the neverending havoc, the abject cruelty, the malignant narcissism, the discarding of rights, the disrespect of humanity, the dismantling of democracy – it all leaves me nauseated.
the scars will run deep upon the land. profound, weeping scars.
and where do we-the-people go from here?
“every day just gets a little shorter, don’t you think?/take a look around you, and you’ll see just what i mean/people got to come together, not just out of fear…
where do we go/where do we go/where do we go from here?
try to find a better place, but soon it’s all the same/what you thought was a paradise is not just what it seemed/the more i look around i find the more i have to fear
where do we go/where do we go/where do we go from here?
no matter how many fresnels, how many gels, how many follow spots, how many tracks, how much confetti, how many bubbles, how many furries – it does not match the energy in the giant pavilion as it built through their performance.
our son and his musical EDM duo partner aced their set – their music setting the heartbeat – and, from a new vantage point in the middle of the crowd, it was sheer joy to watch.
PRIDE milwaukee was a celebration of freedom – freedom to respectfully love whomever you choose to love. there is nothing like being embraced and encouraged by a festival-sized crowd to be whoever you are. it’s like there was a mash-up of the words of cher’s “believe” and marlo thomas’ “free to be” ringing in my ears. empowering. tolerance.
and i stood in the middle of all of these thousands of people – all just being who they are, all dancing and laughing and hugging and feeling in their skin – wondering how anyone can reject acceptance, how anyone can squelch love and draw parameters, how anyone can vote against LGBTQ rights and freedoms, how anyone can wish to instill fear in a community, how anyone can righteously think they are above others.
i was proud to be at PRIDE.
one of our son’s friends said, “you are such supportive parents.”. i thought to myself – wow – that’s redundancy at its best – “supportive” and “parents”. aren’t they one and the same?
yes, i was proud to be at PRIDE.
on saturday night, surrounded by thousands of others, i danced with my hands to the sky, grateful to be here in this community of people loving people, granting each other the freedom to be, grateful to choose to be a mom who was there.
and then, the reality of right-now crept in.
and i thought about the peril part. the danger of this precipice between democratic freedom and autocratic elimination of rights, of silencing LGBTQ, of the denial of acceptance and empowerment and support.
and i thought of the deplorable act of voting for this abhorrent administration – against family members or friends or people in one’s own community.
i thought about ALL the cruel policies, sweeping up and discarding in the name of xenophobia and racism, banning rights, freedoms, hotlines to help, books, HIV/AIDS resources in the name of homophobia, gleefully destroying healthcare, food security, assistance in the name of oligarch wealth. it’s sickening.
“there’s a land that i see/where the children are free/and i say it ain’t far to this land from where we are/take my hand, come with me/where the children are free/come with me, take my hand, and we’ll live
in a land where the river runs free/in a land through the green country/in a land to a shining see/and you and me are free to be/you and me
every boy in this land grows to be his own man/in this land, every girl grows to be her own woman/take my hand, come with me/where the children are free/come with me, take my hand, and we’ll run
to a land where the river runs free/to a land through the green country/to a land to a shining sea/to a land where the horses run free/to a land where the children are free
and you and me are free to be/and you and me are free to be/and you are me are free to be you and me” (1972…free to be…you and me – stephen lawrence/bruce hart)
and, astonished at the speed at which evil takes over, i wondered: where did this land go?
it captured my attention – not only because it was visually interesting, but maybe also because it was the day after the hands-off protest we had attended.
the vine aggressively climbing up this tree reminded me of a snake – like a boa constrictor – winding, wrapping, attempting to suffocate its prey.
and that reminded me – merely a hop, skip and a jump away in my mind – of what is happening in this country right now.
we are being suffocated.
in the middle of the noise, the middle of the reeling, the middle of hideous stories, unthinkable images, the blah-blah-blah of the corrupt, walking in the sickness of this leadership, there is an insidious vine wrapping its way around the throat of democracy.
and – it is likely the quietest parts about which we should be most angst-ridden.
for while all the hoopla is going on, while we are participating in their shell-game, while there are too many fires to extinguish, they are deftly filling the gaps of what they are suffocating-to-death with the deranged and dangerous dreams of power and control.
