tenuous. we are all walking on the thinnest of threads. the thinnest threads of life, health, relationship, value.
i don’t know what it would take to graffiti an outdoor stairwell with the stenciled words “you hate me”. it stopped me as we took a friday night walk – miles around our downtown, across the bridge, through simmons island beach, along the lakefront. we started down the stairwell to the channel and there it was.
“you hate me”
anonymous. you hate me. who’s the you? who’s the me? the anonymity factor adds concern for me. someone, on that thinnest thread, felt tenuousness enough that they stenciled it on the concrete wall.
that it wasn’t “i hate you” and that it was “you hate me” makes it even more distressing. it makes you wonder which sad and lonely face you passed might have been that of the stenciler. it thrusts questions about your local community on your heart. it is a gut punch that foists pondering upon you. it forces you to search inside, to see if you are emanating that to others.
there are so many reasons right now to disagree with another, so many reasons for anger. conflicting opinions distort the absolute importance of connectivity, of community, of the healing of love. people with differing thoughts opine as experts in fields in which they have no actual experience; people proselytize and preach and persuade. the bandwagons of what-seems-like-the-cool-gangs line up, circling, handing out candy to those who would like to be in the club, aiding them up onto the wagon and then looking away from their individual needs, only paying attention to replenish the candy and keep the furor going.
and so people feel hated. enough to write it on a wall.
“to reconcile our seeming opposites, to see them as both, not one or the other, is our constant challenge.” (sue bender, plain and simple journal)
i wonder what i would have felt if upon the concrete wall the words “you love me” had been stenciled.
we passed the daisy on the trail and i went back to take a picture. it was instant recognition of “loves me, loves me not” as i saw it. the questions we threw willy-nilly to the universe, the don’t-step-on-a-crack, knock-wood, bread-and-butter reflexes of our 60s-70s childhoods.
were it all still to be so easy.
i remember sitting in the grass making clover chains. i remember the transistor radio playing on the bazooka bubble gum beach towel. i remember playing in the woods out back with the neighbors. i remember kickball in the street and badminton and croquet in the yard. i remember hula-hoops and skateboards on my driveway. i remember the “boing” the pogo stick made. i remember koolaid and ice pops that seemed to never run out. i remember bike hikes with sue and carvel ice cream cones with chocolate sprinkles. i remember frisbee at the beach and making apple pies. i remember listening to cassettes and practicing piano. i remember the trunk of the maple tree against my back, the branches holding me as i wrote. i remember the sound the pressure-filled-from-the-sun-light-purple-hosta-flowers along our sidewalk made when popped. i remember it was time to go home when it got dark and i remember catching fireflies in jars with holes punched in the lids. i remember sunday drives and picking apples and kentucky fried chicken on picnic tables further out on the island. i remember cabins in state parks and wide-eyed flirting with older lake lifeguards upstate. i remember duck ponds and friendly’s. i remember my puppy riding in my bike basket and ponytails. i remember loves-me-loves-me-not.
it seemed an innocent time. a time of marvel. a time of safety. never did i wonder if my parents loved me. i just knew.
babycat just rolled onto his back, all four paws outstretched, his big black and white belly just begging for a pet. he doesn’t ask questions. his world is relatively small – since his kittenhood adoption, the littlehouse was the only other house he has known other than our house. yesterday we brought him and dogdog into the basement as the tornado siren went off. dogga was nervous but babycat adapted, finding a place to lay on the carpet. his only demand is for food, several times a day with clockwork precision. otherwise, he is unconditional. his presence in my life has brought me eleven years of a gift i really needed when he arrived.
babycat is laying right next to me now as i type. tucked close in, his snoring is punctuated only by his purring – it’s a two measure repeat in 4/4, each breath a half note. it is the 11th anniversary of his “gotcha day” and he’s marking the day with a celebration of naps. no worry of “loves me, loves me not” crosses his mind. he just knows.
