we try to resist. these days it’s nearly impossible.
i mean, we don’t have a whole heckofalotta vices but these dang chips – well – we have succumbed.
we do try to avoid them by keeping them out of the house. if you don’t go to costco you can’t buy them. if you go to costco (a store we adore for their staunch support of diversity, equity and inclusion) but don’t costco-mosey and don’t go to the wall-o-chips, you can’t buy them. if you go to costco and actually buy them but don’t open the bag and leave it on the top shelf of the left side of the pantry in the kitchen, you can’t eat them.
yet, even with all these avoidance techniques, we have failed – numerous times – miserably. and then we think – eh – so what – it’s just a bag of chips! it’s not like a crime against humanity – which we can identify because we are seeing plenty of those these days.
so we eat chips.
my name is kerri and his name is david and we eat chips.
david, mark and i stood by the dyed harbor in the wind. mark commented that he did not have a painting of st patrick’s day green, rusty brown, cement beige. we told him that he did now. because we had made it so – as we stood there – “totally looks like a mark rothko,” we opined as we viewed the photograph i had just taken. mark laughed – in that other-dimension way we imagined. i reminded him of green and maroon – and my dedication to this painting at the milwaukee art museum. he was amused and agreed that emerald, rust and cement was – maybe – a worthy addition.
david just finished a piece he painted for me. it is stunning, both visually and emotionally. a really large canvas, it will find a home in my studio, where i can be reminded of the freedom – of space, of life, of voice, of love – it represents.
i have always wanted a horse and so he gave me one. this painting. and you can see – by the repose of my face – how undeniably happy it makes me, the peace it bestows, breathing the very air of all the universe.
it is said that mark rothko sought to make paintings that would bring people to tears. “i’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on.” as an artist, i cannot imagine any other reason to create other than to tap in, to elicit, evoke, to acknowledge human emotions.
when i stepped onto the floor of the basement – off the last wooden step – i stared at the painting in progress. it was potent for me. it was a painting of an arrival, of sorts. though David’s title is in dreams she rides wild horses, the reality for me is the wild horse of voice. it is the gallop of speech, the beginning of the release of silence, the horse i never yet had. i wept as i told him.
mark appeared suddenly, standing on the basement floor with me. he stepped under one of the studio spotlights and called over to d, “good work, robinson. way to make her cry.”
d looked surprised and glanced at me calling back, “thanks, rothko!” before i wrapped my grateful arms around him, “yeah, good work, robinson.”
we clearly need this. not just one horseshoe. two horseshoes. not in relief, but in iron. hanging over the entire country spilling good luck, positive energy and protection from evil over the whole nation. nothing else seems to be working.
honestly. it is freakish what is happening here. every single day i am stunned by the corruption and evil doings of this administration. every single day i am shocked by the cheering squad. every single day i am forced to reckon with the fact that people don’t care about the facts, that people don’t care about the evil or the corruption. every single day i am rocked to my core, grieving relationships that were dear to me but that place me or my very own children in peril.
i imagine many get what i feel.
if a horseshoe is supposed to bring good things, then – certainly – two will do the job.
we have one in the sunroom. it leans against the big ponytail palm on our plant stand. it used to be my sweet momma’s and it is upside down, supposedly catching all universe goodness for us here in our home. i’m hoping it’s still working; there are no low battery alerts, no alarm, no indicators of its potency or lack thereof. but there is belief. and maybe – just maybe – this rusty old horseshoe is keeping belief fresh and alive.
we surely need some talisman of better times, a way out of chaos, depravity and malfeasance, a generously compassionate way forward.
we commonly talk for our dogga. we talked for our babycat as well. we talk for wildlife in the woods. we talk for other drivers on the road. i talk for my toes. d talks for his knees. we pretty much animate anything.
including this veiled chameleon.
we rarely go to pet stores. but when we do go to a pet shop, it is with our hearts on our sleeves. this time the chameleon captured us.
i realize that he is being fed and watered (hopefully) properly and that his environment will be changed as he grows, but i couldn’t help but feel a sense of sadness as i watched him clawing at the glass of his terrarium.
as if he could understand what was happening in this chaotic world – sensing it perhaps – we stood with him, inches away, and interpreted the look on his face.
and in the strange way that all of us inhabitants of this earth somehow align, i was feelin’ it too. rejecting the idea that i was projecting my thoughts onto this small reptile, i told him that we were on the same page – with our shock, our dismay, our pointing fingers, our plea for a plan to make the chaos stop. we were one for these moments – cammy and me – and, in these same moments, i was reminded – once again – of how all the creatures – interconnected – human and critter – on this good earth could care about each other.
it’s been balmy the last couple days and we have been out on the trail, immersed in the beauty of the whole tapestry. i would bet that all of the people involved in the destruction of this country aren’t outside much. they have little to no perspective about how small they really are. somehow the almighty dollar has usurped any sense of camaraderie with the beings of the universe, somehow the climactic high of power has decimated their hearts and consciences. somehow they have lost it all while trying to seize it all.