and before we know it, the beautifully diverse american family tree that had stood so steadfastly in the forest will be overshadowed by the choking vine of autocracy, the darkness of fascism, stifling adversity. democracy uprooted and smothered.
as i pass by the vined tree in the woods – just off the narrow trail – i realize there is much to be done.
we must eradicate the vines, remove the roots and prevent regrowth – all while minimizing damage to the tree. and we must be vigilant, watching for any new vines that emerge from the dirt.
when the twenty-one gun salute echoed in the muggy florida air, i had the shivers. my sweet poppo was gone and nothing would ever be the same.
we were at the national cemetery in bushnell, gathered under a portico, torrential rain on and off. my sweet momma was both heartbroken and stalwart. we all lingered before it was time to drive back and celebrate my dad’s life. it is just a month and a half shy of thirteen years ago.
the pride that i felt – with patriot guard riders leading our way to this honorable cemetery – was something i recognized. it came from a feeling of stability, living in a relatively steady democracy and honoring this man – my dad – who had valiantly fought for that very premise – democracy over fascism, the populace over authoritarianism. barack obama was president and i did not read the news every single day expecting chaos to reign or nationwide or global disaster to be absolutely imminent. i rested assured that the people elected were intelligent, honest, respectful, compassionately decent people of the utmost integrity who had others around them with the same virtuous qualities. i was not panicking. my daddy had died and i could be totally present with his sending-off and present in my grief, the grief i shared with my family. i assumed that – alongside any desire i might have to be involved in day-to-day politics – i could also sit back and trust that – as a citizen – i was being represented by someone who had a moral compass.
i thought that would just be there – always – the strength, freedom, courage, the ideals of liberty and the unity of the states of this country. i believed that the spirit of this nation – the immortality of it as depicted by the american bald eagle – would always prevail.
fast forward.
2025.
now – more than ever – i see that tomorrow’s sky is not just there. we are fearful of losing it all…every last bit of this country’s democracy.
the soaring eagle that dipped and swooped over us on the trail – time and again – gave me the shivers just like the twenty-one gun salute did. i hoped it was some sort of positive sign from the universe, maybe even from my dad.
my sweet poppo is weeping somewhere, knowing that his sacrifices – his time as a world war II airman and as a prisoner of war, his injuries, his post-traumatic trauma – may not endure this time in our nation. it crushes me to think of his utter disillusioned disappointment.
and then I hear him, “do you think the rain’ll hurt the rhubarb?”
tens of thousands of people are attending their rallies. for good reason. bernie and aoc are speaking to the heart of america. they are the shining light – that glimmer you can see through the gap in the inosculated trees. their message to hard-working middle class america is balm for people exhausted-by-the-twisted-depraved-bullshit-warp-of-oligarchy, people like us.
we sat in the adirondack chairs in waning sun and listened to bernie sanders as he spoke. his words were – to me – like the sound of birds early in the sunrise or the wind chimes out back in a gentle breeze. direct to our hearts, we found ourselves hopeful, perhaps for no other reason than they “got it”. there is another way; there is sense instead of chaos.
it was like stepping outside the sickness foisted upon this country.
we are merely two days away from the possibility of an intensely corrupt chess move from the current just-itching-to-be-dictator administration – deliberately planned, contrived and soon-to-be-executed. the number of people involved in or supporting this evil is overwhelming. up close now, it makes me simultaneously nauseous and breathless.
i stood on the trail, gazing through the space in the trees – trying to see clearly. i attempted to get my camera to focus on what was beyond instead of rough tree bark, a different depth of field. it couldn’t. i could see light and color in the slit, but it was blurry, overtaken by the trees in the forefront.
but there’s something else out there, something better, something beyond what’s on deck now.
we need to focus on that, and diligently seek out that hope, that color, that light.