As FACEBOOK continues to block my blog from posting, please consider following this blog. There is a button on this page that will subscribe you. Of course, you are free to unfollow at any time. Thank you for your consideration and for reading. xo
summer is soon going to draw to a close. it’s august 10 and with today’s feel-like at 96, it’s clearly not anytime too soon. but soon enough.
this summer has been unlike any other. in our deference to the pandemic we have limited ourselves to that which we believe shows regard to recommendations given so as not to be responsible for spreading this. we’ve worn masks. we’ve social distanced. we’ve not eaten in restaurants or stood by barstools sipping wine in enclosed spaces. we haven’t shopped in department stores or had people over in our home, and, differing from every other summer we have had together, we haven’t traveled. it has been unlike any other.
but that isn’t the case for everyone. people have flocked to the beaches and water parks. people have traveled to hot spots – on purpose, in the name of looking for a break. people are eating in restaurants and are gathered at bars and at big backyard barbecues. people are singing in indoor venues and are clustered on sandbars. people have gone to little towns, vacationing and, with the it-won’t-happen-to-us mindset, placing the locale at risk, placing the locals and the health care system in that locale in a precarious way. hundreds of thousands of people are headed to or are gathered in sturgis right now. it’s their summer. and, if you scroll through facebook, it’s not a heck of a lot different than their last summer.
i read a quote today that spoke to the sturgis crowds. “there are people throughout america who have been locked up for months and months,” was the excuse for an influx into this town of 7000. i have to disagree. any instagram or facebook peek will reveal that people are not locked up; many people have lived summer just like they always live summer: any way they want.
in the attention-deficit way of america, many people have simply moved on and their temporarily-outward-gaze has shift-key-shifted selfishly inward. but we are still out here: mask-wearers, social-distancers, stay-close-to-homers, quietly and not-so-quietly trying to mitigate this time. and we can see the others so we are disappointed, saddened and stressed and we are riding the long-limbo-wave of impossible decision-making.
the masses have spoken – at least in this country – and freedom (read: independence from the government mandating for the safety of all) rules.
but freedom isn’t free, as the old up with people song points out, “freedom isn’t free. you’ve got to pay the price, you’ve got to sacrifice, for your liberty.”
i suppose that our sacrifices count, little as that might be in the big picture. as this pandemic continues to rage, as chaos continues to ensue, as relationships shatter over disease-disagreement, our not going to wine-knot matters, our crossing-the-road-to-the-other-sidewalk counts, our consistent mask-wearing-social-distancing makes a difference. it just doesn’t feel that way. the bigger picture looks bleak and my heart sinks looking ahead, fall and winter just over the we-have-so-many-unanswered-questions horizon. whether they (in a countrywide sense) are exercising caution or not, our little part is significant.
the up with people song continues, “but for every man freedom’s the eternal quest. you’re free to give humanity your very best.”
what is our very best? individually? collectively?
As FACEBOOK continues to block my blog from posting, please consider following this blog. There is a button on this page that will subscribe you. Of course, you are free to unfollow at any time. Thank you for your consideration and for reading. xo
it’s just a thought. a sketch. a few moments of piano. lost.
i recorded eight voice-memo recordings in the studio this morning. all based on the word “lost”. they varied in length; the shortest was 9 seconds, the longest 7:22. i discarded all of them and just kept the first :51 of one version.
lost.
we had just finished reading an op ed that was infinitely disturbing and equally heartwrenching. an article about the united states, it painted a picture of a country lost in itself, untethered from its values, far from moored to its former strength and viability, unattached to its potential of community, of empathy, of oneness.
lost.
even just yesterday we listened to two accounts of persons who had been tested more than once for covid-19. with differing results each time, it has us wondering how we might be able to halt the pandemic wave that continues to threaten when we cannot obtain test results that are accurate or consistent. where are we really in this upsurgence? this is no little skirmish.
lost.
everything is different right now. we sat safely in our kitchen yesterday and talked about the 28 million people who would be losing their homes or the place they rent as home. we talked about the crushing inability to really be with people we love. we talked about the lack of jobs available. we talked about unemployment numbers. we talked about pressure. we talked about economics and finances. we talked about almost 160,000 people who had died from coronavirus. we talked about life insurance.
lost.
sitting at the piano in my studio elicits mixed feelings for me. i pine for the days that the music i wrote, the music i recorded, actually made me a living, at least the times it even leaned toward making me a living. i wonder if that will ever be the case again, if it’s even possible in this online-download-time that has usurped the living of so many independent artists. i experience a sense of betrayal sitting on the bench and work hard, somewhat unsuccessfully, to overcome it.
