reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: backwards


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it should be banned. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

i hadn’t ever before cooked with bok choy.

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.”

because it IS a crime against humanity.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

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blue and red and white weep. [merely-a-thought monday]

the color that is most associated with freedom is blue. it represents vigilance, perseverance, justice, prosperity, peace, and patriotism.

and, yes, freedom.

in a horrifyingly regressive turn of events – strategized and intended – the supreme court has diminished the freedom of women in this country. we have traveled backwards decades upon decades upon decades. the panting of their victory lap pales in comparison to the collective gasp heard around the world as the united states thwarts its own growth toward equality, toward being a nation held up as an example respecting human freedom-for-all. with no backwards glance of remorse, these justices undermined fifty percent of this sea-to-shining-sea-this-land-is-your-land land.

and so, it is time to climb out of the quiet shells in which we try to peacefully reside and speak up, speak out, shatter the silence. we must hold those responsible who have struck down the rights of women to have autonomy over their bodies. we are on a downhill vector and the rights and freedoms of gender identity, sexual orientation, racial equality run neck and neck in the justice-extremist-whack-a-mole, justices holding hands, religious-patriarchal-supremacist stickytape gluing them together and eroding the separation of church and state they are sworn to uphold. what deity would support such reprehensible action? the color blue – the sky, peace, true justice – weeps. democracy cracking, a fragile idea failing.

“…o say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o’er the land of the free
and the home of the brave?…”

robins laid these blue eggs. birds. symbols of freedom. also of hope, renewal, rebirth.

blue. the color of freedom.

what color represents bravery?

oh yes. it’s red.

and then – white. purity. innocence.

red, white and blue.

perhaps they should change the flag too.

i’m thinking yellow.

the color of cowardice.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY


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backwards. [merely-a-thought monday]

maybe it was the glass of wine in my hand, but i doubt it.

we sat at the table in our sunroom, happy lights on, gazing into the inky blackness of the backyard. it was still rather early in the evening but, these days, dark happens early. it suddenly caught my eye and it made me laugh. the backwards “let the adventure begin” seemed just about right, right about now.

we bought ourselves this little wooden sign a few years ago now, for the littlehouse on washington island. it graced the table that looked out on the lake and was the opening line of our time with TPAC, a magical performing arts center on that tiny island. a treasured adventure. and then covid. we packed our sign into a bin and brought it back home.

it sat in the bin in the basement, quiet, for months or so, i guess. then we redid the sunroom…more plants, our table, a new rug, an old door on horses, happy lights, an old suitcase. a few more adventures later – and i went downstairs, seeking the sign.

it sits on the old door in front of the old suitcase that holds the old cd player and lost-man, who is a stuffed mountain goat that reminds us of an amazing hike our intrepid girl took us on – to lost man lake on independence pass, with exquisite high elevation views and tufts of mountain-goat-fur snagged on the branches of bushes along the trail.

“let the adventure begin” makes me smile every time i see it. for it has already begun. we are in the middle of it. covid and wrists and job loss and angst and incredible-joy-times and glasses of wine and dogdog moments and new work and questions and hikes and dancing and music and plans and tiny trips and big trips and grief and laughter and babies and water and cartoons and writing. the middle of it. no re-sets necessary. like the tide, it ebbs and flows, but it’s ever-present, this adventure. like john lennon said, “life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” while you are waiting. it’s right there.

when i was in junior high or maybe early high school i had to do a project for science class. i had this clock that, for some reason, ran backwards. a big round face, the second hand ran backwards, which pushed the minute hand backwards, which pushed the hour hand backwards. with a master bulova watchmaker as my dad, we collaborated on this mysterious phenomenon: time running backwards. we researched and experimented, asked lots of questions, tried to get the clock to go forwards. it never did. instead, we devised a new face for the clock. and we learned how to read the time as it ran backwards. it made us think and laugh and think more and, also, gave us an interesting perspective on time. it’s happening. whether it’s forwards or backwards, it’s marching on. we simply need to adjust and adapt. at dawn, in midday, at dusk, in the darkness.

it was particularly funny to me when this sign – “let the adventure begin” – was backwards in the window reflection. well, maybe not really funny. maybe just really, really wise.

it feels like it might have been an even-greater little sign painted that way.

*****

read DAVID’S thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY