i never won when the county fair contest involved guessing the number of gumballs in the jar. it’s just hard to wrap your head around just how many gumballs fit in a jar – so many more than you think possible.
at the beginning it was twisted entertainment to watch the CNN gumball jar fill up. the cnn anchor would add another gumball to the jar each time the president lied. and then, when it was full, he would add another jar. and another. and another. and now? i’m not sure how many jars and gumballs it would take to truly represent the sheer number of times this president has lied to us, the populace aka his employers. it is not entertaining. it is not funny. it is outright pitiful, many gumballs past pathetic.
to realize that this period right now, the final approach to the election, is one of “the president’s most dishonest” spans of time is absolute lunacy. what is this country thinking? why, on this good earth, is it perfectly partisanly ok for the leader of the free world to constantly lie? he is a pathological liar and his egocentric comrades are both passively and actively complicit in their acceptance of his disorder, of forwarding his vast cauldron of mistruths, of his failures, of his vileness, of pushing his self-serving agenda, of aggrandizing his behavior.
this country will never win any contest guessing the number of presidential-lie-gumballs in the jar. instead, it will sink deeper into division, deeper into inequity and prejudice, deeper into an abyssmal lack of compassion, deeper into suppression, deeper into dark despair, deeper into the lies. this country will reside inside the pathological sickness in this president’s head.
“you can’t take it with you,” my sweet poppo would say, referring to money and an eventual dying. he and my momma were generous people. even in the lower-middlest-of-middle-class living, they were giving and altruistic. they gave out of pockets-not-full-of-plenty, never hesitating, never clutching onto money. they worked hard, paid taxes, contributed to organizations they believed in, helped their children and their children’s children. they were amazing examples of character, especially as defined by the ironic presidential proclamation earlier this week. they never failed to lift others up and believed in those who needed assistance. they were not greedy.
but greed rears its exceptionally ugly head nevertheless. and the administration that currently rules this nation (i rue the use of such an unfortunately appropriate word) continually thrusts forward self-serving agenda for those-with and denies the importance of policy for those-without. in a country that calls itself a democracy and ensures domestic tranquility, it is a pitiful state of affairs to celebrate, undermine and invite more disparity in its populace.
it should be with a (large) modicum of shame that leona helmsley is quoted as saying, “only the little people pay taxes,” but instead it is apparent that is the whole point. keep the little people little; keep the rich people rich.
we drove through tiny towns from canon city, colorado to limon, colorado. the never-ending rangeland boasted tiny mobile homes and collapsing houses, people living in squalor. the trump 2020 signs were prevalent. i wondered aloud why anyone living in such circumstance would fly a giant flag for a man and a complicit administration that could care less about them. i wondered why they would choose to campaign for a person who cannonballs along the unfair advantages for the wealthy, the keeping-those-with-less down policies, the brutal inequity under every umbrella. i wondered why they would support someone who has clearly paid less taxes than they had. i wondered if they knew that this very president, a self-expressed billionaire, had paid merely $750 in taxes. i wondered if they knew that he and his cronies consider them the “little people” of this leona quote. i wondered how they, as humans who are citizens of this country and deserve respect and equality and opportunity, would feel about being called “little people”.
it was my dad’s 100th birthday on saturday. he always wanted to live to be 100 and, as we talk about him and tell stories and i talk to him aloud, we celebrate him as 100 even if he is on another plane of existence.
as we drove the rest of the way home through green fields turning to gold, viewing signs of a clear misinformation election campaign, i thought about my dad. we entered quick stores after pumping gas to use the restroom, stores with large signs on the door that clearly stated “masks required”, to find misinformed, defiant and cavalier people wandering about with nary a mask, and i thought about my dad. we stopped for a picnic by the side of a lake, stretching our legs, and i thought about my dad.
in the warped definition of the current pompous leadership of this nation, i suppose he, like we, would be considered “little people”.
but i thought about his integrity, his love, his tolerance, his hardworking nature, his just-make-it-work-ness, his generosity, and i have no doubt about how he would feel about the united states’ current administration and attitudes.
the topic of money is an easy one. “you can’t take it with you,” my dad would say. virtue, on the other hand? “no,” he’d say, “you can’t take it with you either.” and, after a pause, he’d add, “especially if you never had it.”
