reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: democracy


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most definitely not ho-hum. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

“literally incredulous at the “ho-hum” behavior of those all around me.” (m.d.)

i passed by these words on instagram while scrolling the comments of a profoundly relatable post. i scrolled back to them. and sighed.

another comment read, “if one more person tells me i’m overreacting, i will lose my sh*t.” (k…) yup. sigh.

and another: “more people should be really angry about everything that’s going on. if not, they aren’t paying attention.” (b…)

john pavlovitz wrote: “you know who I’m talking about: those friends, family members coworkers, classmates and social media acquaintances who tone-police us for surveying the monumental destruction being inflicted upon our fragile republic and its people and being livid…”

he continued: “there is a time and place for self-control, for tolerance, for listening and bearing with people, for breathing and being still.

but there is a time and place when the gravity of the moment calls for something fierce and unwieldy; a wildness of heart. i suggest that now is such a time, and here is precisely the place.

america is on the brink of authoritarianism…”

we talk about it a lot. we read the news, fact-check religiously, study a variety of opinions and historical footnotes, watch video footage, debate between ourselves – the two of us.

because there are so many – so, sooo many – people who just simply don’t want to talk about it, who prefer to talk about positive things, who exclude politics from their menu of conversation options (though i’d beg to differ on this – this is not politics anymore; this is real-life america now! – it is what is happening on a daily basis.)

you know the instant you even try to bring it up – there is a moment when a look crosses their face, there is an extra beat or two before an answer, there is an instant pushbacky “don’t you think about anything else?” or various conversation deadenders “i can’t go there” or “i am not gonna talk about it!”

and i wonder what – exactly – one does when one’s country is being decimated and a buncha people aren’t really willing to discuss it because – well – it’s uncomfortable.

it is heartbreaking to wish to have hard real-life conversations but never be able to get to the nitty-gritty of it all. not talking about it will not make it go away.

there is nothing – nothing – ho-hum about what is happening in this nation. it is staggering.

because we are both empaths, we unfortunately can pretty much feel the vibration frequency of fear as it swirls around this country. i keep wondering how low “they” can go. i keep wondering when some of the people – the ones hip-hip-hooraying all this, the ones whose dark souls align with this abject cruelty, and, yes, the ones who just don’t wanna discuss it – might catch on to the plot. i keep wondering how we might be able to stop this twisted administration from destroying all we know.

i am anything but ho-hum. we are most definitely not ho-hum.

“…we need a lot more fire and a lot less calm. right now, it’s a sign of your humanity, of your sanity, and of your soul, to look around at it all and say, ‘i’ve f**king had it.'” (john pavlovitz)

*****

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

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the almighty dollar. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

“the almighty dollar,” my sweet poppo would say.

and then he’d insist – “you can’t take it with you.”

and so, he and my momma would help others, donate money to causes, spend little on themselves (save for my dad’s love of a good pair of shoes and a sleeve of grocery store flowers for my mom).

but times are different and my parents – on the other side of the plane of existence – are rolling their eyes, nauseated by the bloated greed demonstrated by the new administration of this country.

it appears that the idolatry of the dollar (or, say, billions of dollars) is wiping out any sort of moral conscience that might have poked through the supposed-human-skin and the supposed-human-heart of the current leadership regime.

to marginalize, disenfranchise, suppress, endanger, incite violence upon, decimate – people, communities, natural resources, wildlife, national lands – all for personal capitalistic, bigoted extremist, vile self-serving, narcissistic money-hoarding gluttonous greed – is beyond my comprehension.

i wonder when it is that this country hits the place that it is beyond repair.

they – those “in charge” – have scoffed at negligence. they have gone way past corruption. they have made a laughingstock of indecency. the depravity of their mindset – everything for the almighty dollar, no matter what – is ruling the land.

and, shamefully, people – real people – the regular folks – we the people – will suffer greatly.

is that what they mean by “make america great again’?

*****

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hopeseekers. [kerri’s blog on d.r. thursday]

“hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” (anne lamott)

and so, one step at a time – though the path is rugged and the way is not clear – we keep hoping. and trudging. toward the light.

each day, after my brain clears from the fog of sleeping, i remember. each morning i am stunned back into awakeness. today was no different.

i woke up and – after i remembered – i thought about five months ago. it feels like an eternity. and yet here we are. in the middle of a coalescence of horrific.

and, even after millions of americans marched and protested in the streets of this nation, we are still here – at the precipice of autocracy.

and i wonder what will pierce the darkness that is descending upon a land so bright with potential. i wonder what will actually stop the brutality, the cruelty, the apathy, the greed. i wonder at all the people showing up, trying to do the right thing, all the people waiting for the dawn.