i found the foam core board in the attic while i was trying not to step in between the floor joists. i was carefully looking for something in a box, placing my socked feet on the old piece of paneling that covers a small part of this tiny room under the rafters. leaning up against the wall and straddling two joists was this cellophane-wrapped blank foam core. making a mental note that it was there, i backed out of the attic – because turning around while bending over – which is necessary – bending over, that is – is almost an impossibility. one does not want to mistakenly place one’s foot through the plaster ceiling of the living room below. (this, by the way, is the reason i go into the attic rather than sending d…just in case any foot goes through the ceiling…i’d rather it be mine….for obvious reasons.)
when we heard of the protest early this month i went back up into the attic and retrieved the foam core, dusted it off and got ready to write on it.
which brings me to my question.
if you had a piece of foam core and one of those really thick intensely smelly magic markers, what message would you write?
because it is time to speak up. way past time.
who are you? what does your heart say? what does your conscience say? what kind of america do you want? what kind of america would you like to pass on to your children and grandchildren?
is it a supportive country that generously embraces the unlimited potentiality of its melting pot of different people? or is it a cruel isolated land where every evil move hinges on how it benefits only the wealthiest and the extremists among us, marginalizing the rest?
are you rah-rah-ing the fall of democracy? or are you stunned beyond belief that we are facing authoritarianism in this country – literally i’s-dotted-t’s-crossed – in the matter of a few days?
the tree lit up as the sun began to sink. oranges, reds, it was golden, the moon next to it, hanging out in the late just-sprang-forward afternoon sky.
we were sitting on the deck in our adirondack chairs – on an unexpected beautiful, warm day. it was the first time we sat outside in the sun since november.
on the same day, we took a hike in the woods, our spirits lifting with each step taken without cold wind in our faces. though we hike on very cold days with very cold winds, this was a glorious day. golden, for sure.
and nature is the only essence with which to credit this golden day. nothing else. no one else.
though the White House et al credit themselves with “the golden age of america [is here]” it is beyond delusional and a disgusting display of fealty from the capitulating folks this prez placed into powerful positions. stripping rights, freedoms, safety from the populace, putting the economy into chaos, hunting down immigrants to whisk away into oblivion, cutting helping programs that aid people so that 1% might get richer, turning our nation into a pariah no longer trusted by the world…newsflash…this is not the golden age.
we are not the elite. we are those people who wish to collect social security, who wish to have healthcare through medicare or the affordable care act, who wish to afford groceries and housing, utilities and upkeep, who wish to have income-based repayment plans for the criminally predatory decades-long student loans that have been reigning our finances, who wish to have economic stability, who wish to travel without fear of stigma, who wish to live in a country with principles based on equality and compassion, who wish our gay adult son and our childbearingyears daughter to have rights and freedoms for their own decision-making about their relationships, their health, their bodies, any children they may or may not choose to have. i’ve said it before – we are the masses. we feel this.
but, just as the moment when an olympic athlete climbs atop a podium to collect a gold medal for this country and you can feel it down to your toes, we can also feel all the vile program cuts that hurt others, the deliberate and aggressive bigotry directed at others, the loss of trust, security, and safety, the absolute betrayal of members of the populace by this cruel administration. it is the darkest of times – for each of us, for this country. light is sinking lower, deep into the horizon. we are heading into the sunless rule of authoritarianism.
it is not just what affects us that affects us.
so how do we collectively influence the actual color of these days? how do we actually golden up these times – this “age” – for real? what magic wand do we wield as a people, together? what steps – pushing back – do we take – for those we love and – in the biggest and most inclusive picture of this nation and this world – for people who will never know who we are?
maybe our collective empathy and our raised voices will help. every step we take forward – speaking up, speaking out – even against the coldest of winds – is a step – a goldening step – taken for democracy.
we were not the only ones to end the week with an entire bag of cape cod chips and a bottle of wine. it’s somehow reassuring to know we were not alone.
i know exhaustion is dangerous. it’s also the truth. one cannot help but be bone-and-heart-weary in the wake of the scripted chaos that has been this very week in american history.
and then i wonder what THEY see happening….those who intentionally voted for this wreaking-of-havoc.
yesterday we watched a jordan klepper video where he interviewed the new administration’s supporters outside at the national mall in dc, people who had expected to actually view the inauguration in real life. he showed photographs of the insurrection to these diehards and asked if they agreed with the pardons that these insurrectionists had just received. they did – they agreed – these same people who were thrilled – giddy, even – to hear that the garbage truck their redeemer sat in was literally in town. priorities and perspective – and the rule of law – are – apparently – not a real thing here.
