this world will never be the same. we need to ponder, we need to dream, we need to imagine:
a better place, a more fair place, a place that is based on equity and equality, kindness and compassion. a place that assumes virtue and intends the same. a place that protects its peoples, that encourages individuals to care for each other. a place that doesn’t incite rancor, celebrate the weapons of violence, or create enmity and spite. a place where the downtrodden are lifted up and those with excess are generous. a place where inhabitants don’t self-aggrandize or strategize to find ways for more-more-more, ways that take from those with less, ways that undermine those in need. a place that doesn’t normalize language of vitriol, hatred, and antagonism. a place where all races are equivalent, all genders are respected, all ethnicities are indistinguishably included. a place where the environment counts and sustaining it beyond our own time on this good earth is a priority. a place that recognizes the sacred in the out-of-doors, the borrowing of this dirt, this water, this air for the short span of time we are here. a place where we are always seeking ways to better life for each other, to enhance daily living, health, happiness. a place of truth. a place of goodness.
yes. this world needs your good imagination. or we will never get there.
quiet. we walk in quiet most of the time. even our longer hikes are quiet. it is a time of rest for us, rest from the noise of the rest of life, the noise of worry and angst, the noise of dispute, the noise of too much bad news, the noise of chaos. we listen to the birds and our footfalls on the trail. we listen to the wind and the sound of creatures rustling in the underbrush. the quiet calms us; the quiet lifts the cellophane from the magic slate cardboard, it shakes the etch-a-sketch and takes it all back to zero, back to start, back to a rainwashed driveway waiting to be chalked all over again.
having run out of everest, k2 and annapurna footage we are watching appalachian trail and pacific crest trail and john muir trail videos these days. on our own treks locally we decide which one of these to take, listing the specific merits of each. make no mistake, these are serious treks. the AT is 2190 miles from georgia to maine. the PCT is 2653 miles from the border of mexico to the border of canada. the JMT, joining with the PCT some of the way, is 211 miles through the sierras, high elevation pass after pass. clearly, the training needed would be intense. but, as we envision this extended trekking, we are drawn to the quiet. the noise of this world has become raucous and the woods and the mountains seem to beckon with absolution, with grace, with rejuvenation.
there used to be a button on the cassette player that you could push that would quicken the pace of the tape to the end: fast forward. it would seem these trails, this quiet, like sleep, would fast forward through the dark and bring you to the light once again. these trails – this quiet – remind you that next comes.
and so, the noise of the day will cease. and you can listen to the sound of your footfall on a new day, ready to be chalked.
“against all odds and despite all the obstacles, we are going to make it.” (marilyn monroe)
the desk and the chair were connected and under the chair was a metal book rack. there were 35-40 of them in my tiered room, which oddly doubled as both my choir room and my eighth grade math classroom. math 8 was the last period of the day and, to give you a sense of the personality of the class, both of the children who were later voted “class clowns” were in my general math class. a hot day in florida, the air conditioning was competing with the outside heat and trying to keep tired students at-the-end-of-their-school-day awake.
he was sometimes vocal, but mostly quiet. he didn’t like math; he told me he didn’t really like school. his eyes were bright even in his sullen face. every day i greeted him and told him i was glad to see him.
that day, when he came into the room, i sensed he was even more unhappy than usual. it wasn’t but a few minutes into my math lesson that his desk-chair came hurtling down the tiers at me. it didn’t hit me, but back-in-the-day hurling desk-chairs was serious stuff and i, a young teacher at the time, was unnerved.
i think back now about that desk-chair being flung, the way it was all dealt with, the intervention and the caring hearts that were involved. i think about that young man, whose name i still remember. i knew back then that against all odds and despite the obstacles facing him, he had a support system and he would make it.
amid a contemporary rise of real scaled-up violence in schools, less and less is about those support systems, for students or teachers. resources, help – both are short in supply in public schools across this country. yet, despite all odds, teachers teach.
i shake my head at the any-day-any-school terrifying concern of shootings in the classroom. with gun-control-be-damned mindsets determining legislation, children must practice active shooter drills. despite all odds, teachers teach.
i think about the lack of funding, the lack of supplies, the lack of a sustainable student-teacher ratio. despite all odds, teachers teach.
and then, i think about this pandemic. a global threat, this country’s leadership has not risen to the challenge and, in mindblowing checkmate moves, it has mandated that children physically return to schools this fall. in the middle of an urgent and dangerous contagion, caution is being dismissed, putting children and teachers and administration and support staff at absolute risk. it’s deplorable.
and yet we know, foolishly mandated, that against all odds, and despite all the obstacles, teachers will teach. that’s what teachers do.
