the sky set softly on the end of the day. it was chilly on the patio, though still. any wind off the lake had eased up. it had been a day.
we attended the hands-off protest here in our town. i had some trepidation before we left to go. still too close in memory are the riots from 2020. still too close are the screaming-loud trucks-with-flags driving around our neighborhood before the election. still too close is the distorted reality that we witness from people who voted for all this destruction, chasms of morality difference. still too obvious is the hyped-up aggression we are witnessing every day. too much to bear is the annihilation of civil rights, impartial justice, checks and balances based on the rule of law. trepidation seems appropriate.
but the protest was inspiring. heartening. people – regular folks – rising up for the rights and freedoms of our constitution, speaking up for our democracy.
the footage around the country – big cities and small towns all – of people – neighbors and friends and strangers – all standing together to clutch onto every filament of this republic.
and i wondered, “what now?”
for fighting fascism from this side of the election seems much more onerous than from the other side – before the election – when people needed to completely grok the far-reaching impact of their very important vote.
we have an arduous journey in front of us. and i know so many of us are already exhausted.
i’m not sure why no one early in my life mentioned to me that thru-hiking the appalachian trail or the pacific crest trail – or any long trail for that matter – was a possibility. sans internet or social informant i feel like i totally missed this information and – more so – this opportunity. neither of my parents were hikers and long island wasn’t really a granola outdoorsy hiking kind of place. my spare time was spent at the water, on the water, in the water – the sound and the ocean were the guiding lights there. but what you don’t know you don’t know.
so now, here we are – in our sixties – both pretty enamored of the idea of thru-hiking. consequently, we watch the videos of many, many hikers – as you know – studying their gear and their processes, their fortitude and their bliss, their bag-meals and their tiny stoves and – for me, especially – their water filtering systems and photography methods.
one of my favorite field trips is to REI. though we are clear – and, probably, ridiculously obvious – in our lack of knowledge about likely ninety percent of the items there, we love wandering and dreaming, pondering aloud the merits of each piece of gear we see. we linger near the coffee systems and the sleeping pads, knowing that both coffee and sleeping would be paramount.
and over by the EAT sign at the store are the most amazing bag-meals – of every sort. so many options, though pricey, they eliminate our fantasy of some chef bamboo-picnic-basket-droning in our evening dinner with a tiny box of wine and wine glasses. in reality, it is more likely to find us with the tortillas and peanut butter, tuna bags and ramen – practical, inexpensive, lightweight – that are commonplace in backpacks all along the trails. we dream anyway.
nevertheless, every time we go to REI, it, once again, occurs to me that i was uninformed which in turn makes me wonder, wonder, wonder about what else i was uninformed. we immerse in learning. because it is a good thing to learn.
as time marches on in the corrupt takeover of our country, i have found there is much i did not learn before. reading historical recounting – now – that gives context to today’s grab at authoritarianism stuns me at times. “i-didn’t-learn-that-did-you-learn-that???” has come out of my mouth more than once.
i’m astounded at the connecting-of-dots and what the perspective that this country’s true history have revealed about what is happening now.
i’m disgusted by the gross efforts to thwart access to this information, to bury our history, to distort the truth of this country’s difficult and ugly path.
it is insanity to whitewash the timeline of these united states . we have much to learn from our past – so much possibility to learn from our mistakes, the opportunity to grow as a democracy, to come ever closer to the intended dream of e pluribus unum.
sweeping it all under the rug instead reveals the underlying evil intention – pure evil – for the “great again” is not really great at all. it is the elimination of fought-for civil rights, the oligarchic hoarding of money, the plundering of lawful checks and balances, the annihilation of justice, the imbalance of power, the dumbing-down of the populace, the retribution tour of a small soulless man and his rabidly-panting project-overtake puppet-cronies all hungry for bright white control.
and 66 years ago today my sweet momma anxiously awaited her very next day – the day she would have surgery and i would be born. i’m grateful for her courage to have another child – even after almost a decade had gone by. i’m grateful for her bravery knowing there would be a caesarean section and recuperation, discomfort. i’m grateful for her fortitude to have me, even though she was older than most other moms having babies. and so, on that next day, i found my way home – into the air and the sun, a place of dandelions and daffodils.