but there was one man who jordan interviewed who stated that he had not seen the images he was being shown – images of cruel and absolute violence at the capitol. when pressed about that, he responded that he guessed that the media he watched had not shown those images. when asked if he watched the January 6 hearings, he replied no and then – drumroll, please – he said these words, “that’s on me.”
and so – for those people who are merely foxing it through life – with side jaunts to their facebook flat-friends – i wonder what you are seeing. because it sure doesn’t seem like you are seeing the sh*t that is really happening.
and – because you didn’t take the time to read anything about the agenda of project 2025 or fact-check the clearly-twisted “clean-slate” of your new president or even bother to check in with any sense of moral compass in your own heart (or do you really feel this much hatred??!!!) – you have contributed to the demolition of decency that has already taken place, you are complicit in all that is to come, you have installed a cadre of authoritarianism that the generation before us fought valiantly against.
the monday-morning-armchair-quarterbacking is over the top. there is no one excuse for these election results. to be real, there cannot be enough reasons for the despicable – what the majority of voters voted for.
in the aftermath – afforded from even little to no doom-scrolling that highlights the absolute tsunami of finger-pointing, blaming, history-touting, policy-pummeling, we now see that the maga-voters voting for all the maga-sh*t did not quite understand what the maga-candidate’s maga-agenda really meant.
many of them had tuned into fox news where they learned – and clearly believed – things like people were eating other people’s dogs and cats and you could send your child to school and they would arrive home the opposite sex.
and, worst of all, they poo-pooed any talk of the abject cruelties of project 2025, jumping on the he-doesn’t-really-mean-that-he-wouldn’t-really-do-that bandwagon.
weren’t they surprised when – post-election – all the maga-cronies paused very few milliseconds and posted what would amount to a naa-naa-nah-naa-naa, stating that it was the actual agenda all along.
adding fuel to the what-the-hell fire, “…catherine rampell and youyou zhou (washington post) showed before the election that voters overwhelmingly preferred harris’s policies to trump’s if they didn’t know which candidate proposed them.” (heather cox richardson – american historian, professor of history – boston college, previously MIT, university of massachusetts amherst )
if you don’t fact-check, if you don’t ask questions, if you don’t care about any potential work in the aisle or if the country’s democracy could be decimated, if you don’t worry your little head about character or details of a candidate’s experience or qualifications or with whom they choose to surround themselves, you have chosen to be a voter voting on whatever your rage is, you have voted to follow the lemmings off the cliff.
amanda marcotte (senior politics writer – salon) opined, “a lot of voters are profoundly ignorant. more so than in the past.” ya think??
so, yeah. now what?
i’m going to clean out my closet, take a hike, hydrate and try to breathe.
“you are who you elect.” (michael ramirez – the washington post )
dismay doesn’t begin to describe it. devastated doesn’t begin to describe it.
the betrayal of any goodness is rampant. over half of this country voted for it. whatever your flagship policy issue was – when you stepped up to that voting booth – it should have absolutely paled in comparison to the potential of the cruelty that is now coming, the cruelty you chose.
in your vote you have eliminated all options for meeting in the aisle, for affording change that would have addressed your concerns as well as mine. in your vote you have forever undermined the constitution of this country, undermined democracy, paving the way for authoritarianism, people gleeful to have absolute power and control. in your vote you have done away with – trampled – the rights of women, of minorities, of the LGBTQ community. in your vote you have decimated healthcare, social security, medicare, education. in your vote you, who have descended from immigrants, gallingly voted to remigrate the country into whiteness, into extreme nationalism. in your vote you have opted to give your complicit nod to the alignment of this country with dictators and tyrants around the world. in your vote you have doomed any hope for our physical planet. in your vote you have thrust this country backwards.
but silly me. why would i spell out what your vote meant? you already knew. and you didn’t care.
i did not know your heart was quite this cold. i am horrified. i fear i no longer know you.
reverse threading 