Slouching Towards Bethlehem Circa 2024

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

“With the notes she recorded and in her personal notebooks, (Joan) Didion captured how specific situations felt to her; what it was to be her. ‘That is always the point,’ Didion says. ‘To preserve the person she was at the time of recording, not by writing down what happened to her but instead memorializing what caught her attention; how her surroundings felt to her then.’” — Joan Didion on Keeping a Personal Notebook

We don’t want to hang on to the past which is why I was reluctant to publish yesterday’s essay. However, sometimes I want to hang onto the past. Sometimes it is not time to let it go when the day is heart warming, when life begs to be captured on canvass. I have felt this way once before in my recent essays. When I wrote about The Human Condition from Carytown in Richmond, Virginia, I felt like the creation of a feeling tone of life took form. I wrote about the past, the present, and the future as a nod to honesty in the moment. Dragons in the Southern night were no more for me. There were never dragons in the Southern night for my San Diego children. And I wanted to set down the moment for readers, and for my soul.

It is time for letting go.

I will never be Joan Didion but I can play I Don’t Wanna Fight by Tina Turner well into the night and be transported away to a place called life. The following is, was my day. One day out of thousands I will experience in my lifetime.

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I woke up this morning and read about Joan Didion. Substack readers are rediscovering this writer of the 1960s, a time of change in our country. Much like my daily essays, Didion on a regular basis wrote about all she observed in life with an incisive edge. A disaffected insider upbringing made Didion an aggressive contrarian in her writing. Much like me as an American native to Virginia in conforming times, Didion stood from the world and captured life. That was the key, to capture life in all of its nuance and complexity.

The more I read about Didion this morning, the more I was determined to perceive my day from a distance and memorialize what caught my attention about the human condition. No dogma and no slogan words.

Joan Didion

My day started with discipline. I desire to lose weight around my waist and it is time for letting go of extra pounds. For the past several days, it has been low carb for me — salads, peanuts, walnuts, beef jerky, cheese, eggs, etc. Along with these dietary habits has come a renewed commitment to walking 10,000 steps seven days a week, not three days a week but seven. And so I threw myself out of bed and walked 10,000 steps this lazy Saturday morning. I set a goal for myself and achieved said goal. I felt good.

After walnuts for a very light breakfast, I returned to my book for the Book Club His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life by Johnathan Alter. I was on the prowl for evidence of good racial deeds to counteract Carter’s sketchy relatives which was a shame. I only had to read 30 more pages and the reading was uneventful. I have perceived Carter as a Southern Moderate which shocked my Brooklyn-born wife but she quickly added I guess it depends on one’s perspective. Those words captured me. Maybe, she was accepting my small-town southern lens as tolerable/smile.

I Don’t Wanna Fight No More

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Today, my wife and I met our son’s girlfriend for the first time. I knew this moment was important and yet it did not feel the same as years ago when the kids were in high school. I asked my wife if she felt the same way, that we had traveled down this road before. My wife replied that she didn’t care much about girlfriends in high school. The kids had years of life ahead of them. But now as our adult children were approaching 30, our adult children had a mature understanding of themselves, who they were and who would be suitable as a life partner. So, my wife was actually more invested now.

A ritual of life is to meet your son’s girlfriend for the first time. I can remember dreaming about such first encounters when I was younger. One had to strike a fine balance between too little and too much caring. I would learn this lesson the hard way over the years. As my wife and I drove over the Coronado Bay Bridge towards Miguel’s Restaurant, I thought about first impressions. I asked my wife for the girlfriend’s name. My wife told me to check my text messages which I did. I saw the name and tried to pronounce the name. I gave it my best shot. My wife is a pronunciation snob. She said I should let it go and say nothing. I replied, I was confident. I repeated the name again as my wife demonstrated. I asked my wife if I got the name right. She smiled and said something like Close Enough!

I was jazzed. I was set.

My wife parked our car in one of out favorite parking spaces outside of Miguel’s. Regular readers will recall the fondness in my heart for Coronado. The Black Privilege Vibe When the kids were little, we would spend hours at the beach as the kids frolicked and Mom and Dad read books in our beach chairs. Where did those days go? And Miguel’s was always a favorite place of celebration for birthdays and anniversaries. It was only fitting that we would meet our son’s girlfriend for the first time at Miguel’s.

We stopped outside and waited for them. My wife was the first to see them walking towards us.

