It's About Time We Had A Middle-Aged Superhero

This morning I heard an interview with Salma Hayek. Hayek was recently cast in the Marvel film, Eternals. The film is about a group of beings who have hidden themselves from humanity for thousands of years. Hayek plays Ajak, the leader of the superpowered species. Hayek said that when she put on her superhero suit for the first time, she "felt moved."

Hayak is 54-years-old. The fact that she was put into the role of the leader of a superhuman group of beings is totally right. Women in mid-life are the power source of humanity. They are wise, resilient, multi-dimensional creatures of will and endurance.

Yesterday the New York Times published a series called Mothers on the Brink. The piece follows three working mothers as they navigate the pandemic. Mothers are doing it all, holding this shit show together. To read the tasks that these working mothers accomplish is to read the stories of unsung superheroes. These women are in training for the next phase when their time and energy is freed up from caretaking the kids.  In middle age, when the kids are mostly independent, women walk away with a skill set so powerful, that when harnessed, is fierce enough to rule the world.

What women learn to manage and navigate as working mothers, especially in a pandemic, is beyond what any man could even contemplate, regardless of his job and responsibilities in that position. To have to care for other little humans while also working in the adult realm requires shape-shifting ability, mind-morphing flexibility, and marathon-running stamina.

No wonder Salma Hayek felt moved when she slipped on the superhero suit. She was coming home, being recognized for the superhuman that she is, that all of us are when we reach midlife. Our society tells us otherwise. Look at Hillary Clinton. Look at Elizabeth Warren. These two amazing superheroes were shut down and vilified because their powers were too great, too threatening to the status quo. 

Maybe we're slowly coming out of this archaic mentality that middle-aged women can't be superheroes.  We've got Kamala Harris leading the way. She's penetrated the paternal force field, hopefully blazing a trail for other superheroes to get through, stand by her side and save the world. And now we've got Salma Hayek as Ajak.

It's time. It's been time for a fifty-four-year-old woman to be a superhero. All fifty-four-year-old women are superheroes. And part of their heroism is their stoic persistence to keep on fighting, caring, showing up, even when they are invisible, unappreciated, and unrewarded for their strength and wisdom.

But now Salma Hayek is putting on a superhero costume. She's donning the appropriate apparel to represent women like her.  Hayek is starring in a movie where she is the strongest of the strong of a superpowered race. I can't wait to see the movie. I can't wait to dress up like Ajak next Halloween. Maybe the world as we know it is changing. I hope so. It's about time.
 

Nothing to Report: Boredom as a Balm

I talk to my mom five or six days a week. My mom has always been a very active person. She has always had a job and lots of friends, hobbies, and activist causes she works on. Her life has been rich and full of things to report when we talk.

My mom is retired now and, like the rest of us, isolated from most of the activities that used to fill her days. When we talk Mom starts the conversation, “Hi Laura, how are you?” At some point in the conversation, Mom will say, “Well, tell me something. I have nothing to report.”

I don’t really have anything to report either but I do have a lot to talk about. This past year has been a year filled with time. I have so much more time at home. Every day is the same. Minus a chunk of hours carved out in the middle of the day for work, the free time of the day is void of the things I used to do — coffee with friends, going to a movie, out to dinner, sitting in the stands of my daughter’s soccer game, going shopping for the boots I’ve been coveting. But now none of that exists. Daily life is boring.

And this boredom is good. This boredom is a balm that I needed to deepen my connection with myself and my partner. We are both bored. And in this boredom, this life devoid of social distractions and obligations our relationship has deepened — with ourselves and with each other.

This boredom has been an invitation into our individual interiorities. Ten months ago the beach we walked was filled with shells and driftwood, seabirds, and other people. But the shoreline has been receding, taking with it everything on the beach. Now the beach we walk is wider, with more sand, no shells, driftwood, birds, or people. It is just us, walking the beach. The ocean is there, vast and beautiful, a constant reminder of the inherent peace that exists when all of the detritus is washed away.

We walk on the smooth sand staring out onto the ocean or looking down and the sand, being with ourselves, quiet enough to hear our thoughts. And every once in a while we come together. We share a conversation about what is going on in each of our interiorities. And it’s interesting. It’s fascinating, this new access to the inner workings of the one I love.

