OK. I’m sick of politicians too wussy to come out and discuss climate change in real, reasonable, normal-person terms proclaiming “I’m not a scientist” as though this is some kind of rationale for stupidity. (Gail Collins has a fab column on this very subject righty here.)

This gambit gives the rest of us who aren’t scientists a bad name. And there are A LOT OF PEOPLE who aren’t scientists. In fact, MOST OF US AREN’T. The number of non-scientists in the world far outnumber the scientists, and here’s the thing: We are not all asshats. Most of us who aren’t scientists are actually pro-scientist and even (gasp) pro-science, and by “science” I mean such fun topics as: the planet; the cosmos; medicine; technology; all forces of nature, including the weather and plate tectonics; all life on earth, including plants, insects and animals; and human evolution.

Evolution is another one of those things that prompt certain people in the public eye to firmly state they aren’t scientists. I’m setting aside, for a moment, that specific demographic of biblical literalists who truly and devoutly believe homo sapiens sapiens was created in less time than it took me to download iOS 8, because A) I will never, ever convince them that evolution itself might have been God’s own brilliant and miraculous handiwork, a slow-cook process that bubbled with divine mutation; and B) THEY aren’t walking around saying “I’m not a scientist.” Because THEY DON’T CARE. They are so far removed from the conversation that we should ignore them entirely.

Politicians, on the other hand. They’re reachable, at least in theory. They’re motivated by what they THINK will get them elected, and if they think a significant number of non-scientists are, in fact, anti-science, then they will ape (yes! pun intended!) the anti-science stance until the rising oceans reach up and carry them away.

So this is would I would like to do. I would like to reclaim the phrase “I’m not a scientist” in the name of all who aren’t.

As in: I’m not a scientist, and I’m pro-science! Or: I’m not a scientist, and I believe the ice caps are melting!  And: I’m not a scientist, and I believe we should invest in alternative energies (go, windmills!). Or maybe: I’m not a scientist, and I believe Neanderthals had sex with early humans, probably at a rave!

And while we’re at it: I’m not a scientist, and I believe only selfish, shortsighted boobs don’t want to preserve and heal the environment!

Also: I’m not a scientist, and I want there to be a planet for my grandchildren!

And finally: I’m not a scientist, and I’M NOT STUPID!

do you see it?

Here I am at a gate in BWI, slumped and zoning alongside dozens of other slumping, zoning travelers, awaiting news on a plane that’s SUPPOSED to be leaving for Albany in 18 minutes. SUPPOSED. But we sense it will not, for it is nowhere to be seen. Rumor has it the aircraft in question is somewhere in Baltimore, hopefully within taxiing distance of the tarmac, quite possibly rolling around the streets in search of a decent taco. It’s out there, or so I’m told by what looks to be either a pilot of someone impersonating a pilot. But the the plane is sadly nowhere near our gate.

I am just about to get up and ask whassup when a chipper young announcer lays it all out for us. “The aircraft came from international waters and has to go through extra security,” she explains. “So you’ll just have to wait a few more moments, and then we’ll get you on your way.”

I think, Yippee! I’ll be heading home soon! Hurray! It’ll only be a few moments! And then I think: Wait. What? Moments? What are these “moments” of which she speaks? Aren’t they rather vague in duration? How long IS a “moment”? Potentially longer than a minute, I’m thinking. Why, moments can last hours, days, years, even! And that’s when you DON’T throw in extra airport security! Some moments have been known to go on forever, baby, and not merely in French existentialist masterworks. Moments can last and last and last.

Of course, sometimes you want them to. Certain moments I hang onto for dear life: my first memories of holding my blessed kids, my last memories of holding all who’ve died. Other moments I wish I could dump with a jab in the ribs and a flip of the bird: any and all mistakes I’ve made, fits I’ve thrown, pain I’ve felt. But as hard as I work to delete those moments, they last, too, fouling up my otherwise-empty mental spaces with a lingering fog of regret.

Occasionally, in the throes of what I know will be an absolute stinker, sometimes but not always involving air travel, I gird myself for the inevitable, thinking: Ohhhhh, crap. This here will never, ever end. I’ll be 97 with dentures rattling around my gums, and I’ll still be stuck in this one giant butthole of a moment, scrambling to get out.

On the flip side, I often try to freeze-frame a happy moment as it’s unfolding before me, trying to trap and frame some joyous blip of time before it passes. There was a moment, at a slumber party long ago, when my younger daughter popped a cd into the stereo and cranked up the volume. I remember wading through that scrum of dancing, laughing, pizza-snarfing, cola-swigging middle schoolers as Vanessa Carlton sang wistfully of summer love in her cute little pop-pixie soprano. And I remember thinking — verbally, in just about exactly these words, as though the voice of my future self had taken possession to warn me — I have to hang on to this moment! I have to make it last! Because soon it’ll be over, and she’ll grow up, and this present will be a past that I wish I’d savored. So I need to savor it NOW!

