I Sounded Like Every

 

I think it’s the first day this year I’ve thrown on shorts.  The sun fills up this room in the later part of the day and now, settling in after a bike ride, typing some notes before dinner, too early for any air conditioning, I just couldn’t throw my jeans back on.  I’ve a call that will start in five minutes, of course.  Then another that will start at 9:00PM.  And then up early again the next morning.  Out on the bike trail I am still pulling up my mask when I pass people but I’m beginning to feel anachronistic, with this old-fashioned courtesy. (Remember courtesy has the word ‘court’.)

 

We listened to the “Ugh” and then “Persona”, fairly recent BTS tracks on the ride over to Oakwood this morning.  I like the latter song.  The stand-out member of that band to my ears is RM and he’s convincing on that track, with the catchy, Marshall stack groove.  My little one largely remained silent.  “Which assignment is due first, English or Ancient Greece?”  “Both the same.”  “Did you put more thought into the ending?”  “I went to bed after we spoke.” 

I gave her some space.  A teenager on her way to school.  Not wanting to go.  But when we arrived at the light where Milton Ave, runs into Route 9W, I asked her to pull up some more tunes from the first Clash album.  The entry to the bridge marks my turn for tunes.  “Can you find “Remote Control?”  “No.”   “Complete Control?”  “Yes.”  So, there we were, riding over the Hudson, me trying to explain how important this album was to me when I was younger than her.  Me signing along “I don’t trust you.  Why should you trust me?  Huh?”

Toward the end of our journey, I turned it down and mentioned to her that I’d read an article this morning that made me rethink whether a lab error, at one of the Wuhan virology labs, might not have been the real cause of the pandemic.  And while I hoped it wasn’t, if it were true, this would be very, very hard for China.  And I wanted to say that from a place of shared affinity, but she grew despondent, saying I sounded like every other China hating white man she knew.  Now we were at school.  Everyone here trashes China.  I want to go ‘home’ to China.  I don’t want to be here. I did my best to anchor the conversation in truth, because the truth was what was best for the U.S. and China but by then it was too late.  And it was time to say good-bye.

Tuesday, 05/25/21