the canvasser walked up the driveway toward us. “well, there’s no doubt who you are voting for,” she stated and then continued, lifting up the democratic presidential candidate who had inspired her to hit the sidewalks, to knock on doors and talk to people.
“we already voted,” i smiled and told her, so she could breathe for a moment, replenish her energy and move on to the next house, with the hope that she could make a difference in this unparalleled election, an election of utmost importance to our country and its populace. i thanked her as she smiled wearily, turned and walked on.
yes. it is obvious who we voted for. we have zero need for this choice to be secretive.
we exercised our right – to vote – granted by amendments to the constitution of these united states.
we exercised our civic dedication – our duty – to democracy, voting for the most appropriate candidate to be president of these united states, the candidate who will uphold and protect that very democracy.
we exercised our right to vote to protect those rights, our freedoms, the constitution, its amendments, to protect these united states.
yes. we voted for kamala harris and tim walz. with gratitude for them.
because any other vote is a vote to undermine the privileges of freedom we – every single one of us – have in this country, to undermine the compassionate humanity we all share, to undermine the democracy of america.
standing under the desert night sky – zillions of stars and the milky way just lingering out there above me. stunning. it was like an umbrella of humility. we are so very tiny, after all.
yet, on this clear night, on the border of arizona and utah, i stood holding hands with my husband on this stargazing deck, merely feet from dear friends. i thought about recent photos our son had posted of the starry sky in utah while exploring with our daughter. i could feel the love i had for each of them – it felt enormous – and yet, i am so tiny, after all.
last week i was taken by ambulance to the emergency room. i have never been treated by 911 paramedics and firemen before, nor have i ever been in an ambulance. but the situation seemed pretty dire and david needed back-up from people who had medical and emergency knowledge.
in the emergency room, i was struck both by how many people were present for me and how many people needed care. each person treating me was empathetic and caring; each one made me feel like they had true concern for what was happening.
and no one asked me about my political stance before they treated me.
instead, i was one star in the sky and they were each nearby stars. no one was greater than the other. we were all in it together, working with each other to a common goal.
in the period of time i was at the emergency room, two dedicated nurses, a doctor, an x-ray tech, other aides all assisted in attempting to figure out what was happening. hours later, i was grateful for each of them, for their expertise, their comprehensive care, their kindness.
this is the world i wish to live in…where we are all equal stars in a vast sky full of different stars. where we are all working together. where we have compassion and concern for each other, where we strive for everyone to be well.
this is the world i wish to live in…where rage doesn’t exist, where no one makes excuses for bigotry, where people bring their best and do the best they can for each other, no one belittles others, no one dehumanizes any one else – regardless of their gender, their race, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation or identification, their religion, their socioeconomic status.
it was no joke going to the hospital in an ambulance. everything most important to me was needlenose-pointedly front and center in my mind. i was scared and i was counting completely on others.
and i carried this from my experience – now, as i heal from all of it – reinforcing we need live this way. like we are stars in the sky – indiscernibly no bigger or brighter than the rest – all part of the enormous galaxy – all in it together.
we need hold each other up, lift each other up, live present to the moment, hold joy as our north star.
the opposite is toxic.
a punitive, uncaring, narcissistic, demeaning, rights-stripping, rage-filled, hateful, vengeful, limited world is a waste of time.
from the patio of our airbnb, it all looked tiny. lake powell, framed by red rock, was a stunning blue under an equally stunning blue sky. the vista was beautiful. in the aperture of my phone’s camera, sans telephoto help – it was sooo small.
but the fact of the matter is that it wasn’t small at all. it was simply a matter of perspective. these sculptured vistas were a very long way below us – our elevation was well above the lake level canyons…perhaps even 1000 feet. it still never failed to amaze me as i gazed at it all, 360 degrees of amazing, relishing it at each point in the days we were there. it felt as if we had the advantage of a soaring eagle, looking down on this utterly gorgeous view.
such vastness was overwhelming. it was perspective-arranging. that which looked tiny was indeed of gigantic proportion.
and, in the way of perspective, i am just now beginning to understand something else.
in regard to the current presidential election – i think that i have been pushing back on the possibility, refusing to believe, hoping against hope – in terms of voters supporting the maga candidate and the maga agenda – that people were just ill-informed, not fact-checking, not paying attention. i was thinking that watching propaganda tv was smearing this vitriol into their brains, gaslighting them, and that – in the limited access they have chosen – they did not know better than to question it. i was thinking that reading, viewing, listening to the narrow, incomplete, customized rhetoric of maga tv/media was normalizing this candidate’s incapacity to be president, was eliminating details and that – were people to actually be cognizant of his unfit-ness, of these details – they would think differently.
