we venture out of the mind-boggling absorption of what’s really happening out there every now and then. and sit in the sun. or browse plants and flowers at the nursery. or take to the trail. or pet the dogga.
because we all need a break from it at some point, this devastation that wracks our hearts…just a few tiny moments away from thinking about it.
the rest of life is going on. people are working and sleeping, having babies and leaving this earth, healing and fighting disease with all their might, doing real life. right smack in the middle of horrific – – real life.
and sometimes that is enough.
really.
enough.
the rest of all of it is just too much.
“…well, everybody’s heart needs a holiday some time…”
there are 6186 photos on my phone that – in some shape or form – are photos of the sky. there are 2400 that are of clouds. i’m pretty sure there’s some overlap there. but that is a lot of photos looking up.
with yet another storm watch in the state – on an unusually warm late april night – we sat out on the deck with 20 watching the sky. i took pictures. it felt like a summer night – minus the mosquitos – and we adirondack-chair-sat for quite a while, intermittent conversation and laughter punctuating the quiet.
as i’ve previously written about, we pay attention to storm watches and warnings. we use our weather app to track the arriving front systems, to watch the hourly forecast. we depend on it to make good decisions for our safety.
i remember a roadtrip – crossing through the state of wyoming – trying to outrun a giant dark greenish sky that seemed to be chasing after us. littlebabyscion has never zipped along as fast as it did that day. i remember d carrying dogga downstairs to the basement, with supplies and important papers, all while the tornado siren was sounding outside. i remember – way back in the day – laying in a ditch in the middle of rural illinois somewhere while vacationing at my big brother’s, his vehicle parked on the grassy shoulder of the county road on which we had been driving. i remember – not too long ago – just last june – sitting in littlebabyscion literally tucked up against a brick restaurant after-hours as we tried to evade the tornadic wind that had lifted us up off the open parking lot.
each time we made efforts – to use caution, to think-it-through, to be reasonably safe – and we took action. each time survival was the end goal. the storms of climate change are becoming apocalyptic – severe, with devastating consequences. we do our best to be knowledgeable, alerted, constructive.
the gale force winds of corruption are whirling around us. we must use caution, must think-it-through, must be reasonably safe, must take action. survival is the end goal. the collapsing of democracy is apocalyptic — severe, with devastating consequences.
in these days we are waking very early. our old dogga is hungry, maybe a little stiff, needing to get up and get us moving. and so we do. we open blinds and let the sun rise through our windows. we sit with our coffee against pillows in a bed we have now lowered closer to the floor for dogga. we listen to the birds and our pond gurgling. it is quiet. really quite exquisite.
we wake to the beautiful barebones of this universe – and sit in appreciation, silent as we listen and absorb the dawn of this next day. we are both very, very aware of this gift of time, this gift of stillness. we revel in the simplest of things for it is the simplest of things with which we surround ourselves; our budget is squishy-tight and we try our best to abide by the premise of ‘less is more’.
and it is in those moments – the moments of rays across our quilt, coffee in our hands, dogga at our feet – the moments of listening – that i can’t understand.
i can’t understand how anyone – particularly any person in any influential position of leadership – can wake up in the morning with evil-agendized intent in their heart. i can’t understand the superficiality of wanting-it-all, needing-it-all, having-it-all. i can’t grok the indecency of plotting against persons, peoples, missions, goodness.
i wonder how it is that one can wake so conversely differently, full of dreadful scheming. i wonder how it is that those people are of the same humankind. i wonder what twisted them, what broke their connection to morality, what tore the silken filaments of the recognition of unconditional beauty from them. what maelstrom enveloped their souls and trapped them in an eddy of cruelty.
we sit on the deck and look to the sky through the mixup of branches above us to the north. dogga lays nearby and the sun is sinking lower, the dusk sky an ombré canvas.
and – like many of you, i suppose – i still can’t understand. and it still doesn’t feel real.
but it is. and there are those – waking up yesterday, today, and – with nothing stopping them – likely, tomorrow – the textures of our woven universe unimportant, their own needs driving corrupt obsessions of power and control, their view of the world – this country – dark, their actions ruthless and cavalier, each of them impervious to the exquisite.
and the barebones of the universe sigh deeply, grief spilling into the technicolored chiaroscuro sky of dawn, the ink of dusk.
i owe my love of math to my sweet momma and two amazing math teachers in junior high and high school (woody and bill).
so to look up in the sky and see ‘pi’ made me laugh aloud. of course i sent a photo to both of my kiddos with the caption “so is this what they mean by pi in the sky?” – to which neither responded a peep. oh well. i thought it was pretty funny – in a corny kind of way.
it did, however, make me think of all things pi-in-the-sky, er…pie-in-the-sky.
