My sister and I recently returned from a dream vacation in Greece. There is so much to say about the experience, I am going to tackle it in two parts. This one deals with my thoughts on traveling as an American and a comparison to what I experienced in another country during the pandemic.

*(If you’ve had enough hearing about vaccines and mask mandates, scroll down for the next installment.)

To say my sister and I were concerned leading up to this trip is an understatement. We watched the Travel Advisories like hawks, and kept tabs on the changing requirements while holding onto cautious optimism that this adventure might actually happen.

With that in mind, I bought a bunch of rapid tests, signed up for my state’s COVID app (NY), and read the vaccine/test requirements like I was studying for a final exam. I even got a booster (I have asthma).

Armed with at least 20 extra masks, and plenty of hand sanitizer, we headed to the airport.

Right from the start, we had to prove our vaccination status. We had to wear masks the entire flight, unless we were eating.

Were there people pushing the limits of this on the plane? Yes, but only a few, mostly English speaking.

I say this, because with all of the hoopla and controversy we left behind, I was curious to see the difference once we were on foreign soil.

We landed in Istanbul to change planes. We sailed through passport control and got to our gate for our flight to Athens. There we were required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test (Within 3 days for a PCR test or 48 hours for a verified rapid test).

For those anti-vaxers, you can travel, but you will have to test. And they do check. A lot. But I will address that in a moment.

We showed our proof and boarded no problem.

On the cab ride from the airport to our hotel, we asked the driver how he viewed COVID. He answered that in his day to day life, he didn’t see much of it. On the news, he said, it sounded horrible. Much like here in the states. Except, he had to be vaccinated to drive the cab. Yes, gasp, his employment required him to be vaccinated. And he did it. While, I admit on a 30 minute drive, we didn’t get to know him intimately, but he didn’t seem upset by the fact that his job made such a demand.

Our documentation was checked again at the hotel. And at every museum or site. And again when we got on the ferry to Santorini, when we went on a sailing tour, when we boarded our flight to Rhodes, and every site there, and when we returned to Istanbul, and when we got to our gate to fly home.

And this wasn’t just a flash the card situation. This was hand over your proof and your passport and they looked at both closer than a bouncer checking IDs while a liquor control board inspector looks on. Pretty much every time we entered a public building, they checked. They asked those not wearing masks to put them on properly.

People did.

I never once heard anyone rail about their rights or complain. They simply complied with the rules.

Which made me sad for the state of our country. Why has a global public health problem become a rallying cry for individual rights? What happened to community responsibility. Why is rugged individualism heroic instead of selfish?

As we traveled around Greece, I saw it. People from a multitude of countries, speaking so many different languages all followed the same rules without having a hissy fit or arguing with shopkeepers and public workers. We followed the rules.

This is what bothers me most about those who complain the loudest. Why should you be exempted from rules that aren’t that odious to begin with. I saw no one pass out from carbon monoxide poisoning even as they climbed up the Acropolis. No one turned blue during our nine plus hour flights to and from Greece.

We followed the rules because science says it helps reduce the spread of the virus.

The other thing I noted was the number of testing sites. They were everywhere. If you chose not to be vaccinated, you certainly had ample opportunity to get tested. But it wasn’t free. So figure if you are gone for nine days how many times you would need to be tested. And heaven forbid you forgot to be tested before leaving the country!

A fast track PCR test at JFK airport was $300. In Greece it costs anywhere from 60-100 Euros for a PCR test. If you have to test every three days, that can get a bit pricey.

Again, they check. Frequently.

Which brings me back to what I don’t understand about the attitude in the United States that this virus is a hoax or a way for the government to take control. How can it be that when the entire world is fighting the same virus? Every country is making their own decisions on how to contain the disease while preserving some economic and individual freedom. If wearing a mask reduces the spread, and globally the accepted science is that they do reduce it, the why wouldn’t you? If the vaccine is required for work because they reduce the intensity of infection, which in turn reduces the strain on healthcare systems, why wouldn’t you get vaccinated? Or conversely, if you choose not to get vaccinated, get tested frequently and wear the damn mask.

