do not come. president of this aching, grieving, diseased, severed, chaotic country, do not come to kenosha. for you have missed the glimmer of hope on our horizon. you have ignored the pain of a family wracked with the police shooting of their son. you have minimized the impassioned pleas to live in a world where black lives matter. you have distorted the value of lives lost on the very streets of kenosha, lives taken by a little boy with a big gun. you have stoked the flames of violence and are inciting division in all the ways your cold soul knows how.
do not come. we do not need a rally for your ego. we do not need your smug law and order wagon to come through. we definitely do not need you to instill further tension and fear in the residents of this small city by touting approval of civilian militia groups or extremist patriots. do not start fires so that you can take credit for putting them out. we do not need your arson.
do not come. we have been through enough this past week. we are trying to pick up the pieces from violence and injustice and unrest so that we might move into the winds of change, so that we might listen and, with all good intention, step forward into a place of unity, of healing.
do not come. politicizing death and destruction and vengeance and ratcheted ferocity have no place on the streets of a community that wants more than that. we the people desire a more perfect union and domestic tranquility and it is becoming clear that unity is not your ultimate goal and that domestic turbulence and divisiveness are your weapons of choice.
do not come. for our city needs level wisdom, calm compassion, fair and candid conversation, truth, not your screaming vitriol, your punting self-agenda, your endorsement of hatred, your lies.
do not come. for your intentions are not with hope in your heart.
and without you, in the heart of kenosha, there is the glimmer of hope.
i, like so many others, want to scream “FIGURE IT OUT!”
in a nation crumbling under leadership pushing division and counting on a so-called “patriotic” movement of the populace to want to climb aboard its sick agenda-ridden wagon, i want to look people in the eye and ask them to please figure it out.
figure out that you are being accosted with aggressive propaganda, with misinformation, with bigotry and false pretenses of protectionism. in our country, this means you are being intravenously fed with distorted falsehoods, warped promises, extreme nationalism in a round-globe-world where this country is simply one of almost 200.
figure out that this disinformation is feeding into the frenzy. in our town, this means that a 17 year old boy from just over the state line strapped on his AR-whatever, got in the car, reportedly had his mother drive him (holding his automatic-people-killer) to our town where he played cowboy vigilante and took the lives of two people during protests for social injustice. this frenzy is dishing out the sickening sweet saccharin of cultish followers in a time of fragile unrest.
figure out that the hate-speech of people is wooing joiners, that words like “be sure to arm yourself and your family and know how to use them” cannot lead to any good thing. in my life, this means people i love disenfranchising themselves from me, detaching and choosing the popular-group lure of strangers, rabidly spewing the hostile talk of animosity.
figure out that you live in a country that is supposed to be dedicated to unity and democracy and that you are being courted to blindly align yourself with a singular individual who has demonstrated all that is opposite to the very ideals, the core of goodness, this country touts. in our world today, figure out what lies are and who is being upheld in the telling of them.
figure out that there is much to fix. this system – our country – is working as systems work – i have learned that they protect to the death the way they are set up and the profoundly, inexcusably unjust way that this country has been set up is glaringly obvious. figure out that fixing it starts in your heart.
figure out that your children and your children’s children will be growing up in this place and choose what you want to leave behind for them. is it a place of peace, of equality, of truth, of health, of gently holding this fragile earth, of clean air and clean water and fertile land, of hope and justice and liberty for all?
figure out that life is sacred and that it is lost in a moment. figure out what truly means anything to you. figure out the bottom line. figure out that love is truly the answer, the place to begin. figure out that those you love count and, for heaven’s sake, let them know. and then look out, to others standing beyond those you already love, and love them too.
our go-bags are packed. the dog crate is in the car and the cat crate is in the sitting room, ready. important papers are in a tote bag and the backpack awaits our laptops and all the related power cords. one more bag sits open for a few clothes and toiletries.
i feel unhinged.
i wrote to my children that it is unbelievable and real at the same time. this is true. we have no idea what dusk will bring, what the dark hours of the night will be like in our downtown, in our neighborhood, a city wracked in pain and fraught with the tension of social injustice gone exponential.
we sit. holding our heads.
we drove through downtown today for the first time. it was the first time since sunday that we had even been out, beyond taking a short walk in the neighborhood. we went to the grocery store where they had humongous stacks of water bottles near the door, ready for protesters, first responders, law enforcement, anyone thirsty in near 100 degree feels-like temperatures. we picked up a few things and headed home, taking a slight sidetrip through our very-nearby downtown.