pi (3.14…) is a constant. it never changes. it is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. it is used in many equations and – from the time you learn it – is a number you just never forget.
yeah, kind of like the constitution or the declaration of independence. once you learn about them, you never forget.
well, most people never forget.
well, some people never forget.
anyway, here we are – in the middle of a constitutional crisis – with the declaration of independence mouth-open-silently-screaming relevancies at us – and my pie-in-the-sky is that it will all just stop – with a happy hallmark ending where all rifts fade and all fighting ceases and people just love one another and live in peace and harmony and respectful, compassionate democracy for the rest of all time.
pretty pie-in-the-sky-ish, eh?
a dear old friend sent me a youtube video of the song beautiful city(from godspell):
“out of the ruins and rubble/out of the smoke/out of our night of struggle/can we see a ray of hope?/one pale thin ray reaching for the day… we can build a beautiful city/yes, we can/we can build a beautiful city/not a city of angels/but we can build a city of men/we may not reach the ending/but we can start/slowly but truly mending/brick by brick/heart by heart/now, maybe now/we start learning how/…when your trust is all but shattered/when your faith is all but killed/you can give up bitter and battered/or you can slowly start to build!…”(stephen schwartz)
i am hoping against hope that this is not pie-in-the-sky. that a chance remains for this country to rebuild – to stop this madness – to stop the evil and cruel extremism that is taking over – to stop authoritarianism – to stop the ruining of this democracy.
pi in the sky above me, i couldn’t resist taking a photograph.
i couldn’t resist sending it as my picture-of-the-day.
and i couldn’t resist hoping – at least for a little bit – for some pie-in-the-sky.
truth seems to have taken a leave of absence from this country, no longer useful or appropriate or agenda-aiding for the current administration. instead, we – as a populace – are being fed smarmy falsehoods and all manner of fabricated bull in the name of “truth”.
the ability to manipulate any story, any image, any narrative, any situation, any anything is on the exponential rise. it is hard to discern what is real and what isn’t, what communication we receive or read is real and what isn’t, what images we see are real and what aren’t.
which makes it ever more important to delve into something before jumping whole-hog into believing it.
case in point – the biggest inaugural crowd.
case in point – everything re covid, including bleach and this: “just stay calm. it will go away.”
case in point – winning the 2020 election.
case in point – the peace-loving tourists in the capitol on january 6.
case in point – “they’re eating the dogs. they’re eating the cats.”
and on and on and on and on and on, ad nauseam.
despicable.
and that’s all old news, old old news, old old old news. nothing like the news of the day: stuff made up to validate chaotic, cruel moves by the administration to accomplish hellish corruption.
the ease in which they manipulate you, your hook-line-and-sinker dedication is their frenzied rapture. truly. (it is ridiculously hard not to use bluntly profane language to make this point.)
if you are believing – without bothering to check – what this prez and his team o’ teams are spewing, you are as wrapped up in his sickness as he is. delusion is a powerful contagion and a profound addiction.
like i said, i hardly know where to start.
be a good citizen. look it all up. double-check. have a conscience. save the democracy.
it is hard for me to avoid. i simply cannot help it. or maybe i just can’t resist the impulse.
we play rummikub every monday and thursday with 20 after we share dinner together. and – every single time – something one of them – d or 20 – says, makes me break into song.
we were talking about the obvious – you know – the state of our country. it was in an unusual fit of optimism. it was right after we talked about bernie sanders and aoc and the pushback of intellectually woke people against authoritarianism etc etc etc (i know you hear that line now – from the king and i – uh-huh, uh-huh – etc etc etc).
it had been a week since we had seen 20 (which is also unusual) and much had happened – on both sides – so there was a lot to talk about.
in that week we had found a different trail. it wound its way through a rural landscape and we enjoyed its newness. and then there was this tree. one sturdy old gnarly oak in the forefront of a blank field. stunning. perhaps a hundred years old. perhaps more. its silhouette against the sky so intense, strikingly gnarly in a good way.
we have such an appreciation for these lands of space through which we hike. we have hiked out east, down south, out west, up north. we’ve hiked in county parks, state parks, national parks. we dream of thru-hiking one day on one of the national trails. we hold these places in high regard, grateful for the glorious beauty, the potential for peacefulness, the celebration of the wild.
and so our conversation of late and of that night – of course – is also about the threat to these places (in addition to all the other gnarly-extremely-twisted corrupt threats of the administration too long to list or even grok in any conscience-based way.) we talked about our new forest preserve hike and we talked about national parks. and it feels sickening inside to think of the decimation of any of this. and all for the wealth of the wealthiest.
