i have absolutely nothing to say. and i have so much to say.
but i am trying to breathe right now, my heart beating with the pulse of so many others who are devastated at the death blow to our democracy.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this FLAWED WEDNESDAY
the tracks tell the story. they came in and mowed down underbrush and trees, grasses and cattails. all in the name of habitat restoration. apparently, there are buckthorn and cottonwood and boxelder and various other invasive species that are suffocating the growth of young native tree seedlings. it looked absolutely devastated. as did the back half of the woods earlier this year after they attended to that section. but there was space for the sun to get through, for air and a bit of new growth. it was necessary.
now, admittedly, the back half doesn’t look as raw as it did right after that earlier eradication. but – it does look different. just as – i suppose – this section of the woods will look…eventually. it’s the meanwhile that is a bit tough to take. it’s stunning to see such emptiness where there was lush. it’s bracing to recognize how long it might take for this area to grow back – to fulfill the potential the ecologists plan for.
but devastation is like that.
in devastation-light we have the basement/attic project. this will all look decidedly worse before it looks better. the categories – keep, donate, sell – are staged all over the basement and have spilled into other rooms in the house. eventually, this will get better. it will look different. right now, though, it is a ruckus of stuff.
all this review of the past, though…it’s good for my heart. tiny salvageable moments derived from these seeming willy-nilly piles…i am wrapped in the after-devastation feels. for this is chosen devastation – choosing to touch all that is in the house and decide about its fate. and maybe devastation isn’t a good word for that kind of parsing out. just because it looks like devastation doesn’t mean it is devastation.
but there will be more culling before there is something that looks and feels good: the cleared out, organized space that honors the before-stuff and makes way for the next. the same way it is for emotional clearing-out. it will all get much messier before it gets air.
the tracks from the backhoes and heavy equipment punctuate the trail. we may wait awhile – maybe a few rains – before we take that loop again. in the meanwhile, we’ll go along the river where the trail is longer and quiet and the trees and underbrush are untouched – at least for now.
we’ll continue our quest in the basement and the attic and every other nook and cranny. we’ll make messes and piles and categorize each thing we unearth.
and the emotional stuff, well, it will surface and it will recede – both. it will be like a tide – just like the basement, it is a choice to pull things out of their previous compartmentalization. just like the basement, it has the potential to be really messy. and, just like the basement, it will be tedious and time-consuming and it is possible for a bit of anxiety to creep into the spaces previously left wide open by keeping it all in boxes and on shelves. suddenly, it’s all free-floating and there are fragments of emotions and tangible pieces of the past right there in front of us.
so we climb aboard our front loaders and excavators and bulldozers. and we start plowing down all the invasives.
and we just may feel restored after it all. we will have relived many memories, touched – really touched - the evidence of time passing.
and we just may be rejuvenated. the new saplings will be free to grow.
and we will look forward to lush, breathing easier and feeling the sun on our faces.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY
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they chopped down, chainsawed, mulched, chemicalized, burned. they decimated the whole forest to eliminate the invasives. and – in the way of oncological medicine, of environmental eradication programs, of corporate and organizational ousting – the good cells may somehow survive, burned edges and all.
to be a tree with burn marks is to be human. one cannot traipse through this life without them. we all carry with us whatever balm has helped us get through the fires. we lean on the surety that spring will come, eventually.
as we hike the trail, we know that it is not one hundred percent that only the good will keep on. it is not a certainty. instead, it is a risk, a gamble, that there may be cells that escape treatment, there may be invasives that escape annihilation, there may be people-in-power-with-ill-intent who either escape the pointed fingers or are the ones corruptly pointing them.
and in those cases, the worry is that those cells will reproduce, those invasives will take over and choke out the organic, those people will destroy the place. a ravaging burn. devastation. and the good cells, the good plants, the good people will be left to fend for themselves, to remain upright – stalwart – to grow despite the odds.
it is good friday for those who are keeping a religious calendar. a day of destruction following betrayal and many burned edges. as this sacred story goes, three days later there is a resurrection. and the targeted jesus rises.
as we hike the trail, we notice the green shoots growing out of the ground, their top leaves still blackened. we marvel at the tenacity of these plants as they garnered energy best-as-they-could, regardless of the burn. the good xylem and phloem somehow survived.
there are naturalists who are watching closely, tending to the native plants best as they can. there are doctors and nurses and researchers and clinical trial experts who are watching closely, tending to patients and health and life best as they can. there are, therefore, it would seem, allies who are dedicated to the truth, to transparency, to the best parts of an organization who are watching closely, tending to the burns of the sacrificed.
