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Paying it forward and backward

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I started my life as a Baby Boomer member of a working-class family in a mixed class neighborhood in a factory town in New England.  Through fortuitous circumstances, few of my own doing, I entered the white-collar class soon after graduating from college. I was the first in my family to graduate from high school and college. With that degree, I no longer worked factory and waitressing jobs that I held in high school and during college summers. I moved into low-level jobs in organizations where my brain was occasionally put to use. Through a series of positions in nonprofits, public service and the tech world, I was able to buy a house, a car and save for retirement. A late in life PhD. allowed me to earn a better salary as I neared retirement.  

Somewhere along the way, I had accumulated stocks and bonds into a portfolio, where my savings were invested by my financial advisor. I am putting these words in italics because they still seem so foreign to me. When I was in the seventh grade, my father advised me to start saving for a house as soon as I could and to never ever put any money into the stock market. “The stock market is a rich man’s game”, he argued. “It is no place for people like us.”  He also warned me against getting rich or wanting to. “Nothing good can come from that,” he cautioned.  I still think my father was right about the stock market and the desire for wealth but with an economic system that simply doesn’t reward savings in a bank account any longer, I opted for the tools available to me. Thankfully, every job I had that came with a retirement plan; there was no way to escape investing in the markets.

So now, over seventy years old, I am faced with figuring out what happens to my portfolio should I die before my modest fortune disappears. I have the chance to bequeath money to my heirs (I don’t have children of my own, but I do have relatives and beloved friends that could benefit from these funds, I am sure). If I pass along wealth to my family, those assets join whatever wealth they already have. Although neither of my siblings is wealthy, we are all comfortable. So maybe some of my fortune could go to nieces and nephews who in their thirties and forties could use an infusion of cash for a house or a car or their own retirement and college planning. 

Alternatively, I could donate money to worthwhile charities or create some fund to distribute those dollars after I pass away.  If I donate them carefully, maybe I could share the wealth with others who didn’t have the advantages I and my family enjoyed during our careers. As I have been thinking about all of this, I recognize that I am not the only one with this challenge. To understand just how important these decisions are we can look at some larger trends.

Research shows that the passing of the Baby Boomers will lead to the greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth we have ever seen. No generation has been wealthier than the Boomers. Between 2018 and 2042, members of this generation will transfer $70 trillion dollars of their wealth, approximately $61 trillion to their children and grandchildren and the rest to charity. That passing on this great wealth can’t help but contribute to growing inequality. We have never before seen more wealth concentration in this country than the present moment. Estate taxes are virtually zero for most Americans and those with sizable assets are usually armed with accountants and financial planners that work to preserve assets. Perhaps, this transfer of wealth will generate great innovation and entrepreneurship. However, we do have some data that shows that giving wealthy folks more money, like we do with tax cuts, doesn’t necessarily lead to creation of new jobs or social betterment. In fact, it may encourage more second homes, exclusive educations, cooler cars, expensive hobbies, moon shots, along with increased concentration of political and economic power, and other mischief.

As I consider this intergenerational passing on of wealth to our children, I am also thinking about the impact all of this wealth creation has had on the planet. I believe the term externality as used by economists can be helpful here. Externalities are impacts created by producing energy, for example, that is not reflected in price charged for that good.  Externalities are also borne by third parties.  In this case, it could be environmental degradation.  Neither the producer nor the consumer pays the price of this instead it is passed along to the local community, or maybe to the larger society in terms of unhealthy air and water. What externalities have been created by virtue of our accumulating wealth? 

 If accumulated wealth is what we have earned while on the planet, what unpaid debts can we incurred? What sorts of impact have we had living on the earth, making our living, enjoying ourselves, and raising our children? We can assume that this impact is great if we live in an advanced economy. Research shows the big economies, like the U.S, Europe, and Japan have contributed by far the greatest amount of greenhouses gases to degrading the environment, but those other economies, like India, China and Brazil are catching up. And while these nations are the chief contributors to climate change, it is highly likely that the poorest nations will bear the great burden from these changes. On a more personal level, we can also assume that if we are middle- to upper-income that our impact on the planet is greater than if we were lower income, because we are able to travel more, consume more, have larger houses, demand more products and services, and more.  

