We’ve either been steamrolled… or we’ve been had. Either way, it seems to be over for democracy-loving citizens, although we gave it a mighty effort, at least in terms of righteous indignation over the possibilities.
Those unthinkable possibilities have arrived on a silver platter, and we can expect events to unfold very quickly, no time wasted in bringing this former proud nation to its knees. So unless you’re solely motivated by hate and revenge, prepare to have your life stripped of everything that makes it meaningful and livable.
This isn’t a drill, it’s all really happening. We woke up this morning to see that we’ve been quietly taken over by patient fascists who were fronted by clowns in order to keep us distracted. Step by determined step they’ve actually done it… brought the mighty United States of America down to their level, and now we’re a captive audience while events play out.
It’s going to be a steep learning curve for his “chosen ones.” At least the rest of us already know how this works.
**
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I’ll meet you right here as soon as they turn some of the lights back on. Stay safe.
When you were a kid, did your mom stretch a little clothesline between two points and fill it with the dates remaining until Christmas? Each day you’d remove the clothespin from the current page as your anticipation and excitement grew, hoping Christmas morning would bring sweetness you couldn’t even imagine.
And now we’re waiting day by day for either a desperately needed taste of heaven, or the Christmas from hell, feeling like the children we still are, hoping against hope for things to be right, tamping down the niggling fears with mindless activity, snapping at loved ones and generally being a pain. Doesn’t exactly feel like good ol’ Christmas Past, BUT WE’RE NOT GOING BACK because we don’t have that choice anymore. Either heaven or hell is in the process of enveloping us or obliterating us, and the not knowing is a test for the ages.
Last night America’s implicitly-acknowledged fascist presidential candidate held a rally in Madison Square Garden, just as the American Nazi party did in 1939. It was predictably ugly. Racist, bigoted, mean-spirited, crushingly negative. If there are truly people still straddling the fence between life and death, that’s a staggering thing to accept.
**
The R ticket, both of them, have said they’ll send the military for the “enemies among us,” meaning all who didn’t vote for them, and mos def for people who’ve been mouthy about them. I should be afraid, I guess… and if it came right down to it my voice would probably shake… but they’re just gonna have to come for me, I’m too tired to move everything including my memories, and I’m not willingly going anywhere without all my kids. I hope.
If democracy prevails on November 5th, how long do you think it will take to repair the damage done over the past decade and more? We know it’s going to take time for the trump stench to fade… we’ve learned things about friends and loved ones that we can’t un-know or unsee, and trust is not a thing easily restored. It will always be heartbreaking to me that one of the worst humans to ever walk the earth was able to foment such division between people who knew better but followed him anyway… or didn’t.
A relative’s warning sign on social media will stay with me forever: IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE TRUMP WON WE CAN’T BE FRIENDS. This era has definitely brought home the lesson that blood is NOT thicker than politics, and for someone who believed all the family fairytales, that’s a comeuppance, but not the first.
**
My biggest HOPE hit is coming from the massive army of women, right about now cresting the horizon and temporarily blotting out the sun. The bullies have left us no choice and WE ARE NOT GOING BACK. They should be thankful we only want justice, not revenge.
**
And in a gesture of solidarity with my reading public…
How many times in your life have you hit cycles that required you to wait, and wait… and wait… sometimes for decades. And at no point during the wait did you know how it would all turn out. That’s the trick, being ready no matter what happens. Prepared, if necessary, to leave everything you’ve known and loved, for almost 80 years in my case, trusting that life will go on, as it always does.
**
“All of the sudden,” the wait is nearly at an end, and it almost doesn’t seem real that after everything that’s happened over the past nine or ten years we’re within two weeks of knowing our fate as a nation. Less than two weeks to settle the basic question: Will we be a dictator-run oligarchy or a democratic republic?
Every part of who we are as Americans hinges on this election. We can’t erase what has happened, so what we stand up for NOW is who we will be going forward. The world is standing by, watching anxiously to see what will happen here. Will we still represent hope, or be counted among the rubble fascism always leaves in its wake? Just another domino in a succession of fallen nations with lofty ideals. How heartbreaking! Are people really willing to let us end that way?