“against all odds and despite all the obstacles, we are going to make it.”
against all odds and despite all the obstacles.
but the words “we are going to make it” beg a quagmire of unanswered questions, deeply concerning worries, and matters of life and death.
since last i saw you. and you. and you. it is dizzying. the yous and the longwhiles.
it makes me want an RV, updated map apps and a little bit of time.
i’m finding myself talking to people these days – people who have gone on to different planes of existence like my sweet momma or my poppo. i ask them advice. i tell them tales of the day. i bemoan the challenges of our world with them; i wonder with them.
twenty-eight years ago today my big brother crossed over. the transition of here to there is something of great ponderance for human beings. we don’t know. we profess to knowing, but we hardly know. we only know what it feels like to be left behind, missing and yearning. i will forever-and-ever yearn to be within embracing distance of my parents, my brother, and loved ones who have no tangible form but whose silken threads-of-being are eternally wrapped around me, always reminding me.
it’s like that for people still here on this very planet, people who we have not seen, people who we pine about when last we saw them.
truth be told, i spent the last couple of days in tears. not slow-motion-tears that quietly weep down my face. but the kind of tears where your ribs and your back hurt the next day; the kind of tears that swell your eyelids and make mascara application undoable. the kind of tears that remind you how much you love someone and how much you miss them. for me, this time, this was about my children. it’s impossible to really explain what this missing feels like. i can say it is wrapped up in the act of breathing, in every aspect of living a day, in the darkening of light.
the pandemic has brought exponential pain to people in our world. suffering its disease, we worry about those who have been diagnosed, we grieve those who have succumbed to its ugliness, we wrangle with the illogical, implausible, grossly inadequate response of our land. we are floored at those who are picking fights over this monster that is on a path of destruction which has unfathomable fallout. we cannot understand the division and the planting of flags-of-the-ridiculous when peoples’ very health and lives are at stake; what truly matters more than that? it’s insanity: how can so many people be so lost? we try to sustain good attitudes and do the right thing. we try to protect each other. we try to avoid being a reason that this pandemic is spreading. and we miss everyone we love in the process.
we wonder: when? when will “last” be now? when will we see you?
and we hope, with great desperation, that it is not a long while.
for the first time in months – we went somewhere other than the grocery store, costco, two trips to the hardware store, a very few outdoor-socially-distanced-six-or-less-conversations or all-things-work-related. we still haven’t been to a restaurant, a bar, a hair salon, a department store. we still haven’t picked up curbside or gone to a barbecue. we still haven’t seen family. we have seen an insanely limited number of friends-who-are-family-to-us. no one has come over. we still haven’t had any outings with others. we still haven’t gone to the beach or the pool. we still haven’t rented a boat or a canoe, had a pedicure or even proper follow-up on my broken wrists.
but on friday, with more stress in my heart than i could manage at the time, we left our house and took a drive out in the county and stopped at an antique shoppe. donning masks with paper towels in hand to grab the door handle and a plastic bag full of wipes, we entered the shoppe which had a sign that asked patrons to use “common sense” while there. although the proprietor did not wear a mask, several of the customers had them on. there were those slightly leering looks we have grown familiar with, but we continued on our merry way regardless. this is wisconsin and, according to the nary-a-conscience-among-them-wisconsin supreme court justices, no one has to do anything they don’t wanna do here. nah-nah-nuh-nah-nah.
it was nerve-wracking. but antique shoppes are places where we are in our element so we persevered. we didn’t linger as we usually do. we touched very few things and were careful to social distance around others we passed in the aisles.
heartened by our little jaunt, we left and went to another shoppe just over the illinois border. here, everyone had a mask on and every person you passed made room and verbally said, “excuse me” or “thank you” as you made eye and trying-to-be-expressive-eyebrow-contact with them. we felt more comfortable there – cognizance of the need for caution during a global pandemic is a sign of an intelligent being, in our meager opinions. and the people at this shoppe seemed cognizant.
it’s exhausting, but we’ll keep being vigilant. in thinking about what we can or might do in days-to-come, we’ll still keep away from places and people and activities that are clearly not safe. we’ll still wash our hands and socially distance. and we will keep beating the wear-a-mask drum.
magical. the starry tufts of white floating on the breeze. seeds from wild flowers, they are on a course not of their own volition. white filaments of dandelions, designed to fly and leave a wake behind their path, fluff past, on their way to parts unknown. part of the wind. dandelions’ wispy seeds can be aloft over a half mile before parachuting their way to the ground. no gps, no triptik, no maps or intended destination.
