when we went to hippy tom’s farm and wandered around, browsing, i was overwhelmed by feeling like we were inside a sickness – a hoarding personality – and i felt trapped and breathless. it was too much for me. we drew in deep lungs full of air when we left, shedding the layers of dusty disorder. we were fortunate; we never had to return there. we wished him, the sale of his inordinately massive barns-full and sheds-full and yards-full of stuff well, and left, returning to some degree of normalcy, some degree of air on the county highway back home.
these past four years have felt that way. we have been trapped inside the narcissistic and delusional sickness of the president of the united states. we have hovered in the dark recesses of his self-indulgence and in the rhetoric of his hate-speech, his divisiveness, his zeal to promote violence. we have lingered in his vitriol.
we are a nation, in its spacious skies, its amber waves, its purple mountain majesty, that needs air.
the words of joe and jill biden on thanksgiving made me weep. words of unity, words of solidarity, words of hope, words of recognition of the need to heal. these words, spoken by people who feel like real people rather than physical manifestations of psychological sickness, are words that inspire. the president-elect and the first-lady, in waiting.
we look to this light. new times. new leadership. new air.
and we are grateful. for normal. simply that. normal.
the lines are chalked slowly in many dysfunctional relationships. unaware, you carry on, not realizing that it is closing in around you. until one day, you wake with a sense of claustrophobia and it occurs to you that you are boxed in. your actions seem to matter not; instead you are subjected to being a react-er. it’s more about treading water than it is about independent movement. it’s more about illogical punting than it is about making sense. it’s more about fear than it is about breathing.
our country is in a box. we react on a daily basis to the newest atrocities of leadership, the newest lies, the newest accusations. yet, no check or balance seems to matter and there are no consequences for this unacceptable behavior.
we tread water waiting.
we are waiting for wisdom to show up. we believe in truth-tellers. we do not believe in those whose jelly-bean-jars of untruths are brimming over.
we are waiting for real answers about the pandemic. we refuse to inject disinfectant and we absolutely choose to wear masks. we believe in science and medicine and we reject hiding the facts from a suffering nation.
we are waiting for help for those who need it: those who have lost jobs, home, security, the ability to pay bills or purchase food. we believe in a government that cares about people on all steps of the ladder and does not honor the stock market over the food lines.
we are waiting for conversation to start – a meaningful first step toward eradicating the social injustice of this country. we believe in peaceful protest and listening, not turning a deaf and bigoted ear.
we are waiting for the science of climatology to hold this good earth in its gentle hands of proactive care. we believe now is the time to show that the future matters and that disregard for this place will destroy that very future for all our children and our children’s children.
we are waiting for the ability to move about in the whole wide world again. we believe that is the only way we can learn about ourselves – to learn firsthand from others who are different than us. we believe in embracing others not repelling them.
we are waiting to not be afraid. we believe in compassion and empathy, not fear-mongering and words inciting division and hatred.
we are downright waiting for the mean-spirited, arrogant, self-agendized abusive behavior to stop.
we are waiting for the dysfunction to release its hold on the lines of the box around each of us, the populace.
when i was in perhaps fourth grade i went to sleepaway camp. camp koinonia was upstate ny and my bestfriendintheworld susan went as well. we slept in bunkbeds in cabins that had screens as windows, ate in the big cabin that was the cafeteria, took hikes, swam in the lake, did craft projects and played kickball. on one of our hikes in the woods we passed a tepee. i wanted a full picture of this tepee so i stepped behind a big pine tree and parted the branches so i could take an artsy picture. one more step back and i would be able to capture the whole thing in the frame of my pocket instamatic camera. one more step….
i fell backwards off the side of the 30′ cliff that was behind that pine tree. i was intensely lucky though, for at the bottom of my fall was a very large pile of pine boughs. they softened my plummet down.
it is lately that we have seen more and more accidents that happen when people are not photographing a thing but, instead, are photographing themselves. selfies are the preferred modus operandi for instagram, snapchat, facebook, your own camera stream of memories. but people are falling and, tragically, they are perishing in their fall. just to get a photograph. the ever-important picture-of-self-to-post is heart-wrenchingly disastrous. maybe there is another way? maybe it’s not that important? or perhaps, if it really is that important, you could have eye contact with another person and ask that person to please take a picture?
there was a story recently that made me shake my head in utter amazement. residents of a town in russia were flocking to a toxic artificial lake which had turned turquoise because of chemicals from a coal-generated power station. they are hiring photographers, staging photo shoots, getting IN this water that is – knowingly- ridiculously harmful to the skin, all because it and its turquoise hue will make a good picture. it’s a dumping ground! what are they thinking?? i stood there, after reading the story aloud to d, shook my head and said, “it’s a strangely narcissistic world, isn’t it?”
i worry. and, beyond a selfie-craze, i hope that there is a sharp turn away from the dominant narcissism that seems widely accepted these days. if the point of all this – the world – was about any single one of us, i suspect there would be only ONE of us. instead, i believe that the point of all this – the world – is about ALL of us. it’s not just one, at any cost. it’s all. i’m hoping the cost of that – ALL of us remembering that it IS – indeed – all of us – doesn’t destroy us. it’s a toxic lake. we need to see it for what it is.
reverse threading 