lost.
my left hand starts. always a provider of depth and rhythm and always strong, my left hand knows how to dig in. even now. i think the word “lost”. my right hand starts to follow. and the limitation of a wrist that no longer bends beyond 20° makes me draw in my breath.
lost.
on the top of the file cabinet in the back hallway of TPAC there was a basket. in that basket was an assortment of stuff: coffee mugs, a jacket, sunglasses, readers, a set of keys. it was the “lost and found” basket.
i suppose there is a simple wisdom in “lost and found” stashes. found, as an antonym of lost, implies not forever lost. it is hopeful.
maybe, though we cannot see it, we are living in the very middle of lost and found.
peter max, a pop-art-expressionist, popped into my mind when david showed me this sketch. add bursts of color to this and it’s the happy full-spectrum pieces of the 60s and 70s, full of rainbow and light.
one of the presents i received for my birthday this year was a coloring book and colored pencils. at the time i was unable to use it, but i put it aside for when my broken right wrist might cooperate and i might be able to lose myself in good-old-fashioned coloring.
i dropped david’s sketch into photoshop and started to peter-max it.
the more i worked on it, the happier i became. it was so messy. but it was just so – fun.
color – this infinitely wide range of possibility – fills the lines, goes out of the lines, overlaps and bleeds into the next, reminds me that life, even in these very times, times of chaos and unrest and pandemic and exponential worry, is not just black and white. and, surprisingly, not just the blurry grey in-between.
life is much more peter max than that. messier. more color.
which brings me to this: while it is easy, particularly right now, to sort to grey, perhaps an answer to the myriad of questions is to open the delicious tin of 50 premium artist pencils. and just color.
yes. as dear jeff used to say, “that’s the ticket!”
early on…just a little bit of color…and infinite peter-max possibilities
please consider following this blog:
during this time that FB, impossible to contact, figures out i am not ill-intended nor do i post SPAM, i would ask you a favor: if you have found any post of mine to be thought-provoking or encouraging or reassuring in some way and have enjoyed reading, please “follow” this blog. you can “follow” it on this post or later go to our website www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange to find the link to this blogsite. wordpress will send you an email each day with my 5 day-a-week blog. you can certainly choose to read or not read each day and, at any time, you can choose to “unfollow” the blog. just as it is your decision whether or not to read my post on facebook each day, i would like to think you still have the option. subscribing gives you that. hopefully, FB will allow and restore my written work soon.
“look it up,” my sweet momma would say. i blame her. for my word-curiosity. for my policing of spelling, punctuation, grammar. for my love of dictionaries and my commitment to learning. at 93 she was still asking questions, being curious, looking it up.
black and white composition books, of both thick and thin variety, populated my growing up, my teenage years, my college years, and ever since. though i do have a thready fondness of using My Girl’s and My Boy’s old unfinished spiral notebooks these days, we have piles of waiting-to-be-used composition books and they beckon when i open the supply cabinet in the sunlit office upstairs. places to jot poetry, thoughts, reflections, stories, lyrics, these composition books always make me think of my mom. they are places to process, to remember, to dream, to sort. they are the beginnings of stories, lyrics to ponder, the coda to the song. to someone else they are simply words on the page. to me, it is my breath that gives them life. we each have stories to tell, songs to write.
in the last few days i have had the frustration of feeling silenced. as i wrote in yesterday’s post, someone marked all five of my blogposts of last week on facebook as “spam” and that somehow triggered facebook to pull every last one of my blogposts – and any mention of my blogsite – down. every word – the simple ones, the ones that require looking-it-up – pulled down. with 650 posts, even averaging 500 words, that is 325,000 words. MY 325,000 words. gone.
in these times of chaos and unrest and pandemic, there are plenty of words out there. foul words, words of peaceful mantras, words of untruth, twisted words of conspiracy theories, imploring words, scientific words, words of wisdom from giants of wisdom, accessible words, words we have to look up, words we can hardly believe we’ve heard from various people-in-the-spotlight, words at which we roll our eyes, words we find reassuring.
in a daily email he receives, david shares a new word with me. “kawaii,” he reports, “means cute.”