we visited cammy again before we left the store. i whispered to him that i wouldn’t forget him. he whispered back the same. we exchanged a “what-now???” look that doubled as “get-me-outta-here”.
we walked toward the double doors that opened as we approached just as cammy went back to clawing the glass.
we spoke quietly to them as we hiked. they seemed to be everywhere that day…on the trail, in the brush, by the river. they watched us; we watched them. we told them they could trust us, that we would not hurt them in any way. they didn’t flee, instead, aware of us, grazing a bit, snuffling in the snow. it is my hope that they felt no danger from us. when we hiked on, they moseyed, unhurried, beautiful innocence graceful through the snowy woods.
no danger. it was not that long ago when we did not feel impending danger.
all that has changed. rapidly.
and suddenly, we are thrust into a country where all is at peril. we are standing and staring at the unchecked mob taking over our democracy, at the purely evil intention permeating the administration that is destroying every vestige of the american constitution.
we watched hgtv the other night. there was a couple looking for a house in north carolina, specifically in rocky mount – where martin luther king, jr first spoke his “i have a dream” speech. as they visited houses, they remarked excitedly about one, “this is the american dream!!”
i grimaced. for what – exactly – is now the american dream?
is it destroying the foundation upon which this country was built? is it the annihilation of civil rights, of freedoms, of the helping programs in this country? is it stripping opportunity-for-all in favor of opportunity-for-only-a-very-few? is it adding to the income of a few billionaires, while decimating the lives of billions of ordinary folks, undermining any stability they might have had? is it aligning with authoritarians around the world, ignoring long-time allies and neighbors? is it gleefully watching people die in wars, in famine, in disease while shaving aid so that the wealthiest among us might not participate in paying taxes? is it deporting millions of innocent people who have been seeking a better life, contributing to our communities? is it living inside – and capitulating to – the maniacal sickness in the soul-less minds of the new administration? is it standing by, silently applauding your own bigotry? what exactly is the american dream?
if you are not deeply embarrassed by what is happening in these un-united states, i have no idea what is in your heart.
we are all at risk. there is impending danger.
“every life is a march from innocence, through temptation, to virtue or vice.” (lyman abbott)
we are watching you – those of you who voted for this desecration of our country, for the scourge running the show.
sometimes – these days – it is simply his smile that keeps us grounded.
sometimes – these days – it is a belly-belly or a dogga kiss that helps us feel our feet, centered in our home.
sometimes – these days – it is his sensitivity to the tenor of the room that keeps us from getting too loud, too angry, too upset.
a few days ago i had a very hard day. i’m guessing i am not out of the ordinary; i’m guessing this is not unusual – these days.
i felt – particularly after my revelations from my call with my dear old friend from new york – that we were on a tiny island, out of balance.
we – like you, i’m sure – have been through so much in the last few years. and, i guess, because we have been coast-ers (d the west, me the east) – more easily candid, despite whatever others’ reactions are to our tales – woe, included – we have shared about them – with family, with friends, with whomever chooses to read our blogs.
but we have found that sharing our intense feelings can be disconcerting. there is most definitely this thing in this part of the land that dictates what you share. if you don’t wish to tell how you feel, you just simply ignore the question about how you feel. it’s a weird phenomenon. and frustrating. it is hard to be an open book when others don’t crack open their binding.
and so – the other day – outside of the pure constant stream of consciousness d and i share with each other – i was pining for shared deep conversation, for shared grief, for the shared pondering of unanswerable questions, unfathomable challenges. i did not want pity. i wanted two-way sharing, raw human interaction. i wanted to cry and scream – both. i did cry. watching dogga watch me prevented me from screaming.
it feels absolute that we need to be in this chaos together. we need to join together in like-mindedness and push back against the continued takeover of our country. we need to share the gut-wrenching sorrow of losing family and friends to this pervasive illness of extremism. we need to share our worries about our future and the future of our children and our children’s children.
bottom line? we need to talk. because actually talking about it all doesn’t make it worse. it quite possibly helps. you know, the meeting-together, the walking-in-another’s-shoes thing, the heartfelt compassion, the reality check, the let’s-sort-this-together, the we-are-here-for-you. the two-way street.
it makes me absolutely crazy when people act like nothing is happening. i want to beg, “open your eyes! we need to talk about this!”
but – instead – there are a few we share with, a few we trust with our deepest musings, our biggest fears, the trauma we are all enduring, what is really happening in our very own personal lives. the rest – like many – we filter.
and in that very short list of whole-heart-sharers, dogga is one of them. he holds things in confidence and we can always count on him to react emotionally and with – seeming – empathy. like he gets it.
and then he smiles his getting-older smile at us – holding our hearts and reminding us that his unconditional love is unconditional.
time after time he saves the day. even in these days. every single day.
