i can’t think of a better subtitle: if it’s not one weird thing, it’s another.
in these ‘new’ days of gettin’-a-teeny-weeny-bit-older we’re thinkin’ we need a good measure of flexibility. or at least a good sense of humor. “goin’ with the flow” is kind of an understatement.
we wake up and check in with each other over coffee…did you sleep/are your ears ringing/how’s your neck/back/hip/knee/shoulder/pinky toe/do you feel achy/why do we keep waking up at 4??
dogga patiently listens at the end of the bed. he knows our list o’ woes will stop soon and we’ll joyfully have breakfast – which means he gets the treat of bites of potato. he’s familiar with our waking-up process and knows we actually do wake up happy most of the time and – so far – we are pretty good at fording the ever-raging river of … ummm … aging.
nevertheless, it does seem to be an increasingly weird list.
“live life as if everything is rigged in your favour.” (rumi)
it’s when you go back – look at things in retrospect – that you are able to grok it. tiny details that had to align, mistakes and successes you experienced, things you regret and things you celebrate, things that brought you huge satisfaction and things that brought you great disappointment, things you found and things you lost – all were present in the story – to bring you here.
and you look back and realize that in all the positive, the universe held you – skimming the waves, floating with elation, so sure of the moment and yourself.
and you look back and realize that in all the negative, the universe held you – treading water, shaken, downtrodden, so unsure of the moment and yourself.
and, if you are fair, you notice that you are mostly steady. any wobble you carry from back then – whenever back then was – has eased up a bit. you are more resilient than you knew. you notice your grace, your balance, your deliberate, unceasing step-by-step.
and even on days when you are under great pressure – under the weight of everything you can still see in the rearview mirror, everything that worries you ahead – there are reminders of your strength.
this wisp felt like the touch of an angel’s wing. i don’t know which angel – there are many beloveds who are now angels – they have presence in some other plane; they are just over there, just on the other side, watching.
i suppose that from that place they can see that with which we struggle, that with which i struggle. but, having experienced both life and death, they are filled with perspective. and so i imagine them tossing the dice or rock-paper-scissors-ing to see whose turn it is, whose turn to summon up a cloud.
and then, whosever-turn-it-is waves their arm through the blueness of sky gathering up tiny sparkling glittered molecules – like mica – and the wisp forms, floating off to find me – knowing that i notice such things.
and i look up in the moment it happens by. and feel reassured.
right now i am here. right now i am alive. right now i am.
everything must surely be rigged in my favour after all.
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***PLEASE NOTE: Both David and I are having WORDPRESS issues so today’s blogposts may look a little funky. Hoping we can resolve these tech issues soon. Thanks for your patience and – mostly – thanks for reading. xoxo
tuesday i was unnerved. it started small – with a reminder from and an uneasiness about people and the surprising ways they turn on others. it grew as i re-read my recents posts of the last few days, an ache in my heart. it grew even larger as we read news articles and studied sites of information. it grew as i watched youtube videos and read fact-checked information.
“these moments left me feeling worried and afraid, realizing what we stood to lose and how easily it could happen.”(*michelle obama – the light we carry)
at the end of the day, i was cranky at david who was cranky back and i wanted to scream … at something, at someone.
i didn’t scream. instead, i wept.
i had lost the day – this beautiful, humid, hot summer day – the only one i would get on july 9th 2024. “but, but…,” my brain interrupts, wanting to justify the loss.
and – in every critical-thinking way, i would agree with my brain – there is so much that is ugly and we have much to lose in this hot mess of a country. it could easily happen. and i am worried and afraid.
in a life-way though? i know i lost the day. all of it. and in the usual good rhythm of our time together, we had lost our day together.
the tide comes in. the tide goes out. it is certain.
and so, we try to deliberately hyper-focus on here and now. we try to focus on our breathing. we try to hold hands and walk slow.
we also try to do the best we can to be aware, to educate ourselves, to speak up and speak out, to ask questions, to try and understand what is happening, what could happen – differentiate between what is real and what is fictitious, what is terrifying potential and what is propagandized narrative.
i am worried and afraid.
and the tide comes in. and the tide goes out. that is certain.