My mentor once taught me the concept, “It’s not the what, it’s the who.” In the context of that lesson, I was trying to come to terms with firing an employee who I felt lacked integrity. My mentor explained, “she may be great at what she does, but it’s the who that matters.”

When I talk to my mom, it’s enough to just hear her voice, to listen to what going on in her head and heart. I don’t need to hear any news. But I get it. This “what” is how we were socialized. What is your job? What is your income? What are your hobbies? What have you done today? The whats are the details that we’ve been trained to give focus and attention to for most of our lives. But now most of the whats are gone and we have this unique invitation to spend more time with the who.

The “who” is the essence, this interiority that often stays hidden. This time of boredom, of nothing to report, has offered an opening to my essence, to my partner’s essence. We don’t have the constant negotiation that we used to have. We don’t have to agree on where to go to dinner or if we want to have so and so to a dinner party. We don’t have to come to an agreement on where we want to travel for the next family vacation or who will stay at home and wait for the plumber. There is nothing to report. There is space, and quiet. We are co-existing in an openness that we’ve never experienced before.

I am worried about going back to the way things were. This new shoreline, this beautiful quietude of our little world, has been a balm and an opening to something richer and more connecting. We talk about it, this new way of being with ourselves and each other. We both feel it and appreciate it. I hope when the beach is full of activity again, when the distractions of life as we knew it return, we can still feel this feeling, that it will always be a part of who we are.

Harry and the Contact Tracer

The first person I spoke to this morning was Harry. Harry is 99. He lives in an independent living facility and had COVID about a month ago. I work as a contact tracer and we try to contact people within twenty-four hours of their COVID diagnosis. With older folks, it often takes a while to track them down because they are in and out of the hospital or rehabilitation centers recovering.

When I spoke to Harry this morning he was well over his COVID illness except for a persistent cough and moderately low oxygen. I asked him the requisite questions about his symptoms, the onset date, and his health history and then we just chatted. I told him what an honor it was to talk to a ninety-nine-year-old and what a treat it was to start my day with a call to him.

I don’t know where Harry was from. He had an eastern European accent. He told me that he walks every day and since having COVID, has found that he needs to take more rests. He told me that he goes to the podiatrist to get his nails cut because he can no longer reach them to do it himself. He told me he’s getting his first vaccine shot on February 12th; it was delayed because he got sick.

I told Harry that my stepfather Al is ninety-three but that I haven’t seen him in a year because he’s in Chicago. Al will hopefully get his COVID vaccine on Sunday. My mom and my sister will help him navigate the subzero Chicago weather to get to the hospital for his magic shot. I told Harry that I missed Al and that talking to him was almost as good.

A few days ago I had a call with a ninety-five-year-old woman named Pam. Pam, like Harry, was energized and happy. Unlike many elderly people, Pam had no symptoms with her positive COVID diagnosis. Pam told me that she believes she is so healthy because, like Harry, she goes for lots of walks. Also, she added, she is a watercolor artist and has always painted standing up. Last month I switched to a standing desk and hearing Pam’s analysis of her own good health affirmed my decision to spend my days standing instead of sitting.

I love talking to elderly people. Compared to other people I talk to in my job as a contact tracer, they are comparatively wise, calm, and present. Yesterday I helped staff the health district’s call center because it was so inundated with people calling about the vaccine. In my state, there are over a million seniors trying to get vaccinated and there simply are not enough vaccines.

For two hours yesterday, I answered phone calls from people in their 70s and 80s trying to figure out how to make an appointment for a vaccine. I had to tell them that we are out of vaccines, that there are none to be had through the health district in the near future. Their only option, I reluctantly told them, was to go to the website and click and refresh and repeat until they got an appointment.

Some people told me that they’d been clicking, refreshing, and repeating for three weeks. One eighty-two-year-old man with a landline told me that he didn’t own a computer. I repeated the same disappointing news to every caller and then we chatted. They thanked me for answering. It was so great they said, to hear a real voice, to have someone actually pick up the phone.

Sometimes we laughed at the absurdity of the situation, that, like the mismanagement at the beginning of COVID, our great country is once again bumbling through this important vaccine rollout. Many people vented. They told me about their COPD or recent cancer diagnosis. They told me that they were a veteran or retired nurse.