home is sometimes elusive. we watch many people chase it on house hunters, seeking big and new and granite-y and double-sinked and updated and maintenance-free. we look around us – in our living room under a furry throw – at our old plaster walls, wood floors and the et al of a 1928 house – and we express gratitude. we are not chasing home. we are there. we have found each other and that – that very thing – has brought us home.
it is rare that we must follow cairns while hiking, as we are not in the backcountry as much as we wish to be. but if it is that one day we thru-hike long trails, then we will follow stacks of rocks to help us find our way. we will count on them as guideposts.
during this time of utter chaos in our country, we are not recognizing things and people around us – near and far – as the home we have understood. we are astounded by the fast changes and the cheering squad supporting the overturning of goodness. the guideposts of normal have disappeared, the landmarks are skewed. wise cairns have been demolished. we are disoriented.
we took a walk along the lakefront in our ‘hood. right over by the beach house where we had the food truck, daisy cupcakes and bonfire of our wedding, there was a path down to the beach. we took it.
oftentimes, there are cairns on this sand – beautiful towers of lakefront rocks – standing tall off the edge of the surf. but there were no cairns.
so we built one.
a pilgrimage point. a token reminder – we are here. we have found our way.
we are home. and we will find our way through the rest. together.
it was a stunner of a day. brilliant sun, azure blue sky, wisps of clouds, hardly anyone else on the trail. we were in heaven. we needed to be outside, to go move, to see the beautiful river trail coming to life. they were easy miles to hike – we had to stop ourselves and turn around or we would have gone way too far.
the wind just arrived. just now. like a switch, it went from stillness outside to the swirling of wind, the noise of wind, the worry of wind. writing this ahead, it is saturday and extreme weather has and is taking its toll on the country. we have had a wind advisory and wind warnings now for days. we have been alerted.
i laid awake last night for hours. the rain and wind woke me up, but the state of things kept me up. the trees falling are only one of many things on the current angst-list.
i know that it is important to keep things in somewhat of a balance – to shimmy over to the side of seeing beauty, feeling peace, being present, particularly during these obscenely chaotic times here. but the things that are happening to this country are real – they are actually happening, and, as a citizen of this country, i wonder where it is that there may be an outer limit. my fear – one of the nightmonsters – is that there is no outer limit. cruelty knows no bounds and as noam chomsky is quoted, “…evil doesn’t even begin to approach it.”
if it gets too windy as we write we will move into another room, for right behind our pillows is a very tall pine and my imagination is working overtime. i can feel the vibration in my chest vibrating, so i know that i am on alert. this is an all-too-familiar feeling these days. we are all often in fight or flight mode now, it seems. acute stress.
the day after this day of brilliantness we had another hike, though shorter. we sat on the deck and soaked up the warmth, sipped wine, talked about inane topics that kept us strayed away from current events. we had a couple other days of early spring weather before the in-like-a-lion kicked in. i’ve always been heartened by the out-like-a-lamb and, each year, pretty much depend on it…full-fledged counting on this idiom.
i wish the same were true for the state of our nation. that even though march – less than two months into this corruption – came in like a lion – it would go out like a lamb.
but you can’t count on folklore for the weather or politics. both are chaotic and neither is haphazard. one is natural, and is a result of the interactions of scientific systems; the other is deliberately machinated, a result of amoral strategy and self-serving intention.
one has the potential to be a lamb. the other is just aggressive, with high kill rates.
in researching it is curious to me to read – now that we are talking about aggressive creatures – that the deadliest creature on earth is the mosquito. i’m guessing that many people are not aware of this and, to them, sans any research or factoids, the mosquito is merely a noisy nuisance. in reality, the mosquito – as a creature – poses the most mortal threat to humans.
sounds like this new administration. and i’d venture the same guess – that many people – particularly those who – with fox-jacked-up anger – threw their votes onto the dysfunctional red bandwagon – sans any research or factoids – are not aware and, to them, the noise is just that – noise.
for a potato pretending to be a pear, this potato is not doing a great job. “poser!” 20 said, looking at the potato on the counter. we all laughed. and then i took out the peeler and cut it up to boil in the pot and make mashed potatoes. some posers are harmless.