I find it ironic that the people railing against the vaccine are also the ones complaining about wearing a mask. It makes me sad, actually. That this ideal of rugged individualism, something that could be so empowering, has supplanted a sense of community. Instead of latching onto every reason why we should do this for the betterment of all, there is a large portion of our population that latches onto a “you can’t make me” attitude.

We have all been required to have certain vaccinations to be a productive and equal member of our society. Polio (virus), Measles (virus), Mumps (virus). I could go on. Is this a new virus? Yes. Is it hard to pin down and are we learning how best to fight it? Yes. But this is a global fight. As such it will require us to be global citizens. Hell, I’d settle for good citizens, ones who are willing to put up with a bit of personal inconvenience so we can get a handle on this virus.

I’m not saying masks and vaccines are a perfect solution. But they’re what we’ve got. They are all the entire world has right now. Let’s not forget we are all in this together.

My sister is a saint. Not technically, but she should be. Not only did she put up with a brat of a sister, nine years her junior (me), but she raised two amazing kids, got her Masters in Education, and then started a charity,.

I hope to achieve half as much as she has when I grow up. Unfortunately, I’ve been resisting that fate forever, and I am way past the age to have adulting down pat.

My sister, the saint, had to put up with a colicky, temperamental infant at a time when her biggest problem was what clothes she wanted to put on her Barbie doll. To make matters worse, we had adjoining rooms. She literally had to pass through mine to get to hers.

Add to that, my mother’s–shall we say Protestant Tiger Mom tendencies?

Plus so many other slights and there is ample reason for my saint of a sibling to absolutely despise and resent me, a lot of it deserved. I was a brat.

But we all grow up, and my sister has always been my first cheerleader, the one who comforted and took care of me when things got rough. She saw me through cancer with a compassion and determination that takes my breath away even now.

She is my rock.

For decades really, I have wanted to do something just for her, to show her, in the smallest of ways, how much she means for me.

She used to love to travel. She’d investigate places, plan vacations, and execute them with travel agent precision. Again, a treasure trove of family lore could drag me down a novel length rabbit hole.

While she was starting a charity- Reading Recycled and taking over the Philly Book Bank-I’ve had the luck and luxury of seeing the world. Yeah, I suck. I know.

So I’ve made it my mission to take her somewhere. Let me tell you, she’s a hard one to pin down. Finally perseverance paid off.

She chose a location. We have the dates. Our flights are booked. Hotels are reserved. She had to renew her passport, which caused a bit of nail-biting when we learned of the back log of approvals. It arrived. We have our vaccinations, and will test before we leave.

It’s happening. Her birthday this year will be celebrated on the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. I’ve planned a few surprises as well. Three days in Athens, three more on Santorini, then onto Rhodes. Sightseeing, beaches, and history.

It’s the first time in more than 25 years we’ve gone somewhere just the two of us. What I hope is to take my sister far from her worries and give her a dream vacation. It’s not enough, it could never be enough, but I hope it’s a good start.

Please click the links above to learn more about what my sister has accomplished!!!

As we collectively celebrate mothers on this random Sunday in May, I always think about my mom, and the complicated knot of emotions tied around my memories of her.

She once told me. “I love you because your my daughter, but I don’t particularly like you.”

And I’m sure at the time I deserved it, being a snarky, emotional rollercoaster of a teenager. At that stage of my life I was pretty sure I didn’t like me either.

But it was always deeper than that.

My mother pushed me to reach some ethereal potential only she could see. And she pushed hard. Relentlessly, with her razor tongue and uncanny talent for sniffing out my most vulnerable trigger.

As difficult as she was, there was another rare and vulnerable side to her. It peeks through my memories, little precious gems, like the time she carried me piggy back when we were lost on one of the trails in Fairmount Park.

My mom’s strength was in her spirit. She was a tiny, bird boned woman, long past the days when she played high school sports- hockey, lacrosse, and her beloved tennis. Those loves had been ripped from her by illness.

Epilepsy was her secret shame, something that divided her life into before- when she was the vivacious, outgoing athlete and actress- and the horrible struggles of after. She endured the stigma of a misunderstood condition (it was the 1950s), and the sometimes barbaric treatment for it.

