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what will be left? [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

and what will be left when the fog lifts?

it is a period of lost horizon. right and left, groups of peoples are being marginalized. right and left, rights are being stripped. right and left, the insinuation – no, the out-and-out statement – of violence is threatened. right and left, the environment is suffering. right and left, the clouds are ever closer to the horizon. they are sinking down nearer where the sky meets the ground. the sun is not getting in. truth is cloaked in agenda. the experiment is suffocating. right and left.

and what will be left when the fog lifts?

in the backyards of this country, in the middle of hot dogs and potato salad and apple pie, red, white and blue bandanas and sparklers in the chubby hands of small children, are we being at all vigilant about clearing the fog? are we discerning? are we observing and weighing and thinking-it-through? are we casually watching fireworks that celebrate the independence we stand to lose? are we aware? are we fogged in?

it is a watershed time. right and left. all the way around.

this is not just about us. this is about all those who follow.

when you gaze at your grandson, your granddaughter, do you ponder his or her life moving forward?

do you ponder if they will understand – will respect – that this america was built on the diversity of its people?

do you ponder if they will have choices, if she will have autonomy over her body?

do you ponder if they will have access to social programs – like public schools, access to welfare, medicaid, social security, medicare – like you do?

do you ponder if they will live in a climate environment that is healthy, that is sustaining, that is replenishing, that is balanced?

do you ponder what they will learn about history in school? will it be real history or some edited abdicating version of history? from where will they draw wisdom?

do you ponder if they will hold a sense of gratitude for the veterans of this country – their great-grandparents, their grandparents, their parents, possibly themselves – for fighting for the independence of this united states of america, for fighting for the integrity of the constitution?

do you ponder if they will be able – to be free and welcome – to move about in the whole wide world, to pursue dreams, to love whomever they wish?

do you ponder if their world will be equitable for all people, all genders, all orientations, all races, all economic statuses, all worshippers, all agnostics, all atheists?

do you ponder the life of your grandson or granddaughter should he or she be gay? a woman? a person of color? poor? not christian?

do you ponder if they – as all men and women – with no exceptions – will be held accountable for misdeeds, will be held to the values and the law in this land of the free and the brave?

do you ponder if they will experience aggression – here at “home” – at the highest level?

do you ponder if they will live in a peaceful world or a darkly dangerous world, a world of main streets and neighborhood grocery stores and festivals and schools and religious institutions with concealed automatic weapons, a world ravaged with war, a world of hatred, a world built instead on nationalism and extremism?

what – exactly – is your definition of freedom? is it a manifesto – “project 2025” – built on a governing system sans checks and balances – a transitional template to tyranny? have you read these “promises” of “change”?

have you truly done a deep dive into what could happen – in this country – the one with spacious skies and amber waves of grain?

what do the fireworks symbolize?

are you circumspect at all about what will be there when the fog lifts?

and, in really defining who you are – now, in the partisan sense of the words “right” and “left” – will you turn right or turn left?

will you truly – truly – evaluate all that is at stake?

will you stop listening to the screaming voices and clear the fog and sort to what is really being said?

will you look beyond the hype and the surge of adrenaline and the shot of popularity that comes from expressing anger and riding the bandwagon?

will you read, research, ask questions, seek truth?

will you be responsible? will you be a responsible citizen?

will you step back, turn away – even momentarily – from the fervor of spectacle and actually look at that which is in plain sight, that which is up-close, clear, terrifying?

what do you want for that grandson, that granddaughter? really?

what do you want for your children? really?

what do you want for you, your family, your community, this country? really?

do you wish for amorality? tyranny? fascism?

what is our individual and collective legacy to Next?

the fog will dissipate and the horizon will become clear. that’s how fog works.

what will be left when the fog lifts?

what do you want to see? for you?

what do you want to leave behind for them?

what will you vote for?