Remember the night of November 8, 2016? Remember the tears and how sick with dread we were, knowing life was about to become very difficult… and indeed it did. We were aghast that someone so awful had been placed in the White House… and he STILL refuses to go away and leave us in peace.
And now, running for president again, still, ad infinitum is this 2x impeached candidate with 34 felony convictions, how insane is that? As a convicted felon, he can’t vote. As a convicted felon, he can’t join the military, but as president he would be its “leader.” Makes my head swim. He’s a rapist, a pedophile, a career criminal, a friend to Putin and others like him. How did we get here?
After years of angst and concern, we’re within 21 days… three weeks… of knowing whether there will be a peaceful transfer of power this time, and who will hold what used to be the most important office on the planet. We have three weeks to climb down off the “undecided” fence and state with our vote whether we choose democracy or fascism, the only question on the ballot. As Americans we tend to think we’re fairly untouchable… magically blessed somehow. We aren’t used to facing stark reality the second we open our eyes in the morning. Reality, however, has come to roost on our doorstep and demands to be faced NOW.
The MAGA party is confronted with a classic bait-and-switch. The corpulent reeking hulk formerly known as King Drumpf is crumbling and decomposing before our eyes. Try watching and listening to one of his most recent rallies, which are now being held in the afternoon before he starts sundowning TOO badly. Even then things aren’t going smoothly in any way, and there was a credible report that he soiled his diaper during one recent speech, necessitating the spraying of a strong scent in his vicinity. This is a potential U.S. president. His diet is awful, his drug use rampant, his exercise nonexistent. Whether he’s drooling on his french fries by January, or face down in them, everybody gets JD by default, a fascist to the core and far more dangerous than the orange clown. It’s likely that JD or someone synonymous with him was the plan from the get-go.
**
Since I’m not a compliant lil’ ol’ lady, and have said my piece all over the internet, I have to wonder if it would even be wise for me to stick around if the party of revenge were to win. JD says they’re going to send the military out to round up everyone who didn’t vote for them, so my voting record, let alone my words, would likely damn me to their version of hell. Crazy to think about, but they simply ARE crazy, so we’re on our own if they win.
**
In my late 70s now, I have no urge to relocate and start over yet again, and leaving loved ones behind would be a bridge too far, so here we are. I would benefit at this point from a conversation with my great- and great-great grandparents who left Germany to keep nine young brothers from being conscripted into Kaiser Bill’s army and made a good life here in eastern Kansas. Even more, I’d like to talk with a German contemporary from the 1940s. What were the vital signs, both early and late? What kept you from leaving your homeland? If you could do it over, would you choose to stay or flee?
**
This being no time to fall apart, I’ll pray for a dry spell and keep on keeping on, bearing in mind this admonition from a wise man…
**
The idea that there are “others” who are not like us is what keeps hate simmering. Are we ready yet to turn off the fire?
It’s officially fall and the weather has been changing for a while now, by which I mean every day into something different from the day before. Apparently we’ve just emerged from a season called False Fall and are now into Second Summer. We’ll see where it goes from here, observing as spectators while Weather does what it will do.
Fall is always a melancholy reflective season, and true to form my thoughts have been a concoction of things heavy and light, happy and sad, profound and sublimely ridiculous. In the midst of all that I started a list the other day of personal do’s and don’ts in life’s third trimester. There’s no place I yearn to return to, so life has just one direction… forward. And I needed a little self-help with that, thus the list. The points are for me, not for advice, but if something resonates with you don’t hesitate to claim it for yourself.
So, in no special order, as they popped into my head:
I’ve stopped going to funerals, for all the reasons. My all-time personal hero oncology nurse showed me I’m not a bad person for skipping out. Do life while it’s here, no regrets, because if you’re not careful the ceremonies will overwhelm actual living.
I don’t give money to politicians unless they’re running at grassroots level and don’t have big resources. The rest start with kajillions and then ask ME for money? And then for MORE, repeatedly??