I did. I trapped and framed and savored it. And now, whenever I hear a snatch of “White Houses” on the radio, I zap myself whole through the warp of space-time to that giggling crush of overcaffeinated girls at a sleepover — and I’m there, in that living room, in that moment, re-upping my will to make it last forever.

As for the plane, it took off about 40 minutes late. If you’re counting in airport moments, that’s not even a few. A couple, maybe. One and a half. Tops.

I hate cars. I’ve said this before, and in exactly those words. I’ll say this again. That is a safe bet. Because I HATE CARS.

I even hate this new Honda I just bought, and lemme tell you, I LOVE Hondas. Toyotas, too. I love them so much that I would marry them in a group cult wedding with thousands of other Japanese-car-worshippers, all of us naked and oiled and holding hands and singing ditzy folk songs with daisies in our hair. Yes. I would do that. In fact, I already have.

But still, I HATE THIS HONDA. Two days after buying it, I had to get the roters fixed. Four days after buying it, it broke down in Manhattan — on 85th St., just east of the tunnel in Central Park! Where there’s no shoulder! With lots of batshit traffic whizzing past! Ahhhhh! — and I freaked the *BEEP* out until a AAA truck took my vee-hickle and a cab ferried me and my son to a friend’s place on the Upper West Side.

The irony: I bought this car because I needed a reliable vee-hickle on a few long drives ahead of me (italics mine), and this awesome website I found identified THIS VERY HONDA as THE most reliable year of THE most reliable model in THE most reliable body type in THE HISTORY OF CARS. Oh, hey! I innocently thought. I am one smart cookie! I am one shrewd customer! I’m buying a sturdy and dependable vee-hickle!

So on the drive down, just north of New York City, when the engine starting making a crunching noise similar to that of Ewoks stuck in a sink compactor, I told myself NO NO NO NO NO. When a dude at a rest stop heard this awful noise, came over, shook his head sadly and moaned, “Ohhhh, that’s not good,” again I told myself NO NO NO NO NO. This is a Honda!, I objected Hondas don’t do this! Especially not MY HONDA! Why, I married it just last week!

To be clear, I am NOT mad at the dealership that sold me this cursed *BEEP*-ing beast of a Honda. The folks there have been lovely, absolute paragons of decency in the business. I know they’re required by law to cover these repairs, but they’re not required to apologize profusely and express profound dismay as they arrange to haul my Honda’s ass north on a flatbed truck and then fix the thing in seemingly minutes flat. Turned out it was the A/C compressor and the serpentine belt. I have no idea what those two things are. Don’t try to explain them to me. Someday I’ll learn to fix them myself. Just not today.

Anyway, the hated Honda is back and running fine now, but I still hate cars. I still hate THIS car. If it wants my affection back, it’s gonna have to woo me with roses and Dove bars, and maybe oil itself up and hold my hand and sing a few ditzy songs in the process. The *BEEP*-er.

(http://thegraphicsfairy.com/retro-car-trouble-clip-art/)

Let. Let. Let.

I’m not good at that. I was never good at that. I’m not a Type A control freak, exactly (witness: my house), but I have a hard time abandoning myself to various and sundry Cosmic Forces, be they personal, physical, spiritual, meteorological or digestive. (The last time I ate mussels, the things gave me such gas that I could have fueled all of Albany County for National Grid.)

But I know that I should let. Most of the time, my futile stabs at control are weak and whimpering little efforts, just tacit acknowledgments that I actually control squat. I’m aware of this pathetic global impotency of mine and everybody’s, but still, I refuse to yield. I know I ought to. I don’t.

But sometimes. Sometimes the letting happens for me. Sometimes I’m led to it, firmly but gently, and it yields a peace that feels like joy.

I am not one to thump bibles. Or wag them around. Or bonk them into people’s faces with loud, spittle-spewing talk of hellfire and damnation, as I’m not a fan of either. But I do own a few in different translations, and I flip through them once a day around bedtime, keeping my spittle to myself.

I often flip to the same ol’ pages. Some of them, dog-eared and post-it-noted, feature my All-Time All-Star Bible Passages, the ones I turn to for wisdom or uplift over and over again. I John 4:7 is top of the pops, for me: “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” I read that thing, and I think, Wowza! That’s some radically inclusive stuff right there! EVERYONE who loves? Including, you know, weirdos and atheists and apostates and and folks who adhere to other religions? And annoying boobs with bad breath? ALL of those people, not just five or six of the nicer ones, are creations and reflections of God’s love, too?