i read the comments on facebook, grimacing. i get a certain pain in my heart when i see this sort of thing. here was a person hoo-rah-ing someone else’s achievement. now, that sounds like a good thing, yes? only in this case, this person – the one doing the hoo-rah-ing – had voted against the rights and freedoms and safety of the person whose achievement they were hoo-rah-ing. a transaction. this kind of poser is a hypocrite. this kind of poser is harmful, for this kind of poser can not be trusted.
i had a lengthy call with old friends on the phone this week. they told of a relative with whom they had conversation. the relative is dedicated to the new administration and its agenda, touting the good hard work the oligarch and his cohort-the-prez are doing for this country. my friends asked how she felt about USAID and this country’s new administration’s position lacking responsible compassion. she had no idea what USAID was. this person is a poser citizen, a poser voter. and this kind of poser is dangerous.
if you are planning on wholeheartedly sticking with the direction this administration is heading – where they have already taken us – then i would merely suggest you get yourself informed. read. research. ask questions. watch news that is factual – something that is not fox news, one america network or any “state tv” that conveniently forwards only things that make this evil self-serving administration look like brilliant people who care about the populace. find out what the ramifications of project 2025 might be to people you purport to care about, to issues you feel are important, to any sense of compassion you think you have.
be careful not to speak out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. you simply can’t have it both ways. be consistent. be honest. be transparent. don’t pretend to care about things or people you vehemently voted against.
you either are – in favor of all this evil – or you aren’t. own it. anything else is posing.
“the president is both the head of state and head of government of the united states of america, as well as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. under article II of the constitution, the president is responsible for the execution and enforcement of laws created by congress.” (whitehouse.gov)
i’m guessing that the man in illinois with the compostable straw company knew the responsibilities of the president when he voted. i’m also guessing that he wouldn’t have believed for a second that his own company would be at peril because of his vote. i’m guessing that he pictured straws – yes, straws – near the bottom of the list of concerns that a new president would tackle in first days of office. because, well, straws.
we sat at the diner in reno and i reached forward to grab a straw. in the middle of the table was a glass full of compostable straws. in a country where we use up to 500 million of these babies a day, the fact that these were compostable made me smile. as people who are careful about trash and recyclables – to the point of using a stove/oven that is 50-60 years old – because it still works – i was relieved to think that this very straw i was sipping from was not going to outlast me – by a couple hundred years – in some landfill somewhere.
so imagine the surprise of this business owner upon discovering that in the very first few days – days! – of his presidency, the new president – president! – whining about paper straws “exploding” on him – decided that paper was out and plastic was back in, implying that there is no need to concern oneself with single-use items and opening the door once again to toxic styrofoam and plastic debris outlasting all of us and imperiling the environment. in an about-face from the save our seas 2.0 act of 2020 – this administration went back to plastic-straw-zealousness with inane comments about sharks being too busy munching through the ocean to be bothered by straws. way to be on point about the fraught environment and a need for things to biodegrade. and now this riding-on-the-red-bandwagon businessman will likely lose his entire business which was built on his entire life savings. no worries. at least the prez won’t have exploding straws in his mouth. perish the thought.
which simply brings me to another point.
how is it that this administration – based on the definition on their very website about the duties of the president – is – within the first couple weeks – concerning itself with the straws of this world? how is it that this administration is not concerning itself with upholding the constitution of this country, abiding by the laws and rules of this land, governing within the checks and balances of appropriate power, carrying forward the tradition of this country, the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all people, perhaps, even, its own promises of “bettering life” for the average american and all the other blah-blah that was promised?
is it possible that this administration lied in order to get back into power?
you betcha.
so many lies. and so many people who believed it all, pedestalizing a man who deserves no pedestal.
and now, merely a few weeks in, among all the questions about this horrendous administration, there is one very big question:
which of his lies will be the straw that breaks the country’s back?
it feels somewhat risky to write this ahead. who knows what will have taken place between when i am writing and the day this blog publishes. it all seems a downward spiral, a tornado of ruin. i shudder to think about next week as i write this today. and the next week. and the next. and the next year. and the next. and the next. and the next.