*****
(*though that is not the context of michelle’s words in the above quote, their relevance struck me as i began to read her book today.)
i hadn’t seen a pink daylily before. but one of our neighbors along the lakefront has a few in their garden. beautiful! i looked it up. i did not know there were so many varieties. the things you learn…
our front yard has come a long way. there is a lawn now, with many thanks to our dear grassking. all along the old brick wall are orange daylilies. along the side fence in the backyard are yellow daylilies. and along the west fence are maroon daylilies. they all came from our friend sally’s garden – she had a few too many and, years ago, we wheelbarrowed a bunch from her house to ours. clearly they love it here. they have multiplied and filled out the gardens. they are simple flowers, nothing fancy. but we aren’t too fancy ourselves, so it seems fitting.
these are stalwart flowers, particularly the ones along the front wall. they had much upheaval during the great water line replacement project. they prevailed – even in the midst of the chaos that followed – our yard ripped up and salad-tossed with all kinds of excavated and project debris. we transplanted them as we reconfigured the garden along the wall. they stuck it out. we seeded and fertilized and watered and tended the grass. we didn’t pay that much attention to the plants, assuming we might lose them as they also took the brunt of the big equipment. but the low-maintenance daylilies kept on keeping on. and now, their abundance is stunning.
i’ve tried fancier flowers. but they have stubbornly not cooperated. it’s like our yard is telling us – no,no…these…these grasses, these daylilies, this hydrangea, these ferns…these are good…these are right.
there is a simplicity.
and there is a steadfastness.
and the daylilies stand now – side by side – with the ever-stunning peonies out back. they languish next to graceful grasses and across the yard from the tall ferns. along with wild geranium they frame barney and the chippie condo this old piano has become.
and they rock and roll in front of the old brick wall – a mass of orange and green.
even in the midst of chaos, the midst of upheaval, the midst of the unexpected, the midst of the disappointing, these simple flowers have been tolerantly intrepid. they have been resilient. in tutti, they have withstood and they have come back healthier, more robust, reverberant.
because beauty is not quiet. it always finds a way through the messy.
i just scrolled past a winnie the pooh meme. “what day is it?” asked pooh. “it’s today,” squeaked piglet. “my favorite day,” said pooh.
we went back.
we bushwhacked through the overgrown woodsy area to make our way under the big fallen branch and onto the beach. “our special beach” we called it. we couldn’t wait to get there – to this spot of sand and pebbled shoreline that rarely had any visitors.
we emerged from under the big fallen branch and stepped onto the sandy overlook to see a beach full of people, full of jetskis and motorized rafts, boats anchored in the water, waverunners zooming in and out of the new jettied cove.
wow.
we stood for a moment, taking it all in.
for this was the place we went to for quiet. this was the place we searched for hagstones. this was the place we sat on big pieces of wild driftwood, watching the waves come in, the waves retreat. the place to reflect, sort, breathe.
we stood for a few more moments, trying to grok it, decide what to do.
we took a walk on the shore where the waves meet the sand. it was clear a lot of work had been done on this beach. and we had to agree that it was truly beautiful, even in its changed state. we walked south and then back north. and we found that – all along – there was a parking lot that led to the beach. all along there was an easier way in. all along there was access. go figure.
as we walked south, with the waves lapping our feet – in the exquisite way that feels on a soft sandy beach – we remembered the other days we had spent there. beautiful, peaceful days. we talked about how grateful we were for those days.
and then we walked north.
we took the road past the marina and stepped onto the boardwalk. we hadn’t ever gone this way before.
the boardwalk wound its way past all the slips, around the yacht club, past the charters. on a most gorgeous day we delighted in this new place to stroll. the sting of the busy-ness of the beach faded and we planned on returning to “our beach” later – maybe a late evening, maybe in september. in the meanwhile, this stroll was the loveliest thing.
“what day is it?” i asked david, a little lost in time having been under the weather for over a week and just starting to feel better.
we overheard a conversation. a few teenage girls were walking together in the park, just ahead of us on the sidewalk. one turned to the other – in the middle of telling a story about a boy – and said, emphatically, that she told him, “i don’t know you like that.”
i texted it to myself, not because her specific boy-story was relevant to me in the moment, but because her statement was.