“i want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.“ (oriah mountain dreamer)
shrinking back will allow the devastation. standing in the fire – the center of the fire – will allow the resurrection.
*****
“and you were there in all of my suff’ring.
you were there in doubt, and in fear;
i’m waiting on the dawn to reappear...” (you were on the cross – m.mayer, k.butler, a.assad)
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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY
way past enough.
enough was a long time ago. enough was after the first mass shooting. “enough” is no longer relevant.
i hardly know what to say. every one of us in this country should be shocked into exhausted, sickened silence and then pushed into action, no longer sloughing off of the actual responsibility to protect the citizens of this land from the barrel of a gun, from the devastation of people’s lives blown apart.
this spacious-skies-amber-waves-of-grain united states is an embarrassment. the freedom to live life – at school, at church, at a concert, at the movies, in the mall, at the club, at the grocery store – the freedom to continue breathing is usurped by powerful money-rich-control-hungry leaders – voted into office, no less – with not even a nod to the sanctity of lives taken at gunpoint.
it is utterly shameful if you are not filled with rage, if you are not horrified with the guns in this land and those who support the exponential growth and prioritizing of their presence and the power they wield. they will utter their passive “heartfelt” “thoughts and prayers” and will soon forget their “outrage”. until the next time.
there are no more excuses.
there never were.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this SATURDAY MORNING
SMACK-DAB. ©️ 2022 kerrianddavid.com
the mimosa tree grew in the middle of the front yard, its fanning leaves dappling the southern sunshine streaming through it. pink and white flowers adorned its graceful branches; it was beautiful color on a wooded lot full of big oaks and maples. the roots of a mimosa are invasive and the pods and brittleness and attraction to disease put it on the do-not-plant list. but it spelled home, and, though i don’t remember the ultimate reason it needed to be taken down, i do remember how its absence felt.
the pink bloom stopped me in the middle of the botanic garden greenhouse. it wasn’t a duplicate of our mimosa; it may not even have been a mimosa. but the pompom shape and the blossom echoed our tree’s blooms and, instantly, i was taken back home.
the mourning doves have started cooing. we’ve seen robins. wild turkeys were out on the bike trail as we walked and talked. a pudgy squirrel lingered on our deck rail in the sun and the birds are lining up on the fence to take turns at the birdfeeder. it is another spring – soon. it rolls on and on. time.
we watched an interview…a man in ukraine who – devastatingly – lost his wife and two children was talking with erin burnett (cnn) who earlier had been reporting from ukraine but is back in ny now. tears streaming down her face, she struggled to hold onto her composure as she prompted this gentleman to speak about his children, his wife. less than a month ago he had a normal life. i’d believe the thought of losing his family to a violent bombing invasion was far from his mind. in what is mere minutes (only 30,240 minutes) all was gone.
there are mimosas in ukraine. called acacia trees they canopy parks and walkways, their pompoms and curtained branches greeting all those who walk underneath. i would imagine that somewhere there was a house with a front yard. and in that front yard sat a mimosa.
now, 30,240 minutes later, there is nothing. not because the tree’s roots were lifting the sidewalk or the spent blooms were littering the grass or the seeds are toxic to animals. no. they are decimated because they – along with their people – were blown to bits in acts of cruelty, in heinous evil. it takes our breath away. no more mimosas. no more homes.
what will we do with the next 30,240 minutes?
