there are days. and on those days – even in spring’s wild-child inconsistency – we sit on the deck and look to the sky. because i have had the good fortune of thirty-seven years of that very view, it does what it needs to do…it soothes and centers and takes everything down a notch.
because what glenn kirschner said in early april is right: “if you’re not jaded, you’re not paying attention.” the barrage of … stuff … going on in this country is truly unbelievable…the corruption rampant and ignored, the racism, xenophobia, misogyny, the hatred, discrimination and blatant disregard of the rule of law, the gross manipulation of control by the narcissistic administration, the grift in plain sight, the absolute apathy toward the populace and real-life-living….the list seems neverending, the country barreling into some kind of hellish, dystopian landscape of gluttony-first. yuck.
so we sit on the deck and look to the sky. and these very familiar trees – this particular well-loved quartet – slowly shift from winter to spring and, eventually, soon, summer. and i can feel the color green absorbed into me – life – living – breathing.
and so, for a few minutes we don’t talk about it all. we just sit, quietly.
but fran lebowitz is also right: “…[ ] allows people to express their racism and bigotry in a way that they haven’t been able to in quite a while and they really love him for that. it’s a shocking thing to realize people love their hatred more than they care about their own actual lives.”
and we know those people. they are in our families. they are in our friend groups. our workplaces. our communities. it is devastating, truly heart-breaking. and every single time i allow myself to think about the immense loss – the fact that this very administration – the same one that touts propagandized rhetoric of “family values” – has caused schisms of exponential size – rifts that will never be healed – in the families and communities of the very people they are supposed to be serving – it makes me feel ill. gut-punched kind of ill. sad beyond sad.
there will be many more days of sitting on the deck – at the end of days – particularly some days – when we will just look up – at these trees – at the sky.
and though there will be no answers coming from the sky, it will help.
it’s sunday morning as i write this. with our coffee and the sunrise, we started our morning watching an rei video called “the life we have”, an intensely moving documentary that follows rob shaver, the subtitle of which reads, “mortality, movement and the richness of being alive.” too big.
by the end we were both crying. tears streaming down our faces. sniffly noses. the tightness in your chest when you are trying hard not to just out and out sob.
and then we just sat – holding tightly onto each other under our quilt and comforters – cold morning air coming in the window, sun streaming in the other side. we were quiet.
we stirred from our stillness. x’ed out of that youtube. and stared at the screen that presented many, many options of other videos to watch, most of which had something to do with the current administration – which – in absolutely no way at all – could ever begin to demonstrate the respect for life that this video we had just viewed did. seeing the faces of those involved in this vileness made me sick to my stomach – again. the juxtaposition was well beyond striking. it was monumental.
we sat in wisconsin’s oldest operating theatre – the 1915 downer in milwaukee – the scent of popcorn wafting everywhere. it was our first time to this theatre, but i daresay not our last.
we were there to see the documentary GASLIT, a movie – directed by katie camosy -shining the light on how the pervertedly-swollen oil and gas industry “impacts the land, air, water and human lives.” it is practically too big to write about.
jane fonda – one of the producers as well as activist and narrator – says, “it’s about injustice, pollution, and the destruction of entire communities.” the destruction and profiteering by those hoarding big-money – the gluttonous – is unconscionable. we were so sickened – so outraged – when the movie was over we couldn’t move for minutes. out of body, feeling like we were living in surreal times, we struggled our way out of the theatre and walked down the street, catching our breath, trying – again – not to cry.
sacrifice zones are areas of this country – the united states of america – where big money has decided that the people, the town, their homes – all of it – are worthy of being sacrificed. big money – like this current administration cheerleading for more fossil fuels, eliminating clean energy projects, drilling, drilling, drilling and decimating natural lands – including parklands – has decided that they can decide where people – PEOPLE – are not worth it…are disposable…that they can be sacrificed in order to benefit the extraction and production of dirty carcinogenic fuels and petrochemicals. toxic communities, cancer alleys, not fit for habitation, everything that is alive affected. they are disgracefully and deliberately created. activists describe these places as “the wrong complexion for protection”. what in the absolute hell?! this is the united states of america and this is a priority of its current administration…one of many revolting atrocities in their sick cauldron of intention. it is sinister wickedness.
we backed away from the youtube panel of choices this morning. the faces of such self-consumed, twisted corruption were just too much for us.
i spun the outer band of the fidget spinner ring we got at peacetree. it brought me back to the words of rob shaver, the life of a man who is just trying to live: “it’s literally just a choice daily. to live deeply and thoroughly and with beautiful effort. not for results, not for money or fame or lifestyle, but for the richness of being alive.”
that there is what the current leadership of this country – this place that purports to care about the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of all its people – every last freaking person – will never ever get.
ever.
and yet, that leadership – lacking the wisdom that gratitude for sheer life bestows upon those who choose to be grateful – dares to decide who can be sacrificed.
the drive was going to be about 9-10 hours or so. we knew that the front end would be belabored by traffic – taking hours to get through the city, but, once on the interstate, figured we’d be cruising. ahh….not the best of figuring.
there was the hour we spent at the delaware water gap…not outside enjoying the views and a trail…but inside big red, crawling our way out of new jersey into pennsylvania.
then the hour plus we spent just lingering – barely moving – through this one section of i80 in the very wide state of PA – where the department of transportation had decided that – for miles – it would be necessary to have cones blocking a lane so that eventually – miles later – they could do roadwork. now, i am all for safety for the workers on these roads, but cones for miles with no indication of any work is a tad bit frustrating.
so, then, finally, we were moving along. we had a whole bunch more hours to go – about 4-5 when we stopped about 70 miles from the ohio border to get gas and have a little pit stop. we could see the sky getting darker to the west and thought we’d get ahead of the necessities.
and then we got our first tornado warning. warning, not watch.
d pumped gas while i checked the weather radar. it looked ugly to our west and the prediction was for extended storms, hail, extreme wind and, yes, perhaps a tornado or two.
we pulled next to the station and sat while the first of the storms came through, pummeling us with torrential rain and wind. we were grateful we weren’t driving in it.
pulling up the radar again, i looked at some points along our journey to that night’s airbnb. things did not look good for the rest of the evening. it was already close to 5, we had been driving for 9 hours by then and we still had hours to go – through the weather mess on our app. we didn’t quite know what to do.
i looked around as we sat there in that lot. to my left – high on a hill next to us – sat what looked like either a hotel or a condo building which, given the exit we had taken, didn’t seem likely. pulling up google maps, i found out it was, indeed, a hotel.
i pulled up their website.
just to check.
because we were already tired and the road ahead looked pretty scary and long.
about a half hour later we checked into the hotel, forfeiting our airbnb – erring on the side of safety. the couple behind us in line at the front desk – about our age – were doing the same thing, forgoing their reservations several hours down the road.
many times over that night and the next day we marveled at the serendipity of the hotel-on-the-hill location next to us and were grateful for it and for our ponderous decision.
the dawning morning fog the next day lifted before we started driving and there was no indication of storm until we were closer to home. we had tornado watches for the last couple hours while we were driving, which made us jittery – well, it definitely made me jittery.
the tornado sirens went off when we got home.
because, well, climate change is real. global warming is real. weather events are becoming extreme as a result of humans’ lack of care about greenhouse gases, fossil fuels and pollutants in the air, water cycles. ridiculously hot heatwaves, intense droughts, insane amounts of precipitation and flooding, supersized hail, coastal storm surges, damaging winds, severe widespread wildfires, and destructive tornadoes caused by warmer, more humid air. this could potentially all be catastrophic, yet the current administration is ignoring all the signs of peril to our earth, gluttonous greed intentionally perpetuating the damage.
a few days later, in our backyard and starting to prepare the gardens for spring, we looked up.
the clouds – mammous and with these rope-like threads – were suddenly overhead. the same kind of clouds as the night we arrived home. we both sighed, suddenly nervous about what front was coming.
there have been plenty of scary looking clouds. there have been plenty of emergencies across our land. there has been plenty of devastation. there have been plenty of catastrophes due to weather events.