i feel fortunate – and now, with the perspective of the day, even more fortunate – to have lived – until now – in a country that has functioned as a democracy. my sweet poppo – a POW in WWII – fought against the very peril we are now facing. even with all its failings, with all the grappling for equality, with the what-seems-continual fight for freedoms and rights, we have not been in a place where we are segregating ourselves from the rest of the world, where leaders are distortedly centric, maniacal and extreme, where we had to fear for our future – day by excruciating day – as we watch the dismantling of our very republic.
and now, here we are.
and – once again – i look to all the people who voted for this disaster and ask, “is this what you wanted?”
and, i would add the question, “why?”
it is most difficult for me to comprehend the glee of the moment for those who support all this. it is most difficult for me to grok how people wish so much harm for other people. it is most difficult for me to understand how this storm makes them happy, makes them feel successful, makes them feel even remotely human.
what tornado – what grey cloud of torturous destruction – ever brought any good into the world?
if the milwaukee, denver and reno airports are any indication, there is a heck of a lot of diversity in our country.
diversity: the state of being diverse; variety. / involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.
you wouldn’t expect this beautiful country to look the same from sea to shining sea or you would not travel. you wouldn’t wish to see the beaches, the inland lakes, the mountains and canyonlands, the deserts and deep forests, the farmland and rich meadows. you would merely stay at home, knowing that it looked exactly the same in every other place. you would, of course, be delusional, but you would live in your little bubble, safe from the diversity of the land.
if that is how you felt, then you also wouldn’t expect to travel the country and see anyone who did not look like you, act like you, dress like you, speak like you. and, because you do not wish to accept anyone different than you, you would merely stay at home, believing that because you want it this way – the way of sameness – that it should be that way, that it is that way. you would, of course, be delusional, but you would sit tidily – and smugly – in your bubble of delusion and prejudice and you would ignore the vast lessons you might learn from people who are different than you, safe and sound from the diversity of the people.
there was a person at the denver airport who was most definitely different than me. i had put on a mask to head into a shuttle train that would take us to a different terminal. the man headed directly toward me and, as he passed by right next to me, turned his head and coughed multiple times loudly into my face. i was stunned. yes, this person was most definitely different than me. this person – as opposed to all the other thousands of people i encountered in two days of traveling – the only person who i would consider different. every other person – regardless of race or ethnicity or size or shape or gender or freaking anything – was kind.
because – really – it isn’t that hard to be kind. it isn’t that hard to make kind decisions about kind behavior toward other equally kind people in what could be a kind world.
but instead, the new administration of hideousness has ostensibly raised the bar on meanness – no, not just meanness…let’s make that downright malicious cruelty – and has made it perfectly ok to be an asshole whenever you wish, wherever you wish, and to whomever you wish. wowza. what a legacy that will be.
if you are one of the people who actually think that is ok, i would – in my sweetest voice – suggest staying home in your righteous, pretentious bubble steeped in denialism. because this world needs more kindness and if you agree with this destructive and venomous agenda, i don’t think kindness is something of which you are truly capable.
keep your homogeneously-bigoted, unkind self out of the mainstream of society. there are a lot of children out there. and children need better examples than you.
because sometimes you need a gentle reminder that you are not all-that and, for that matter, neither is anyone else, there was this moon.
we are the tiniest.
and out-there is the most-vast.
our tiny lives will someday be but a fraction of a fraction of the smallest division of time itself. there will likely be no one in the time-down-the-long-long-road (if there is a time-down-the-long-long-road and we haven’t destroyed our planet first) who will remember us or refer to us, pine for us or credit us with anything.
as i stood in the kitchen, tears streaming down my face – grieving for this earth, this world, this country, this community, this extended family – i slowly – very, very slowly – calmed down enough to breathe. and when i breathed i could feel my feet. standing on the old wood floor of our old kitchen in our old house.
and even though my grief was still there – the ache inside my heart palpable – and all that had happened – long ago and not too long ago and the very day my feet were planted on the floor – was still the truth of what happened, the ugly cry that had taken over my body started to ease up.
and i could feel d’s arms holding me and dogga nudging my leg and i was back from that place where nothing feels right.