So when she hoisted me on her back that day at Valley Green, even my exhausted, whiny, six-year-old self knew it was a feat of mind over matter, proof that while she expected great things from me, she expected as much from herself.

To quote Shakespeare, “though she be but little, she is fierce.”

I could write a book to explore the complexities of my relationship with my mother. Maybe someday I will.

I have written a piece of her story in my college thesis. It helped me begin to understand the soul beneath her fire, the lost little girl whose own brain chemistry betrayed her, the young woman who turned her pain into anger, her anger into unbreakable will to succeed.

My mother has been gone for fourteen years. And I miss her.

I miss her caustic humor. I miss her arrogant driving, her little digs at my lack of housekeeping skills. I miss our political debates, going with her to the town dump, her simple joy in sweeping the barn aisle, her pride in finding a new job at the age of 75. I wish I’d had the chance to show her the pictures from the lifechanging trip she made possible.

To all of those imperfect mothers, for all of those remembered with love and affection, all of those wonder woman mothers who manage the impossible every day, I wish you a very Happy Mother’s Day

*For anyone with oodles of free time or interest in more of my mother’s story, here is the link to my thesis. https://ida.mtholyoke.edu/bitstream/handle/10166/737/384.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

I started this post as a reaction to watching ALLEN v. FARROW, a documentary series on HBO. It affected me deeply on both a personal and social level. I watched it, then stepped back to corral my emotions and thoughts into something coherent.

And what I have found is for me this goes so far beyond whether I believe Dylan Farrow (I do) or if I like Woody Allen films or think he’s a cultural icon (I don’t, and didn’t before the media storm)

Let me enter my personal bias. I am a victim of child sexual abuse. I’m not here to divulge details, just to state that the trauma I experienced at a young age had repercussions. I am an adult now, and have learned to cope and live with it. That is not to say that it never affects me.

Watching the home movies of Dylan Farrow had me crying and shaking. It’s in her eyes. The same confusion and pain I know so well.

This should never happen to a child.

Any child.

Never.

But it does. More frequently than we care to admit.

This documentary speaks to something else as well, something pervasive and made obvious by fame, but remains an insidious contributor to so many abuses.

Because something else happened while I was contemplating what to say.

A man went on a shooting rampage, killing eight people, mostly Asian women.

A white man.

Now, I have very little experience with discrimination. I am white. I am ostensibly Protestant (agnostic/atheist), I have privilege. I am aware of it. I try every day to be a better advocate and a better listener to those who experience the world differently.

And this, to me is the connective tissue between Dylan Farrow’s story and a random shooter.

Privilege.

It is an unfathomable blanket that excuses all sorts of abuse. It speaks of a disregard, a dehumanization, if you will, of anything the privileged feel entitled to.

My abuser felt privileged to my body.

Dylan Farrow’s abuser felt privileged to use hers, then use his wealth and influence to paint himself as a victim.

The shooter felt entitled to go on a rampage and take lives. He felt entitled to take his pain out on others. He was armed and dangerous, ready to continue to make others pay for his problems. He was privileged to arrest without incident or escalation. A sheriff’s department spokesperson claimed the murderer “it was a really bad day for him and this is what happened.”*

Excuse me?

I am not going to go into the racial inequality inherent in everything about the shooting incident, though I sorely want to, but I will keep it to the focus of privilege.

It is our cultural belief in a man’s, and in America particularly the white or wealthy man’s privilege to control the narrative, to dictate who is worthy to be heard, to ignore those that don’t serve their power.

The riot on the US Capitol, the fear of immigrants, this push for abortion control, the disrespect for women leaders, so many shootings, – there are so many I can’t even think of them all, even discounting the police bias controversy. (I support those brave men and women in law enforcement who are committed to safety and their communities- I believe they outnumber the monsters like Derek Chauvin, but there is work to be done.)

I believe the dynamic is changing.

Yet the more it changes, the more the good old boys react and lash out. They clutch to economic control, funneling money through the government to influence policy. They do it hiding behind religion and religious freedom as they push policies that control women’s bodies, threatening female body autonomy while scarfing down Viagra. They do it through the media and education, subtly propagating the idea of a society where everyone knows their place.