Every call I answered I knew I would be disappointing the caller, replying that I had no good news. And at the end of every call, there was a moment of acceptance by the caller. Okay, they said, they’d try what I had suggested. I’m sorry, I always told them, I wish I could have helped you more. And every single person told me, in their own way, that they were just grateful that I answered, that someone had picked up the call and listened to them.

Those people dialing the call center just needed someone to listen to them. They needed a real person on the line, even if that real person was giving them bad news. The job of a contact tracer can be rote and a grind, but the moments of talking to these wise elders is a gift. It happens every few days that I have a rich conversation with an elder, more seldom do I get to chat with someone as old as Harry.

The lesson from Harry and all of these elders is that connecting is important. We all need it. It doesn’t take much to connect, to feel seen and heard. A short phone call, a listening ear. When I called Harry and Pam I felt a sense of connection to them — to their presence and wisdom. They shared something only they can know in their ripe old age. They offered me that connection. And yesterday when I sat and listened to all of those people trying to get a vaccine I was simply offering that to them — a chance to connect to a real person, to share their frustration, fears, and fatigue.

I started this job as a contact tracer eight months ago. It’s a new experience for me. A few months before the pandemic hit I sold my yoga studio, a business I had owned and operated for almost twenty years. I’ve found great joy in having a job with a supervisor and a team. I’m simply working. I don’t have to create new projects, manage employees, satisfy customers. I just get to do the tasks assigned to me in my job.

While it is sometimes understimulating, the satisfaction I get from just being a worker bee overrides the feelings of boredom time and time again. And there are wonderful moments too like with Harry and Pam.

Today will be another day of calling and asking questions, of staffing the call center and listening to the woes of sweet old people who just want a vaccine. But I’m glad to be doing this work. In this big, scary, confusing world, it’s giving me lots of little opportunities to simply listen and connect.

To Drink or Not to Drink: Have You Ever Asked Yourself the Question?

I come from a long line of drinkers. I remember my maternal grandmother used to make my grandfather drink fake beer. It came in a cornflower blue can and I think it was called Select. His family had a lot of drunks and she was on constant watch that he not succumb to that fate. Drinking too much and becoming an alcoholic was always something I worried about. As a reaction, I’ve planted myself firmly in the land of hyper-vigilance — always watching myself, afraid, armed with the fear that someday I too will cross over the line and drink too much. 

Both of my sisters don’t drink. One because she realized ten years ago that she is an alcoholic. She has found great solace and strength in AA. My other sister doesn’t drink either. Twenty years ago she just decided it was more trouble to drink than to not drink so she just cut it out of her life.

My dad drank. He was a sad, sloppy drunk, never mean or angry. I’ll never forget when he stopped drinking. I was about twelve. He called my sisters and me into the living room and sat us down. He was usually more playful than serious, so when he formally invited us in and sat across from us ready to lecture, we knew something was up. “I’m not drinking anymore,” he said. He talked a bit about how he drank too much and he was making a commitment to us and to himself to stop.

It was funny because we never talked about the fact that he did drink. It just was part of life. I didn’t feel traumatized or burdened by Dad’s drinking. I just knew he did it. Sometimes I felt sad for him when he was sad-drunk, but I never felt scared or unsafe. When my dad made his declaration that he was quitting drinking, he seemed happy, proud to be telling us about this big life change. Dad died about fifteen years later and he never did drink again after that day.

Drinking is part of my family culture, part of American culture. Watch any show on television and there’s an enticing glass of wine or the perfect finger of bourbon at the ready for that hard conversation. In my house growing up, there was always wine for every special occasion and usually at every evening dinner. My paternal grandfather talked about bourbon all the time and he and my grandmother had wonderful alcohol soaked cocktail parties on the regular. In high school, my sisters and I would steal bottles of wine to share with our friends from the cases my mom kept in the basement.

We learn early in our lives that relaxing, having fun, and socializing all involve drinking. What that message subtly teaches us is that we won’t be able to relax, have fun or socialize without drinking. Eventually, we become unconsciously dependent on the presence of alcohol. We’re taught that not drinking is a burden, a hindrance that will curb our ability to relax or enjoy our lives. But in reality, at least for me, the very act of drinking creates more stress and anxiety than less.

