I'm not going to name any names.
Could these be the faces of those older white guys* who would vote for a rich right-wing racist demagogue?
Could they be the ones who are in danger of losing their jobs--or have already lost them, or never had them in the first place--and vote for the very candidates who destroy their jobs or send them overseas?
Could they--children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of immigrants, all of them--vote for someone who wants to build a wall between this country and its neighbor, and wants to ban all adherents of the world's largest religion from entering the United Sates?
Could those folks--half of whom would have trouble coming up with $400 to meet an emergency expense--be the ones voting for someone who would make it easier for employers to get away with paying less than minimum wage to immigrants?
Could they--whose schools, hospitals and infrastructure are crumbling--vote for someone who'd slash funding for such things--just to make sure "freeloaders" from other countries can't have them?
Tell me: Do they really, knowingly, go into the voting booth and cut off their noses to spite their faces?
*--Disclosure: Had it not been for my transition, I'd be an old (or old-ish) white guy!
First off, I want to assure you that I have made up nothing in this blog. Not even the third-place finish in a race. Or the climbs in the Alps, Pyrenees, Sierra Nevada, Green Mountains, Adirondacks or Catskills. Even the bad, crazy and silly things I've done are as I've recounted them.
Still, you might not believe the story I'm about to tell you. I understand. But I assure you that I couldn't make up anything like it.
It took place in la Musee Nationale du Moyen-Age, a.k.a. the Cluny. Even if you've never been there, you've seen this:
Most people think of it as "the unicorn tapestry". Truth is, it's just one of six tapestries in the "La Dame a la Licorne" series. The other five tapestries feature the lady, the unicorn and nearly all of the other elements of the one you've all seen. But what this one--"Mon seul desir"--represents is the subject of debate. Some have said that it is the mind, while others believe it is the heart or love. I think the tapestry's creator intended it to be the power of the unicorn, whatever that might be.
Now, what exactly is the power of the unicorn? Some say it's something that happens when the woman touches his horn. (I won't disagree. But I want to keep this clean!) Well, perhaps it got me out of bed early so I could ride for an hour, with no destination or purpose, for about an hour before cycling to Cluny.
And the unicorn's magic (or whatever you want to call it) may have been the cause of what I experienced while in the museum.
Many of the objects displayed there, at one time or another, adorned cathedrals. A couple stood before one of the displays. They were talking about how those objects were made and how cathedrals were built.
I chimed in with a comment about how, in places like Chartres and Reims, literally everybody in the town contributed in some way or another to building the cathedral. Of course, some were artists and craftspeople. Others cut and set stones and glass, and did other things vital to building the structure. And, of course, there were those who prepared food and did other things for the other workers. "Most of those people never lived to see the finished product," I pointed out.
That led us to talk about the things we were looking at--and, soon, things entirely unrelated. Naturally, the conversation led to the inevitable traveler's question, "Where are you from?"
When I'm far from my home area, I say "New York"--which, of course, is true. But unless someone's familiar with the city or its environs, I don't mention anything more specific. It's not that I'm trying to impress anybody: Rather, it's just easier: Almost everyone has heard of New York; only people who've lived in it have ever heard of Astoria, Queens.
But that couple obviously knew the city. So I told them I live in Astoria, Queens. Each of them mentioned living in Brooklyn. "No kidding! I lived there for a long time." That led me to confess that I'd grown up in Bensonhurst and Borough Park and later lived in Park Slope.
Turns out, she lived there, and he in neighboring Windsor Terrace. They mentioned The Park (Prospect), eating at the Silver Spoon and the Pintchick's store on the corner.
"Bergen Street", I exclaimed.
Up to that point, I had the feeling that I somehow recognized them. Especially her. "Yes, I lived there during the '90's," she said. "And we started dating then," he added.
The FBI has age-progression software that shows, for example, what a child who went missing years ago might look like today. My mind's eye did the opposite of that: I found myself imagining what they might have looked like five, ten, twenty years ago. In her case, I didn't even have to look that far back: She's hardly aged at all.
We asked each other's names. She told me hers. "Really?"
Her eyes, and his, fixed on me. Then I asked whether her last name might be (N)."
"How did you know that?"
"We used to be neighbors. In fact, I lived in the apartment next to yours."
For a few years, we exchanged pleasantries and sometimes got into conversations in the hallway of our building. Our talks veered into all sorts of topics: art, movies, politics, the not-for-profit agency for which she worked, my writing--and the class and workshop I was taking with Allen Ginsberg.
But at that moment, she could not recall those things--or, more precisely, she could not connect me with them.
"Well, I am Justine now," I confessed. "But back then, you knew me as Nick."
I could see flickerings of recognition. Then I added more dim, dark secrets: I had a beard in those days--a red one, at that.
"Wow. Yes, now I remember. The beard!"
Then she recalled, aloud, the poetry--Yes, I still write, I assured her--the studies, the teaching and even my cat. "And you used to ride your bike everywhere," she recounted.
I nodded. And, yes, I still ride, and I've been riding here in Paris. She, her husband and their teenage daughter went for a ride the other day, she said.
Just when we were about to fall off each others' radar--which was much easier in those days, just before everybody started to use cell phones, the internet and e-mail-- she had started dating him. And I would meet, and move in with, the last partner I had in my life as Nick.
Now tell me: What are the chances that two people who lived next to each other--in Brooklyn--would bump into each other twenty years later--in Paris, no less?