i suppose – in some cases of maga supporters – that could be true. that that hateful bandwagon’s lure makes one indiscriminate, makes one not want to question or understand or find the truth. instead, it makes one loud, stubbornly clinging, ill-advised, completely deaf to reality, ignoring danger as if it didn’t exist.
and, in the other cases, i suddenly – and very sadly – had a moment of enlightenment, a perspective shift. and i am taking back the grace i had granted.
i realized that these people scroll just like me, they listen and read and, thus, they completely understand this candidate’s hate-mongering, the maga intentions, the efforts to thwart freedoms and dehumanize women, LGBTQ, races other than white.
i realized that they WANT these agendas, they WISH for nationalism, they BELIEVE that this candidate is their savior and that his racist, misogynistic, prejudiced, crass thinking, words and actions are entertaining and they AGREE with him.
i realized that they LIKE the thought of an america led by a pitiful human who pushes immigrants under, who demeans democracy, who touts authoritarianism, who dreams of power, who spews vulgarity.
i realized his sexual abuse of women, his hateful promises of mass deportation, his incitement of insurrection, his undeterred, adoring alliances with dictators, his felony convictions MEAN NOTHING to them.
i realized that they LIKE this grotesque and venomous character, this unending vortex of chaos and ugliness.
and here i was thinking maybe they just needed more information or access to research, to ask questions, to seek the truth, to consider their legacy, to hold to democracy.
here i was thinking that maybe another perspective might help them see, might help them discern, might help them find their moral compass.
here i was thinking that they weren’t hearing the whole story, that they weren’t informed, that they weren’t hearing what this candidate was saying, that they didn’t know what the maga agenda really was, that they had no idea what destruction project 2025 would inflict on this country.
here i was thinking it was a lack of awareness, a misunderstanding, not their fault.
i was wrong.
entirely wrong.
they WANT this.
the vista in the lake powell desert shifted when i realized that our vastly increased elevation played a part in my perspective. it recaptured the immensity that viewing from lake level afforded it.
the election shifted when i realized that this is – truly – what these maga people WANT. that i live in a country where people – half the populace – WANT the despicably ugly.
and that is the nadir of it all. the absolute lowest point that eclipses all other low points. rock bottom. tragic.
i have never felt such pure disappointment in humanity.
sometime between 300 and 1300 c.e. there were people in this south central utah area who wanted to tell a story, to preserve it. their narrative – told in petroglyphs – was about their daily living – their families, livestock, wildlife they hunted. it was a narrative of living in community. it is astounding to witness the carved chiseling of so long ago, humbling to imagine living in such a harsh, difficult environment. you can feel a pull from the earth as you stand there – something that binds you to those moments so many centuries before. you gaze at these figures and are struck by the humanness of this history – despite absolutely different living conditions, we all simply wish to tell a narrative of our living.
the petroglyphs we were fortunate to see at capitol reef did not depict fighting. they did not depict division nor hatred. they did not depict power or control struggles. they did not depict what would certainly be pictured as part of petroglyphs were there to be some telling the tale of right now.
in absolute embarrassment about how low this country’s people have sunk – the inability to hold democracy and freedom-of-all-to-live as essentials – the spewing hatred and vitriol – i cannot imagine what story petroglyphs etched into big red rock canyon walls now would tell – later.
covid has given us some free time. in-between moments of feeling absolutely horrendous, we have succumbed to reading articles, scrolling the news. it is utterly disturbing.
i want to scream, “this is not about you!!!” to people caught up in the despicable hate, in the misinformation, the disinformation, the conspiracies. i want to beg people to consider the future of this country’s democracy, the future beyond their own lives, to vote for something hopeful. i want to ask people to just stop, listen, think, consider.
i do not recognize you – you, who are supporting the heinous intentions of the maga-party. i do not recognize you – you, who are turning a blind eye to people in your midst who you claim to care about or even love – as you sign on to extreme changes of freedoms in these un-united states. this is not a difference in policy-embracing; this is a deeply undermined philosophical difference on humanity. i do not recognize your heart, turned so very angry, exclusionary, cold. and, in turn, my heart is broken, seeing this, seeing you – now.
but i know the power of rhetoric, the sheer toxic force of those who lie. i have experienced being the subject of warped narrative, of agenda-riddled powermongers. and in my tiny subset of experience, i have seen people – who i never would have expected – support the lies, push the ugly agenda, fight to win. but it is in their winning that they truly lost. and i believe they know that.