the baby raccoons, most definitely kawaii, peeked out from behind the tree trunk. upon seeing us on the trail, they had scrambled from the little pond up the tree. they stared at us; we stared at them. they didn’t move, quizzically grasping onto bark and watching quietly. we didn’t move either. we just stood quietly on the trail and watched. the story they would tell about our encounter wouldn’t have many words. all was silent. all was motionless. they were safe; we were safe. for a few minutes, we shared the serene woods together, a little eye contact in hushed regard of each other. maybe, in their re-telling, in their speckled composition book, they would just tell the coda – “and then they left.”
every now and again i take out an old composition book. it’s astounding. i was so…..wordy.
during this time that FB, impossible to contact, figures out i am not ill-intended nor do i post SPAM, i would ask you a favor: if you have found any post of mine to be thought-provoking or encouraging or reassuring in some way and have enjoyed reading, please “follow” this blog. you can “follow” it on this post or later go to our website www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange to find the link to this blogsite. wordpress will send you an email each day with my 5 day-a-week blog. you can certainly choose to read or not read each day and, at any time, you can choose to “unfollow” the blog. just as it is your decision whether or not to read my post on facebook each day, i would like to think you still have the option. subscribing gives you that. hopefully, FB will allow and restore my written work soon.
in a matter of thirteen minutes yesterday all 650 of my blogposts were wiped off of facebook. it seems someone, in the matter of thirteen minutes, marked five of my blogs as SPAM and this must have triggered the facebook “community standards” filter which POOF eliminated everything. over two and a half years of writing. at merely an hour to an hour and a half each, that is well over a month of writing, 24 hours a day. vanished off of the facebook platform. because someone had a beef. i would call that cowardice.
cowardice (noun): a lack of bravery.
all because, i am guessing, someone disagreed with me for some reason and could not bring themselves to have an adult discussion about it. instead, this person chose a different approach, a way to end up censoring my words. cowardice.
i am not paid to write. i do not receive any money for writing. my catalogue of blogposts was written from my heart, from an honest and well-intended place. i am more than happy to entertain any dialogue about any topic, as long as it remains respectful and kind. i am more than happy to have a conversation. i do not take kindly to being censored. i do not take kindly to being a target. i do not take kindly to being on the receiving end of someone’s spinelessness, their secret malintent and inability to give voice, whatever their reason. rendering me voiceless on facebook is mean-spirited and appalling. and seemingly deliberate. it does beg a couple obvious questions.
truth be told, facebook is making me tired. scrolling through a myriad of temper tantrums and boasting-posts to find wee bits of news about beloved family and friends is disconcerting. trying to use my own 200% copyrighted music on facebook and having facebook block it claiming copyright violations is beyond frustrating. watching facebook allow misinformation and foul language to prevail on the platform is disappointing. scouring facebook for ways to communicate with an actual person or to find avenues for correcting their errors is pointless. it’s tiresome. but those wee bits keep me going back – seeking a few more pictures to drink in of people i-love-but-cannot-see-right-now or reading viewpoints that give me food for thought, lead me to ask questions, make me learn.
during this time that FB, impossible to contact, figures out i am not ill-intended nor do i post SPAM, i would ask you a favor: if you have found any post of mine to be thought-provoking or encouraging or reassuring in some way and have enjoyed reading, please “follow” this blog. you can “follow” it on this post or later go to our website www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange to find the link to this blogsite. wordpress will send you an email each day with my 5 day-a-week blog. you can certainly choose to read or not read each day and, at any time, you can choose to “unfollow” the blog. just as it is your decision whether or not to read my post on facebook each day, i would like to think you still have the option. subscribing gives you that. hopefully, FB will allow and restore my written work soon.
in the meanwhile, just as no one should be hushed in the expression of thoughts about living life, i am dedicated to continue sharing my own in a variety of ways.
i was trying to catch up my calendar – the dollar version – where i write things we’ve done, thoughts, ideas, hikes. on new year’s day i usually take out the calendar and read the whole thing, a review of the year, so to speak. post-broken-wrists, not being able to write with my right hand, i kept my calendar on the computer. somewhere along the way i stopped jotting things down.
now, with pencil in hand, i am trying to catch up. not only is that impossible, but it’s shocking to see the story-arc of the year. time flies. it occurred to me this morning that on new year’s day 2021 i will likely look back and see a year with a vast there-wasn’t-much-we-could-do theme. it’s consistent. the pandemic has altered the freedom of moving-at-will, the freedom of easily-gathering-together, the freedom of travel, of ranging around, and any real normal-summer adventures. a time that, painfully, just isn’t the same as all other summers. it doesn’t feel the same; it doesn’t look the same. it doesn’t live the same way. the impotent months, a time of self-sacrifice-for-the-whole, would seem like a common story for all.
only it’s not.
