The Silver-Studded Finger — Roaming with Roth

We arrived in Costa Rica on January 2. I left North Carolina ill with "what's going around" [WGA]. "I don't think I know of anybody who is not sick", one of our friends from Durham noted this past week. So, it came as little surprise that Adele succumbed to the WGA four days into our arrival. Just yesterday, I spoke with my brother in Israel, a man that I mentor in Atlanta, and a friend in Los Angeles all of whom have a dose of WGA. It's everwhere.

In retrospect, Adele and I had already been 'sick' from the pressure, stress and tension caused by our "luxury problem" - dealing with all that attends to departing on an extended, year-long journey. For myself, I lose my short-term memory in direct relation to my anxiety. And, I mean "short" term! I have come to rely on Adele to know where I left my keys, my wallet, my iPhone... Greater frustration sets in when I have literally held that thing in my bloody hands moments before. Indeed, I have on occasion had the item in my pocket while searching for the damn thing. I don't fear 'the worst' of implications associated with my short-term memory failure. I trust the adage: "If you forget your car keys, that's not Alzheimer's; but, if you forget what your car keys are for???" Well, then...

Adele, on the other hand, has a habit of withdrawing...and getting 'pissy'. So, we share responsibilities. Possessed with a photographic memory, Adele points me in the right direction when I inadvertently misplace my underwear; and, I ground Adele with an embrace so she doesn't disappear for long periods. Affectionately symbiotic, no? But, then there are times when we are both completely 'out of whack' or one of us has descended off the deep end. At that point, the synchronicity and any opportunity for mutual support is lost. And, rather than culminating in peaceful resolution, we resort to the universal symbol for closure - the "finger". It is said that 'Esperanto' is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. Yet, this gesture is more widely and frequently used, so visually and exquisitely concise, and offers a multiplicity and transcendcy of meaning as to make Esperanto seem mute.

There has been another critical element to my frustration that has acted upon me the same way an unknown foreign toxin invades the body. A visceral event so disturbing, so fundamentally wrong on so many levels, so damning and potentially damaging that it has literally psychically and, in instances, physically shaken me. The election pall has had a devastating effect on me. In my twilight hours, a creature appears to me like a darkness - a hovering, brooding black cloud - an ominous foreboding of provocation, prejudice and fear. I am reminded of Sauron of 'Lord of the Rings' or Darth Vader of 'Star Wars', symbolic evils Joseph Campbell cites as necessarily mythological in proportion to keep us aware of our own capacity to do harm. But, this is no mythical yarn, literary device or neuro-pathology. Neither is he 'symbolic' of anything. What he is, is dangerous. I beg us all to remain alert. Keep that finger flexed. And, may we walk together in the morning light.