“there are 100 ways you could have said that,” he would say. yep. probably more than 100. somehow you have to have your intellect, emotions, sensitivity all line up in perfect harmony so that what actually comes out of your mouth might be a teensy bit worthy, attentive to the moment. we all know this is not an easy thing. it is far easier to react, to scoff at sensitivity, to employ little to no brainpower, to not check your emotions, to not rein in your anger, your wrath, indeed, your rage. yes, it is far easier to spew.
and spewing has become the haute couture of communicating, the cape of the superhero of speak. instead of being gauche, it has become cheered, jollied on, mimicked. we have sunk down low, low, low.
somewhere between engaging your mouth – somewhere between start and stop – there must be a filter, heck, multiple filters. instead of the arrogant stance, the ready-go of putting someone in their place or pushing them down under the waves, the offensive weaving of untruths, the rotisserie of steroid-injected pretend-it-happened stories, perhaps there might be subtle moments of consideration. perhaps there might be the pause of checking-your-reactionary-self minutes where you attempt to take into consideration the other’s shoes and walking in them. perhaps, even more so, though quite a stretch, there might be … empathy.
but this is not a time that empathy is in vogue. this is not a time that trying to understand another’s point of view is fashionable. this is not a time that measuring your words and being mindful is favored. instead, this is a time that the space between start and stop is not infinitetismal.
this space – between start and stop – is, instead, of giant proportions. it is a space not measured by integrity or kindness. it is not thoughtful or contemplative or introspective. it is instead consumed with preoccupation of self, with selfish, unsympathetic agenda-driven drivel. it does not consider the other 100 ways. it races to the satisfied finish, like a green racehorse out of the gate, with no even gait and no finesse. there is no stop, no pause. it gallops without forethought, without watching where it is going. it is spewing.
i am not thinking that i will provide any new enlightenment about this extraordinary woman, for there are plenty of places you might research her groundbreaking and life-changing work, plenty of historians and writers compiling stories, timelines and amazing tomes of her accomplishments. but i can speak of the heart-stopping moment when i realized she had died.
we had not checked in with the news for a few hours. i glanced at instagram and saw that My Girl had posted a photograph of justice ginsburg. there were no words. i was immediately and deeply saddened, knowing that the chaos of 2020 would soon become even more rooted in division and that the chasm of the aisle would sink lower, into the hot fiery core of the earth.
it’s not surprising to see the hypocrisy that followed her passing. the sheer audaciousness of self-agendized dispassionate souls who have been chomping at the bit, waiting for this moment, is breathtaking, from the president down through his senate minions, all hell-bent. it is the earth quietly trembling that you feel beneath your feet as you walk through these days, reading, watching, scorn and disbelief wrinkling your brow.
but in the wake of this supreme court justice’s incredible time of service, there is no shame for those who slobber all over themselves in their zeal to replace her, to ultra-conservatize the court, to wield a time-travel incendiary to earlier times in the country when elite white men (curious how this describes those wielding as well) ruled everything and equality – equal treatment – of gender, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status mattered not. how easily they reach for their (metaphoric) automatic weapons to detonate all the good work that has been done, all the justice that has been served, all the good intentions set in place to further that good work. how repulsive it is to watch them spewing words they now gorge on, taking them back, making excuses, declaring their victory to stock the court, like they would an elite fish farm in the catskills.
RBG has had a profound impact on our country, on our world. the loss of her compassion, her intellect, her wisdom is, likewise, profound. it’s life-changing-devastating. it’s personal. absolutely personal. it should be personal for all.
i never used to spend so many waking hours thinking about this country’s president or the governmental agencies and their representatives. i miss those days. i felt, back then, that these people were – mostly – looking out for the good of the country and i felt comfortable enough to go about my own life, taking responsibility for my family, my work, my community. i was informed and yet, i released my hold on constant information.
those days are gone.