“i like your mask,” commented the cashier at the home improvement store. things you never thought you would hear. our masks are all handsewn; a variety of fabrics, after washing they hang on a hook on the refrigerator, ready. her mask was solid black and so i, in we-wear-black-all-the-time predictability, actually liked hers. “what am i doing?” i wondered. we are comparing masks. MASKS. surely this will go down as a 2020 commonality for people.
only it won’t.
with windows open allowing in the moist rain-cooled air of the night, over coffee this morning we talked about common narratives. it would seem that, of all years, of all times past and, hopefully, times to come, this year would have the most common narrative for all people. parallel experiences, somewhat indistinguishable in the limitations of a global pandemic, a time of everyone-coming-together, a time of doing-the-right-thing, a time of protecting-each-other, a time of relinquishing selfishness and adopting consideration, even altruism, a time of caring. to everything there is a season. a season of commonality.
only that’s not the case.
instead, any perusal through social media will show you that summer is summer and americans are out and about. according to AAA, nearly 700 million people will take roadtrips this summer. they are vacationing. photographs of smiling faces in parks, at beaches, on docks, in boats, by pools, at picnic tables, at parties, in backyards, in restaurants, around campfires – maskless. the weighing of calculated risk, the weighing of safety. hopefully, this will not yield drastic results as we each live our lives – the lack of forfeit a contributing factor to more sickness, more proliferation of virus, more death.
we can only hope.
so is it different? is this summer any different for you than last? or is it pretty much the same? what mask are you wearing when you are out and about? is it all black? (if so, would you recommend it? what company did you order it from?) is it fabric? is it an n95?
or is it invisible? instead, a mask of indifference, a mask of push-back, a mask of conspiracy theory, a mask of you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do, a mask of entitlement, a mask of deservedness, a mask of personal-freedom-infringement, a mask of determined independence in a world where actually-everyone-depends-on-the-symbiotic-sharing-and-movement-of-resources, where actually-everyone-desperately-relies-on-healthcare-workers-who-are-watching-people-scorn-that-which-might-help, where actually-everyone-depends-on-each-other-to-get-this-pandemic-under-control-so-that-some-stability-of-life-and-work-and-school-and-economic-security-and-good-health-might-resume. is it a mask of apathy?
masks. we all wear them. not just this summer. people-masks are situational, circumstantial. masks often depend on who we are with; the narratives we state often depend on who is near. it’s human. consistent inconsistency.
it makes me wonder. in this very human-ness, in this time and any other, if, standing at the checkout at the store, all masks of truth were visible, all narratives open for critique, would the cashier say, “i like your mask”?
i was trying to catch up my calendar – the dollar version – where i write things we’ve done, thoughts, ideas, hikes. on new year’s day i usually take out the calendar and read the whole thing, a review of the year, so to speak. post-broken-wrists, not being able to write with my right hand, i kept my calendar on the computer. somewhere along the way i stopped jotting things down.
now, with pencil in hand, i am trying to catch up. not only is that impossible, but it’s shocking to see the story-arc of the year. time flies. it occurred to me this morning that on new year’s day 2021 i will likely look back and see a year with a vast there-wasn’t-much-we-could-do theme. it’s consistent. the pandemic has altered the freedom of moving-at-will, the freedom of easily-gathering-together, the freedom of travel, of ranging around, and any real normal-summer adventures. a time that, painfully, just isn’t the same as all other summers. it doesn’t feel the same; it doesn’t look the same. it doesn’t live the same way. the impotent months, a time of self-sacrifice-for-the-whole, would seem like a common story for all.
only it’s not.