Because of my family history, I’ve always been a hyper-controlled drinker. On principle, I reject offers of drinks when I’m with family (so I’m clear I’m not in that camp), and I have always monitored my intake with precision at social events. Because drinking is so scary for me, it’s not really that fun. During the pandemic, my partner Nancy and I have watched our drinking — at the beginning, we drank a glass of wine with dinner three or four nights a week, sometimes five or six. We felt the indulgence deserved because we were living in such stressful times. Then we’d talk about it, realize that we were just becoming habituated to the act, but not really enjoying it that much so we’d stop having wine with dinner for the whole next month. We’ve gone back and forth several times over the last year.

At the end of December, my friend Kate who, like me, worries about the physical and mental health impacts of alcohol on her life, said to me, “I’m not going to drink for 2021,” and I immediately said, “Me neither.” She didn’t ask me to do it with her. She didn’t want or need a buddy. But as soon as I heard it I felt like this was the invitation I’d been waiting for my whole life. 

And what I’ve felt is utter relief. I don’t have to drink. I don’t have to drink to socialize or to fit in. I don’t have to worry that I’ll become an out of control drinker anymore. I don’t have to waste precious energy monitoring myself (and others) every time I go to a party. Like an unsightly wart, I just cut drinking out. 

I am aware that many people truly have addictions, that they try to quit drinking or drugs or sugar or coffee, and they struggle. I don’t want to minimize that hard work or that effort. But I do want to share with all of those people who are more like me, simply burdened by drinking, how liberating this feels. 

It’s not “I don’t get to drink,” it’s “I don’t have to drink.” When I watch Netflix, whether it is a detective show or a romance, drinking is always there. It’s the sidekick to all fun things or hard things or exciting things. And, more people die of alcoholism any other addiction. It’s true, drinking in moderation can be fun, but not drinking at all is pretty great too. 

Force Napping

Last night my daughter Lucia told me that she was scarred by that horrible parenting move I performed on her regularly until she was about twelve-years-old. She described it as “force napping.” According to Lucia, now sixteen-years-old, she remembers that every time we went on an airplane or a road trip somewhere when we arrived, I would force her to nap. I’d do a guided meditation and gently brush my palm over her eyelids to close them, trying to get her to fall asleep for an hour or twenty minutes or ten or whatever I could “force” her to do.

“Sometimes,” she recalled, “you’d turn on white noise and leave me in a room in some strange house or hotel so I’d ‘nap.’” 

She’s not imagining this forced nap history. I did it. I remember it well. I was convinced that I could keep her calm and collected as long as she had enough sleep. On those early morning flights when Lucia didn’t get enough sleep, I was possessed to get her to nap, especially if she didn’t sleep on the plane. I was sure that kids misbehaved because they were sleep-deprived.

Lucia was an easy child. She was naturally compliant and cooperative and calm, but I convinced myself that if she didn’t get enough sleep, she’d turn into a demon child and I wouldn’t be able to handle her. Maybe I was worried about what other people would think. Or maybe I thought that if I let her get into a bad, sleep-deprived pattern she’d never be that “easy” child again.

At sixteen Lucia has the same disposition as that of her younger days. For a teenager, she’s easy. My friends and family say, “You have a good kid” (whatever that means). I’m biased, but I actually think she’s amazing. She has a great sense of humor. She’s smart and mouthy and appropriately dismissive of pretty much every aspect of my being. But she is a teenager which is simply not easy as a parent. 

I don’t get to control Lucia’s sleep anymore. I don’t have control over much anymore. At the beginning of the pandemic, she moved down to our basement to get some space and I don’t really know what’s going on with her during the day or the night. The other morning she came upstairs with two new holes in her ears.

I ask Lucia every morning how she slept, sometimes inquiring about what time she went to bed, but she never tells me. It’s her time now and I have to trust that she’ll sleep when she wants or needs to. When Lucia told me about how much she hated force napping it made me think about what other parenting decisions I might have made based on my own self-preservation. In addition to force napping, I made Lucia clear and set the table, practice piano, brush her teeth, and say please and thank you religiously. 

I imposed those rules so that my life would be easier. If I could train my child to listen to me and do what I said, I’d be okay. We’d be okay.

Is that what parenting is? Keeping our children contained and controlled enough so that we retain our sanity? We say the rules we make when our kids are young are for them, but I think they’re more for us, at least they were for me. I can see now that not having the ability to impose order and control over my teenager, how much I relied on those rules to make me feel like I was a good parent.