Oxfam estimates that the world’s richest 10 percent of people have carbon footprints that are 60 times higher as the poorest 10 percent. Any estimation that generalizes large populations is difficult to make, but researchers at Oxfam also estimate that the emissions of the world’s richest 1 percent create an even larger emissions gap: the 1 percent could emit 30 times more than the poorest 50 percent and 175 times more than the poorest 10 percent.

So, imagine as we near the end of our lives, we could calculate the debt we owe to the planet.  Suppose when we died, a report issued that measured our environmental impact over the course of our lives. That would include our lives as individuals on the planet, in our households, at our jobs, as we traveled and consumed. It would also take account of the waste we have generated and left behind in landfills, as well as the impact of our investments, and more. Imagine if we can all the water, gasoline, plastic, minerals, food, and other resources that we have consumed or that have been consumed on our behalf. 

Text, letter Description automatically generatedWhat if there was a reckoning at the end of our lives based on a valid and reliable calculation of our environmental footprint?  Smart economists could determine a monetary value for this. This could be presented at the reading of your will by your executor. First, there would be a statement of your wealth at your death, a total count of your assets and obligations, all set forth and ready for distribution to your lucky heirs and a few selected charities. Second, there will be a fair accounting of your environmental footprint which your children will be obligated to pay off in terms of taxes and other assessments. If they don’t pay it off, it gets passed down to the next generation, just like accumulated wealth. Perhaps knowing that own descendants will be responsible for own environmental impact would lead some of us to care more about the environment than we do now. We would be incentivized to avoid passing down what would be onerous burdens to our children. Those families with parents who had the greatest impact on the environment would pass on their children the greatest burden of accounting for their parents’ impact. It would be likely that those with the largest inheritances would also be those with the largest environmental burdens. 

On the other hand, those who trod softly on the earth, who used less than their share, who lived in less resource-intensive economies would pass on credits to their children. Similarly, those who were the victims of environmental harms caused by others, would also receive credits. Those with debits and credits could settle up in some marketplace yet to be devised. 

This proposal is way too radical to work, I imagine, but it is a good exercise to begin to take account of the fact that those of us with “portfolios” haven’t earned them out of thin air. We do have an obligation to leave the world a better place than we found it. For the Baby Boomers, I think our time is running out. 

Almost the end

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One day after Christmas

Early on the day after Christmas, I went to Narragansett Beach, at the peak of low tide. The walking is always best for me at low tide, especially during the six months out of the year when I am barefooted. I start this ritual on the first day of April and end it just after Thanksgiving. My aim is to sense through my feet the warming water and the coming of summer as well as the water cooling and the settling in of winter. Once in a while, there is a day out of order when a December afternoon feels more like September, and I take my shoes off and enjoy the cold water until my feet go red and numb. 

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But on this morning, the sky gathered a full palette of clouds. The sun was just rising above the horizon so that objects in the distance — gulls flying over the water or a surfer catching a small wave – were backlit, like a silhouette. The beach was empty except for one other walker, and I felt in solidarity with the figure on the paddleboard here in the photo. He was so small set in the landscape of the water and the sky. I wanted to welcome him to the New Land, just a traveler, finally arriving in the beginning of winter, looking for a port before he set sail again. 

I felt very small myself, dazzled by the light.

The metallic shine of the sand and the water. 

The bands of light through the patches of the clouds. 

The mesmerizing shuffle of the waves.

My own breath in concert with the beat of the universe.

Even for just one moment.

That is just enough sometimes.

There is great comfort in recognizing your insignificance, in taking full measure of your size and weight in the universe, not as false humility but as a path to giving proper due to all that came before and that will come again, of all we will never know or understand, of all the possibilities not lived and of all the hearts we will never touch or be touched by. 