I try not to schedule morning appointments because they’re an unnecessary assault on my senses. There’s a window between lunch and dinner when I’m fully awake and human, so life outside my door is best if it happens during the afternoon hours. You know, if possible.
I don’t take advice from people whose moral code I can’t respect. People say lots of words, but when they give legs to their coldheartedness I walk away.
I don’t chase people. If you’re my friend you just are, end of story, and we always pick up where we left off.
I don’t argue online or anywhere else except for the shit I give Kim. Arguing is a demeaning process and rarely produces anything positive. People think what they think, me included.
To save misunderstandings and exhausting back & forths, I spare most people my presence most of the time. This Pollyanna has gotten over the delusion that we’re going to land on the same page and feel comfortable together again, if we ever were.
After being around older people forever, and taking care of six of them for twelve years, I had a pretty clear idea what aging would involve. Ha, ya’ think? Every day brings a surprise you weren’t waiting for, every year new challenges, things aren’t static, they change constantly, your body betrays you and so does your head. You can experience these things second-hand without absolutely KNOWING them, so expect the unexpected.
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9. Very little anymore requires my complete and undivided attention. I can still pull it up when necessary and I take it out for the occasional walk to keep it in shape. It’s on reserve, just behind the lala-life I prefer. But since complete and undivided usually denotes a problem of some sort I avoid it every way possible.
10. Mail is the bane of my existence. Doesn’t matter, snail mail or online, I can’t stick to my resolve to open every piece of information every single day, so I’m left with bulk mail that means nothing to anybody… except for THAT ONE PIECE that can’t be discarded on penalty of law!!!
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11. I have no energy for trying to convert people to a life outlook that begins with kindness. Those are the people who will talk their hair down trying to convince me how Christian they’ve always been, while fearing and despising everyone and everything not like them.
12. I’ve loved people all my life who have silently hated everything I care about while also finding me an entertaining source of gossip. That’s okay, Karma knows. The true challenges come when people I care about hate people I love. Simply a bridge too far, so adjustments have to be made.
13. If everyone suddenly liked learning new things and putting new ideas to work, the world would look shinier overnight.
There. A baker’s dozen, take or leave.
And one more: Everyone who doesn’t want fascism to replace democracy on American soil should have a current passport at the ready because we can’t see the immediate nor long-term future. The German population, right about now, thought everything was going to be okay. It wasn’t. Things are changing rapidly across our nation, which has been instantly reflected on social media, but all optimism has to be tempered with the memory of past horrifying October surprises and other killing disappointments.
The United States may continue as an intact entity or it may not. Either way, the election will be over someday, we must assume, and I’ll revert to Ms. Nice Person Who Doesn’t Talk About Things We Simply Don’t Talk About. And if the good guys win I’ll be a more accessible, less irritated old girl, more inclined to entertain the lighter side of living. What I will never be able to do is forget what so many people showed me and the rest of the world about themselves, people we once thought we knew and identified with.
It’s been an unnerving era, with ugliness abounding and hate winning out a lot of the time. I’ll open the door to my 80s in three years… how many of the wounds, how much of the heartbreak, do you think we could heal in that time frame, just for starters? I so hope the world won’t feel as cold and lonesome as it has over the past ten years and more. I’ve learned this much: being a nice person doesn’t cut it anymore, the world has changed. I’ve changed too… but I was raised to be nice and it feels okay as long as I don’t forget what truth looks like. Does America remember?
… are myriad, and we’re blessed by the universe every day, especially if we were to do some kind of comparison study. I mean, the planet is in the throes of change and humans are historically opposed to that sort of thing, therefore chaos. Me too, I’m opposed to the direction this current change-up is taking because I’m selfish and I prefer that life simply continue in a positive vein. Is that too much to ask?
UNIVERSE: Far too much, sorry.
Mornings this week have been cool, perfect for walking, striding, strolling, shuffling, wandering, and wool-gathering. Yesterday I did the above for an hour, this morning for half that, improving my outlook immeasurably.