when my children were little i did not let them use the word ‘hate’. i also tried – best as i could – to not allow them to say ‘shut up’. big issues at the time.

i look at the children of today – listening to or watching the current administration of this nation – and shudder to think of what kind of clean-up one must do as a parent to explain away the horribleness of the vile messaging of this regime, what kind of debriefing one must do as a parent to help children process the atrocities they are witnessing, what kind of protection one must resort to as a parent to shield children from the hatred spewing into the air of this country.

it makes saying ‘shut up’ seem like child’s play. particularly in a country where lies and false narrative abound, where rights are being stripped from the populace, where sadistic, escalating violence is being blatantly encouraged, where i’m certain many of us – the stubborn hopeseekers – would love to just scream “shut up!!!” every time the wanna-be-dictator opens his mouth.

*****

weeping man 48″ x 36″

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weeping scars. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

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?

….” (where do we go from here? – peter cetera)

*****

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free to be. [kerri’s blog on two artists tuesday]

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?

*****

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before it was gone. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

i suppose it’s human nature. we tend to take it all for granted – our health, the place we call our home, our freedom. we are relatively complacent about it – maybe not necessarily actively grateful – more passively matter-of-fact.

until we are without it – our health, the place we call our home, our freedom.

and we want it back.

and then we wonder why we didn’t appreciate it when we had it.

each and every time i have had any kind of physical challenge, any ailment, i linger on what it was like before it began. before i broke both my wrists, before frozen shoulder, before i had covid, before…

it’s – of course – a fool’s errand and does absolutely no good save for being somewhat masochistic – which doesn’t fall under the category of good.

and – of course – the lesson i find is to intend gratitude for all in each moment we experience.

but we humans – particularly in this society – are slightly more hindsight types. and we tend to sort to the “in retrospect” view of things instead of being anticipatory or present.

so i do a heads, shoulders, knees and toes check-in and thank my lucky stars. i look around at our old house and thank this place we call home. i move about daily without restraint, making decisions about what to do, where to go – for which i am thankful.

and yet, right here and right now, we stand at a crossroads – an absolutely critical moment – when we must decide what all it is we are grateful for, what all we wish for, what all we believe in – before we don’t have it anymore.

those of us who are not in allegiance with the takeover of our democracy into autocracy, those of us who have not normalized an administration which is morally bereft, those of us who pledge our pledge to a republic and not a man – we all must decide to stand up for the freedom of this country. before it becomes one of those things we wish we had appreciated – when we had it – before it was gone.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING SMACK-DAB

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now is the time. [kerri’s blog on merely-a-thought monday]

thirteen years ago my sweet poppo died on memorial day. his very last day on earth, it was during the wee hours of the night into the very early morning that he changed planes of existence, devastating those of us left behind.

my dad – at that time – was 91, with baggage he had dragged behind him for over sixty years since his time in the army air corps, shot down during the ploesti oil field raids in romania, taken prisoner-of-war in bulgaria.

he had been a somewhat quiet man during much of his life. he didn’t share – in detail – of his time missing-in-action or as a prisoner in a dank cell – until i was in high school. it was a lot to carry and, once home from the war, the post-traumatic stress was impactful on the rest of his life. post-traumatic stress is like that. it takes a toll in so many ways.

as i think about him today – and honor his dedicated service to this nation and the lives of those who died in service – i know – without even a singular doubt – that he would be horrified at the present state of affairs here and now.

his commitment to bettering others’ lives – fighting fascism – preventing human misery – was steadfast…enough so that he folded himself into the engineer gunner position of b-24 boomerang betsy and fought against all that was trying to destroy that which he believed in – the values of democracy. he would not align himself with anything that would not defend or advance these ideals. he would push back against any and all attempting to subjugate dominion over the freedoms for which he had fought.

my sweet poppo – were he to be here – would be sickened to watch cowardly leaders capitulate to the corrupt agenda to dismantle democracy. he would be heartbroken to watch people he loved abdicate all decency and conscience to a singular man whose grandiose narcissism seeks to vindictively avenge his enemies and instill an autocratic state.

my dad – even from wherever he is – would never tolerate such vileness. he had seen enough suffering to last him forever. he would be disgusted by an administration that is glorifying the richest – lining their pockets with the needs of the poor. he would remind, “you can’t take it with you.”

no. you can’t take it with you. power and control and ultra-wealth and digital coinage and oil and mining fields and real estate and gold-gilded accoutrements and fancy cars and 747s – the stuff of cold-hearted greed doesn’t make the cut from grandiose living to that other dimension.

but legacy follows you everywhere.

eleanor roosevelt asks, “when will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?”

now is the time.

and my dad? well, he reminds us all. “remember the little engine that could?” his words inscribed in a copy of the book, “you can too.”

my dad. my hero.