It’s ostensibly excusing a murderer for his sexual issues, issued that would be brandished as a weapon had he been anyone else. And let’s not forget, he had a bad day. (So many words and not enough.)

Is it religion? I do think religion did play a crucial role in setting up gender dynamics and assuring control remained in the male sphere. But I know many who are staunch in their faith, who are committed to respecting all humanity regardless of gender, sexual orientation, or pigmentation.

Is it testosterone? Does the male hormone really make men power-hungry nymphomaniacs? I don’t buy it. I know too many men who don’t view women as little more than walking, talking sex dolls. I know too many people who respect their fellow humans.

For a long time, my abuser controlled my life. He controlled my body. The abuse colored the way I viewed the world. My trauma did not occur on a global stage, yet my abuser felt the same entitlement to control the narrative. I could not say anything until I was forced.

I admire Dylan so much. So very, very much. While she was betrayed by a system that perpetrated her abusers lies, she found her voice, she reclaimed her power, and has not backed down.

My road was quieter, but I did the same.

And now, I believe society is reclaiming its power. Those who were abused by a system that serves the privileged few at the expense of the many are speaking out. They continue to fight.

They need to be listened to. They need to be believed. The abuse exists.

We have to stop blaming the victims.

We have to stop excusing the perpetrators.

He had a bad day.

Not as bad as those he murdered, or their families.

Not as bad as those who feel targeted or are afraid of being targeted.

We need to stop and listen and learn.

We can do better.

We MUST do better.

*Quote from Yahoo news.

With all of the unrest these days I will admit, I have been anxious. It is an insidious stress that has me creeping through my days plagued by borderline depression. It makes it hard to be creative, hard to get motivated to do the chores I can with a broken hand.

I have too much time to think.

Not the dreamy thinking I do when I plug my headphones in my ears and drift along waiting for an interesting idea or a scene. I’ve tried doing that as a distraction. What I’ve accomplished so far is a record time for an online 300 piece with rotation puzzle on Jigsaw Planet.

What exactly is this malaise? It is a deep, abiding fear.

Fear for our country. Fear for my future. Fear and insecurity about what I am doing with my life.

But there is so much more I do not fear.

I do not fear protesters. I don’t even fear rioters, though to be honest, I’ve never been in a riot.

I do not fear the police. But I am sufficiently melanin deficient to not pose an immediate threat.

I am fortunate. I have privilege. I am white.

I fear this nation’s obsession with having guns, bigger guns, more guns. Why? So your 17 year old son can go shoot people who don’t agree with your ideology? His life is ruined. His mother let him go across state lines with a weapon of war, which is beyond illegal in the first place. What did anyone expect?

I do not fear I will go hungry. That I will lose my home. That I will have access to clean and drinkable water.

What I DO fear is white men. I fear being sexually abused or raped by them because they feel powerless. I fear white men with guns.

I fear the racist crap that is so prevalent in our society today. This is not culture, this is insanity. To think your skin color has anything to do with your value as a human being is the height of absurdity.

I fear our President. (Another white guy. No gun, but clearly mentally unstable with access to nuclear weapons.) I fear that he takes council from Vladimir Putin over US security and intelligence experts. I fear that he makes frequent calls to a not-so-former KGB operative for advice, ignoring the fact that his buddy Putin offered a bounty for killing US soldiers.

I fear our democracy is over. That because of the paragraph above, we are headed toward an autocratic regime made up of Trump and his corrupt cronies.

I fear those who blindly follow a mad man.

Yes, I fear I am experiencing something very like the political climate of pre-WWII Germany.

I am doing what I can to combat these fears both within my psyche and externally by becoming politically aware and active.

So I focus on the fears I can control.

I fear that my books will never be published or read. I fear that no one will like them. I fear ridicule. I fear cancer and death.

What I do not fear is living.

Because while I am buried beneath these fears, while I let them whittle away at my time an attention, they are keeping me from living.

I’ve written my fears, offered them to the fire, and though they are still there, lurking and real, I will focus on the one thing–in a world full of chaos–that I can control. My own self. I will remain true to my beliefs that we are all part of something bigger–the human race. That basic decency is worthwhile and real no matter what God or Goddess or Nature or Universe you choose to worship or not. That treating others the way you wish to be treated is never wrong.