it was stunning. heartbreaking. it made me cry.
we had seen pictures of the downtown all boarded up, but we had not been there yet. we did not ambulance chase nor were we there to help board up or bring food or water in the last few days. we, paralyzed and from our home, wrote about this experience, wrote about the surreal feelings we had listening to the sounds of inequality, the smoky smells of injustice, the taste of fearful adrenaline all must feel in the situations that have brought us here.
and so we hold our heads in our hands. we weep for the families of every person victimized by violence. we stand in the muck of a society that has perpetuated this unfair treatment, that has made excuses for it, that has steeped itself in hatred and bigotry.
we hike past these cattails. and, because i have a vivid imagination, gazing into their thick darkness, i wonder what would happen if i suddenly had to run and forge my way through these dense reeds in order to be safe. david claims that my imagination is usually on overdrive; i retort, “doesn’t everyone think about this stuff?” he replies, “no, they don’t.” i shrug. for me, these cattails make me think; they make me ponder. they inspire me to make a plan. i am convinced: it would be better to run and find a less dense area of vegetation and then i might be able to find my way through to the other side, to safety. i keep watch for these less dense spots as we hike. just in case.
the magic of the 1970s un-candles was based on density. density parses out liquids which are different. because oil is less dense than water, oil floats on top of water. and so, you would fill the glass container with water and add a bit of oil on top. a simple candle wick in a plastic wick shield would be placed atop this and it would float. voila! the un-candle. a flickering light atop the water.
in the case of other uses of the word “dense”, i would revert back to maybe seventh grade. “you’re dense!” one student would verbally accost another. dense, back then, informally meant ignorant, vacuous, vapid, thickheaded, half-witted, moronic, gullible, daft. most of these synonyms didn’t rapidly come to the forefront of the seventh-grade mind, so “dense” worked. and it seemed kinder than “stupid”. slightly.
as we approach every level of profound challenge in our world today, i am hoping for an un-candle approach. i am hoping that the less-dense rise to the surface, that the less-dense light the way, that the less-dense path opens for us.
8pm curfew and we can hear car horns and sirens blaring, smoke is in the air.
midnight and we hear gunshots, loud booms, sirens.
4:30am and the sirens continue. a storm arrives; the thunder adds to other unidentifiable sounds and is unnerving. we sit, awake.
early morning and the sun has risen to a stormy day. smoke fills our house from buildings, structures, vehicles burning in downtown and uptown kenosha. it is hard to breathe. but we are very much alive.
the town is shoring up the lakefront. the bedrock is crumbling. every time a storm comes, particularly from the north or northeast, the erosion is profound and feet are lost along the shore. enormous boulders are being brought in to nest next to the smaller granite boulders already in place, to protect lives and property. the theory is that these granite boulders will buffet the shoreline against the raging winds, the elements, the squalls, and the resulting rocks flung westward when those aggressive storms come.
the tempest of social injustice is railing. the coastline between white and black is hot and the fire of anger is raging. jacob blake, an african american man, who is right between the ages of My Girl and My Boy, was shot seven times in the back by a police officer on sunday. he is fighting for his life and the community is fighting to be heard.
what will tonight bring?
as the bedrock of this community crumbles we wonder what seawall will be built to protect all, to guard against inequity, to keep everyone safe from violence, to stop the injustice against black members of our community, our state, our country? what intelligent, articulate conversation will take place? what questions will be asked; what wisdom will be proffered? what compassion and generous action will be offered? how will we buffet against the rocks of hatred and bigotry flung by aggressive hostility? what will the boulders of change look like?
“the wise man built his house upon a rock, house upon a rock, house upon a rock. the wise man built his house upon a rock and the rains came tumbling down.
the rains came down and the floods came up. the rains came down and the floods came up. the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood firm.
the foolish man built his house upon the sand, house upon the sand, house upon the sand. the foolish man built his house upon the sand and the rains came tumbling down.
the rains came down and the floods came up. the rains came down and the floods came up. the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the sand went splat!”
we have some decisions to make. as a community, a state, a country. what will we do? will it be sand? again? or will it be rock?
it is our meditation, our respite, our rejuvenation, to hike. so we find trails everywhere we go. our old hiking boots have stories of mountains and deserts, forests and rivers, dunes and sidewalks.
we choose to trek instead of anything else. for we have found that “in every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks.” (john muir, naturalist)
in these times of pandemic, our travel has been of limited scope. we have taken seriously the words of fervent scientists and medical experts to stay close to home, to wear masks, to social distance, to be always aware of putting self and others at risk. and so our spectrum of hiking trails has been reduced in range, the radius from our home none too large.