there is much to grieve. we all have burdens, sheer disappointments, heartbreak, things that frustrate us out of our gourd. we have been hurt and we have hurt others. we share these commonalities. there are none among us who skate through life unscathed and not-scathing. it is humanness. there is no human who may escape this, no human gender or race or ethnicity or religion or ladder rung or any other identifying characteristic that is above this, that is impervious, that is best.
for any one of us to be cavalier about hurting another, to be flippant about minimizing others, to be complicitly silent in the face of malfeasance, to cheer on immorality or a lack of decency is to forget how very tiny we each really are. to distort what being alive is.
this extended family, this community, this country, this world, on this earth – our time is finite. perhaps we should spend it in goodness and not evil. bound together by that which we all have in common:
we all breathe in and out the same way standing here under the sliver of moon in the vast sky of the vast galaxy of the vastest universe.
in the most not-normal times, this quilt has seen us through. two broken wrists, the quilt. the covid pandemic, the quilt. getting fired, the quilt. our babycat dying, the quilt. losing three other positions between us, the quilt. a few other circumstances and initiatives that wouldn’t fall under any gollygee category, the quilt. it has been a mainstay.
and here we are.
and life is not normal.
it is an intense time. and it’s only been a week.
and, anytime i’ve forgotten for a moment or two – or maybe even an hour – it all comes roaring back. and i remember.
and then i remember that people chose this.
chose it.
and now they are acting as if it is all normal – as if they can’t see the band of cruelty that binds all the intention of this administration.
these are not golly-gee little-house-on-the-prairie times.
i viewed someone’s post on social media that stated we should all keep our political opinions to ourselves and post dog pictures instead.
i had…er…mixed feelings about this.
ok, so not really mixed.
this approach feels a tad bit pollyanna to me. a little sloughing-off of reality. perhaps a tiny bit delusional. not that I wouldn’t wish everything would be like that – all sweetness and everyone and everything light of spirit. but it isn’t. life is not normal now.
i would like to point out that lack of sharing honest information is how we got here. because of the lack of truthful information. because of the abundance of misinformation. because of the elitist-extremist-isolationist-bigoted blather that always seemed to be elevated on fox as powerful and all-knowing, the singular news source full of putrid propaganda…that is what brought us here.
so, i respectfully disagree with the post i viewed.
we are a country desperately in need of conversation and communication – and, whether you agree with someone or not, it’s pretty damn pretentious to think we all need to dumb it down – posting only fluff – to the exclusion of the tough stuff – that which is real.
social media is a place for us all to share life, what fun things we are doing, what work we are undertaking, what our children and their children are up to. a happy-go-lucky place to remember birthdays and anniversaries. a place to cheer on your sports team or ask for chiropractic recommendations. a place to brag. you might wish this to be merely a peaceful community with no fraught issues, no debatable topics, no what-the-hell-is-happening posts. but – just as important in this online world as positive chitchat – social media is an opportunity to reach out and ask questions, reach across divides and learn, reach compassionately to others, acknowledge struggle and pain, sort to ways we might all be life-giving. life is the current cruel chaos happening right here right now AND everyone’s dogs, my friend. social media is not a quilt.
when life is relatively normal it may be all well and good to not stir the pot, to post the quintessentially charming things. quite lovely, actually.
but when life – in these united states – is completely out of kilter, and nothing you have posted even nods to the chaos that is ensuing, nothing you have posted even makes mention of your horror at the demolition of this country, nothing you have posted even touches on the cruelty that is happening in our country – which is also your country – it makes me wonder what cave it is into which you have stuck your head.
and then i am rapidly brought back to reality.
there are those of you who wanted this. and so the reason you haven’t said anything about being horrified is because you aren’t.
you wanted all this.
agenda and project intentions about which people are afraid and hurting, clinging to the last of their freedom and rights.
and you wanted this.
people in your families will soon feel the impact of all this, the impact of unconscionable authoritarian, extremist rule.
and you wanted this.
so just know that when you post the gollygee things you are posting as if life is normal and everything is totally ok – i am here knowing you wanted all this and that you are not sorry and that you weren’t willing to be factually informed and you can’t be bothered to even pretend to be compassionate.
when you post on social media as if life is normal, it doesn’t make it normal.
when you post on social media as if life is normal, know that my heart is broken.
reverse threading 