in the middle of our rummikub game – me…stuck with gnarly chips – a double of black 13s and a double of 1s and the grasp of the plastic trophy seeming bleak – and in the middle of the accompanying punctuations of news-chaos-of-the-day conversation – it suddenly came to mind, rose to the top.
the song ooh child was written about times of strife.
i started singing.
and hoping.
that some day we – this broken country – will put it together and get it undone. and then we’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun – when the world is much brighter.
they rolled their eyes, poking fun at the records spinning in my brain. and, for a few minutes, we all laughed.
truly – four layers of “artificially flavored” cotton candy in the form of a cake that you can actually “slice”.
who buys this stuff??
it would seem to me that in these days there is more than enough unhealthy, artificially-flavored, reality-ignoring, adoringly-capitulating, propaganda-pontificating, pretend-christianizing, fascist-apologizing, putridly-patriotic, extremist-venom to last us the rest of all time.
why we would need a cotton candy layer cake is beyond me. we are already steeped in an unhealthy actual sickness far beyond what any artificial sugar high might create. we are walking – living and breathing – in the sociopathically-evil-revenge-filled-conscience-free-greed-driven-corrupt mind of this administration.
it takes one glance at social media to witness this, to see this real moment in our history streaming alongside the layers of complicity, silence, distilling, distracting, lying, hubris-shouting, bigot-screaming, shell-gaming – all part of the rah-rah-cheering-squad layer cake.
i went out the back door and walked around to the front to see what was happening.
the house sparrows were building a nest above our front door, tucked carefully into the architectural elements of trim.
now, we love our birds. we take comfort in hearing them early-early in the morning. we watch them out the window on the wires above our driveway. we watch them out back at the feeder and the birdbath.
their constancy is balm for our spirits.
and in these times, there is nothing we need more.
when the twenty-one gun salute echoed in the muggy florida air, i had the shivers. my sweet poppo was gone and nothing would ever be the same.
we were at the national cemetery in bushnell, gathered under a portico, torrential rain on and off. my sweet momma was both heartbroken and stalwart. we all lingered before it was time to drive back and celebrate my dad’s life. it is just a month and a half shy of thirteen years ago.
the pride that i felt – with patriot guard riders leading our way to this honorable cemetery – was something i recognized. it came from a feeling of stability, living in a relatively steady democracy and honoring this man – my dad – who had valiantly fought for that very premise – democracy over fascism, the populace over authoritarianism. barack obama was president and i did not read the news every single day expecting chaos to reign or nationwide or global disaster to be absolutely imminent. i rested assured that the people elected were intelligent, honest, respectful, compassionately decent people of the utmost integrity who had others around them with the same virtuous qualities. i was not panicking. my daddy had died and i could be totally present with his sending-off and present in my grief, the grief i shared with my family. i assumed that – alongside any desire i might have to be involved in day-to-day politics – i could also sit back and trust that – as a citizen – i was being represented by someone who had a moral compass.
i thought that would just be there – always – the strength, freedom, courage, the ideals of liberty and the unity of the states of this country. i believed that the spirit of this nation – the immortality of it as depicted by the american bald eagle – would always prevail.
fast forward.
2025.
now – more than ever – i see that tomorrow’s sky is not just there. we are fearful of losing it all…every last bit of this country’s democracy.
the soaring eagle that dipped and swooped over us on the trail – time and again – gave me the shivers just like the twenty-one gun salute did. i hoped it was some sort of positive sign from the universe, maybe even from my dad.
my sweet poppo is weeping somewhere, knowing that his sacrifices – his time as a world war II airman and as a prisoner of war, his injuries, his post-traumatic trauma – may not endure this time in our nation. it crushes me to think of his utter disillusioned disappointment.
and then I hear him, “do you think the rain’ll hurt the rhubarb?”
i read through the lyrics of the star spangled banner, america the beautiful, my country ’tis of thee. i read the words on the statue of liberty. and i read the pledge of allegiance:
“i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, with liberty and justice for all.”
this administration is peeling back the layers of democracy. as the nucleus of this republic – in dead center – stands naked and utterly vulnerable – we continually wonder if this absolute and vile destruction is what you wanted.
if it is, this is no longer your pledge.
because – republic (noun): a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. (oxford)
because – republic: a form of government where power is held by the people, either directly or through elected representatives…a system where the citizens hold the ultimate authority…the government is expected to serve the interests of all citizens. (AI)
and then i re-read the declaration of independence, stunned by the sheer number of current parallels written into this noble historic document. and these words: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, serving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
nevertheless, it is getting darker and darker here.
and so i whisper the lyrics of irving berlin as a prayer: “god bless america, land that i love. stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.” (irving berlin, 1918)
reverse threading 