It happens that all those rules I had for Lucia have worked out. Lucia is a good person, a responsible human and she doesn’t get tons of expensive cavities. But adolescence is the time to blow shit up — to challenge the rules that we made for our kids. It’s time for the kid to teach the parents some stuff. Teenagers are figuring who they are and what feels good to them. They can’t do this by following the rules that we made up to make us, their parents, feel in control when they were kids.

So now it’s time for me to be out of control, to be a victim of Lucia’s non-sensical rules for life. Lucia’s room is a disaster. It looks like a frat house. Her drawers are overflowing and obscenely disorganized. Her bathroom has used contacts, makeup wipes, and dirty towels along with empty toilet paper rolls littering the floor. I know I taught Lucia to keep her room clean, but the rules have changed.

Lucia articulating to me how much she hated the force napping was funny. We laughed and laughed at how ridiculous and controlling that was of me. But it was also clarifying. Lucia was articulating that she is past all that. Those rules, that control, that micro-managing is all in the past. 

It’s a relief really, to acknowledge that I don’t have the control over Lucia that I used to. As parents, at some point, we have to trust that our kids will be okay. Lucia may not sleep enough. She may live in a clothes tornado, but at the end of every day, I say goodnight to a good person, someone I’d like to talk to and get to know. She’s just beginning this new journey of creating her own rules, her own path in the world. It’s hers now. I get to sit back and watch it all unfold.

Intentions are like Butterflies

For the past month, I have been doing a group meditation with my teacher Astrid. Between 10–15 of us meet on Zoom every morning from 6:15–7 am. We start the practice with an intention. My intentions are always simple — joy, peace, love, compassion. I have been a meditator for twenty years but I often skip days, sometimes even months. I notice a difference when I engage in a more devoted practice. I feel lighter, happier, more connected to myself.

The dictionary says an intention is something you aim or plan for. In meditation, it is also an opportunity to acknowledge what is already there. If my intention for the day is joy, then I call in a memory of joy, a time when I felt it. Then I let it fill me up. The intention to feel joy is possible because I’ve felt that feeling before. It is already in me and so it is possible for it to visit again. 

If my intention is joy, I just need to call joy out, to invite the feeling into my consciousness more deliberately. When the feeling comes, it is like a butterfly has been released, the awareness of being free and alive and beautiful. There’s a lightness in my chest, an ease in my shoulders and jaw, a smile radiating from my heart. In that sacred time of meditation, it is like I am in a little tent, warm and dry, lantern-lit, with my intention like a beautiful butterfly circling me as I sit with the memories, images, and sensations that emerge from the presence of joy.

When my meditation is over I begin my day. I don’t actively think about my intention again but it is with me. The more I invite the intention in through a daily meditation practice, the easier it is to call it out the next time. Over time, after enough invitations, the butterfly that originally stopped by in the tent is so comfortable visiting that she hangs around even when I’m not in the tent of meditation. If I invite her in enough, she becomes so used to being with me that she perches on my headboard at night while I’m sleeping. Eventually, she might even sit on my shoulder keeping me company while I move around, living my life.

When I meditate I am the only one awake in the house. Everything is dark except for the small candle I’ve lit on the table in front of me. My dog Freckles usually sleeps beside me, snoring away, his warm back gently rising and falling against my leg. Every morning my intention is for the day ahead. I meditate on the main floor of the house, my partner Nancy is upstairs, and my daughter Lucia is downstairs.

Once I feel a sense of joy or peace or love, when I’m in the tent with the beautiful butterfly, I imagine two beams of light coming from my body — one going upstairs to Nancy and one downstairs towards Lucia. My tent becomes bigger, filled with butterflies, silently floating above my beloved family as they sleep. 

In those moments I am somewhere else, fully ensconced in an alternate reality. I am splashing in the waves of the feeling I’ve called out, basking in the rays of joy or peace or love. It’s a wonderful, enlivening feeling and I feel happy there. But after a few minutes, or longer if I am lucky, I come out. I come back to earth. I make my oatmeal and let Freckles out. I get ready for work and greet my family. But the butterflies are still with me. They are settling in, inside my body, still there, always there.

