A new president gives new hope
by Anton Zuiker on January 20, 2021
President Joseph R. Biden gave a great address to the nation today:
I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real, but I also know they are not new. Our history has been a constant struggle between the American ideal that we’re all created equal and the harsh, ugly reality that racism, nativism, fear, demonization have long torn us apart. The battle is perennial and victory is never assured.
I am hopeful. I am ready to do the hard work of reaching out and standing up and walking far and living long to see our unity strengthened.
For the moment, though, as I watch Vice President Kamala Harris speak during the evening gala and rewatch Amanda Gorman recite her amazing poem, I am just glad.
Why I wear the flag patch and this shemagh
by Anton Zuiker on January 17, 2021
When I look at photos of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 (for example, the images that illustrate the cover story of today’s New York Times Magazine) the despair I felt that day remains, much as the horror of watching the twin towers fall on 9/11 is still with me. What a stunningly bad day for our nation, though one we all knew could come.
When I look at those photos of the mob, I wonder if I will eventually recognize someone, or learn that someone I once knew has been arrested because they breached the Capitol and trampled the very freedom they claimed is being taken away from them. Even before that day was over, though, some of my own family were sending me links and clips of crazy conspiracies deflecting blame for the insurrection, as if Donald Trump and the Republican Party hadn’t spent months — years! — plainly, consistently, and clearly lying about the election and our freedoms.
The latest episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour has a fascinating discussion about how QAnon resembles an alternate-reality game.
The conclusion of the segment echoes what Erin’s been telling me for years: keep your family and friends close, no matter how crazy they become, and “expose them to a lot of reality.”
When I look at those photos of the terrorists on the steps of the Capitol, I catch glimpses of certain articles of clothing that make me question my own reality.
I own a lot of GORUCK bags, quality gear made by a former U.S. army soldier. My GR2 and Oliver’s Bullet Ruck backpacks went with us to the South Pacific and back. Both sport American flag patches, as does the Bullet Ruck that I now use as my primary bag when I head into town or on family hikes. I always wonder if I will get comments about the patch, and I’m always ready to respond that I wear the flag proudly because I served this country as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer.
The Peace Corps allowed me and Erin to travel around the world. Even though COVID-19 restrictions kept us from traveling last year, I looked for small ways to continue learning about other places and peoples. I’d read about how a keffiyeh, or shemagh, makes a good scarf to have when you’re traveling the deserts of Africa and the Middle East or just trying to get home when your car breaks down. Last summer, I ordered a cotton Palestinian keffiyeh from Hebron Arts. It’s soft and warm and I wear it around the house. (It reminds of Apeirogon, by Colum McCann.)
There are a lot of flag patches in those photos of the insurrection, and if you look closely, a few shemaghs wrapped around the necks of beefy men dressed in tactical gear. I fleetingly think I should take the patch off my pack so I won’t be associated with those idiots. But both the flag patch and shemagh are commonly worn by soldiers who served the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I trust that a lot of soldiers and veterans wear them without planning the overthrow of their own government.
I am confident in the future of this nation.
So, on Wednesday when Joseph Biden is inaugurated as President of the United States, and Kamala Harris takes her oath as Vice President of the United States, I will be standing at attention, wearing my backpack with the flag patch and with the keffiyeh around my kneck. In my heart will be hope.
A book to hold and enjoy
by Anton Zuiker on January 2, 2021
For the last few months, I’ve slowly savored the experience of holding and reading Kissa by Kissa, a sensuous book written, designed, and produced by Craig Mod. The book chronicles Mod’s long walk through Japan as he ate pizza toast and talked with the elderly proprietors at mid-twentieth century Japanese cafés called kissaten.
The book is a joy to hold, its cloth cover and thick pages of quality paper complementing the excellent writing and moments-in-time photographs. I made it through the book a few pages each week, nearly all late at night when the house was quiet and I could sit still by myself, slow my breathing, and imagine myself stepping into a kissa with Mod as he greeted the regulars in Japanese.
I was a supporter in Mod’s first campaign to fund the book, and I received copy 0194 of the first 1000-copy print run. I don’t remember how much I paid for this, but whatever it was could not equal the enjoyment I’ve gotten from it. I’m glad to be in Mod’s Special Projects membership program, and I enjoyed reading the dispatches from his latest month-long walk in Japan (where he lives).
Scarred but thankful
by Anton Zuiker on January 2, 2021
It’s a new year, and I am grateful that 2020 is behind us. There’s a lot for me to remember — I turned 50, celebrated 20 years as a blogger, marked 10 years in my job at the Duke Department of Medicine (and then moved to a new position in the Duke Clinical Research Institute), and all that in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions and fears and frustrations.
I’m starting this new year in a new space. Erin’s new office shed to the west of the house was completed last month and when she moved in there, I inherited the space inside the house (the former carport that we had enclosed to make an office and laundry/mudroom). My desk is set with work and personal computers, and I look south past the driveway and gravel road to the tall trees; the oaks and poplars are bare right now, but the bronze leaves of the American beech trees and the green needles of the loblolly pines are visible. The other night I stepped outside and heard two great horned owls in conversation. Inside the office, the potted Meyer lemon tree is loving the bright sunshine that fills this space each day. There are four lemons growing on the tree, and a blossom promising another.
I also am starting this year with a permanent reminder of the months that have passed. I have a new inch-long scar above my right brow, and daily jokes from my family about how I got it: too many laughs and drinks one night with a group of friends, a wave of nausea in the morning, coming to flat on the bathroom floor, and my head butterflied and bandaged by Erin. A lesson learned the hard way.
I’m thankful to be alive and well for a new year and ready to make a mark on 2021.
Diego Maradona
by Anton Zuiker on November 25, 2020
I had to drive to Durham to swap laptops (I’m in my third week of the new job, but could only arrange to pickup the computer today). On the way, I listened to the SiriusXM football channel as Ray Hudson talked about the news that soccer legend Diego Maradona had died at age 60 from a heart attack.
“A blind man on a galloping horse in a Scottish fog” could see that Maradona was talented and one of the greats, said Hudson. Soon, he was weeping, and I too, was tearing up, as I remembered watching Maradona in the 1986 World Cup—I was a teenager who talked my way into using the satellite dish at the high school across the street and I was alone in the media center as Maradona weaved through the English team for that glorious goal.
Last week, Erin and I watched and enjoyed the first season of Ted Lasso, a wonderful show about an American football coach who goes to England to manage a Premier League team. “Football is life,” says one of the players to Coach Lasso. I imagine Dani Rojas, that character, would be saying that right now to rest of the players in the locker room as they paused to honor Diego Maradona (or curse him for that egregious earlier “Hand of God” goal).