now, i watch constantly – in complete horror – as this country has a president – truth be told, an impeached president – who, in his most recent atrocities, blatantly stokes division and hatred, whose absolute disregard for the health and well-being of the populace during a pandemic is evident in his arrogant gathering of hundreds and thousands together non-masked, non-distanced, whose smirking face smugly stated – to environmental scientists immersed in the devastating fires out west – that “it will start to get cooler” and that “i don’t think science knows”. i can not even attempt a complete inventory; the list of atrocities is too long. “all the president’s grotesqueries matter,” tim miller, a former RNC spokesperson.
yes. it’s all grotesque.
it appears that he is not only campaigning by audacity, but he is absolutely unchecked and reigning with audacity as well.
and, as the pissy-ness trickles down from the top and surrounds each of us with people-being-pissy-with-permission-from-the-top-of-the-heap, i wonder: when will it stop? at what juncture will this reign of terror finally be over?
“neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.” (desiderata, max ehrmann 1927)
i would venture to say that, for many, this is a time of spiritual aridity and woeful disenchantment. unconsolable worry, uneasiness, disillusionment, fear…pervasive as the humidity of early morning summer fog, the dew of late evening. we wait for the breeze to start to blow off the sticky and cool us down.
we speak up, for the winds of change will dispel our disease, our unease, our social injustice ill-at-ease. we stand, with love, at the ready to make it happen. we confront that which is not true, that which is harmful, hateful, that which is fear-mongering, that which incites violence and inequality among any and all people. for this we reap not benefits; instead we accumulate pervasive pushback, accusation, derision.
but love is, truly, as perennial as the grass. love will always lead the way out of aridity and disenchantment. love waits on the sidelines of the arena filled with division and hatred, ready to flow into the cracks. it’s our job as decent humans to create the cracks.
“and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. with all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.”
the “noisy confusion of life” punctuates our day with its rat-a-tat of false information, its innuendo, its delivery of agenda, its acrimony, its selfish serving of egos. the “sham, drudgery and broken dreams” are all around us.
and so is this beautiful world.
we walk past the pond, the wind on our faces. the grasses on the side beckon us to peek through. water lilies polka-dot the clear water. perennial as the sun, the morning and the dusk, the water lilies aerate the pond and keep the algae on the surface at a minimum, peacefully offering shelter to smaller sized fish.
but like many things that might look good on the surface, that might be aesthetically pleasing, that might speak to your individual soul, it is wise to be aware of the true qualities of water lilies and the perennials pondweed or yellow floating heart, plants that closely resemble them. many shockingly invasive, they can quickly take over, without others even noticing, choking out the life of the pond.
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.
on the back of the vehicle’s window we just passed the other day there was this sticker: “you can give peace a chance. i’ll cover you if it dosen’t {sic} work out.”
the mantra “everyone’s entitled to their own opinion” screamed its head off at me as i read this with distress. but there’s this:
mass shootings in public schools, killing people
mass shootings at colleges, killing people
mass shootings at concerts, killing people
mass shootings at nightclubs, killing people
mass shootings at places of worship, killing people
mass shootings at movie theatres, killing people
mass shootings at malls, killing people
mass shootings at stores, killing people
mass shootings at restaurants, killing people
mass shootings at bases, killing people
mass shootings at post offices, killing people
enough.
peace deserves a chance. the gun-law-less-ness-populace has had its chance. it has failed miserably. it is still failing. it is breaking hearts and lives left and right. it is placing the value of life below the value of a semiautomatic weapon. what have we come to? what horror must happen before legislation is put into place that considers the actual lack of need, the lack of appropriateness, the sheer lack of respect for human life for these weapons of mass destruction to be removed from day-to-day life?
“guns don’t kill people. people do.” yes, people pull the trigger. yet, without guns, what would those trigger-hungry people do? “pew, pew, pew, pew,” they would yell out while running with their pointer finger aimed at the ‘enemy’.
