Our Secret Rendezvous

UPDATE: The tomato plant mystery remains unsolved. One plant remains, several days after the other five disappeared. We’ve not yet captured the intruder on camera.

NOTE: I published the following essay in the early stages of the pandemic. It still feels relevant six years later.

It isn’t the extraordinary things -- the breakthroughs, the awards, the dream vacations. It isn’t even the special moments we knew we were falling in love.

Those are our memories and they remain as intact as ever.

Rather it is the ordinary things that we did almost without thinking that have been stolen from us. This came to me as I rode masked in a car through my old neighborhood one day on the way to the neurologist.

There was that one special cluster of wisteria under a tree. A lone hummingbird usually was hovering among the flowers as I passed. I’d stop and it often rose to greet me, face to face. It became our secret rendezvous.

There was the house that always seemed to be under construction. A large truck was parked in the driveway; the workers went in and out of the site through an opening where the garage door used to be. I’d always stop to chat with them.

“Buenos dias hombres. ¿Cómo es el trabajo?” “Hola tio. Lamento que nuestro camión esté en tu camino. Usa tu bastón!”

There was the cafe where I used to order tuna melts. Now we were getting close to the office. There were the benches where my work friends who smoked would gather on breaks.

I liked the people who smoked. They remind me of my Dad.

There is the corner where I turned to get to the office. Every morning at 9:25 sharp, the UPS delivery truck arrived. Also at 9:25 every morning, I arrived.

As I swiped my ID badge to enter the front door, other colleagues would often be arriving. I enjoyed holding the door open for them.

Many hours later, I would reverse my route and return home.

It was all so simple, so thoughtless; it’s just how I passed my days.

But on this particular day in the car, I was just passing through. My son had set up an appointment for me because he felt I was still too weak and frail from my illnesses to get there on my own.

Meanwhile, I’d developed the idea that I was like an onion and it was quite an elaborate identity, with layers and layers of complexity.

I asked my son on our way to the neurologist if I should tell her about the onion concept. He said, “No, Dad, let’s save that one for another day.” At the meeting the doctor administered the cognition test -- the same one they gave me at the hospital many times.

My score, she reported, was 100 percent. Just like Trump!

She explained that I’d had a stroke and that I had symptoms, including tremors, consistent with Parkinson’s. That is why my hospital doctor had prescribed Carbidopa Levodopa.

I loved the sound of that drug, Carbidopa Levodopa. I used to play with the nurses when they brought it to me. “Can you say that quickly six times?”

“Carbidopa levodopa carbidopa levodopa carbidopa levodopa carbidopa levodopa carbidopa levodopa carbidopa levodopa.”

They all could do it and it sounded lovely to me. Most of them wore a far-away expression as they did it.

This particular day, as it happens, would be last time I drove along that route. So it was the end for the wisteria, the hummingbird, the workers, the benches, the smokers, the UPS truck and my ID badge.

It was not, however, the end of the Carbidopa Levodopa.

*** There are people who think that it doesn’t matter that a man in power repeatedly used his money and access to sexually abuse women. That saddens me.

That there are people who support a coward, an obvious bully, a man who abuses other people from behind his shield of bodyguards, saddens me.

That there are people who don’t care that such a man attacks my colleagues in the press who are only doing their jobs saddens me very deeply.

That there are people, many people, who buy his bullshit, saddens me, and yes, even angers me.

I didn’t devote 54 years trying to practice socially responsible journalism and survive a stroke for it to come to this.

So yes I am nostalgic, I’m wistful, I miss what I’ve lost. But that stroke didn’t kill me.

I still have my voice.

HEADLINES:

• Court rejects Virginia redistricting in a blow to Democrats’ counter to Trump, GOP (NPR)

• US fires on and disables 2 more Iranian tankers as tensions rise in the Strait of Hormuz (AP)

• Trump threatens EU with ‘much higher’ tariffs if no trade deal signed by new deadline (CNBC)

• April jobs report: Economy adds 115,000 jobs, far better than expected (Yahoo)

• Emerging picture shows Reform gains as Labour counts losses in heartland seats (BBC)

• Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed to fight on to deliver on his promise to bring "change" to Britain after his Labour Party suffered heavy losses in local elections. (Reuters)

• Polls in California Reflect a Chaotic Governor’s Race (NYT)

• Trump reveals what he told Rubio to convey to the Pope — and it’s the thing he keeps saying on TV (Independent)

• Russia and Ukraine accused each other of violating a unilateral two-day ceasefire announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin to cover the anniversary celebrations of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. (Reuters)

• ABC Accuses Government of Violating First Amendment (NYT)

• Amanpour expresses ‘concern’ over future of CNN, citing ‘ideological realignment’ at CBS (The Hill)

• A deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic is unlikely to spread globally like the coronavirus did, even though the virus has a long incubation period and some of the ship’s passengers have already disembarked, the World Health Organization said. [HuffPost]

• Meta Is Dying. It’s About Time. (NYT)

• Anthropic’s Mythos set off a cybersecurity ‘hysteria.’ Experts say the threat was already here (CNBC)

• Sam Altman had a bad day in court (BI)

• Five Ways A.I. Search Beats an Old-School Google Search (NYT)

• Tech is turning increasingly to religion in a quest to create ethical AI (AP)

• A.I. Populism Is Here. And No One Is Ready. (NYT)

• Taylor Swift Fires Fixer Who Forgot To Kill Justin Baldoni (Onion)