much like how it feels right now. a part of the wind.
in this time of global pandemic, of racial protest, of economic strife, of political chaos, it feels as though the wind has taken me. battered to and fro, it feels as it there is no determined destination, no way to avoid the headwinds, no escaping the jet stream. the wind just picks me up and takes me, each day, to a different place. never physically far from the place of origin, it makes me feel just enough of a lack of control that i am ill at ease, never quite settled, never quite sure, always a bit tentative, always wary.
and instead of letting the breeze blow and riding it like a standup board in a serene lake, i resist. i find the need to know – where am i going? – too pressing, too unnerving. i paddle against the current, seeking ways to see, to move in a direction that makes sense. but it’s ineffective. i tire and give it up to the myriad of air currents swirling around me.
it is what it is. we are, indeed, a part of the wind. just starry tufts.
i played “this land is your land, this land is my land” on the ukulele the other day. were woody guthrie to be alive, he may have added another verse to this song, this one depicting the russian roulette game that people in this country are playing with the coronavirus.
it’s astounding.
these are NOT normal times, no matter how much you might want to ignore that little fact. and since these are NOT normal times, you should be mindfully considering at-great-length anything you want to do that IS normal.
“from california to the new york island. from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you and me.” when was the last time that it occurred to you that what you do affects others? was it today? was it last week? was it ever? what amount of sacrifice are you willing to take in order to protect others and yourself and put this country on a healing trend so that things MIGHT be able to be normal again SOME day?
are you out at the bars? are you at a restaurant, maskless, ordering from your masked server without a care in the world except whether you would rather the sparkling water or the tap? are you having dinner parties, group gatherings, barbecues in your backyard? are you on vacation? are you talking out of one side of your mouth and acting out of the other? are you duplicitous; do you want people to believe you are being careful and mindful, but on the other hand, it is your life after all…… are you putting anyone in harm’s way? are you renting cabins in small remote towns that have hospital/medical systems that would be stricken by a surge in numbers, something that you might bring there, even inadvertently? are you at the beach? the club? the public pool? are you making plans to go to disney as soon as it opens? are you wearing a mask when you are outside your home? are you social distancing? do you really care? or are you like so many people – irked by any degree of self-sacrifice, believing you are an entity unto yourself? are you buying into conspiracy theories and falsehoods? do you think this global pandemic is overblown? do you feel inconvenienced? do you think we should just throw caution to the wind and take-our-chances? are you upholding ignorance? are you mimicking the repulsive behavior of a president who doesn’t care about anything but his re-election and will spout off lies to your face, your actual face?
“when the sun came shining and i was strolling, and the wheat fields waving, and the dust clouds rolling, as the fog was lifting, a voice was chanting: this land was made for you and me.”
for you and me. there’s a responsibility there.
today my daughter told me that someone called her an asshole when she asked them to as-per-the-law-where-she-is put on a mask to enter the shop. and SHE’S the asshole??? this person could not put a small piece of cloth over their nose and mouth to protect others and my daughter is the asshole???
because of this person and their apathetic incomprehension and their unconscionable extraordinarily selfish behavior – repeated ad nauseam across the land that’s made for you and me – i cannot see my beloved daughter. “it’s a pandemic,” she wrote. “all the respectful tourists stayed at home.” she is at risk. the numbers are rising where she is and the people who should stay in their states-with-exponential-growth and wait-to-travel are populating her area in droves. without a care in the world. without giving a flying flip. and with no shame. and so it’s not safe there. how dare they.
“this land was made for you and me.” act like you belong in a community, like you belong in a country, like what happens to people across the land affects you too, like you care even an ounce for others. it’s actually pretty simple: don’t be an asshole.
some things just happen despite it all. for us, it’s lettuce.
despite the global pandemic, despite the absolute necessity of social change from deep roots of racism, despite political chaos, despite the economic impact we have felt, despite the isolation, despite the loneliness of missing, despite the challenge of seeing others maskless and cavalier, despite the sheer lack of responsible federal leadership in this country, despite our country’s inability to respond appropriately to a health crisis, despite questionable ally stances, despite ignoring the human-caused-destruction of mother earth, despite a pitiful inequity of economics, healthcare, opportunity in america, despite the mixed messages, despite the glib words of those ignoring the upward trend of a deadly virus, despite untruths, despite actions-that-speak-louder-than-words, despite mean-spirited messages and agendas, despite people and leaders screaming across aisles over constitutional rights, despite children killed by gun violence, despite extremism, despite empty words of piety, despite rage-filled brutality, despite an incapacity to live peacefully in community, despite unanswered questions and confusion, despite a lack of reassurance, despite the worry, despite the fear, despite the challenges, despite not-knowing, despite the grief, despite the yearning for normal, some things happen.