“i don’t know you like that.”
in these troubled and highly-charged times, it feels like a repeating chorus.
there are repeating-choruses – the kinds that are used to raise the spirit of a group of people together. repeating-choruses create shape, underscore the theme, the hook, or the important message. they encourage singing along. think about queen’s we will rockyou or neil diamond’s sweet caroline or elton john’s your song, the beatles’ let it be. if you’ve ever been in a concert with everyone singing one of those songs, you know how powerful voices raised together are.
and then there are repeating choruses – the kinds that are used to raise the ire of a group of people together. those repeating-choruses also create shape. they are choruses of untruths, choruses of ferocity, choruses of bandwagon, choruses for ‘rushees’ rushing to get into an elite group to be popular, rallying choruses that make angry people part of a club. watching the insurrection in horror – live on television – with everyone chanting and screaming – no examples needed – gives you an idea of how powerful voices raised together are.
“i don’t know you like that” is the chorus that plays over and over in my mind. over and over i am aghast at the commentary of people – people i don’t know, people with whom i am acquainted, people i am friends with, people who are dear to me. it is personally devastating to see or hear their political positioning, as they sing repeated praises of what can only be interpreted as evil intent, and know what – and who – they are willing to sacrifice. what of those who will be marginalized, those who will be diminished, those whose lives will be upended, those who will not have freedoms promised to them, those they are supposed to love? i want to implore: but wait!! how is this possible? i don’t know you like that! i don’t know your good heart like that!
and media continues to beat the drum of propaganda. the ludicrous spreads. the people are gaslighted. and the choruses build.
the teenage girl in the park was clear. insisting “i don’t know you like that” dissuaded the boy and all of his attempts to spend time with her. we know this because we heard her story. it was simple. he had ill intent. she pushed back.
what will dissuade people from all the false narrative, the misinformation? what will reveal to them the cruel hidden-agenda-in-plain-view – the real plan for this nation that they are avowing with a maga vote for this? what will make those motives abundantly clear? what will make people less rabidly reactive, more discerning? what will make them listen, hear the truth? what will make them push back against this evil?
does it matter that i feel flabbergasted – shocked, really – and heartbrokenly distraught – by your apparent lack of concern for my gay son and his future, my daughter’s womanhood, every single “red and yellow, black and white” of any age, gender, orientation, socioeconomic status, religion, your lack of dedication to truth, justice, democracy?
the fireworks were exploding everywhere. all over the neighborhood. up-close-and-personal in the yard riiiight behind us. down the street. around the corner. e-ver-y-where.
but we survived.
dogga is frightened by fireworks. and it is unfortunate that the fourth of july is his birthday, which makes it seem unusually wrong for him to be frightened.
we made absolutely no plans. we knew we needed to be there for him. we turned on the noisy window air conditioner in the dining room and tried to help him settle in. but they were ridiculously loud – particularly from neighbors who – each year – set them off right behind our backyard.
so we brought him into the kitchen with us, closed all the gates and pulled out the rummikub game.
and somehow – miraculously – that did the trick. he settled down – no longer in charge – and, even though we could still hear them pow-pow-powing all around us, he went to sleep. i can’t tell you how relieved we were that he was relaxed.
just like his first impulse is to protect us, so is ours to protect him.
we love our dogga. but i guess you already know that.
it is a period of lost horizon. right and left, groups of peoples are being marginalized. right and left, rights are being stripped. right and left, the insinuation – no, the out-and-out statement – of violence is threatened. right and left, the environment is suffering. right and left, the clouds are ever closer to the horizon. they are sinking down nearer where the sky meets the ground. the sun is not getting in. truth is cloaked in agenda. the experiment is suffocating. right and left.
and what will be left when the fog lifts?
in the backyards of this country, in the middle of hot dogs and potato salad and apple pie, red, white and blue bandanas and sparklers in the chubby hands of small children, are we being at all vigilant about clearing the fog? are we discerning? are we observing and weighing and thinking-it-through? are we casually watching fireworks that celebrate the independence we stand to lose? are we aware? are we fogged in?
it is a watershed time. right and left. all the way around.
this is not just about us. this is about all those who follow.
when you gaze at your grandson, your granddaughter, do you ponder his or her life moving forward?
do you ponder if they will understand – will respect – that this america was built on the diversity of its people?
do you ponder if they will have choices, if she will have autonomy over her body?