Another fav comfort is that of sitting down to write and watching the words flow onto the screen. It’s always fun to see if I have anything to say. Lately I have far too much and can’t really say ANY of it, so I’m missing that security blanket. The only way I know to write is flat out, no masks, no gloss, all truth if possible, and that’s a challenge now because veering off into truth turns the floor to lava. That leaves the weather report and bird watching, both of which are fine but less than cathartic to write about.
Reading is infinitely comforting to me, but it requires an attention span, so there are caveats. Plenty of reading does take place, though, and I have a bottomless well of gratitude for the people who opened those magical doors for me. Books literally roll back the curtain that separates us from the rest of the world, which has been a delightful ongoing gift for this farm girl.
A comfort that never fails… and a gift that keeps on giving, apparently forever… is Kim’s cooking. He’s never content to simply “make food.” He starts with ingredients we both like and hones the combining thereof into a dish that would have anyone’s palate craving more. [Except those who genuinely prefer bland, boiled ’til it can do no man harm, innocent, what IS this food. To each his own.] Good food made with love is like a nice long hug. Pure happiness.
I take great comfort in having a safe place to live, excellent medical people and facilities, clean water, abundant fresh food, people who care about me, and the freedom to live the life I’ve been given. Much of the planet has little to none of that, so a shoot-from-the-hip comparison study I just did shows we’re doing pretty freaking well under all the whining and fighting and gnashing of teeth.
I know this much is true… if we can get through whatever’s coming our way… survive it and come out the other side with something left… something of substance… WE’LL NEVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN. A cloak of naiveté didn’t suddenly drop on my head, I know SOMEONE will be faced with all of this again because the war between freedom and fascism never ends. But if we do this right, a few generations may get to age out before it all starts to crash again.
**
Let’s all keep a good thought as upheaval reigns: It’s entirely possible that climate change, disease, nuclear war, or some other factor will wipe us out first, and we can finally stop thinking about politics.
Good morning, my fellow round-the-bend players, how’s July shaping up for you? Okay, yeah, kinda what I thought. A lot going on, huh. There’s such a general upheaval in progress at all times now, it’s tricky to keep things sorted out. What’s important? What really matters? How can I be helpful instead of simply in the way? We have an incredible array of life or death issues in the air around us at once, none of which we hold any real sway over, and it’s fairly mindnumbing.
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Having spent the past week on the knife-edge of mortality, in the throes of Martian Death Flu, I’m back better than ever and ready to tear a chunk in the space-time continuum. Today, Monday, in a surprise fierce attack, it’s List-Making Day, and we’re in great shape on that so far, Alex. The determination and sense of purpose fairly leap off the page and the ecclesiastical “we” can’t wait to get started. In fact, we’ve already ticked two things off the list, including one from yesterday just to double up on the endorphins.
In light of what we wake up to every morning, we need all the good endorphins we can get, mainlined into the system. There are strange dichotomies at work that we aren’t used to dealing with, and that turns normally-mundane things very weird. I’m not Catholic, so no dog in the fight, but for the first time in 600 years two popes are alive at the same time. That raises chain-of-command questions I’m not sure anyone really wants to address, so I’ll just leave it here for posterity.
By somewhat the same token, we’ve basically had two presidents simultaneously in the U.S. since 2021, and I do have a big woolly-bear of a dog in that fight. The legitimate president calls the shots and gets things done, the pretender shoots wildly in every direction and keeps his cul… um, base, on fire. His own family, including niece Mary, a Phd in clinical psychology, calls him batshit crazy, but a percentage of people in the country think he’s better than sex, which is worrisome on every level.
At the SAME EXACT TIME we have two hugely influential generations aging out… the Silent Generation and the Boomers. Every day my Facebook feed is sprinkled with stories and cool photos of people from my parents’ generation, all the celebrities I grew up knowing about. The vast majority are in their 90s and past 100, still doing that thing they do, which is generally to make life feel better to the rest of us. They’re leaving a very large void as they slip away one by one. I’ll wake up one of these mornings to find that Willie Nelson is no longer a citizen of this earth and I don’t know if I can bear it.