Every day is an opportunity to invite in an intention. Sometimes it is the same one as the day before, sometimes it is a new one, something else I need or long for — peace, freedom, love. Whatever it is, it starts with an invitation into what is already there. Through meditation, we are not trying to change ourselves. We are simply exploring what is already within us and gently calling out what we want or need to feel in that moment.

Laura Ingalls Wilder Didn't Get Divorced

The other day my sister Amy said, “If you’re still together in the pandemic, you’re doing great.” Our relationship standards are lower for sure. Hot sex? Probably not. The pandemic isn’t hot. Date night? If you can find the energy to get out of your sweats, maybe. Couples are just getting through this thing. Hopefully, people are also being a little bit more generous and kind with each other knowing that we’re in this for the long haul. But honestly, if couples are still civil with one another, that’s an accomplishment.

Thinking about how couples are fairing these days made me think about pioneer times. I have a small obsession with the pioneers. I love Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder. I watched Little House on the Prairie religiously. I thought Ma and Pa were the perfect parents and I felt that Laura was a true kindred spirit (it helped that we had the same name.) Life was hard then, but simple. Once the land was settled, they needed to build a temporary structure and barn for the horses to get through the first long winter. When the weather warmed enough, work began to build a real house that everyone could live in. Then it was time to clear the fields for planting. 

Building a permanent barn and fencing for the crops would have to wait until the following spring. Things moved slowly because each little settling family was on their own. They had to make do with what they had. Families were stuck together in pioneer times. Their survival depended on it. Ma and Pa were always loving and supportive of each other, and Mary, Laura, and Carrie helped out as much as they could.

In some ways, we’re like pioneers these days, except we have a lot of technology and creature comforts. We’re little isolated units surviving on our own. We have to depend on the people in our homestead, just like in Little House on the Prairie. Back then, if Ma was tired of Pa complaining about her cooking she’d never ask for a divorce. Where would she go? 

According to one study, divorce rates during the pandemic have actually gone down 34%. Our economy is in the toilet and many people, especially women, have lost their jobs. Looking for a new place to live, much less afford one, when there is a lockdown, is next to impossible. Getting a divorce right now simply isn’t realistic from a practical standpoint. But I wonder if there’s something else happening.

I know a lot of couples who are climbing the walls, some even contemplating divorce, but because splitting up is not easy right now people are trying everything else first. Times were really hard for Laura Ingalls when she first married Almanzo Wilder. They moved around the midwest — South Dakota, Wisconsin, Missouri. Almanzo got diphtheria and became partially paralyzed. They lost a son and both their barn and house burned down. They struggled with issues we cannot imagine in our comfortable, modernized lives. 

For them, staying together was an absolute necessity. I wonder if the same thing is going on for many couples now. Will we see a surge in divorces when the pandemic is over? Or will people have acclimated to this new way of life — — hard, but simple? 

We’re all learning about ourselves during this pandemic. And, if we’re in a cohabitating relationship, we’re learning about that person as well, maybe more than we want. We’re spending a lot of time together, doing our best in our relationships. We’re in our own little version of pioneer times so we’re trying to work it out or doing our best until we can get the heck out. 

I wonder if couples are, out of necessity, just trying a little harder. Perhaps they’re just managing for longer than they thought they could. Maybe we’re all getting a little bit tougher in the pandemic, dealing with things we didn’t know we had the fortitude to deal with before. Only time will tell when we see what happens to our divorce rate in a few years.

And I wonder if there had been less isolation, less dependence on each other in pioneer times if divorce would have been an option. I read a lot about Laura Ingalls Wilder as I was thinking about writing this piece. She was a scrappy, determined woman who lived during a time when surviving meant enduring hardships that many of us would turn away from if we had the choice. 

After many years of struggle, the Wilders finally settled permanently in Missouri. They used all of the skills they’d garnered from settling different terrains over the years and built a successful farm and a ten-room farmhouse. Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote throughout her life as much as she could, but her work settling the land and farming came first. It had to. I wonder if Laura Ingalls Wilder was happy. Despite her ultimate success with her husband, did she ever fantasize about living her life differently, away from Almanzo? Did she wish she could spend more time on her writing than on perfecting her poultry and cattle expertise?

Laura Ingalls Wilder eventually partnered with her daughter Rose to write and publish the prolific body of work we now know so well. Rose moved to San Francisco, got married, had a baby. And got divorced.