do you ponder if they will have access to social programs – like public schools, access to welfare, medicaid, social security, medicare – like you do?
do you ponder if they will live in a climate environment that is healthy, that is sustaining, that is replenishing, that is balanced?
do you ponder what they will learn about history in school? will it be real history or some edited abdicating version of history? from where will they draw wisdom?
do you ponder if they will hold a sense of gratitude for the veterans of this country – their great-grandparents, their grandparents, their parents, possibly themselves – for fighting for the independence of this united states of america, for fighting for the integrity of the constitution?
do you ponder if they will be able – to be free and welcome – to move about in the whole wide world, to pursue dreams, to love whomever they wish?
do you ponder if their world will be equitable for all people, all genders, all orientations, all races, all economic statuses, all worshippers, all agnostics, all atheists?
do you ponder the life of your grandson or granddaughter should he or she be gay? a woman? a person of color? poor? not christian?
do you ponder if they – as all men and women – with no exceptions – will be held accountable for misdeeds, will be held to the values and the law in this land of the free and the brave?
do you ponder if they will experience aggression – here at “home” – at the highest level?
do you ponder if they will live in a peaceful world or a darkly dangerous world, a world of main streets and neighborhood grocery stores and festivals and schools and religious institutions with concealed automatic weapons, a world ravaged with war, a world of hatred, a world built instead on nationalism and extremism?
what – exactly – is your definition of freedom? is it a manifesto – “project 2025” – built on a governing system sans checks and balances – a transitional template to tyranny? have you read these “promises” of “change”?
have you truly done a deep dive into what could happen – in this country – the one with spacious skies and amber waves of grain?
what do the fireworks symbolize?
are you circumspect at all about what will be there when the fog lifts?
and, in really defining who you are – now, in the partisan sense of the words “right” and “left” – will you turn right or turn left?
will you truly – truly – evaluate all that is at stake?
will you stop listening to the screaming voices and clear the fog and sort to what is really being said?
will you look beyond the hype and the surge of adrenaline and the shot of popularity that comes from expressing anger and riding the bandwagon?
will you read, research, ask questions, seek truth?
will you be responsible? will you be a responsible citizen?
will you step back, turn away – even momentarily – from the fervor of spectacle and actually look at that which is in plain sight, that which is up-close, clear, terrifying?
what do you want for that grandson, that granddaughter? really?
what do you want for your children? really?
what do you want for you, your family, your community, this country? really?
do you wish for amorality? tyranny? fascism?
what is our individual and collective legacy to Next?
the fog will dissipate and the horizon will become clear. that’s how fog works.
“fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars…”(bart howard)
my uncle allen sang. his love of singing – through years of lessons and practice – often starred in our living room, where my brother would play guitar, i would play organ or piano and allen would sing. there is not a time i hear “fly me to the moon” without thinking about him or his devoted support of me.
it was my uncle allen who first encouraged me to record. it was my uncle allen who financially supported those early recording sessions. it was my uncle allen who celebrated the three-song cassette when it was done, ordering extra copies for everyone. it was my uncle allen who was my first go-to and my confidante when life-as-i-knew-it fell apart, when music-as-i-knew-it was shattered and when i fled new york. it was my uncle allen who built a house in florida that i could rent from him, trying to heal with no victim advocate or the assistance of any therapy. and it was my uncle allen who celebrated when i finally – sixteen years later – started recording again.
the third ward in milwaukee is one of our favorite places in which to wander about. i have a thing for paper and notebooks and pencils and all things stationery, so i find broadway paper a joyful shop. their paper airplane mobiles enchant over by the entrance door that shares the vestibule for marn art & culture hub. the exposed beams, exposed ductwork, exposed brick – ahh – d and i could live in such a space. we spent the afternoon strolling around with 20, in and out of shoppes. a tiny crazy air plant called my name and we bonded; “waukee” was the only purchase we brought home with us. we sat at the public market, had wine and gumbo and fried clams. it was all heavenly.
i searched in the hall closet – an utter melange of stuff: games, crafts, 10×10 vendor tent weights, playing cards – and found what i was looking for: the last vestiges of the origami airplane folding kit. because their dad was a pilot, this paper airplane kit was a big hit with our children. but i remembered there were a few pieces of origami paper left and – more importantly – the directions on how to fold. mayyyybe d and i will channel the mobile-making juju of groundbreaking mobile sculptor alexander calder … or, at the very least, channel broadway paper.
in the meanwhile i dove into the thickly-filled drawers of old file cabinets in my studio. and found the other thing i was looking for: the sheet music for fly me to the moon. it is pretty likely i’ll play that later and d and i will sing it – in great honor and loving memory of my uncle allen – a man for whom i am grateful, who is likely singing on the clouds, who generously encouraged soaring and playing among the stars.