it’s not just because i am prone to motion sickness; it is magical to look out the window at the earth passing below us. and now, the window next to me looked cracked, as tiny droplets skirted across. so much to look at in lieu of staring at a tablet or screen.
i am the geek taking pictures out the window of the plane – as if it was my first time flying.
but i don’t care. i take pictures anyway.
a few days ago i spent over two hours on the phone with an old friend i hadn’t spoken with for – if i’m remembering correctly – over four decades. in that strange way that you can pick up where you left off – despite the fact that there are blanks spanning decades – it felt like we had just danced the night away together, laughing and talking, at one of the discos on long island… just like we did back in the day.
she and i met at college and were instantly friends. i was pretty naive back then, but she had a savvy i could draw from and we had many adventures together.
it was a joy to be on the phone together again – i remember hours tethered to the wall, making plans or discussing crushes. this time i wandered around the house, chatting and trying to picture her now – after so much life had gone by.
and i heard my voice change. suddenly, there it was. the new york accent, back. it doesn’t take much – i am impressionable with others’ voices. the kiddos used to know when i had just talked to my nashville producer – i’d be drawling afterwards. so, long island came roaring back and we interrupted each other with abandon, punctuating our conversation with much laughter.
and there was this. this candor i remember, a not-beating-around-the-bush-ness – a bluntness – an assertiveness – that is visceral for me. i could feel it bubbling up, cracking through my learned midwest reservedness, my keeping-the-peace-ness.
“this used to be me,” i thought.
i – admittedly – have a whole bunch of leftover newyorkness in me. but much of it has been tempered by life in places outside of the northeast. it is pretty much necessary for survival – and for friendships outside of a place left behind, where conversation is more open, more sharing, more – well – raw.
it didn’t take much time to crack through to that place, shifting to this-doesn’t-need-to-be-polite, to this-doesn’t-need-to-be-filtered. i jumped back into a conversation where we – without words – assumed the other was a mature adult, sharing intimate details and what-could-feel-like risky stories with each other, instead of accommodating the other’s comfort level.
it was incredibly refreshing.
when i got off the phone i realized that i missed this. the cracked veneer – the truth of life – minus the filtering, minus the concern about judgment, minus storytelling sans the sordid details, the guts, the ugly as well as the pretty.
i missed the real-real. i missed the interrupting. i missed the accent. i missed the new yorker in me.
i shared snippets of our call with d, laughing at my slowly-shifting-back voice. i felt different.
“i’m no mary poppins,” my girlfriend said on the phone.
aware that i was thinking about how the midwest might feel about admitting one was not at-every-moment ‘too good to be true’, i proudly answered, “nope. neither am i.”
those cracks. the kintsugi. damaged and filled with tears and laughter, hopes and dreams and disappointments. truths and failings and forgiveness and grace.
and always at least one little spot that is not perfect, that is left open – where spirit can enter.
each time we returned to our airbnb west of aspen we turned it on. the salt lamp seemed a beacon, warm light welcoming us. i don’t know if it was actually emitting any goodness – as they are said to – but it sure felt like it.
we have a salt lamp in each of our studios. they glow in those spaces and, whether or not they are scientifically proven to be goodness-in-a-lamp, they are soothing to us.
my studio is clean now. i removed a desk and all the extra stuff that was cluttering up the space, all the relics of jobs or times that felt negative. i have yet to go through the closet where there are a couple file cabinets of music, but the space – as i walk in – is a completely different place than it had been and every day i light my salt lamp.
but the miso potsticker soup called for it, so game on. we purchased baby bok choy and set about making a big stock pot.
it is a beautiful leafy vegetable, photogenic. and much simpler to use in a recipe than i thought. the new recipe opened up ideas – as we cooked together – for other ingredients we might add, to other recipes we might try. that is the beauty of trying new things. new begets new.
the fewest short months ago, we co-opted the phrase “we’re not going back” made popular by kamala and tim. we both felt passionately about not going back, but instead moving forward, our land and its people becoming a more perfect union, learning more, experiencing more. we were excited about the possibilities that lay in front of us – all of us – excited to think about the potential of a country that had so much potential. like our bok choy joy, we were eager to try new things.
instead, the pall that is settling over this country is everything BUT that. suddenly, we are being thrust backwards, hurled around into the ugliest times that are arriving with each sign of the sharpie. it is beyond incomprehensible to grok why anyone would want this.
as we trimmed the bok choy stem and divided the bundle i thought about all the canned vegetables i had eaten back-in-the-day before frozen vegetables in the days before buying fresh. i don’t think i had ever had fresh asparagus before the early eighties. i had no idea what i had been missing, no idea whatsoever.
cooking with canned asparagus – as I would expect it would be with canned bok choy – is narrow and colorless and bleak. quoting from reddit – “asparagus from a can should be banned as a crime against humanity.” (bellasantiago1975)
co-opting THAT expression now, i’d adapt it to a far greater-reaching, far more ominously perilous outcome than we might imagine: “going back should be banned as a crime against humanity.”
reverse threading 