“i like your mask,” commented the cashier at the home improvement store. things you never thought you would hear. our masks are all handsewn; a variety of fabrics, after washing they hang on a hook on the refrigerator, ready. her mask was solid black and so i, in we-wear-black-all-the-time predictability, actually liked hers. “what am i doing?” i wondered. we are comparing masks. MASKS. surely this will go down as a 2020 commonality for people.
only it won’t.
with windows open allowing in the moist rain-cooled air of the night, over coffee this morning we talked about common narratives. it would seem that, of all years, of all times past and, hopefully, times to come, this year would have the most common narrative for all people. parallel experiences, somewhat indistinguishable in the limitations of a global pandemic, a time of everyone-coming-together, a time of doing-the-right-thing, a time of protecting-each-other, a time of relinquishing selfishness and adopting consideration, even altruism, a time of caring. to everything there is a season. a season of commonality.
only that’s not the case.
instead, any perusal through social media will show you that summer is summer and americans are out and about. according to AAA, nearly 700 million people will take roadtrips this summer. they are vacationing. photographs of smiling faces in parks, at beaches, on docks, in boats, by pools, at picnic tables, at parties, in backyards, in restaurants, around campfires – maskless. the weighing of calculated risk, the weighing of safety. hopefully, this will not yield drastic results as we each live our lives – the lack of forfeit a contributing factor to more sickness, more proliferation of virus, more death.
we can only hope.
so is it different? is this summer any different for you than last? or is it pretty much the same? what mask are you wearing when you are out and about? is it all black? (if so, would you recommend it? what company did you order it from?) is it fabric? is it an n95?
or is it invisible? instead, a mask of indifference, a mask of push-back, a mask of conspiracy theory, a mask of you-can’t-tell-me-what-to-do, a mask of entitlement, a mask of deservedness, a mask of personal-freedom-infringement, a mask of determined independence in a world where actually-everyone-depends-on-the-symbiotic-sharing-and-movement-of-resources, where actually-everyone-desperately-relies-on-healthcare-workers-who-are-watching-people-scorn-that-which-might-help, where actually-everyone-depends-on-each-other-to-get-this-pandemic-under-control-so-that-some-stability-of-life-and-work-and-school-and-economic-security-and-good-health-might-resume. is it a mask of apathy?
masks. we all wear them. not just this summer. people-masks are situational, circumstantial. masks often depend on who we are with; the narratives we state often depend on who is near. it’s human. consistent inconsistency.
it makes me wonder. in this very human-ness, in this time and any other, if, standing at the checkout at the store, all masks of truth were visible, all narratives open for critique, would the cashier say, “i like your mask”?
in the in-between times. we are there. not at the beginning, not at the end. we hardly know what to call this interlude of time – so many differing points of view, so many differing approaches to life and the living of it. untitled.
this pandemic entered our lives a few months ago. we know little about when it will end. in this nebulous state, we try to cope. not-knowing, we wake each morning to a new day, unsure of which day it is, the fog of repeated sameness fading as the sun’s light opens our eyes.
surely in the middle of all of this there are the day lilies of the garden – the hardy survivors of too much rain, too little rain, too much attention, too little attention, too many weeds, too few nutrients, invasive plants trying to subvert this robust champion. the tall perseverants of the green, they rise up, ever joyful.
surely in the middle of all of this there are the moments that are the day lilies.
for me, there was a video-chat with my grown children, separated by distance and by a healthy respect for safety. these moments were the breath i so needed, a chance to see their faces, hear their voices. for me, there was the hike along the river trail, a cooler-than-normal breeze on my face, the sounds of birds and swaying cattails. for me, there was the social-distanced outdoor visit with treasured ones, laughter and stories punctuating our time together. for me, there was a quick phone call with a forever pal, a series of blurry oh-my-look-at-this-bear-off-my-mountain-top-porch-ten-feet-from-me-right-now texts with a dear friend. for me, there was talk of which thru-hike to take, which rv we would purchase, for, in any circumstance we find ourselves, dreaming is good.
in the middle of all of this, the interlude between before and after, it is incumbent upon us – for our peace of mind, in the fuzzy liminal space of enduring and persisting – to find the positive orange day lilies.
reverse threading 