if there were to be petroglyphs or pictographs on red rock canyon walls telling our story – the story of we-the-people of these times – what would we wish them to depict?
it boils down to a pretty basic question.
is it a story of community? or a story of devastating division and hate?
we’ve been making do. one sprinkler – the kind that goes in a circle – has duct tape keeping on one of the nozzles. the other sprinkler simply refuses to sprinkle back and forth. it will sprinkle to ninety degrees and then returns to zero. it has ceased being a 180 degree sprinkler. nevertheless, we are diligently watering, despite the quirks of our roster of sprinklers. “next year,” we say, “we will get a new sprinkler.”
but right now it is time for us to get new hiking boots. our brown leather boots – which took some serious time to break in – have hiked with us for the last eight years. they’ve hiked locally, in the high elevation mountains of colorado, the red rock of utah, the rhododendron-rich mountains of north carolina, the door peninsula of wisconsin, along the coast of california and on the beaches of long island. it is likely they are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles past their prime. they have little to no tread and, therefore, little to no traction. however much we love these boots, it is way past time.
oliver sussed us up pretty quickly. the gentleman who had been helping us left to go on break. he had been steering us to a certain brand – clearly his favorite brand – and he grimaced when i asked to try on different pairs of boots. oliver took over where he left off. and we are grateful to him. in the matter of a few minutes he was able to change ”steering’ to ‘accompanying’ us along on this new-hiking-boot journey. he laughed and asked us a few questions after we told him we were suffering through this new-boot-decisions. joking, he lightened the spirit around our shoe-trying-on-chairs and zeroed in on the way we would use our boots. “functionality,” he pointed out. he was both practical and reassuring and he spoke straight-up about the choices that were there in front of us, never being pushy, aware that there are other places with other brands or models that might work better. and sometimes there is a boot that will become the in-the-meantime boot. functionality. he became our favorite boot salesperson.
when the drain-guy was at our house he described two ways of fixing the piping under our sink, one way more involved than the other. i’m pretty sure he could see us both staring at him, in decision purgatory. he began to speak again, this time explaining that he is a functionalist and giving us the nitty-gritty on what he thought. his candid approach – with truth and common sense – was the help we needed. we chose the simpler fix, acknowledging that the other was likely overkill at this time. he is our favorite drain guy.
i had only seen my doctor twice before, both visits within the brief time parameters of whatever it is the healthcare company and insurance company deem appropriate. when she – at the end of my follow-up for that what-seemed-like-a-heart-event – recommended that i try myofascial massage, her confidently professional voice softened a bit and i could feel empathy in this physician i barely knew. it was in those unrushed moments of concern and in her caring recommendation that i felt nurtured. in those moments she became a person i trusted and with whom i would look forward to establishing a patient-doctor relationship.
it doesn’t take too much. but a slight tilt of the head, a person really listening, a few extra minutes all make a difference. it all matters. each of these seemingly inconsequential experiences was a validation of the consequential power of nurturing another. d and i talked about each experience later.
and we talked about how much different our world might be – if every time we had the chance to nurture someone in some way – even the simplest of ways – if we took that opportunity. to go the extra. what might happen. the concentric circles would explode outward.
we will never know how big our tiny nurturing moment of another might actually end up. but it matters nonetheless.
so another week goes by. and now there are 45 days left.
45 days to discern – really think through – your vote in this election-of-elections.
45 days to determine what is most important to you…not in a singular policy kind of way…but in an overarching sense of what you would like this country to look like in the future…not only for you…but for all who follow you.
responding to our cartoon about the insanity that is the maga platform, she wrote, “they do see and they don’t care. … it’s all about hate and control … hidden within the guise of old-fashioned values and going back to the good old days.”
and it clearly doesn’t matter to them how they get there – with truth or with lies – to the nirvana of their good old days – a nirvana of patriarchal, misogynistic, racist, xenophobic, extremist, nationalistic, bigoted values (to use the word values loosely and without the virtue of meaning).
we take turns ranting. sometimes we participate in each other’s rant. sometimes we are quiet. because, frankly, sometimes it is all pretty suffocating.
if i were to rant right here, this is what i would say:
be aware of what you linger on, for there are many distractions out there, veering you off the real issues at hand. be purposeful in your research and in your discernment. be wary of what you believe, what you purport, what you amplify that you believe in. be mindful of the words you choose, for once they are in the air they are there for all time. be selfless as you consider the future of this country’s democracy. think about the words of the declaration of independence, “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.” linger on the words all and equal, for regardless of your race, gender, orientation, economic privilege or lack, religion, you are the same as the next person..no more, no less. remember you are in control of your vote and, as a citizen of this nation, it is incumbent upon you to vote clearheadedly and in good conscience. and, before you vote, in those moments before you take pen to paper, maybe recite these words, “epluribus unum” – out of many, one. be vigilant of who you elevate to the highest position in our this-land-is-your-land-this-land-is-my-land.
in cris’ words, “don’t relinquish your brain at the door.”
there are 45 days before you cross the threshold of the door into the room where your pen will hit the paper. bring your brain – and your heart – with you.