I like that bit. I turn to it of my own volition all the time. But some nights, flipping away at random, I chance across other chunks of scripture without even trying. I am not saying that God necessarily directs this bedtime bible-flipping, but neither am I saying that the Almighty has nothing to do with it ever ever ever. What I am saying is this: I open myself to the possibility of an insight, whether divinely nudged or not, each time I open the book. I open myself to this same possibility each time I open a conversation, open my mind to a new way of thinking, open my heart to a new way of loving, open a door to the outside world. Insights can show up any time, but only if I give them an entrance.

And so, more bedtimes than I can count, my fingers have accidentally or not-so-accidentally noodled their way to Acts 27:15: “When the ship was caught in it and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and let ourselves be driven along.”

That word again. Let.

Chris used to say this to me all the time. “Let, Amy! Let!” In the three-plus years since he died, I’ve often heard his laughing tenor, imploring me to give in and allow someone else to take over. Lately I’ve been happening upon that page in Acts at moments I need it — when I need to be told, again as always, that I control just shy of nothing in this tempestuous whorl of a world, and that my best bet, again as always, is to just sit back and see where the wind might take me. It’s taken me into dark coves of isolation, then blown me outward. It’s taken me into raging squalls of grief, then watered my eyes with sunshine.

Sometimes I manage to steer, but I kid myself when I think I’m navigating. Faith lies in letting the boat go; strength lies in not falling off. (As I kid I heard a story, which is probably 99.9999 percent not true, about some wacky ancestor on some crazy shoot of my mother’s family tree who got drunk and fell off the Mayflower. A fellow traveler must have fished him out, or I wouldn’t be here. This a total and irrelevant digression, but it stars a sloshed pilgrim with vertigo, and who doesn’t love those?)

Just a few nights ago, I was feeling sniffly and crotchety and foul — and wanting to control things, and not knowing how, and thrashing about for some power or knowledge or luck or miracle that could Make Things Happen To My Liking. I wasn’t in a mood to let. Let, schlet.  Not me. Bah.

In this cantankerous state I picked up the bible. I cracked it open. I randomly flopped over to that passage from Acts. Some force or finger blew me there, and I let myself be driven. Let. Let.

can you see him?

I hate cars. Do you know that? You do now. I HATE CARS.

I hate them firstly because they’re necessary (can’t live with ‘em, can’t . . . forget it), secondly because they fill up with crap, thirdly because I resent what they’ve done to our sadly dissociated American culture, fourthly because people who aren’t otherwise total dickheads behave like total dickheads behind the wheel, fifthly because they fill up with yet more crap, sixthly because most of them still require a shitload of gas and still spit out a shitload of toxins that have slow-poached the Earth to the consistency of flan, seventhly because they require constant frickin’ maintenance, eighthly because the crap-up-filling never ends, and ninthly because with or without the maintenance, THEY BREAK DOWN. At the worst times. Why, I’ve had the experience of breaking down on BOTH Thanksgiving AND Christmas, and let me tell you, it’s a blast.

Also, tenthly: people crash into you uninvited! Yes, they do! You can be the bestest driver in the world, with the fastest reflexes and the coolest disposition and 12 compound eyes ringing your head, and still, some random human can rear end you at a stoplight while all of your babies are strapped in the back.

That happened to me when my kids were small. I was driving a ridiculously old and extravagantly dorky minivan of the old Butt Ugly Variety, the kind you’d see from a distance and have to shield your eyes, so ghastly was the vision.

That was probably the reason why the driver behind me failed to see the traffic light change to red and, instead of stopping, slammed the bejeezus out of my Butt Ugly butt. Remember my fourthly, above? That people who aren’t otherwise total dickheads become thus in cars? That was me. I thus became a total dickhead of the Mad Mama subtype, pulling over and spilling out and running up to the offending driver, spitting flames and howling WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?! and MY THREE KIDS ARE IN THAT VAN! and THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN HURT! and THEY MIGHT HAVE BEEN KILLED! AND! AND! AND! until, finally, I noticed the driver’s youth, the sweetness of her eyes and the sheets of tears spilling out of them. And suddenly I felt like all the up-filled crap on the floor of my Butt Ugly van.

Filled with regret, I stopped.

I’m sorry, I said. I shouldn’t have yelled like that. I was just scared. My children are fine. I’m sorry.

I asked her if anyone was coming to help. She nodded, still crying. Her father was on his way. When he arrived, I told him what happened and apologized to him, too. He went to her. She cried more. The crappiness of my emotions knew no bounds. Poor kid, I’d traumatized her. To this day she probably remembers me as the Batshit Dickhead Mama in the Butt Ugly minivan who tore her a new one on Central Ave. I remember myself the same way.

I hate cars.