I finished that walk on the beach with a little prayer for my tiny soul and for all the foolishness of my young life where after a little study I renounced the works of on faith and went to embrace ideas that were more easily forgotten, readily replaced with others. Until coming full circle, I may arrive where I started, as a babe, just baptized.  

The beauty of the beauticians

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Let me say right off that I am not what people consider a classic beauty.  I have, despite my best efforts, been appreciated more for my wit and intelligence than loved for my beauty or body.  Not that I’ve resented this.  I remember my mother told me that it was a good idea to develop your mind because even if you were good-looking, it was very likely that your looks would fade with age. She neglected to tell me that even if you developed keen intelligence and a wonderful memory, chances are that these would fade with age as well. If you grew up in the sixties, you can hear your mother saying about your lovely average-looking friend, “Well, she has a lovely personality.” That always meant that the girl in question was a girl like me. I do have to admit that in my family anyway, we weren’t supposed to be beautiful. That was reserved for movie stars. I would hate to be young these days when your image is plastered on Instagram, posing for glamor shots at 10 years old when the pressure is on young women, especially, to be beautiful and desirable.

Those of us not endowed with classic looks spend the first thirty-five years aching to look like someone else and the next fifteen years searching for our own style. This roughly translates into trying make the best of the assets you have.  These are personal characteristics that are not recognized by the rest of the culture but of great comfort to one’s mothers and aunts.  For example, while good looks don’t run in my family, my mother and aunts applauded themselves for having very thick dark hair, none of that stringy blond stuff some women have to deal with.  We are also blessed with strong nails, a characteristic that I’ve used to attract legions of men to myside. And, best of all, we have very wide hips which make it very easy to us to carry children in our wombs.  My Aunt Mabel reminded me all the time that when she’s at the mall and sees

these slim girls with long legs and slender hips having babies, she pities them. Well, lucky me. 

So, in my fifties, I began to investigate my own personal style.  I did this very deliberately.  I stared at every one who might look a little bit like me and determined whether they looked better or worse than I did. My measure was very generous. If they looked worse, I maintained my haircut, style of dress and lack of makeup.  If they looked better, I try to catch them on another occasion and see if they still looked better.  If they did, it planted an idea in my head. Hmm. Maybe I needed a new haircut? A tattoo? Colored hair? 

Or I may have looked at old pictures of myself to see if I’ve ever looked better than I did then. This is an insane thing to in late middle age and can be a depressing experience. In my search, I found a picture of myself with a very short haircut and that idea of cutting my hair really short lingered in my mind. Mind you, this photo was of me when I was six years old with a pixie cut and missing front teeth in a class picture. My aunt had just kidnapped from school and taken me to my first haircut at a salon. She did this because managing my too curly hair was driving my mother insane. She was tearing her hair out because she was tearing out mine, trying to comb through it. So, with no solutions sight, no conditioner, no hair management tonic, the only thing was to chop my hair off. When she saw with this tiny little hairdo, my mother was outraged on the outside and delighted on the inside. It seemed that usually, she was the opposite, pleasant enough on the outside and raging within. 

So, with that image in my mind, I summoned up my courage, found a new stylist and resolved to get a really short do. I had to change stylists because my Beverly, my previous haircutter would never allow to me to do such a crazy thing at my age. Too radical! If it was awful, how would I show up at work? What would this do to my social life, to all of a sudden look like Joan of Arc on her way to the stake? Beverly was a worrier and my haircuts reflected that. Twenty years of the same style was enough. Time to go bold and beautiful! I could always wear a wig. 

So, I submitted myself to the whims and caprices of a 21-year-old beautician named Tami. A recent graduate of beauty school, I figured she would have state-of-the art training and be completely up to date with all the cosmetology literature.  All the women who were working at this new salon were about her age, and all spelled their names ending in ‘i’. That was a nice touch; it felt casual and cute. Tami and her fellow stylists were wonderful because even though I was a college professor from a very good school, had won several awards and published well reviewed books, she clearly held the floor, decidedly more confident and more knowledgeable about life and beauty that I would ever have been.  