“the longer i live, the more beautiful life becomes.” (frank lloyd wright)
if it wasn’t ‘copying’ i would also get this inked on my body. but my beloved daughter – a bunch of years ago now – chose this as a tattoo and copying it – despite the clear wisdom of this quote – would be taboo.
it is intensely true.
the longer you live, the more beautiful life becomes.
if you take sweet time to notice.
in a most wonderful day tuesday we jaunted about, gathering knowledge and trying on new hiking boots. we joked about falling arches and bunions, our feet – somehow – getting substantially bigger, the trail-running we won’t attempt, heck, the running we will never do again, pinky toes resistant to closed shoes. it is somewhat liberating to not have the same expectations we once had. there is a different bar.
at the end of this wonderfulday i stepped outside and was struck by the moon. we immediately took off – practically sprinting (note: not running) – down the road to the lake, so that we could watch the harvest moon rise and feel its moonbeam as it chased us on the shoreline.
we sat on the deck after a long walk in perfect night air along the lake. and we celebrated our day. for in it we had tended to things that feed us – writing, exercising, eating well, planning for future hikes, laughing.
we know that our next will not resemble our past. we know that there are no corporate or organizational positions in our future. we know that aging is perceived differently by the hiring crowd than by the aging. we also know that we have aged each and every day of our lives so we don’t place parameters on what is possible. we don’t underestimate the wisdom of the ages or the insights of aging, though the word sort of makes me shudder.
and then I wonder why. why does the word “aging” give me a bit of the heebie-jeebies? I looked up the word. multiple sources. and each time i discovered that 65 is considered “elderly”. sheesh. no wonder ageism is alive and well in this country. developing nations base their assignment of old age on a person’s ability to actively contribute to society. though the united nations considers old age to be 60 and beyond, i also discovered research that suggests only a tiny percentage of adults 65 and older actually consider “old” to happen before the age of 60. we are most definitely in the camp that rejects old-before-old.
according to britannica.com, “there is no single theory that explains all of the phenomena of aging.”
no single theory. well, of course not!!
barney is still out back, soaking in summer sun and winter snow and everything in every season. he houses chippies and is a resting place for birds and scampering squirrels. he doesn’t serve as a piano now, but his soul is still a piano. barney is more beautiful than the day he came out of the dank basement boiler room and arrived in our backyard.
“the optimist sees the donut. the pessimist sees the hole.” (oscar wilde)
i suppose this could easily be applied to aging. somehow, in some rush of years, i am 65. it’s still a wonder to me and it has now become clear why my sweet momma was so astounded when she was almost-94 and thought she looked like “an old lady” when she looked in the mirror.
like my sweet momma, we are choosing to see the donut. which, i suppose, means one day we will be astounded as well. (truth be told, we are a tiny bit astounded by some tiny body-change each and every day, but we are holding off on the big-time astonishment as long as we can.)
so instead of seeing – and ruminating on – what’s missing in the here and now, instead of trying to clarify the blurry of what’s out there ahead of us, we – as an ever-aging couple – yikes – are zeroing in on the gifts of the present, the sweet phase – as we are calling it, and tapping the rich potential of the future. there is so much we don’t know but we are excited about exploring what’s next.
artists don’t really have solid retirements. it’s risky business, this being-an-artist thing. we keep on keeping-on because it’s an imperative, a driving force. we write, we paint, we compose, we mold thoughts and questions and experiences and impressions into tapestries that we – vulnerably – put out there for others to read, see, listen to, touch, feel.
we work for the donut-lovers and the donut-holers. we are not selective. we believe art is fundamental. art provides access and awareness. we are simply part of the delivery mechanism.
and so, even as we get older, that doesn’t change. we look to times of new projects, artist residencies, experiments outside our usual mediums. we aren’t simply done. and, maybe, in the words of grace hopper, “we’re just getting started.”
regardless, every day we walk toward astonishment we have decided to do it with as much grace, joy, anticipation and gratitude we can possibly muster. we will be (gluten-free) donut-lovers in the sweet phase and we will reach for each star past the donut hole.