I need to accept that this is a turbulent time, so rather than fighting the tide and cursing it, I will ride it out. I will explore. I will think,. I will channel my fears into my writing. I will be.

And I will follow the best advice I have ever been given. Keep breathing. When all else fails, that is the first step. (And the secret to a long life.) Keep breathing. The rest is transitory .

I have always considered myself a fantasy person. I read the entire Wheel of Time series (fourteen books and a prequel). I read Game of Thrones when it first came out. Shannara? Valdemar? Middle Earth? Earthsea? Been there done that.

My fantasy street geek cred is pretty deep. I have Lord of the Rings and Hobbit quotes tattooed on my biceps. In Sindarin Elvish. I have an Excalibur replica hanging next to my Mace Windu light saber. I have a stack of Elfquest comics…in German.

So how did it happen that my first complete novel was…gasp…women’s fiction and pretty close to pure romance?

Yeah. I am as shocked as you are.

It started as a challenge and ended up changing everything. You see, while I love magic and dragons, I find it interesting to delve into what makes people tick. Creating characters with problems beyond the inevitable orc attack or evil wizard, real life problems and personality quirks became endlessly fascinating.

Where did they come from? What happened in their life to make them the way they are? How do they see the world? What do they want?

It’s like world building, but on a body-sized scale.

This one started as a suggestion from my sister. Full disclosure, she came up with the basic premise and plot. She went as far as hiring a ghost writer to put it on paper (ok word file).

It wasn’t good.

Not even close.

Finally, she came clean and told me what she’d done.

She was afraid to bring it to me because it wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t fantasy. It was about a widow who goes to Tanzania to teach and catches the eye of a celebrity benefactor.

But it was a challenge I couldn’t pass up. Writing is writing. Best case scenario, I would have a written a book. Worst case, I would learn how to write better. I wrote a horrible first draft. Then tweaked. And I let it sit and simmer while I wrote my fantasy novel. I came back to what we now call the Africa book and tweaked again.

As fate would have it, my husband and I celebrated his fiftieth birthday with a trip to…you guessed it. Tanzania.

Needless to say, I came back and had to rewrite the book again. I got a lot of things wrong. A lot.

Armed with a solid setting and characters I knew better than myself, I finally wrote a draft I was proud of. Except the ending. After a beta read pointed out why it wasn’t working, I changed it. I’ve rewritten the first pages more than I can count. I’ve done the dreaded common word edits. I watched it shrink from 92K to just over 84K without losing anything but fluff.

Most importantly in this process, I have fallen in love with a novel that deals with, well falling in love. And even if the public never sees this exploration of one woman’s guilt and how she digs herself out of it to find a second chance. Even if it has at its warm little heart a trope that I never thought I’d write.

I love this book. That can’t be a bad thing. Especially since I’ve already started the next one.

Still caught in the tremors of the collective angst, it’s been a rough few days. Disrupted sleep patterns and heat with high humidity do not a happy person make. Add in three days of stacking hay, and I am one tired puppy.

Finally, we are due for some thunderstorms and much needed rain. Yay! A day without watering the garden.

As I crawl out and attempt to separate from the miasma of ever more dismal news, I find myself clinging to moments. A riding lesson, the quiet of the sunset, or rather the beauty of the twilight as my coonhound bays at the barking dog next door, and attempting to connect with my writing.

And then this popped into my inbox:

Cooking Life Into Fiction: Writing From What You Know

Which made me take a hard look at what I write.

My first novel (the one I have sidelined, but hope to start querying again), deals with guilt, grief, and second chances.

My fantasy WIP, while not revolving around grief or loss, has layers of it. The main character must deal with the grief of others and her own losses that happen along the way. (And I get to explore how an angel might grieve)

.The one I am currently writing tackles grief and forgiveness.

I write what I know and I know grief. Better than I ever wanted. I know the grief of watching a father and a friend leaving their lives by inches. I know the sharp stab of loved ones stolen in a flash. I know the pain of losing pets, of losing innocence, of death as a blessing and curse.