“you would cry too if it happened to you, ” my wise friend jotted the lyrics of this song to me. in this country of little-to-no-community-empathy, she was making reference of these lyrics to the pandemic. yet, they apply to any despicably irresponsible act by leadership – the lack of leadership for the covid-19 pandemic, the lack of leadership for gun control, for banning assault weapons, the lack of leadership for racial equality and addressing unrest, the lack of leadership for social justice and safety of all peoples, the revoltingly vigorous encouragement of a society to pine for more of the second amendment.
it only took new zealand six days in 2019 to announce a new national gun policy. weapons of mass destruction (all military-style semiautomatic weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines and modification parts to morph guns into semiautomatic status) were banned merely six days after a mass shooting. it is assumed that gun ownership is a privilege there, not a right. gun homicides there have been in the single digits, with the highest number of 11.
and the united states of america?
enough.
i might add: anyone who purchases a sticker announcing their dismissal of peace as an option should spend a little more time reading it. “dosen’t” is spelled wrong. perhaps that is one of the problems. little to no thought, little to no investment in critical thinking. little to no conversation or use of intellect. no refrainment of an overabundance of anger and reactionism. just a blunt declaration of violence, a creed to evil.
it wasn’t just because of the font. i’m sure he poured my coffee in this mug because i am anything BUT calm. perhaps he was hoping for the power of suggestion working on me.
i wish i could write something heartening about calm. i wish i could wax poetic about sitting on a rock next to a cool mountain stream or in an adirondack chair on the back deck. i wish i could write about the hush of rain or the tranquility of a sunrise. i wish i could narrate moments of sustained serenity – meditative and centered. i wish i could chronicle days of relaxation and a giving-over of worry and stress. i wish i could report on ease of mind and a stillness of spirit. i wish i could relate stories of soul-replenishing time shared with loved ones. i wish i could recount adventures and goings-out without anxiety. i wish i could write of a quiet, peaceful heart.
but right now, i can’t. calm is elusive these days.
my sweet momma taught me to use a dictionary when i was very young. “look it up,” she would tell me. the dictionary held an esteemed place in our house. if i didn’t know what ‘it’ meant or how ‘it’ was spelled, i knew where to go. i developed a love for dictionaries, thesauruses, all manners of the tools of research.
now, it seems dictionaries have lost their status and spellcheck has become a way of life for those too lazy to ‘look it up’. spellcheck has a few obvious limitations; context, usage and intent presenting the biggest challenges. if only spellcheck and auto-correct could reach out of the device screen and (gently) slap the person committing the spellingcrime, life’s communications could be better understood. punctuation joins the game of laziness and, i must say, punctuation makes a difference. consider “i’m sorry i love you” or “i’m sorry. i love you.” there is a marked difference.
so when people, who never graced me, the nerdy-look-it-up-type, with even one word in high school but who have ‘friended’ me on facebook, post multiple nonsensical, poorly articulated and division-inciting arguments using the term “voter Freud”, it raises the hair on the back of my neck. i want to post back “look it up!” but i refrain. borrowing leonard pitts’ words, there seems to be a “matchless capacity for mental mediocrity” in the united states these days.
i suspect if this not-really-a-friend-just-a-friend-on-facebook was standing across from me (mind you, at least six feet across) she would be screaming at me in a loud raucous voice. i wonder if she would call it – this thing she has taken from fox news and run full speed with, never looking to see if she had a spotter or even a bottle of water in her full-out sprint to falsificationland – “voter Freud” in person. or would she actually say “voter fraud” in her zeal to make me a believer of her layered cake of conspiracies.
this is not just about lazy writing. this seems an indicator of a bigger problem. it’s the metaphoric tip of the iceberg. i’m not just kvetching about spelling and punctuation, much as i wish that were the whole problem. it’s an imploring plea to ask questions. in today’s deep-fake world, a reminder to not make quick assumptions. to not jump onto a band wagon stoked with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to quell those speaking out, enable dictatorial nationalism, silence what needs to be said.
in this pandemic-laden-chaos-wreaked-leaderless-divisive country of ours i would encourage research. i would encourage fact-checking. i would encourage dictionaries. i would encourage more listening and less reactionism. i would hope that each of us would understand that every word we utter, every word we write matters, every attitude, every nuance. we are not in a world of one; we each affect and effect the next. over and over.
and i don’t know. last time i checked, john glenn high school in elwood, new york – more than four decades ago – had pretty high standards in english class, in sciences, in history, in math, not the least learning of which was how to use deductive reasoning. i, for one, was paying attention. because it mattered. “voter Freud?” indeed. it still matters.
