Disquiet
My daughter’s mom, Deanna, celebrated her 60th birthday with a big birthday bash at Ora et Labora wine shop on Saturday, June 13th, 2026. Deanna reserved the entire space, opting for the “full buy-out” package, which included the large lounge, wine bar and patio space outside. Our daughter, Sofia, and son-in-law, Ben did a lot of the heavy lifting to get the party space set up, complete with a photo booth at the facility’s entrance, and an elaborate array of snack trays in the lounge. Musicians Stephanie Schneiderman and Tony Furtado, a wife and husband duo, provided the live music for the evening. (Stephanie is also one of Deanna’s closest friends.) It was a fun party, but I couldn’t help sensing a small but noticeable undercurrent of what felt like tension or low-level anxiety.
When Sofia and Ben came over to my apartment for supper a couple of days later, I mentioned the impressions I took away from the party, which I characterized as lots of fun, but with some of the folks attending looking slightly stressed or preoccupied. Both Sofia and Ben quickly pushed back, asserting their perspectives that the party was a blast, and people had fun. I did not disagree, but contrasted Deanna’s 60th birthday celebration at the wine shop with her 50th at her house. The house party felt more relaxed and intimate. Sofia and Ben did not object to that characterization, but pointed out that a lot more people came to the party at the wine shop, including clients, friends of friends, etc.; at the house party, by contrast, most of the folks celebrating were either family or close friends.
As I continue writing these words, more than a week later, having had the chance to reflect on the celebratory mood of the evening, and to view through the impressive photo slideshow my daughter sent to attendees which clearly depicted people having a good time, I had to concede the party was an unqualified success, if one rightly defines party “success” as celebrants having a good time. That said, I also remember the conversations I had with others that evening — some were light and fun-filled, others more of the “what are you doing these days?” kind of catch-up old friends and acquaintances who haven’t seen each other for a long while might engage in. But at least two or three conversations I engaged in that evening touched on more serious matters touching on political and other public affairs, and the concerns, worries and general sense of malaise that seemed to quickly arise when dwelling on such concerns, even if only momentarily.
Deanna is one of two women I often refer to as “my ex.” The other is Mary. I have never legally married, and I doubt that either woman has ever thought of me as an “ex” in the “ex-hubby” meaning of that term. But I think of them both as “exes” because, during a significant part of each relationship, each of us had vowed a lifelong commitment to each other. By contrast, other intimate relationships I’ve “enjoyed” in my lifetime were mostly so fleeting that none but one (or perhaps two) could I justifiably even refer to as “former girlfriend.” My “first ex” (Mary) was my first true love. Shortly after we fell for each other, we planned to actually marry — even going so far as to purchase her wedding gown, and our wedding rings. But our relationship began to unravel about a year or so later, and after nearly seven years of often making each other miserable, we finally called our relationship quits. Shortly afterward, she married an investment banker and started a family. By contrast, the intimate portion of my relationship with the birthday girl (Deanna) lasted only a couple of years. During that time, however, she gave birth to our daughter, Sofia.
I bring up these “exes” only to supply a bit of context. The end of each relationship was deeply traumatizing (at least to me) — with the breakup of my romantic relationship with my daughter’s mom most traumatic of all. Apart from a brief four-month fling I had in the late-’90s with a woman who had just kicked her hubby out of the household after she caught him cheating on her, I never entered into another romantic relationship since. I lost contact with Mary decades ago; Deanna and I have stayed close over the decades, however, almost exclusively (or perhaps solely) because we share a daughter together. And although Deanna’s hubby for the past couple of decades is certainly much more compatible mate that I could have ever been, it’s equally as certain that our daughter Sofia remains the most cherished person to each of us.
Each encounter with one of life’s vicissitudes can alter the trajectory of the life encountering the mutation in unpredictable — sometimes dramatic and wholly novel — ways. That’s true whether the living thing is a person, another animal, an institution or a nation-state. I was sixteen years old when my country, the United States, celebrated the 200th anniversary of its declaration of independence. Now, nearly half a century later, the country is on the cusp of celebrating its 250th anniversary of making that declaration. Much has changed over that half-century, but one of the most striking changes is any pretense that we, as a nation, continue to strive towards a “more perfect union” of individuals populating a “land of the free” and “home of the brave” guided by notions of fair play, equality under the law, utterances of “I disagree with what you’re saying, but would defend to the death your right to say it,” (even if the actual sincerity behind such utterances was questionable) and the like.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/21/opinion/elon-musk-trillionaire-wealth-plato.html