I remember people saying that as we age time speeds up. Yes and no. Twelve straight hours of daylight can seem like a week, but the weekends arrive and depart in double-time. The Silents and we Boomers are reaping the benefits of better nutrition as it came to us along the way, and it’s showing up not only in longevity but also productivity. A whole lot of us still have all our faculties, strange as that may sound coming from someone out of the 1960s and 70s (if you remember it, you weren’t there), and we’re still a force, but the world has no idea what to do with us. The law writers and hangers-on DO mos def want to get their hands on all the Social Security monies we’ve paid into the system our entire working lives, and let’s just say it, to do that they need us dead. I mean, how else? These and other realities keep me awake for whole seconds at night before I slip into my own “little death” and shuttle my brain over to dreamland. And hoo-boy, there have been some bizarre scenarios lately, what’s up with that.
While I’m rolling, imma say this too: Any way we slice it, however it turns out, the presidential election of 2024 is not simply that. Change is coming regardless, the question now is how much and how fast. Will this be the year America turns its broad backside on our WWII defenders and simply strolls into fascism like it’s a Sunday picnic, or will we wake up in time to take a shot at doing it right? America willingly sauntering into Christian Nationalism, hands behind our backs, sounds ridiculous. I hope we won’t do that, but I don’t draw up the plans. No one ever even asks me, despite dedicated years of opinionated observation. Someone who does know what the plan is, by the name of Kevin Roberts, should be checked out and taken seriously, though. He means it.
Please avail yourself of a copy of Project 2025 to see what the end of democratic rule and beginning of religious oppression looks like.There’s also a documentary called “Bad Faith.”But let’s focus on Project 2024 so we don’t have to worry about 2025!
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One thing we’ve discovered is that Joseph Heller was a prophet:
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”
A note of hope writ large today: England and France, both leaning seriously right for a worrisome time, managed to rein it in and lean the other way in their recent elections, both putting left-ish moderates in office. That’s two first-world nations bucking the global trend toward Christian Nationalism, let’s make it three and start a wildfire. And since I’m likely already at max friend-loss on the day, here’s this. She did everything she could to warn us about every bit of this.
**
It’s a lot. I haven’t written much lately because I can’t do it without getting into the truth. Turns out I can hoard my thoughts for only so long, however, so take ’em as they’re meant. And survive the long hot summer.
It’s been an ISH kind of spring so far. Rain-ish. Bluster-ish. Wind-ish. Gray-ish. Not a problem, just a challenge, especially in light of the general bluster coming at us from all quarters. No question, these are strange times, putting a layer of uncertainty under everything, to which the solution seems to be “Keep your head up and keep moving.”
That’s likely the essence of what our college and high school grads heard the past two weekends from speakers who had everyone’s best interests in mind, with one notable exception, a man who kicks balls for a living. This girl is just thankful she can see the TV from the kitchen, because FOOTBALL, man (see how equal-opportunity I am?). And the kitchen isn’t even my territory, it’s the domain of the guy who can REALLY COOK. OMG, we are SO out of compliance with current regs! If the Household Quality Control Department totes us away, please send banana bread containing keys, thx.
So… we’re in hiatus again, with some 28,000 university students mostly gone with the wind. Mass Street, jammed for two solid weekends, is now kinda quiet, kinda slow. This state of being lasts only a couple of months, though, before new life returns and it’s on again: students looking for housing, furniture at the curb all over town, baby freshmen getting their college legs, and a happy Mass Street. Football. Basketball. Bread and circuses, bring it on.
In the interim we’ve consciously broken a habit of several years running, that of NOT watching news on TV. The various shenanigans and happenings have heightened our need to know, so we tune in to trial coverage enough that it reminds me of watching the Watergate hearings on a little black & white TV with rabbit ears while my toddler played and napped.