I entered the salon Hair Today and checked in the front desk. By the looks of the receptionist, I was clearly underdressed and undergroomed for an appointment. I had the feeling I should have entered through the emergency room or the back door which they reserved for hopeless cases. Nonetheless, we agreed that I was there for a cut and styling; the receptionist was clearly thinking, “Coloring. Highlights. Eyebrows. Make up. Facial mask. Manicure. Surgery is not out of the question.” She waved me into the waiting room.

I sat patiently waiting for Tami. She eventually called me to her chair and clicked the cape around my shoulders. I looked at myself in the mirror, with that big mass of hair, unruly and unkempt, curly and a bit of grey. She asked, “So what are we doing today?” Before I could answer, she pulled my hair back closer my head and then up and asked, “Let’s try this, shall we?” I had no idea. She came around to look at me from the front with a clump of my hair still in her hands and nodded, “This will be wonderful.” I nodded too, putting myself completely into her hands. I was wheeled into the shampoo bay where I got some important information about shampooing just my scalp, not my hair, about harsh detergents in the shampoo I was using at home and how I’d been neglecting my grey hair. How do these young people know so much? Why didn’t I learn any of this in college? 

After my hair was treated with something God made on the first day of Creation so it wouldn’t be contaminated by other things, we returned to the stool where the clipping began.  Well, after thirty minutes of intense clipping, my face began to emerge.  This was frightening enough, but soon after, my neck began to surface, bare to the world.  And, before I knew it, I had a new haircut, a radical pruning down of a concealing canopy of hair. I commented throughout the session while she was trying to concentrate. I tried to ask questions that would help guide her in a Socratic way.  “Do you feel this is a bit much”, I asked? She just smiled. She told me to let her know immediately if I crossed my legs. She would stop cutting right away.  She informed me that this sort of careless action could cut the line right out of the haircut.  She warned me that it would be readily apparent to anybody that saw me that I had a very crooked haircut. She wanted no part of that. Besides, she said, her mother got varicose veins from crossing her legs.  I guess she had me pegged.  I nearly did it a couple of times but was too terrified of the consequences.

So, ninety minutes later, I emerged with a biodegradable bottle of biodegradable gel and a little cap of a haircut.  With a great short haircut, I really saw the shape of was skull. It was very reassuring and comforting to rub my nearly bald head. Many of my friends asked for that opportunity; other people just rubbed my head for luck, I thought.

 Overall, the haircut was a great success.  One man at work came up and said to me that if my boyfriend didn’t take me to a fancy restaurant and dancing and that if he didn’t tell me how gorgeous I was, I should dump him immediately.  Then, he wanted to know if I was married.  Every time, he passed my desk, he whistled but, his whistles sounded like bird calls.  

And, everyone else has been just as complimentary.  One woman told me it was the best thing I could have done. Quite an assessment. So, Tami was right on target. She led me to the promised land of a great haircut entirely out of my own comfort range. Even now at the age of seventy-two, I think, maybe it’s time to go see Tami again. She’d be middle-aged by now, probably still a genius.   

At the beach without my poet

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The second morning walk
You were on my mind.

If you were here, we would toss out lovely names.
Our words taking aim for the truth and the moment.

I would say,
“Look, how the tern folds and unfolds his wings,
He sails and pivots
An origami bird.”

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And you, the poet, would say
“Exactly. So perfect.”

And, you watching the sea shift and balance itself would whisper
“See, hear, how its heart beats.”
And I, your friend, would nod smiling satisfied.

The exhale and inhale of waves
The wash of water at our feet

And, we would kneel in veneration
Place our ears to the beach
And, listen for the profound timing of this place.

And the poet would add another keyhole to this universe.
Our place.