*****

WHEN THE FOG LIFTS from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood
WATERSHED from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood

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fog. [k.s. friday]

and, if i am honest, i would tell you that i can feel the fog lifting. finally. i don’t think i knew the extent of the fog because fog is kind of like that. dense and clammy, less penetrable by light. once you are in it, you feel somewhat disoriented and everything looks different. you can’t really tell how foggy it is because suddenly you have nothing with which to compare it.

we underestimate the importance of attending to our emotional health. yes, there are all kinds of positive memes out there. yes, there are self-help books galore. yes, there are commercials on tv recommending therapy. yes, yes, yes. but we are stoic, we humans, and we are also stubborn and self-conscious. and many of us underplay how we are feeling, so as not to make others uncomfortable with our grappling. people ask how we are and our answer is “fine”. it’s just too too much to give a real answer. most people prefer answers with a little vague blurriness.

i ran into someone a bit ago at the fedex store. she asked me how i was. i told her. i don’t mean i told her “fine”. i actually told her. i can’t say it was a mistake, but she was writhing and trying to get away, though i was simply telling her how i was. i wasn’t verbose; it didn’t take much to say i had been struggling. but it was a truth and maybe she would have rather heard that everything that had happened in the last couple years took no toll. she wanted everything to be “fine”.

i recently saw a meme on someone’s facebook page. it read: “people don’t want to be talked out of their feelings. people want to be heard, seen, felt and understood.” (rachel samson) i always wonder if the people who post such things really mean them. surely they have also experienced times of soupy, where there was a ceiling of zero and they were feeling all of what life had tossed them.

it is in looking back at the dissipating cloud of fog that you know a little more the extent of your murky. it is in noticing light peeking in that you know a little more the extent of the loss of light. it is in seeing more clearly that you know a little more how much clarity was missing. it is in feeling my shoulders rise that i know that i have been bent under the weight of some sadness, some disappointment, some confusion.

though we all function in the middle of our haze, out of necessity, out of self-preservation, out of obligation, there is a moment when a pinprick of brightness burns through. we realize that the horizon is still there and that now, with the lure of distinct light and the buoys of clarity, we are headed in that direction. we’ve been brave and we’ve pulled energy from every cell to get to to that point and we keep taking steps, taking steps.

it isn’t easy. despite advertising dollars spent, this society is not really about self-help. it does not encourage time to be within oneself, time to rejuvenate, time to be healthy. our ideals push success and prosperity, seemingly at the price of balance. there is a cost for sharing what is real, for standing in fog, a worry of judgement and marks of weakness in our permanent record.

it’s up to each of us to step aside the everchugging uphill-downhill train and catch our breath. it’s up to each of us to breathe slowly and sort to that which makes us sit on the fulcrum of the nonstop seesaw. it’s up to each of us to be gentle on ourselves, to lighten up, to seek soft days that feed us and give us strength for the other days. it’s up to each of us to stand in self-care, to not worry ourselves with wondering about the judgement of others. it’s up to each of us to eliminate the stigma of admitting struggle. it’s up to each of us to support one another in the times of fog, to mean it if we ask “how are you?”. it’s up to each of us to reach and touch the curtain of fog as it lifts, grateful not only for its leaving, but for what we learned about its presence.

“the fog has lifted
the weight is gone
lightness has returned
singing is in me
humor also
light again
and i do not know why- “

(shalom freedman)

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WHEN THE FOG LIFTS from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood


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when the fog lifts. [k.s. friday]

when the fog lifts songbox copy.jpg

“…the other end of the process of living through uncertainty…” (liner notes)

sometimes when we drive along third avenue, right around the corner from our house, the fog totally obscures lake michigan.  you would never know it was even there.  you can’t see where the shoreline is, you can’t see the expanse of lake.  further down the road, you can’t see the beach, the waves, the jetty.  it is as if, for this time, the lake and the sky are one; neither exist and both exist.

this duality, this co-existence…is what this piece is about.  the presence of clarity and the presence of haze.  when i read my liner notes this morning, i sighed.  i wrote them in 1997 – (a shocking) twenty-two years ago.  i was 38.  i must have thought there was an “end” to uncertainty then.  and, at the time, i must have interpreted the fog, the mist, in a somewhat negative way, as something to get “through”, relief at the other end.

and then the fog lifts over the lake and there is differentiation of planes.  the sky becomes sky; the lake becomes lake.  until the next fog rolls in.

this month i will turn 60.  it takes me a few seconds for that to sink in each time i think about it.  were i to re-record this piece now, i would slow it down.  i would linger in the fog a little longer, not so afraid of it, of its mystery.  i’m still learning to embrace the fog, still learning to watch for the sky when it lifts, still learning that both can co-exist:  clarity and uncertainty.  nothing is really clear in life.  nothing is absolute.  we keep stepping. it is truly all a little foggy.  i now think it’s supposed to be that way.

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WHEN THE FOG LIFTS from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood