A moment with a middle-aged member of the radical left
Find your beautiful moments.
A moment with a middle-aged member of the radical left: Just before 5pm, I close my laptop and walk down to the neighborhood pool. The lifeguards play music through the speakers as I swim laps. Today, they’ve chosen jazz. When I’m done swimming, I sit directly on the concrete that releases the heat from the sun it had absorbed during the day. I notice the sky and take this picture. My friend Marisa told me to recognize one beautiful thing a day. This is today’s. I lie flat and spread my arms and legs like a doll in a paper chain. Then I spread my arms wider, more like a starfish. My cool skin presses against the warm concrete. I stare at the sky and become optimistic. Maybe we will beat MAGA. Maybe there’s hope. Then I worry I’m just being naive. I close my eyes. Several moments pass. A shadow looms over me. I open my eyes, and a young, male lifeguard gazes down at me. I sit up and ask, apologetically, “Are you closing?” “No,” he says. “I was just checking that you were okay.” I laugh first and then he laughs. “I was so comfortable,” I say. “You were so still,” he says, “I had to make sure you were all right.” Then we laugh and laugh some more. When he says he’s sorry for disturbing me, I say, “I have to get home and make dinner anyway.” I stand with my flabby arms and dimpled thighs exposed and dress like a teenager, pulling cut-off jean shorts and a bright blue zip hoodie over my bathing suit. I drape my towel over my shoulders, across the back of my neck, and slip on my flip flops. I walk home, pretending that I’m young again and that I don’t have a care in the world.