So much loss might harden me, might make me guard against that pain that is beyond physical, yet so corporal, but it doesn’t. It made me more appreciative of daily blessings. A smile, the sunlight, my pain-in-the-ass dog who howls loud enough to peel paint’

I know grief, but I also know the opposite. I know how to get through the tough spots, the vortexes, the depression. I know on the other side joy, contentment, and peace can be found. It’s all transient, it’s all a stop on the journey.

So I write about it.

And I write about the laughter and growth and changes that come after it. Because that is what I know.

Life goes on.

Good days, bad days, indifferent days. Days when the news seems like something too far-fetched for a dystopian novel (and you’ve written one that is out there), or when the days stretch into a COVID19 quarantine lethargy, or when the dog simply WILL. NOT. STOP. HOWLING!!! (That is way too common these days. He likes to chase the birds from the yard….)

And there are the days when you look back and realize you are a more compassionate, patient, and appreciative person than your bratty, younger self ever dreamed.

I know horses, too.

Maybe I will have to write about them.

I also know the lyrics to just about every song from the 80s.

I would never subject anyone to that.

I woke up this morning simply unmotivated and lethargic, not due to anything physical. Slept a wonderful eight hours. It is a sublimely beautiful day.

And yet.

Here I am, sipping a cup of tea wondering why I feel so…defeated.

I crave a day alone. As an introvert (who can subsist for days without human contact), married to an extrovert desperate for social interaction, this quarantine has been rough.

There are things I can do to help. Writing always focuses my mind and takes me away from my problems. Except I feel stifled. When I sit down to the keyboard all the wonderful words float away. I could sit on a horse, something that always brings me joy. And then I don’t.

I have to force myself to do these things.

And I know I am not the only one. I am in tons of social groups on social media for writers and creative types and there are a good section of the population frozen in creative purgatory.

This morning, I perused the spines of my well-loved collection of fantasy books- the ones that survived burst pipes without smelling of mildew and rot. And something stirred.

Robert Holdstock’s Lavondyss. It is the second of a series. Mythago Wood being the first. It’s the story of Tallis, a young girl lost in a magical wood. But within that, Holdstock plays with the reason for the creation of the mythical atmosphere that ensnares Talis. Where did it come from?

He talks about the collective mythago- a subconscious energy that brings myths into creation and gives them life. The more people retell and imagine stories, the energy of the collective subconscious, the innate energy we give off, a huge collective imagination, that energy gives them power and a life of their own.

And it makes me wonder if maybe, I am caught up in the collective subconscious, the mythago, of current events.

We are all wearied and concerned with the pandemic. Many of us are beginning to take chances because of isolation fatigue.

My husband lived through a Civil War (Lebanon). He and his mother tell the stories of their experiences, how they began to take risks simply to have some semblance of normalcy, to savor the tiniest illusion that things were okay. She claims the pandemic isolation is worse.

And then there are politics, riots, racism, spotted lantern flies, murder hornets, police brutality, the virus is still out there, it’s all overwhelming.

If our collective unconscious were an image, I conjure up visions of a tempest, a miasma of ideals and conflict, sadness and uncertainty, rage holding tight to hope. It is grief. For our democracy, for our friends who are subjugated to discrimination, for our health and freedoms that we took for granted. It is fear. That all we have done and wish to do is not making enough of a difference. It is guilt. For all that we feel we could do.

Like with my life these days, I am not sure where I am headed with this. But I do think we, as humans, like to think of ourselves as individuals. And we are, but we are also parts and pieces of a complex whole. And that majority is not restful.

The Ryhope Wood in Holdstock’s novels is not a place of peace and trees. It is full of all the terrors and monsters we can imagine. It is a place where we interact with all the beauty and ugliness humans embody.

Our world is a place of wonder and horror. I can choose to focus on the beauty. The perfect day, a breeze blowing, my horses grazing, my dogs happy and relaxed around me. But I can’t ignore the ugly truths that hover outside my little bubble.

I can only add my bit of subconscious, my energy and thoughts to the storm, add my hope and faith in humanity, and riding it out in the hope of a better world.