“o beautiful for heroes proved

in liberating strife,

who more than self their country love

and mercy more than life.”

(america the beautiful)

*****

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

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not enough words. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

perhaps like you, i feel overwhelmed.

it’s been just over four months now and i no longer recognize this nation.

i was clearly delusional, thinking we lived in a steady democracy where people valued people, where love and equity and fairness and compassion were paramount, where being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers was important – even cherished, where we strove to provide opportunity to all regardless of any differences, where checks and balances ensured lawful practices, where collaborative government transcended singular power-mongering, where the natural beauty and environmental sustenance of sea to shining sea was protected, where the arts and education and healthcare and the citizenry vote were rights endowed upon all, where those protecting the country – like my own sweet poppo – were cared for, where those-with helped those-without, where the citizens celebrated their own ancestral and immigrant heritage just as new immigrants were welcomed and embraced, where families, friends, neighbors, communities, the country strove to be unified – together – against disenfranchising or marginalizing others and placing them in harm’s way, where a collective moral conscience embodied decency, where unbridled, vile corruption did not reign supreme.

i was wrong.

this kind of utter shameful disappointment is only overshadowed by one thing:

the terror of where we are going.

there are no words. there are not enough words.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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transcend the sickness. [kerri’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab.]

we pass a certain house on our way to a favorite hiking trail. it is clearly a hoarding house. there is stuff everywhere and if the garage door is open – even just a bit – you can see that the hoarding continues in the garage – piles and piles of things and things and things. it’s creepy. and you can feel it as you pass by. you feel the suffocating feeling of too-much-stuff.

i once knew someone who was a hoarder. he was unable to transcend it and so his house had tiny pathways to move from one room to another. all the rest of the space was filled with books and magazines and newspapers. there were piles on every step leading to the second floor – so much so that there was no way – anymore – to get there. the second floor was essentially blocked off forever – or, at least, until someone might clean it all out. i found it disturbing to be at his house, smothered by high piles on every side of me and no place that was even near empty or calm or welcoming a sit-down. it only took one visit to convince me that i would never return. i could not breathe. there was no space.

in both of these cases – and in a farm out in the county that we’ve visited with a variation on the same theme – we were privy to – inside – a sickness of the person whose home was emitting hoarding frequencies.

THIS is how i feel about this country now. we are walking – all of us – inside the administration’s sickness. there are few places to breathe, few ways to sit down outside of the enveloping dismal cloud of narcissism and revenge and selfish cruelty. there is little calm; instead, chaos reigns.

is this what authoritarianism feels like? is this what an autocracy feels like? is this what fascism feels like?

they are hoarding away our country, with little access to its democracy, its freedoms, its decency, its humanity.

we need the junkman to come and clean it all out – toting enough dumpsters for all their project agenda – a nation-sized mr.clean to wipe it all down, trash the filthy intentions, clear a path with space and air and possibility.

we need recognize this for what it is – truly – and we need to transcend the sickness. or breathing will become impossible.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING

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last spring. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

“and the seasons they go round and round/and the painted ponies go up and down/we’re captive on the carousel of time/we can’t return, we can only look behind/from where we came/and go round and round and round/in the circle game.” (the circle game – joni mitchell)

and then there was spring.

the grasses greened. the trees budded. the birds busied themselves with nests and babies. the lake answered the sky in pastels. and winter was over.

there was no fanfare for the spring, no good riddance for the winter. it just quietly morphed from one to the other.

as we walked along the shoreline of lake michigan, i couldn’t help but recall last spring. it was a different time. a very different time.

i looked back to a time when everything was not in disarray…when our nation was not perched on the precipice, ready to fall into authoritarianism. i breathed easier last year. i was not convinced that evil and cruelty were leading our country, taking it down to the depths of corruption, no compassion in sight. lives were not roiled in rifts; moral compasses were – at least a tad bit – more present.

i feel nostalgic. for last spring. regrets are funny like that. not really appreciating the spring of ’24 until we are in the spring of ’25.

and now, as we go round and round and up and down i wonder what’s in store. it is clear we can never go back – we can’t get there from here – to the same country we had. but we can look behind us and see from where we came. we can do whatever we can do – to resist the total demolition of democracy. we can step off the carousel and stand next to the painted ponies as they circle. we can choose a different pony.

we are captive to time moving on. but we are not captive to the carnival of this regime. we have work to do. like the perils of traveling roadshows, we need to shut it down. mechanical failures, operator error, structural issues, rider misbehavior and health risks are rampant.

this is a country. not a carnival.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY

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