“we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” (oscar wilde)
i want to hold onto the sound. cicadas and crickets on summer nights. it’s a locating sound, and, as i adirondack-chair-sit on the deck listening, i am immersed in it. i can feel it.
we’ve been watching the series “alone” lately. our binges have taken us through to season five, where ten people have been dropped off in desolate mongolia to survive as long as they are able. the sounds are completely different – wolves are howling, deadly snakes hissing, bears rustling through the woods – unnerving sounds. it is beyond my wildest imagination what these people are doing, how they are assimilating into and feeling a part of this environment, how they are sustaining. i would absolutely fail out there.
it does make me think that – indeed – we all have our strengths. as we hiked the other day we talked about how fascinating it is to watch other people and the random abilities they’ve been blessed with. we are simply spokes on the wheel…a giant wheel of universe proportion.
i came across this cicada in our driveway. i was immediately saddened, for it was wandering in a circle and i knew it had little time left on this earth. its beautiful coloring, its giant alien eyes, it captivated me and i gently placed it into the bushes next to the driveway, offering a few words of gratitude for its existence.
one less cicada to sing its nightly song, i know that too soon the night will be quiet and i will miss the sounds i have always associated with the white noise of summer.
i woke up this morning to the sound of walter and irma in our backyard. these are two cardinals that frequent our feeder and hang out on the wires of the garden happy lights or on the top of the fence that stretches across the yard. they are as much a touchstone as our cicadas, but i know they will stay through the fall, through the winter and hopefully will cheerily greet the spring again next year. they have a hard time with our bird feeder because the rim is not big enough for them to perch upon – and because the squirrels do gymnastics emptying it.
we have promised walter and irma a flat feeder – the kind we understand that cardinals prefer. and every time walter flails around on the edge of our current birdfeeder, we imagine that irma is reminding him that someday we will have a different feeder, to hang in there and to stop being overly-dramatic.
i think that someday has arrived.
sometimes it is the simplest of things that bring us the most reassurance. somehow the loss of one more cicada makes me want us to extend to our backyard birds something that will make their ability to sustain a tiny bit easier. they are spokes on our wheel – giving us the grand pleasure of watching them, slowing us down, grounding us.
in the days that we feel like we are in the wilds of mongolia – for we all have days like that – we find things that bolster us, we find things that give us perspective, we find things that make us feel a part of the whole, we find ways to sustain.
i know i will soon miss the cicadas and crickets. i recorded their nightsong on a video and saved it. just in case – in the middle of winter or the wilds of mongolia – i need to feel it.
fall has cracked the door open. and, though it may tiptoe around a bit in this teeter-totter season, it will not backtrack. it is on its way.
and nature – in its wisdom – is doing the work, prepping for cold to arrive, stoking up, storing up, guarding its ability to survive, seed heads readying to spread far and wide.
she asked me if i would be recording again. I wasn’t sure how to answer. i don’t know. it has been some time since my last project. recording is expensive and – because of today’s world of streaming – not particularly financially rewarded, making it a kind of skewed investment…heavy on the cost, extraordinarily light on the payoff.
yet, every independent artist knows recording is not solely about the financial reward. it is the expression of what’s inside, just waiting to hit air. it’s doing the work, prepping, stoking, storing, guarding – all for the seed heads to fly.
she asked me other questions as well – how i compose, if i hear music inside. her questions cracked open the door to a conversation I haven’t had in a long time, a real conversation about my music. i felt grateful – not only for her inquisitiveness, but for her obvious support of what i have already produced. it was a sort of balm on a wound that was just lingering, lingering.
I don’t know when – or if – i will produce another album. i’ve teetered-tottered just like the waning of summer and the rising of fall, just like daisies struggling to stay vibrant, open, to stave off utter fallow. i’ve wondered through these last few years if, after fifteen albums, i was “done”, wondered if, at 65, i was no longer relevant, wondered if i still had the necessary chutzpah.
i miss the stage, a piano and a boom vocal mic, a wood apron beneath my boots. i’ve missed telling the stories of songs and the gestures of instrumental piano. i’ve missed eye contact with an audience, finding resonant bits, making people laugh or reminisce, the moment you know they are right there with you.
the daisy seed heads are getting ready. it’s pretty certain they will proliferate gardens again in the spring after their fallow through fall and winter.
maybe – somewhere in here – i am getting ready too. i guess we’ll see.
reverse threading 