As my wife hugged my son, I gladly stretched out my arms and said, Hi ————-! Of course, dear readers, I mangled her name. Sigh. I apologized. My wife took note. And my son’s girlfriend politely explained it was ok and everyone gets it wrong. All I can say is… I flunked the first impression test.

We sat down at our tables, the four of us, feeling each other out. I mean, who knows what briefing our son had given about us? She was eager to have a good relationship with her boyfriend’s parents. I was reticent as I always am at first. I observe before engaging. And my wife wanted to learn about the young woman sitting across the table.

All of the emotions and feelings and anxieties were in place.

As we talked, something marvelous happened. I had pegged the young woman as A but she was B! I love transracials, ambiguous individuals who betray racial and ethnic lines. The Beautiful Future of Transracialism. She asked how did my wife and I meet. I launched into a novel-like story of how two young congressional staffers met in an elevator on Capitol Hill on February 25, 1989 at around 5:00 p.m., how they each were attracted to the other at first sight, how the elevator doors opened and they would never see each other again, how by a quirk of fate they ran into each other 30 minutes later at a congressional reception for low-housing, how they talked the night away, how she threw her phone number into the lap of that handsome young man, how the young man consulted his best friend’s girlfriend who advised that the young man wait three days before calling the attractive woman, and how that chance encounter in an elevator led to a 33-year marriage and her boyfriend.

My son has chosen well. The ambiguous are beautiful

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After a lovely lunch with my wife, my son and ————-, it was off to the Book Club. I wondered whether my Book Club members would be weird around me. We have encountered all kinds of U.S. Presidents since Theodore Roosevelt but no one was of blatant prejudiced soil like Jimmy Carter and Plains, Georgia. Even our worst President thus far, Woodrow Wilson, seemed a tad better in comparison. And the Award Goes to Woodrow Wilson We have four lawyers, a federal judge and a high school administrator in our book club. Would my race be any sort of discomfort in discussing the Carters?

Well, the answer is no.

As I should have anticipated and expected, we all have read too much and seen too much to be throw off stride by the N word in Carter’s past. I was the resident native of the South and offered an empathic perception of Carter as a non-conformer. He should be seen as part and parcel of the New South in the 1970s.

Honestly, the most poignant moments tonight were not Jimmy Carter at all. A pale descended upon the group. Everyone seemed very anxious about the upcoming presidential election and the consequences. One member cancelled his Washington Post subscription and planned to move to Australia. Another member excoriated Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post. The member felt betrayed that there was no endorsement in the presidential race. Another member talked about immigration. It was a surreal feeling as if we were on the verge of things falling part, that the center would not hold.

I observed as a writer. I listened and tried to remember the angst in the voices around the table. It was unsettling as we are all generally non-partisan.

The second game of the World Series was a welcomed distraction. Everyone cared more about the game ultimately as escapism. One member said he did not like the Dodgers with a passion because their fans mistreated the Padres. I have zero knowledge of baseball so I was present but not present in the human emotion all around me.

I left the Book Club meeting resolved to never worry about my Club members again.

Conclusion: A few moments ago, my son arrived home with his girlfriend in tow. I like her. We talked for a short while. Now that I know she is transracial, I can hear a slight something in her voice. Or is it my imagination? I asked about Cesar A. Zapata, my distant distant cousin from Puerto Rico who shares my exact DNA match on Family Tree DNA Y-Paternity Line. How did that happen? I have no heavenly idea but, through the miracle of genetic genealogy, my universe of distant distant cousins has expanded. Another level of affinity, another example of how I am very much of more than Black Americans alone.

As Cesar shared with me, we have been able to trace our family to the first Zapata that arrived in Puerto Rico around 1655, as a soldier for reinforcement at the fort in old San Juan. My Son, Me, My Dad, My Grandfather and all male men in our line descend from a common ancestor of the Zapata family.

What will self-identity mean in the coming decades? What will it mean to present as a transracial in a world of blurred lines? I do not know the answer, save we are slouching towards Bethlehem circa 2024. We are bringing into the world something more than race, beyond race, through race.

We are losing touch with a mono racial, a cis racial world. We have already lost touch with the people we used to be. The racial world as we knew it in 1959 no longer exists. 48 Ways Racial Life is Better And it is good.

“I have already lost touch with a couple people I used to be,” Didion says. So, too, have I. I nod to the people I once was, and I carry on leaving bread crumbs in my notebook of who I am today.

Cesar A. Zapata