*****
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read DAVID’S thoughts this K.S. FRIDAY
THE WAY HOME from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood
“it’s the circle of life
and it moves us all
through despair and hope
through faith and love
’til we find our place
on the path unwinding
in the circle
the circle of life”
(circle of life, elton john, tim rice)
“it can all unravel so fast,” he said as we watched footage of erin burnett (cnn) in a van in ukraine, trying to find a border that was open, a border that did not have a fifty-six hour wait in line. the absolutely devastating reality of families trying to leave-and-go-where? is sobering.
we have written each day, because that is what we do. most of the time we write ahead so that the blogs publish early in the morning. sometimes that means that we are not writing of the moment in time, not writing of the crisis, not writing of the emotional and physical upheaval of others in the world. sometimes we are simply writing about something simple, something mundane, something inane, something that may not seem plugged in.
we walked out front the day we pushed littlebabyscion down the driveway so that big red could be threaded through the space between the wall and the xb and driven across the yard to the street. as i stood there, ready to inform d about clearance on either side, i looked down at the wall and the copper ring, standing on edge, was there. it took me by surprise; it had surely stood on its edge for months, through rain and snow and wind, not moving. we realized it was a fitting from the water line replacement work we had done, as the line installed in the ground was copper. the ring had withstood some time and definitely some weather. steadfast. and there it was. a circle of copper.
russia’s invasion into ukraine is the mightiest of disasters. a human-driven catastrophe intended to hurt others, intended for cataclysmic fall, turmoil, shakeout that will last decades, utter grief to a country that has rebuilt, that has risen up in strength and great fortitude.
the mortal politics of this ugly invasion aside, it is abhorrent to watch as families pack a suitcase from their house, their home, their life and split apart – men staying behind, conscripted to fight. we cry again and again, watching as they hug, exchange goodbyes – not knowing – and leave to go mostly to places they do not yet know. the point is to leave. the point is not yet to know. the point of these incredibly strong, stalwart and courageous people is to have hope through the despair.
every bit of news we watch and read brings into focus, yet again, the flimsy grip we have on living. what we thought was important can drop away in mere instants. what we thought was necessary becomes superfluous. what we thought was solid becomes nebulous, untenable.
“it can all unravel so fast.”
life. the circle.
*****
read DAVID’S thoughts this D.R. THURSDAY
brazen. how many of us have been this brazen? to make an assumption, to form an opinion, to decide to dislike, with no information, having asked no questions, having had no real conversation, having chosen sides under the dark cloak of one-sided story. we have all heard the idiom, “before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.” yet, our perspective often remains stubbornly in one camp and we cling to the sideofthestory we heard, professing our disdain, without even a mere effort to understand, to measure, to even hear the other side. and then we haughtily hold tight to our narrow-scoped opinion and aim our arrows of brazen judgment. it’s shocking. and completely not shocking.
guilty. how many of us have been guilty of this? to not care enough about someone’s reputation, someone’s livelihood, someone’s word, with no information, having asked no questions, having had no real conversation, having chosen sides under the dark cloak of one-sided story. we have all heard the proverb, “those in glass houses should not throw stones.” yet, we forgo our own flawedness, our own misdeeds, our own obvious hypocrisy, to hurl pebbles and stones and out-and-out boulders at others, efforts to raise ourselves up by pushing someone else down, guilty of power-mongering in places where that should be more closely examined. it’s shocking. and completely not shocking.
sad. how many of us feel sad, having lost friendships, relationships, potential lifelong allies, colleagues, having aligned ourselves with people who have brazenly been guilty of gauging someone else simply because they did not know the othersideofthestory? we have judged, forgetting our own flaws. we have pummeled, forgetting our own vulnerability. we have turned our backs, forgetting our own need for fairness and truth from others. it’s shocking. and completely not shocking.
devastated. how many of us have been at the center of the firing squad, muzzled and treading water, stuck in inertia, unable to give voice to the othersideofthestory, in the center of misinformation, incomplete information, an absolute lack of information, opinions and dislike forming from the dust of others’ untruths, others’ prejudices, others’ agenda? devastated that there is so much collateral fallout, so much loss, simply because they didn’t hear your side of the story. it’s shocking. and completely not shocking.
but it is most definitely this: brazen.
and we all, at some time or another, are most definitely this: guilty.
and it feels most definitely this: sad.
and it causes most definitely this: devastation.
perhaps we need put on shoes and lay down our stones.
*****
read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY
reverse threading 