in the middle of my meltdown yesterday, i’m sure i uttered, “i just want normal.”
but normal is subjective now.
there is a deep schism between the normal of the of-course-i’ll-wear-a-mask-maskers and the it’s-against-my-constitutional-rights-to-make-me-wear-a-mask-non-maskers. a deep schism between the sides of the aisle. a deep schism over this global pandemic, the economy, healthcare, equality, blatant racism. a deep schism over confederate monuments. a deep schism over basic respect. a deep schism over truth.
a chasm of difference. it makes me wonder what, if anything, can bridge it, what can create a common story, what can make us a populace that cares about each other?
scrolling through facebook is depressing. there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country doing normal stuff: eating at restaurants, having drinks at bars, gathering with friends, going on trips, boating, fishing, at the beach or the pool, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.
driving downtown is depressing. there are people ‘out there’ in our pandemic-riddled country just-down-the-road doing normal stuff: eating inside and outside at captain mike’s, gathering at eichelmann beach, hanging out at the lakefront, all without masks and without social distancing and without, seemingly, a care in the world.
trying to plan anything is depressing. we need to go to see david’s parents. i desperately need to see My Girl and My Boy. there are so many details to keep each other safe. there’s nothing normal. it’s freaking confusing. we plot the trip west, a roadtrip, thinking about 19 hours across the middle of the country, thinking about arriving at my at-risk-in-laws’ house, having not picked up any additional possibility of passing covid-19 to them. where do we stop safely? where do we get gas? where do we use restrooms? how can we be sure they will not be recipients of anything we bring along? we care.
and yet, there is the rest of the country – the ones screaming at city hall meetings, the ones seeking judgement against requiring masks-for-safety, the ones who throw pointed word-daggers arguing against the danger of this pandemic, the ones arguing for other causes of death, the ones voting out all precautions for the state of wisconsin, the ones who stand in front of the entire country and arrogantly (and without a grain of truth) state, “we’ve flattened the curve!” how is it that the leadership of this country gets away with this? no wonder half of the country wears no mask, states and does whatever they damn well please. WHAT pandemic?
it’s depressing. missing the moments that make up life – chances to easily be with family, friends. chances to have a bite out without worrying about aerosols. chances to sing with others, to sing for others. chances to go to concerts and plays. chances to gather around a kitchen table or the island at your best friends’. chances to stop and hug your decades-long neighbor. chances to hold your grown-up children and kiss them and make them roll their eyes. happy hour with friends crowded onto a deck. parties in the backyard. normal stuff.
it was on a marquee outside a store, “a little normal would be nice.”
i couldn’t agree more.
i told tom i had a really hard day yesterday. he said, “you have to grieve.”
an empty canvas. a roadtrip with no predetermined destination. where do you go from here, davidrobinson?
an empty staff. a roadtrip with no predetermined destination. where do you go from here, kerrisherwood?
artists’ journeys, rife with intersections, foist decision-making upon us in our quest to create. simply starting is sometimes an uphill challenge. the questions are never easily answered. the value of what we are doing is never really clear. or is it – the value assigned to what we are doing is never really clear?
we have a daily decision, a choice to “begin anywhere” (john cage) and speak to the world around us and what we see through artists’ eyes. we write, we paint, we compose. we either create or we step away from the canvas, the staff paper, the qwerty keyboard. we know that nothing we do will change the world. we know that everything we do, like you, will change the world.
where do we go from here?
last night anderson cooper’s chyron read, “meanwhile, back in the real world.” the real world. a world fraught with chaos, trembling with the fever of a pandemic and the disease of racism. we, as people, turn to the sages of old for words of wisdom. we turn to art for honest displays of emotion. we turn to music for expressions of pain and hope, grief, despair, love, action, change, fear, questions.
questions like – where do we 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 once 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?
I know it’s hard for you to Change your way of life I know it’s hard for you to do The world is full of people Dying to be free So if you don’t, my friend There’s no life for you No world for me
Let’s all get together soon, before it is too late Forget about the past and let your feelings fade away If you do I’m sure you’ll see, the end is not yet near
Where do we go Where do we go Where do we go from here?
reverse threading 