by Shel Horowitz

So, I should feel good, right?

But in the all-or-nothing mentality that my perfectionist brain lives in, I keep pivoting to what I didn’t do. Even though I am finally getting the insight that this kind of thinking does not serve me. It’s what prevented me from truly enjoying the piano for so many years, because I couldn’t accept my imperfect playing. (Side note: Another thing I’m annoyed with myself about is that due to what feels like other must-do time commitments, I’ve barely played the piano in weeks! ☹️)

And this is what also gets me feeling so down in the dumps in my social change work, and shut down and triggered by others who do more than I do, or who are purer in some way in the political and lifestyle choices that they make.

So now it’s time to think about other ways I can be sabotaged by an all-or-nothing mindset, so I can try to make some changes. And I’d better do this all the time, because otherwise, I will be a total failure in eradicating (another good all-or-nothing word) my perfectionism. 😊

I’d love to hear about other people’s struggles with all-or-nothing. And what you do to address it.

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Grabbing the Stage

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A big part of who I am stems from the blessing and curse of coming from a musical family.

On my mother’s side, my grandfather, Pop-Pop, was a symphony violinist. He lived next door to us when I was a child and I spent many hours watching him frown at the full length mirror as he practiced, carefully positioning the bow and playing each note over and over until he got it exactly how he wanted it. From him, I learned the importance of striving for perfection, even though reaching for it might seem impossible.

My father’s mother’s family, the Glicksteins, were just as passionate in their love of music and equally accomplished in their ability to play from the heart. My great-grandfather Abe Glickstein, a clarinet player, was known for giving Sunday afternoon living room concerts featuring his seven talented children for his immigrant neighbors at the turn of the 20th century, and for offering the services of a three-man klezmer combo (him and his two sons) to the community if music was needed for a wedding or other simcha. These great uncles, Max and Dave, went on to have notable musical careers, while their sister, my Grandma Jeanne, made her living teaching piano and recorder, and running summer music programs to spread the joy that fueled her life.

The curse of this story, as I wrote about extensively in my yet-to-be published memoir, Imperfect Pitch, was feeling that I had some sort of impossible musical bar to live up to, and I didn’t have either the patience or or the desire that Pop-Pop had to spend agonizing hour after hour at my instrument to achieve it.

But the blessing, which I think comes at least in part from my family constellation, is a love of the stage. Not so much for musical performance, since I’m still not as confident as I might want to be in that area. But give me a podium, and I’m in my happy place, whether I’m reading my poems or stories, talking on a panel about some aspect of writing craft, recounting my witness trips to the border and the Homestead Detention Center, standing up impromptu in front of a group of protesters on the street, or teaching the basics of classical argument theory to a room of bored college students.

There is something so magical about being listened to.

So, I get how disappointed my three-year-old grandson Manu felt when his parents told him they were going to take him to see the Tokyo Paradise Ska Band, which he has been totally obsessed with for a year, but, no, he was going to be on the stage with them, as he enacts when he listens to the videos, donning his sunglasses and strutting around his stage set of stacked mats, toy saxophone in one hand, mic in the other.

Because even though a seat in the audience can be a safe place, a time to relax, reset, and feel comfortably anonymous, there is something about getting out there on stage that can add a bit of technicolor to our often muted sense of self. Even if the journey there might feel like you’re standing on a balance beam above a pot of boiling oil, as I know it does for many who experience very real stage fright.

If that’s your story, I recommend, as my co-facilitator and I taught for many years in a course we developed called Public Speaking for the Terrified, to start small: read your work, share your art, play a song, or speak your heart to a trusted group of friends in your living room, making them promise that they will give you only praise for what they liked and what resonated. At some point you may be ready for a combo of both praise–never forget the praise–and critical feedback, but make sure to have a notetaker to write both of these things down. Otherwise, all you’ll remember is the criticism.

Whether it’s genetic or environmental or some of both, I’m grateful to my forbears for modeling not only their love of their art, but their passion for sharing it. And grateful that, for the most part, stage fright is not an issue for me. Perhaps some day I’ll take a more terrifying step and sign up at some large, anonymous karaoke bar. Or not.

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Confessions of a Closet Sports Fan

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True confessions! I’ve been addictively following the NBA playoffs.

This doesn’t fit in with image I project to most who know me, or the words I might use to describe myself: writer, activist, gardener, nature-lover. And like most, I abhor the money that casts its dark shadow over this and other big sports events. $10,000 for a ticket to Madison Square Garden is obscene. Even $1,000 that Mayor Mamdani spent for standing room at the top of the arena is obscene. And unnecessary. Sports should be for the people. All the people. Not a commodity that can be manipulated to squeeze as much money out of hopeful hearts as possible.

Yet, every night of the playoffs, I’ve tuned in on my free-trial Youtube TV subscription (which I will cancel at the end of its 21 days) my heart with the hordes and multitudes at the watch parties in Central Park. I have not lived in New York for 46 years, yet, this doesn’t make many any less of a New Yorker. There’s a certain “Only in New York” way we have about how we relate that transcends our diverse backgrounds and brings us together. I still remember being on the subway in 1969 when the Mets were in the World Series. Everyone who had one had their transistor radios glued to their ears. When Tommie Agee homered in Game 3, the entire subway car erupted in cheers.

Photo by Mark Dixon from Pittsburgh, PA, CC BY 2.0

This is the kind of comeraderie I often long for, a swelling excitement and connection among strangers for a common goal. I hate to say that I’ve felt this more often at sports events than at peace demonstrations, but unfortunately that’s true. There have been occasional exceptions–The Women’s March in DC in 2017; March for Nuclear Disarmament in New York 44 years ago today on June 12, 1982. But I can often feel a more compelling swell of excitement huddled around a television with people rooting for a similar outcome, even if that outcome is random and doesn’t really matter in the wider world. Or maybe because the stakes are lower, it’s easier not to feel the thick of fear and disappointment one might feel in the wake of a devastating Supreme Court decision or a harmful act committed by our government or another country.

To put this all in a little more context, I grew up in a sports-dominated household. No one played, but the TV was always on: baseball, football, basketball, hockey…I don’t know if I would have survived my teenage years without the Mets and the Knicks to divert my attention from my own angst to something random that was totally outside of my control, yet–at the time–mattered deeply. Finding friends who shared that passion made it easier to stay away from experimenting with the wilder world of drugs and alcohol and sex. We could ground ourselves in the safer land of fandom. I guess we could have also been as passionate about other things that I might consider more in my bailiwick now, like music or art. But sports was what was offered in my house–and in my city–as a balm of connection.

There’s a lot more to my sports story, but even now, I’m self-conscious about nerding out on too many extraneous details people are unlikely to want to hear. In fact, due to some hard-to-shed embarrassment, I’ve been procrastinating about writing this since Wednesday (the day I usually blog). But I guess that’s a good thing, because then I wouldn’t have been able to end with the Knicks’ amazing comeback in Game 4.

playitusa.com

(And yes, I totally believe T jinxed Game 3. If only instead, he’d donated some of his billions to buy everyday New Yorkers some tickets–what a PR coup that would have been!)

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