the river we hike along is well-known to us now. we know the curves in the trail; we know the bend in the river and where the water laps at the bank. we anticipate the small turtles on the rock in the tributary; we expect the butterflies to be numerous as we pass the field of wildflowers. we know where the mile markers are before we see them. we know where the mosquitoes will swarm. it doesn’t change anything for us. we still go. we still hike. for “into the forest i go to lose my mind and find my soul.” (john muir)
each time we start we are aware of how very familiar this place is. each time we finish we are aware of seeing it with fresh eyes. marcel proust’s words, “the real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes” comes to life with every booted step.
the place we go, the haven we seek, are trails that let us be quiet, trails that let us talk, trails that make us tired, trails that invigorate us. they need not be new.
each time we take any of our beloved trails or walks in the general radius of our sweet home we breathe air into anxious hearts, solace into worried minds, we stretch stress-tensed bodies, we are mindful of glimpses of eased souls, we draw inspiration from this good earth, we find the new in old.
in a tenuous time of fraying loyalties and the aggressive recruiting of followers, people are being indoctrinated into what they believe are the-cool-groups, welcomed with open arms, social-media “love-bombed” and, it would seem, encouraged to believe that which has not been proven to be true.
indoctrination (noun): the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.
uncritically. terrifying. without critical thought. without mining for facts. acolytes of persons who gaslight, persons who claim absolute knowledge and power, persons who, like the scum on a glass of sour milk, rise from the acidification of true idealism, true tenets, the true basis of a society as a community.
i am worried.
the bridge between us as a country seems as crumbling as the infrastructure of old roads and bridges across this nation. the fragile bridge sways now in the gentlest of breezes. the bricks, mortar, concrete, steel are wearing thin, their veneers weathering storms of severed ties, storms of conspiracy over fact, storms of cronyism over love. the bridge-slayers taunt, tempt with poison fruit, the oldest story of stories. the ideologue-apostles forego conversation for testaments of belonging, baseless creeds. the indoctrination devours relationships, forming unions useful only to itself, without heed to emotional ties or history. crazed, yet measured, words of untruth and hatred blur clear vision to the other side.
the bridge ceases to exist. it becomes but a shadow.
where has this country come? we need so much more. for survival. understanding, compassion, commitment to unity, justice, truth, equality, equity, love of one another, peace among peoples.
the last days we have watched the democratic national convention. we have connected with the real-ness of regular folks, politicians, celebrities across the country who have had something to say. we have listened. we expected words of encouragement, words of hope, words of comfort, words of healing, words of promise to unify and not divide, words we could trust, words of truth. and we have heard them. our hearts swelled with a bit of optimism; our pulse slowed and calmed.
we heard the poignant words of michelle obama, speaking about the promise of this country. we heard the tenderness in jill biden as she spoke about the empathy of her husband, about the import of love and understanding and kindness in this nation. we watched people from each state and territory, on their own stomping ground, cast their delegates for the democratic presidential candidate. we listened and teared up and, mostly, we hoped for these instruments of peace to rise above the noise and the furor of division in this country, slobbering all over itself with rabid foam, inviting ultimate disaster.
we will watch next week as well. the republican national convention will be different than the democratic national convention, for sure. in a climate where i’m not sure everyday republicans even have a grasp of what the party means anymore, it will be important for us to glean that for ourselves. in an effort to attempt to understand the position of others we know and love, it will only be fair to watch both conventions. we will expect words of encouragement, words of hope, words of comfort, words of healing, words of promise to unify and not divide, words we can trust, words of truth.
we live in community. this country’s backbone is the melding of many peoples working to form a “more perfect union” together, to build together, to grow together, to share a common purpose. we shall never arrive as instruments of hatred. we shall arrive, however, as instruments of peace.
it is what it is. what will we choose to do? who will we choose to be?
in a country deeply divided by narrative, the decision between silence and speech presents a challenge. subjected to judgement and the possibility of being harangued, speaking words, speaking truth, is a choice-point.
this is a time of massive misinformation, a time of gullibility, a time of digging in heels, a time of excuse-making, a time of circling bandwagons. to pass by one who opines misinformation is to be complicit. to be silent around falsehoods is to be complicit. to not speak to inequity, to not address moral or ethical failures, to not stand up against prejudice and bigotry is to be complicit. to fail to engage against injustice, to not protect the truth, to rabidly push narratives of lies, is perfidy. to stand silently by is perilous. yes. there does come a time when silence is betrayal.
