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32 The Middle Path Oh, I am happy to wake and study my neighbor on his porch swing stroking his cat and watching the robins drop to his lawn for the bread he scatters. A sedentary man with an ailing son, he has affixed to his three white vehicles the insignia of the Polish Republic: predatory bird against a red background, wings spread to intimidate. Oh, I am content to visit him at Xmas, dressed as a dominatrix, with a tin of homemade ginger cookies, my girlfriend sporting a tuxedo and topper. And, I am happy to think back to my former therapist who brought her Airedale to our sessions in the brick and stately mansion outside Cambridge, Mass. One day she and her dog fell asleep. I praise my pothead pals who refuse to accept the rhetoric of the middle path or ban the forbidden, sweet-smelling joint after the poached salmon and baby greens. How can I neglect to celebrate the women who chose each other and then had children? Bar Mitzvah invitations come each year, since all my friends had sons, of the sort we couldn’t find to save our lives. We saved ourselves instead. Which brings me to this certain age, this mortgage application, this recycling bin, this ferry reservation. 33 Though I contrive to empty out my life, I can’t contain my own enthusiasms or figure out how I became what my mother called a person with too much time on her hands, brooding about running out of time. ...

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