you say you want a resolution...

the best way to keep a resolution is not to make one...cynical?...maybe, but in reality, not so much...let's face it...some old tradition...or bubbe meise...has us drafting lists the last week of December...as we stuff our faces and probably break that last New Year's list in one Netflix binge...and think about this...we make lists of the practical and ethereal...and then head into January...where, at least here in the northeast, we face cold bleak weather...little sunlight...when our only holiday weekend is Martin Luther King Day...where we pause and think about a wonderful man...murdered for most likely half of what you aspire to on that list...ouch...so what to do...remain the cynic?...sprinkle a list with platitudes?...here is what I think...as I sit here this last day of 2022...straddling the old and new...I resolve to do the small things...hold open a door...smile at a complete stranger, and savor the return smile if it happens...let the woman with the screaming toddler go ahead of me on line in the supermarket...she is one "maaaa" away from CPS...refrain from giving the middle finger to the first asshole who cuts me off in January...start with these small things...tackle what gives life meaning later...like maybe in spring...when it's daylight more than 30 minutes...but whatever you bring forward into 2023...and leave behind...however large, or small, your goals are...may 2023 be a healthy and blessed one...and remember, when it gets hard...and it often does...remember you are not George Santos...and smile

Don't You Look Back...

 2022 is taking the songstresses...the voices...the lyricists...the background of my youth...Loretta Lynn...I will admit it was Sissy Spacek in "Coal Miner's Daughter" that sparked interest in her life...her music...her spirit...a feminist in so many ways she would deny...but those lyrics...always reminds me of what writers hear...write what you know...and she did...her songs were funny, sassy and poignant...her voice, unmistakable...the Queen of Country...the new crop of bleached-blonde wannabees should take a lesson...Irene Cara...her voice armed with pain and promise...her career hit pinnacles early...there should have been more...much more...her former managers should hang their heads...and watch footage of her singing "Out Here On My Own"...and weep...Christine McVie...the sultry singer of Fleetwood Mac...much of her career playing second fiddle to Stevie Nicks...and not...her presence was commanding...and her absence glaring when she chose not to tour in later years...the pain in her back not helped by standing over the keyboards for years...the list of Fleetwood Mac's hits penned by her is astounding...people have said...well, she was 79...not much comfort to this 62-year-old...I will always remember her low purr in "Over My Head"...oh, yes, Ms. McVie...it sure felt nice...

the banshees of westbury

a banshee, by definition, is a female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon die...I went to the movies today...to my happy place...the lights dimming...the previews appearing...the M&M's disappearing...and then darkness, and the movie...today's choice...The Banshees of Inisherin...or maybe should be subtitled...the quiet desperation of ordinary lives...we were about 5 minutes into the movie when I heard it...at the end of my row to the right...we were only 10 souls in that theater...but I hit the jackpot...a couple sitting there...talking back and forth...like how should I put this...oh, as Colin Farrell would say in the movie...like they were in their own feckin' living room...I tried to ignore it...concentrated on the plot...and how amazingly good Colin looked in what could be described as 1923 Irish schmattas...but it was distracting...and I thought...I'm gonna lose it...wail like a...like a banshee...but I didn't...sadly realizing that this happens...this lack of courtesy...on a daily basis...it happened before covid...it is worse now...it happens in movie theaters...and in Broadway theaters...and then your seat costs a kidney...it is everywhere...and the saddest part...most people don't realize they are intruding on your experience...they have forgotten how to truly appreciate theirs...so when the movie was over...and they left...talking the whole time...I stayed...let the credits roll and the haunting music wash over me...the writer's vision wash over me...before leaving the theater...into the quiet desperation of ordinary life...

"You want to go where everybody knows your name"...

Columbus Day...or Indigenous Peoples Day 2022...running some errands on a glorious October afternoon...we found ourselves having lunch at Center Coffee Shop in Plainview...decades ago, I was there many a time...meeting Nassau County friends when I lived out in Dix Hills...unglamorous was being kind...noisy was being understated...but, your kid could impale themselves on the dirty floor in the back screaming...or drop seventy-five fries on the floor and who would care?...today, it was relatively crowded...and they were woefully unprepared for this...perhaps they forgot it was a holiday...but we shrugged it off...only one waitress...gave us menus...disappeared...we felt bad...there were so many tables of orders...we ended up yelling our order to the cook behind the counter...when the waitress came back everything was in reverse...cleaned the table under the menus...slapped down napkins...a few minutes later silverware...it was like a scene in a movie...played out between the gleeful hello's from everyone who came in...they all knew the cooks...the woman at the register...and each other...in today's hurried, large world, there is a sweetness to this...and the conversations...the older couple behind me...ordering a salad...the waitress shouting to the cook...chop the salad...in another minute I expected to hear that old scene from vintage Saturday Night Live..."cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger"...then a friend of theirs paused to chat en route to his table..."hey, kid, how are you doing?" "I go into Mt. Sinai next week"...now, we all knew...but the bacon was crisp, the iced coffee just right, and Mike's fries...yeah, I stole a few...crispy...well then, the diet starts tomorrow...and I thought...I will not wait this long again to stop in... and I'll have my sandwich with a side of sweet memories...

Pomp and circumstances...

so, when I got up this morning, I couldn't resist reaching for the remote...to catch whatever part of the Queen's funeral was broadcasting...it is still going on as I write...I have had such mixed feelings about her death...or, let me correct myself, the media circus that has surrounded it...when she died I did feel a bit sad...and a bit in awe of the scope of history she lived through...had to carry herself through...wearing that crown and all it signifies...she always did so with grace...and perhaps unseen to most of us...at great personal sacrifice...then her death became an unending media loop...of course in England...but also here in the good ole USA...and I had to laugh inside...didn't we fight a little war in 1776 so we would not have to care about any of this?...and we certainly do not feel it like our friends across the pond...and in countries of the commonwealth across the globe...but we want to...our democracy is ailing right now...not growing pains...more like growing apart at the seams pains...who knows where we will be 70 years from now...maybe we wistfully wish there was some symbol like Queen Elizabeth II...a symbol living and breathing on the moors with corgis...smiling and waving and while not determining lawful things in life...reminding us of the continuity of a country...how the torch...or crown is literally passed down...generation to generation...the vitriol left to the halls of Parliament...and so I do sigh at her death...and marvel at the length of her reign...think about other dynamic Queens in England's history...Victoria...and way back to Elizabeth I, who was not supposed to live, let alone reign over 44 years...and for all that you really have to bow...or curtsy...or just nod and say...long live the Queen...

"from both sides now"

 I live in a lovely development sandwiched in a retail corridor...highway entrances close by...it was built on the grounds of the old Roosevelt Raceway...then flea market...I live on the earth once pounded by the hooves of majestic racehorses...then bargain seekers looking for schmattas...and so my curiosity was piqued with an article in Newsday earlier this month about a music festival that took place here in 1974...NY Summersault '74...an impressive line-up...Jesse Colin Young...the Beach Boys...Joni Mitchell...Crosby, Stills, Nash and (a late arriving via helicopter) Young...set lists to swoon over...and suddenly when sitting on my terrace these waning summer days...I no longer hear the distant roar of the Meadowbrook Parkway...but instead hear the lilting voice of Joni...who not only performed solo but would join CSNY for exquisite 5-part harmonies...being a writer...a poet...I often go back to Joni's music...her lyrics...genius...recently she was able to perform at the Newport Folk Festival...after many years struggling since a brain aneurysm...it was miraculous to see her performing "Both Sides Now" in the clip circulating throughout social media...her vocal register lower...the pauses...the gut-wrenching delivery of someone who has finally grown into the lyrics written in youth...if you have not seen it please google it...you will be reduced to tears...and so these days when I walk the roadways here...I think of this music and smile...and write...hoping to see what my poems might mean down the road...looking back...

The persistence of memory...

I would say that summer is an evocative time for memory...but lately, as I age...that seems to be the theme for all seasons...but it is the smell of the ocean...the feel of sand between your toes...the soft song of waves rushing the shore...a blazing July sunset...and the sweet sour taste of ripe blueberries...this symphony of the senses...that jars the old brain cells now...takes me back in a rush of memory of places and people...the very little me...and all subsequent versions...faces and laughter play over and over as I close my eyes...this is the joy of travel...I would say turning off the grind...but our world hardly allows that...maybe, mostly turning off the grind...there is always something magical yet humbling at a shoreline...the might of any ocean reminding you of your small space in the largess of the globe...and yet, reminding you of the infinite possibilities of it all...and then again...digging a teaspoon into deep dish blueberry pie...it all seems much simpler, this world...I am no longer navigating in a sea of relentless opinion and bitterness...I am just delighting in the sweetness of nature...just being Sherri Berry...just being...

Gilead

 For those of you who never read or watched "The Handmaids Tale"...Gilead is the US in the future...that future, 2005, now being our past...but recent and ongoing Supreme Court decisions...and their ripple throughout this country put us square in its formation...the lines of fiction and reality have never been more blurred...in this future society that has experienced a significant birth drop...an authoritarian patriarchy takes control and women are no longer people...individuals...but assigned to roles to keep the population going...sound eerily like recent days and you are right...all of this stems from religion...and the fear that if statistics are correct...by approximately 2070, Islam will be the dominant world religion, not Christianity...now, for me, being Jewish...not much changes...low in population except for in Israel, obviously, and in shrinking markets here...I pretty much expect to be part of a minority that is continuously picked on and scapegoated...as the old joke about our holidays goes...they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat...but this statistic about Islam is not sitting well with right-wing Evangelicals...nope...and so with the Evangelicals having the ear of the current Supreme Court majority...we find ourselves in reactionary times moving at  clip speed...back during his first campaign, Donald Trump said he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any voters...and so with the appointments of Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett he has...as we try to catch our breath...and figure out what to do...do not sit on your laurels...election day is in a few months...do research...do not take what any candidate preaches as the gospel...they all may think they will do what's best for their constituencies...but most are owned by powerful donors...think real local for daily quality of life issues...think bigger for your personal freedoms...mostly keep thinking and reading...really reading...not Facebook or Twitter...if you have something to offer...think about running...run now before that heavy red cloak trips you...

the very angry caterpillar...

I titled this blog as a play on words for a cherished children's book...because this week I cannot get the images of 21 murdered souls out of my head...19 children and 2 teachers...19 children still caterpillars...not yet butterflies...there is so much crowding the space in my brain that never seems to shut off at night...reading some of the background story of the killer...wondering where he might have fallen through the cracks...young bullied girls seem to let anger churn inward...cutting and starving and a host of other tragic behavior...young bullied boys sometimes churn and explode...we have seen this on repeat...why do we still make it so easy for them to arm themselves...when do we learn...the answer is not to seal children in their schools...it might seem like some half-baked solution...but fire, anyone?...then there is the old NRA defense card...mental illness...that guns don't kill...people do...then, I ask...what would be the harm in having age requirements...background checks...permits...do you hand your 10 year old kid the keys to your car and say..."go take a ride on the LIE...at 5pm...weekday...eastbound"...maybe a small course so that people really learn how to be responsible gunowners...2nd amendment, you say...it begins with "well-regulated Militia"...what we have is not well regulated...and abolish all AR 15's...that's it...if you have a problem with that...you have a problem...but anger...it is sucking the oxygen out of life as we knew it...and the grown-ups keep yelling...and the kids are dying...and I can't cry anymore...I'm becoming numb...and that is the most terrifying thing...next time I see a butterfly...I will marvel how it even came to be in a world suspended in hate...

bang...bang...