“the united nations intergovernmental panel on climate change’s sixth assessment report in 2021 (five years ago!!!) noted that the human-caused rise in greenhouse gases increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events worldwide.”
you gotta wonder when those “in charge” might care.
i read a quote while perusing around the issues of this extreme weather, climate change, this earth. it seems sadly apropos: “unfortunately for some of those people, it won’t hit home for them until it really hits home for them.”
we talked about what this stunning vine would look like in a time-lapse video of itself – curling around this stem of underbrush, coiling in and out. it would be fascinating to see.
we watched a PBS special of a vine – reaching, reaching – for the sky. it was nothing less than intense. it would seem that vines are definitely in the every-being-for-itself gang, striving to get sun and squashing – choking – all in its way. which, in these times, sounds devastatingly familiar.
i see this vine off the side of the dirt trail we are on – tightly wrapped around underbrush – and think about how stuck it is, there on that stalk. i wonder – as I look at it – if it is even possible to unwrap itself, to loose its deathgrip on its victim, to shed its imperative to conquer as it climbs. or if it is lost in this dedication, this seeming mandate; if it is too immersed in its scheme of obliteration.
once a vine is a vine is there a point of no return, that dedication to climbing the ladder, so to speak, with no thought of that which it is crushing?
a little research shows that vines climb and block sunlight – starving the host plants. they add weight to delicate branches and foster rot. they are smothering. many are rabidly destructive, aggressive invasive species, hard to mitigate, impervious to control or checks and balances. hmmm. again, sounding familiar.
as i studied this creeping grape-vine-knot in the woods, i was struck by its beauty, taken in by its curves and the graceful way it had wound itself. it did not occur to me – as i studied it and photographed it – of the harm it may be causing. a little time dedicated to research, to asking questions, to garnering factual information and the vine-knot took on different meaning and made me wary of any championing i might give it.
“vines can deform trees by interfering with branch growth.” “active, localized efforts to manage and eradicate wild grapevines exist in wisconsin, primarily to prevent them from choking out trees and native vegetation.”
“without constitutional checks and balances, the presidency risks shifting toward authoritarianism, where the executive branch can ignore court orders, dismantle regulatory independence, and weaponize the department of justice against political opponents. this breakdown of oversight allows for unconstitutional executive orders, consoldation of power, and the potential erosion of democratic norms.”
i suppose there will be a day when i look out the front door – to the west and the setting sun – and not see these branches. i suppose wind or ice or age – or even a city crew – might take them down. in the meanwhile, though, they are a statement of the familiar and their graceful shape gives me comfort.
we have been more insular lately. there are many reasons for this, some too close-in to list. the world has felt inordinately harsh – the world IS inordinately harsh – and so, in the name of balance, there has been time simply spent here, at home.
and at the end of a day, when we realize that we had not gone anywhere in that day, i am sometimes surprised.
but engagement is not just getting-out-of-the-house. there are – i suspect – particularly evidenced by the vast numbers of people who still support the cruel, unhealthy, marginalizing agenda of this administration – plenty of people who get out of the house but who never actually engage in the reality of what is happening, never seek the truth, never question their proclivity to pompom this depravity, never utter that they might have been wrong.
they go to the mall or the department store and shop, they go to some supersized – or tiny – evangelical church that proclaims their modified version of jesus, they go out to dinner and feast, they are at soccer games and gymnasiums and gated community parks. they follow the social media of extremism and sanctify voices and leaders without compassion, without empathy, without conscience.
no, engagement – participation – involvement – in this world requires asking questions and participating in discussions, learning, parsing out complex ideas, critical thinking, curiosity, connection, the recognition of one’s impact in the world.
engagement does not suggest utter complicit passivity nor does it suggest giving over of one’s morality; it does not suggest sycophancy nor adulation of horrific ideology. it doesn’t suggest – or not suggest – any of that.
we each get to choose our own engagement.
personally, i will stick to seeking the ideals of kindness, compassion, humanitarianism, equality, truth. i will stick to looking to the constitution and its amendments of this country as the guiding discipline of its laws.
and, even if i’m not engaged with the mall or the church or out-and-about dining or shopping or playing a day here or a day there, i will continue to hold to the kind of engagement that does not ignore reality.
and that kind of engagement requires some counter-balance these days.
which takes me to these ever-familiar front-yard branches drawing grace in the sky.
every time we drove past we wondered what it was going to be. the farm field had been sold and something was being built.
up north in wisconsin are farms with structures that – at the beginning of this build – look somewhat similar to what was happening here. there are ginseng farms up there. we wondered if maybe that’s what was being constructed.
what we really hoped was happening – right next door to another farm that had posted numerous maga-loving signs – is that ‘they’ – whoever ‘they’ was who had purchased the large acreage – were building a solar farm.
we were thrilled to see the metal structures and underpinnings for this solar field as it became obvious to us that – indeed – it was a solar power generating site. we cheer each time we pass it.
it is truly beyond the scope of my ability to understand the utter lack of responsibility it takes to undermine the handing-down of a healthy planet to our ancestors as the administration gutted the environmental protection agency’s endangerment finding – an agency created in 1970 to protect “clean air and clean water and open spaces as the birthright of every american.” (president richard nixon)
“an EPA that ignores science and dismantles the tools designed to protect public health and the environment cannot fulfill its mission.” (protect our winters)
with 31 deregulatory actions on the cusp of being implemented, clean air, clean water, stable seasons and public lands are all at risk. this is the potential loss of public health and environmental stability, escalating climate impacts on the world. where – on this good earth – is accountability?
when you continue south on the road with this new solar field, turn right on the county highway after passing a few more farms, and drive about a mile further, you find yourself at another construction site.
another solar field.
cheering again, we couldn’t be more proud.
the solar development of these lands is looking forward – not back. it is not mired in the self-serving profiteering of cronies’ fossil fuels. it is not ignoring the plight of the environment – this beautiful earth – and those who follow us.
instead, this solar development is part of an initiative that seeks to support the state of illinois’ goal of 100% renewable energy by 2050. renewable energy…hydro, wind, solar, biomass.
bravo, illinois.
as a country – planning for a future that can be healthy, sustaining – a country that will care for all its inhabitants – we have a long ways to go.
it was frigid out that day. really, really frigid. a good day to bake cookies and make a big pot of pasta sauce. we added water to the old radiator pans to put a little moisture in the air. we set up the humidifier in the bedroom. we hunkered down.
we’re still in clean-out mode. we will be for a while, likely a long while. cookies mid-day are a perfect reward for keeping-on.
we are making discoveries as we go, so the going is slower than if there were no stories whatsoever, if there was no personalization. it would definitely speed things up if we felt no attachment whatsoever to any of the stuff, if we were decidedly ruthless about cutting all threads to any sentimentality.
but we can’t…well, mostly, i can’t – since most of the things in the basement are related to me. d didn’t tote decades of belongings with him when he arrived well over a decade ago. his physical baggage was simpler – a budget-truck-full. though he still willingly participates in the sluggish crawl through bins and boxes and closets and storage rooms.
so we move slowly and give credence to all the stories, the memories, the narrative, the life that whispers from each thing we unearth – short or long, loud or soft.
we read an article about the historical united states – pre-lincoln – when the mud-sill theory was rising as a way-to-be in this place – caste system heavy, subordinating women and those of non-white races. ugly and cruel, the system disregarded the stories and lives of the ‘regular’ populace, of any working class of people. not that it ever really went away – despicable stuff – it has risen its brutally hideous head once again. right here. right now.
this administration would much like to speed things up. this administration would much like to be entirely ruthless. they are honing their merciless skills every day now. there is no ‘slow’ in their vocabulary nor in their agenda, for it would seem that slow might elicit accountability or conscience and there is neither.
we don’t really understand how one gets there – to a place of such depravity. despite the somewhat-constitutional-pom-pom-waving-somewhat-marginalizing-sordid history of this country and its arc through time, we do believe that most people would like to live in harmony, most people would like to live in peace. they are the ingredients for a democracy, the recipe for the sweet life.
they’re gluten-free, these chocolate chip cookies. but you’d never know if i didn’t tell you. they are just as delicious as tollhouse cookies with wheat flour. they are just what we needed in the middle of the afternoon.
apparently, right now, the sweet life is limited to what we can create together with others who are like-minded in their desire for goodness, who are not callously embracing the unrelenting horrific.
“life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see.” (trudy symeonakis vesotsky)
when i started my first teaching job – at a K-2 primary school in the poorest part of a county in florida – i found out quickly that the previous teacher had a favorite record album that she played over and over and over. i’m not sure how much music teaching she did, but i know that she played this record for every class, every day. it was a female artist’s album, one of her earliest. in those days her albums were all contemporary christian fixtures, full of praise songs, lyrics based on biblical messages and worship.
even back then – in this very first teaching job in the very first school – i knew that it was not appropriate to play this album ad nauseam like the students described their previous teacher doing. i was not teaching at a religious-based school; this was a public school and i had a different obligation to these children. it was most definitely not to foist christian music upon them.
in perusing social media i just saw rumors that there will be an “alternate” half-time show for the super bowl game, featuring two country artists who i thought knew better. in these times – in a world that draws strength from its diversity – it is unbelievably tone-deaf to think that we need an alternate quote-unquote “all-american” show and just the mere suggestion of what that definition likely means makes my stomach hurt. if we are to believe what we are reading in social media about this show, it is steeped in an incredibly narrow definition of faith and family and freedom – and what “all-american” actually is. it is painful to think of the people i know who will watch this – cheering – steeped in audacious narrowville.
i grew up going to church with my family. i spent 35 years as a minister of music in various christian churches across the country. never would i ever presume to foist christian music or philosophy – as a whole – upon this nation. never would i ever resort to the hateful rhetoric that is pieced – cherry-picked – from religious writings to justify disrespect of others, even ill-intended evil. never would i ever even begin to suggest that god – or any name you might choose to call a divine presence – would sort people into colors or ethnicities or genders or economic castes.
in the many, many years i spent in these buildings of faith – many of which, i learned, were disparately skewed to hypocrisy – i came to understand gandhi’s quote: “i like your christ, i do not like your christians. your christians are so unlike your christ.”
my own takeaway from a lifetime of work – if we allow ourselves to see the world as a tapestry of differences, respectful compassion, tolerances, a generous embracing, then we see in technicolor, our lives are beautiful and full of the possibility of growth and learning from others. if we allow ourselves to only see a one-dimensional homogeneous world, if that is all we tolerate, that is all we believe is worthy, then we are, as well, one-dimensional and our lives are limited in mediocrity.
if life is – truly – only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see, i would hope for all to open their eyes. i would hope for all to see what they are espousing – or proselytizing – with their words or – complicitly – with their silence. i would hope that the reflection of reality – real truth – unobscured by agenda or any form of bigotry – would be what we all see so that we might deal with the ugliness of mushrooming propaganda and contempt.
“bless the beasts and the children/for in this world they have no voice/they have no choice./bless the beasts and the children/for the world can never be/the world they see/light their way when the darkness surrounds them/give them love/let it shine all around them/bless the beasts and the children/give them shelter from the storm/keep them safe/keep them warm….” (bless the beasts and the children – the carpenters – barry devorzon/perry botkin, jr.)
we placed a dowel in the dirt of the old firepit tub to hold up the cardinal plant so that the flowers were upright and accessible to the tiny hummingbirds. we keep the hummingbird feeder freshened to give them sustenance in the days they cannot find the nectar they seek. we sit and watch them, marveling at their ability to survive, in wonder about the long pre-winter journey ahead of them.
they are tiny, tiny inhabitants of this earth and yet – as we share air and this space with them – we are worried these minuscule hummingbirds will be ok.
it makes me think about others who are likewise zealous about our winged friends and have bird and hummingbird feeders and bird baths…leading with their concern for these little creatures of the earth.
i would think we must all be on the same page…you know, compassionately caring for all the inhabitants of the earth…even the smallest among us…for surely, if their eyes are on the sparrow, then….
but no.
because at the same time, it makes me ponder their care-of-these-tiny-beasts while they concurrently wholeheartedly support the administration’s absolute demolition of care of its populace.
and it makes me linger on the hypocrisy of it all…for that support demonstrates their lack of concern for the rights of actual PEOPLE who are racially or ethnically different from them, their lack of concern for the safety and privileges of those PEOPLE whose gender identity is different from theirs, their lack of concern for the health and well-being, the homelessness and starvation of PEOPLE who are downtrodden, their lack of empathy for those PEOPLE – children, young women and men, adult women and men – who are surviving victims of sexual and violent crimes, domestic or otherwise, their support of an administration whose only care is not of THE PEOPLE but of itself and the shoring up of money and power and control.
and as this current administration and its sycophants are – right now – doubling down on protecting the sexual predators of children and young women, the silencing of vital facts to hold those people responsible, the hoaxifying of actual, horrific sex trafficking and dismissal of accountability – and right now – doubling down on racial profiling and the terrorizing of the PEOPLE of this country – and right now – doubling down on stripping people of healthcare and food assistance – these same people – the ones with the hummingbird feeders and all manner of wild bird paraphernalia – the ones who voted for this horrendous treatment of children, of women, of immigrants, of the diverse PEOPLE of our populace – these people pick up their pompoms and gleefully wave them. are they even aware of their righteous hypocrisy?
for – clearly – their actual care and concern for the beasts and the children is limited to the welfare of a xenophobic-racist-homophobic-chosen few. and their hummingbird feeders and wild bird paraphernalia? surely just props intended to make you think they care about this world.
reverse threading 