“and you wonder where we’re going where’s the rhyme and where’s the reason and it’s you cannot accept it is here we must begin to seek the wisdom of the children and the graceful way of flowers in the wind“
when i was little my family took vacations at upstate new york state parks. we stayed in rough-hewn cabins where, at night, my sweet momma would warn us all to pull up the covers and she’d run around the cabin spraying raid everywhere. the mosquitos were ruthless but the fun was grand.
one summer both my brother and sister and their spouses and children vacationed as well. we all had cabins next to each other and explored the lake and the woods and surrounding towns. one of these towns had a county fair. so we went.
naturally, those traveling carnival rides were a part of the fair – the ones where they tear them down and put them back up, trailer them to the next venue day after day. as an adult i feel somewhat leery of those – always wondering if they had leftover reassembling bolts or when the last time was that they checked belts and such – but as a child, i don’t think i gave any of that a thought. i just believed in goodness and that all was well.
because i simply cannot do anything spinny, we went on the merry-go-round and then my dad convinced me to go on the ferris wheel. it seemed inordinately large and went high into the sky. we stood in line and then took our seats in the little cabin.
i was excited until we went around once. then they stopped the wheel at the top, loading other riders down at the bottom. i must have felt imperiled. i began to freak out.
my dad had this loud whistle – he could whistle perry como tunes as well, but this was a really loud whistle. he whistled his whistle and the attendant looked up. my poppo yelled down to stop the ride when we got there – we needed to get off. and so the attendant stopped the wheel and we disembarked.
i wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about wanting to stop and get off. not back then.
and i’m not the least bit embarrassed now about every now and again wanting to stop the world and get off. i feel like we all need some time off. quiet time. time out. time outta this world that has gone off the deep end. time away from feeling imperiled. a breather.
the last weeks – months, years, really – have been over the top. though you don’t know my whole list, we all know our whole list. it is not an exaggeration to say that we are imperiled. we are on the top of the ferris wheel and the attendants are not quite sure they installed all the bolts.
on these days – of too-much – we – d and i – do stop the world. we go for a hike in beautiful places. we sit on our deck with our dogga. we read together. we prepare and cook food. we appreciate the sun streaming in the windows, spilling onto our quilt. we find rhyme. we seek reason.
and, before you screech me to a halt – stopping the world and getting off is not the same as sticking your head in the sand. it’s simply a way to reassess. it’s a way to think and plan. it’s a way to evaluate what can be done about the ferris wheel. it’s a way to be able to come back to the trenches and get back to work. it’s a way to resupply the energy drain that reading the news exacerbates every single day.
i wonder where we’re going. i wonder what the rhyme and what the reason of the bigotry and division and marginalization and diminishing of rights and the barreling toward extremism and authoritarianism and downright meanness. i’m astounded and not astounded. remember, we don’t know each other’s stories.
i do know that if stopping it were as easy as having my poppo whistle from the top of the ferris wheel, he would do it. in a second. for he and my sweet momma would have nothing to do with the direction of all this. no. my dad was not missing-in-action and a POW in world war II to watch his beloved country heading toward the possibility of turning into THIS. THIS is what he fought *against*.
i’d imagine that as my mom and dad are watching from that other plane, they are also astounded. and not. for they are just as aware as you and me that there are just really evil people with inordinately evil ideas ready to pounce in unconscionably evil ways.
and i’d imagine that – yes, in the same way he looked after me on that day at the county fair – he wishes he really could just whistle and make the ferris wheel stop. he likely wishes that the world stop in suspended animation for a moment and then come back to its senses – to the place where the children and the flowers are actually from where we draw wisdom. to a place of goodness. to a place of rhyme and a place of reason.
reverse threading 