 shot...shot...boost...mask...mask...shit...Covid is an eye opener to the mess that is healthcare in this country...if you didn't already see it before...years ago, many of you probably had a primary care doctor you just called your doctor...maybe there was a partner, maybe two...you knew the front desk, you knew the nurses...urgent care was reserved for weekends when you had no choice...but even there, the doctors took their time, listened...if you needed meds, they were at the pharmacy you used for years...they knew your name...gradually, over the last few years this all evaporated...your doctor became part of a large group...your pharmacy was now dictated by your insurance provider...and now due to Covid... your urgent care is the McDonalds of health care..."I'll have a strep test with my fries please"...the driving force of all of this is not you...it is often not your doctor...he or she could not keep up with the black hole of reimbursements...it is insurance on one hand...and pharmaceutical companies on the other...and all the unsavory deals made in conference rooms and conference calls...you don't believe me?...start streaming "The Dropout" about Elizabeth Holmes, her company Theranos, and how Walgreens...yes Walgreens...was duped...how if it wasn't stopped so many people could have been seriously impacted...but back to doctors and your care...a broken thread of continuity...how many times are people seriously misdiagnosed...over diagnosed...to what end...all of this ruminated in what was left of my brain this week...working its way through a very unpleasant earworm of "Tubthumping"...watch out for what pops up on that car radio when there's fever floating in those brain cells...urgent care...once my rapid test was positive they couldn't wait to get me out of there...spitting out my treatment options...my quarantine requirements...but my cough, my chest I asked...barely a listen...it's Covid cough...which it was...a repeat visit confirmed, despite wheezing in a most unsettling way...that second visit, a doctor who listened...gave me a few minutes...her weary eyes above that mask...this is a war...and the soldiers are tired...but we sent them to battle without the weapons...we let our system go into the toilet and then we got hit with a nuclear bomb in 2020...and nothing has changed...so we start from the bottom up...next local election...see what those running think about issues like this...more importantly...if you go one level up to state elections...who are their donors?...shot...shot...boost...who rules their roost?

Step lively, and watch the closing doors...

I don't have to tell you if you are a New Yorker...we are kind of past the fall of the Roman Empire here...even hardened, "I've seen it all" city dwellers are weary and sad...the attack on the subway riders in Brooklyn is difficult to read about...the footage makes me wince...because somewhere deep inside I feel this is not the apex in our decline...Mayor Adams has inherited a ship riddled with deep holes...impossible in many ways to keep from sinking...and this all happening in the shadow of Ukraine...and the holiest of months for Muslims, Christians and Jews...for me, as I prepare for Passover...the third in this ongoing 11th plague of Covid...I do have to stop and think...about how Jews have always needed to be light on their feet...chased by war and pogroms...or journeying to be closer to the Holy Land...closer to G-d and at peace...light on their feet...have you ever eaten a Passover meal?!...but I digress...this year when you find that quiet space to pray...even if it is not to a G-d, but to Mother Earth herself...take a few minutes...pray for those who run to live...in Ukraine...in war torn countries in Africa...pray for those who we elected to be benevolent and wise in dragging our New York back on its feet...pray that with masks off we learn to smile at strangers...not snarl in contempt...and mostly when you look inward remember...never let the chance of redemption and change pass you over...

a night in Hollywood/a day in the Ukraine

March moves on...the weather is psychotic, at best, in New York...Sundays mean movie award shows...and most movies, sadly, were not seen in the theaters...but in living rooms constantly interrupted by life...the news chronicles Putin's march through Ukraine...in real, unrelentless time...it's an interesting fact that movie viewership soared during WWII...many films part of Hollywood's finest moments...others military propaganda...we have changed since then...and then again we have not...it is no great surprise that the highest grossing films today are pure escapism...and that those fans rally against the awards grab by serious, often depressing, arthouse films...it is no surprise that...with the exception of some actors who put humanitarian efforts above their careers...we view the acting community with some disdain when they lecture us in 5-digit gowns...as my friend and I watched the Independent Spirit Awards last weekend...we sadly wondered if we'd lost our love for award shows...or maybe for the movies themselves...our appreciation for that one really great script that touched the creative soul...and it really isn't that...it's this world...which plays out in the palm of our hand...on a cell phone...24/7...ugly and immediate...it is hard to cheer for your favorite actress when a maternity hospital blows up at a glance in real time...it is more than sad...it is soul crushing...but...maybe it is fortuitous that the pandemic is waning...hopefully not a momentary reprieve this time...and that the smaller movie theaters rise from the ashes...so that on a hot July afternoon I can sit... phone off...popcorn in hand... and look up to watch...the subtitled or dubbed vision of a filmmaker from across the continents...and realize that the artistic distance is small...and most importantly...that the artistic spirit lives under the rubble of hate...which repeats like a scratched vinyl record in the dark...

the dye is cast...

 "one test begets another"...this said a few weeks ago by my doctor, in typical internist deadpan...but true...while being subjected to one CT scan ordered by one specialist...with a sliver of justifiable reason...your other organs are all out there...and if you are 61...you have opened Pandora's box...and now several weeks later...I truly have almost forgotten why there was a scan to begin with...I only know that two MRIs later I have been granted the right to breathe again...follow ups down the road...a pesky growth in the liver...a bit elusive...but ok...enough to cause the two MRIs...and a right arm filled with IV marks that make me look like a junkie...I hate MRIs...after a few minutes in the tube you are disgustingly aware of your own breathing...or about how your neck itches...and you want to scratch it but you can't...so that's all you think of...despite the ear plugs...the headphones playing music...classic rock my choice for the first MRI...and direction blasting over that...breathe in...hold...breathe...and your mind races...kind of like Woody Allen in "Hannah and Her Sisters"...yeah, we are not supposed to talk about Woody Allen...but tough shit...his writing was so spot on then...especially the fear simmering until you get test results...the bargaining you make...the promises you won't keep after they roll you out...for my second MRI there was no music...no inane hit from 1976 to drown out my inner monologue...ugh...so in between the second MRI...30 minutes of hell...and the results today...there was Valentine's Day...we went to a favorite restaurant nearby...and the tables were nicely spaced...couples softly talking...until we ordered and a table for four was seated behind Mike...we were laughing...enjoying being out...and then a guy at that table loudly pronounced, "Hillary Clinton should be executed"...I look at Mike...you probably know which way I lean...but actually, this isn't a political thing...but just common decency...it was freakin' Valentine's Day...and all through my appetizer and dinner I had to hear this loud asshole pontificate on every topic for which his knowledge could fill a thimble...again, Woody Allen...in "Annie Hall"...and the classic scene when Woody and Diane are on line at the movies...with Woody pulling out Marshall McLuhan (google the clip)...halfway through dinner I noticed the couple to my right roll their eyes...we ended up joking with them...but that guy kept going...staring at me...me staring back...I'm surprised he didn't explode into smithereens...but despite that, a lovely evening...and after my various appointments I feel pointedly reminded that we are all here on borrowed time...and Covid has stolen more of that unfortunately...best we enjoy everything we are given...everything we create...and don't forget to breathe...

"faith is taking the first step even...

...when you don't see the whole staircase"...tomorrow, Martin Luther King Jr. would have been 93, had he not been assassinated in Memphis in 1968...my father, who passed in 2002,  would have been 93 too, born eleven days earlier...sometimes, those simple mathematical facts help put things in practical perspective...I think back to 1968...I was 8...when remembering life with my dad then...it is sobering and enlightening to realize how young MLK was when he was gunned down at the Lorraine Motel...and awe inspiring to grasp how much he'd accomplished and left as a legacy at 39...but I am thinking less of the fiery orator...passionate preacher...and more about that father and husband...a young man by today's standards...39...my father taking me to the park...teaching me to shoot hoops...ice skate...dance...helping with homework...especially math, which he had a natural aptitude for...Dr. King had four children when he died...four...I think about them on this holiday we use as both commemoration and as a day of service...the three children, now adults, who are still with us...and wish for them not the quotable words that have become part of his story...but of their private memories...the small moments that sustain us all when loss becomes the daily fabric of who we are and have become...I hope they have that quiet space to remember parks and swings...and holding hands in church on Sunday mornings...the few blessings his short life afforded them...the speeches, and non-violent teachings are for us...those memories are for them...and all those staircases they have had to climb since 1968...