it would seem that two people or two groups of people, no matter how disparate, should be able to have a conversation. it would seem that they should be able to maturely debate, using factual information, issues that are at hand. it would seem that they should be able to respect each other, use discretion, and, without the betrayal of silence or anger, come to a place where ideas shared might move them closer together in understanding and mutual goals. it would seem that there is a bigger picture.
it would seem that unity might be the utmost goal, the endzone, the heavily-weighted bottom half of the pyramid of needs. it would seem in a country that its people would want to be unified in its most basic desires, its most basic values, its most basic tenets. it would seem that for a society to survive it must gather its people and its resources together to achieve any sort of illumination or actualization.
but relationship and conversation and unity cannot be achieved in silence. for silence-personified invites assumptions. silence-personified instills distrust. silence-personified creates chasms out of dividing lines. silence-personified shatters relationships. silence-personified builds walls of resentment, houses impervious to healing or conversation, learning or compromise. silence-personified is dangerous and paralyzing.
for those who speak the truth despite the pain of vulnerability, despite the vast line in the sand, regardless of any tribal politics and with much courage, we glean there is a way to survival, there is a way out of the polarization.
but time is of the essence. it is none too soon to start. to speak. and not to be silent.
“when you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. you have to say something. you have to do something.” (john lewis)
between us we have two master’s degrees, two bachelor’s degrees, four businesses, a coaching and consulting practice, various certifications, multiple states of teaching credentials, fifteen albums, four singles, hundreds of paintings, multiple play-scripts, countless productions and concerts and performances and gallery showings, a radio show, four cartoons, books, blogs that contain a few thousand posts, numerous and diverse leadership positions in theatres and churches and educational institutions, too many non-profits to count, long resumes and a combined total of over eighty years of work experience.
we are artists. and, as you know, that is not the easy path. it’s gig economy in a corporate environment. it means piecing things together, working a plethora of jobs at once, purchasing your own healthcare, investing in your own so-called retirement, advocating for your own value, balancing, balancing, balancing. the tightrope is thin, but anyone doing the tightrope dance (funambulism) is well-acquainted with the balancing pole and standing tall in the center of mass on the rope, necessities in an artist’s life.
in a workplace conversation once, i was asked how i would even speculate about having a second job. an incredulous moment, as a person who has always had simultaneous multiple jobs, it was ludicrous to me that the person asking this, who apparently has always lived in absolute bullet-pointed stability, could not fathom having more than one job at a time. were artists to be so lucky. were any gig workers, in their area of professionalism, to be so lucky. that is another world entirely.
so we are always on the lookout for additional gigs, so to speak. education, experience and skills from the wide spectrum of the first paragraph speak well to helping with growth and change processes and insight and honoring students and employees, not to mention the separate and interwoven threads of music, painting, theatre. these experiences that span decades speak to the arts, that which the world turns to in times of chaos, unrest, dis-ease, periods marked by adjectives like distraught, devastated, frenzied, unprecedented, uncertain, arduous, splintered, divided, distrustful, untrue, exhausted. the arts – that which feeds society. yet, “creativity takes courage,” understated henri matisse (painter, 1869-1954).
as many of you, we receive solicited and unsolicited lists of jobs in our email. we peruse through the obvious ill-fitting options like neurosurgeon or stem cell biological researcher; we look for opportunities to plug our work as artists into the world. we are also emailed positions that line up with our professional abilities and tenure in the arts.
and this is what we’ve been sent: sandwich ARTIST and GALLERY advisor. it’s hard to know whether to laugh or be insulted. sandwich artist? if this is really what subway calls their employees, i would say most of us have related experience since the first time, at like age 3, we spread peanut butter and jelly on our wonder bread. and gallery advisor? tesla, really? car dealer concierge maybe?
it’s a dim future if you cannot see relevance for the arts in a society, if they are secondary to anything and everything else, if they present in sandwiches and on dealership floors. where are the organizations, the institutions, the employers who recognize the multi-faceted diamonds in an artist’s perspective, an artist’s drive, an artist’s commitment, an artist’s vision, an artist’s project-driven dedication and multi-layered stamina, an artist’s sensitivity, an artist’s heart?
as two artist-funambulists, we’d like something better for the gifted artists giving breath to joy and hope and tomorrow. from the tightrope of this gig economy, it makes our toes curl to think any differently.
reverse threading 