That whole thing, Watergate, seems so innocent in retrospect. I wasn’t here for slavery (the official version) and I missed the Civil War and both World Wars. By the end of the Korean War I was six years old and just beginning to be cognizant of events outside my small sphere of existence. By the time Viet Nam became an acknowledged war I was becoming very aware of world events and how politics, in the end, shape everything. (See definition of “woke.”) Despite the ugliness and division of that era and my own personal fears, I never really expected to see the globe in tatters and headed for a bad end in my lifetime. Why, I don’t know, because here we are.
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While I wasn’t old enough for WWII, I fully understand what it was about, and I know its sinister vibe is very much with us right now, this week, underscored by words from a disgraced ex-“president.” Words like “unified Reich” and “immigrants are poisoning the blood of America” and political opponents referred to as “vermin.” Germany doesn’t allow Nazi rhetoric, why are we tolerating it? The language and intent are such that every time I’ve tried to write about it (or anything else) my brain fogs over and tears clog my throat. As a country we’ve never quite been who we thought we were, but we were for sure better than this and the world is aghast to see our crumbling feet of clay because if the U.S. is a sham, how do they maintain hope for their own nations?
I’ll always be a Pollyanna, the girl who looks for the pony in the manure pile, always hopeful, forever optimistic, but I must say it takes a mighty amount more effort to maintain that mental state now.
I’ve tried for days to write something, just to sort things a little and get a handle on the current prevailing vibe, but as soon as I sit down here my mind goes blank. It feels almost too big to deal with… the massive governmental changes lurking just over the horizon… the sense of walking on eggshells around friends and family… everything in a state of flux, resulting in endless limbo. Our skies have been gray with rain lately… but there’s also a general charcoaled-out mood to the rest of life as well. Beautiful friends who deserve only life’s sweetness are caught in the pain and darkness of loss and grief… and I’m helpless in the face of all that, just as I am in looking at the planet’s woes and knowing I can’t make any of it better. These are the days that try little white-haired women’s souls.
Closer to home, our Dove family is settled in and weathering the storms so far. We’re increasingly worried about Snoop, though… he’s tiny compared to Willie Nelson and he shivers constantly, even under his mama or daddy’s feathers. We hope he’ll eventually thrive, but it isn’t looking good for lil’ Snoop. Life is hard, dude, and nowhere is it as close to the bone as in pure raw nature.
Willie and Snoop Dove. Best bros.Hatched a day apart.
I scroll social media every day looking for “good news” stories and gentle humor because we all need it right now like a favorite teddy bear. When we least feel like smiling, we need it most. Humor and kindness make life livable because they add up to love.
So… I wrote all of the above yesterday. It’s another sunny morning, and Snoop Dove is clinging to life, but just barely. Willie Nelson stays close and usually has Snoop tucked against his side or under his tail feathers, but Snoop has gotten even tinier and he shivers nonstop. David and Darlene are making themselves scarce most of the time, probably letting reality follow its own course. Willie looks big enough to fly away, so little Snoop’s window is closing. Life on the planet is a fight every day, whether or not we can sense our own struggle. It’s overwhelming, even without the people who do cruel things ON PURPOSE.
Good news! A second egg showed up in the nest over the weekend and Dave and Dar are faithfully incubating their first brood of 2024. According to the interwebs, David Dove is the one who dozes in the nest during the day while Darlene hangs out with her girlfriends at their favorite watering hole having chips and salsa. Then she returns home while David goes out with the boys, eating and drinking all night. Not sayin’ a thing, it works for THEM. And they’ve made quite a decent nest this time – we’re proud of them. It looks like they found a piece of dental floss somewhere… but whatever floats your nest.
**
Since spring is all about change and renewal we’re now surrounded by it, beyond the daily enjoyment the Dove family provides. Not all change is wonderful and positive, but stagnation runs counter to human desire, so since change for its own sake is an exercise in futility, maybe pick the things that bring light and life in greater quantities. A forward trajectory, if you will. That was a note to self.
Several of the lofts in our building have changed hands recently, so the sounds of construction have been a daily presence for a while as everyone revamps according to personal taste. I don’t mind… I just slip my hearing aids out ’til the racket stops… and a full building is a happy building. Or some such. A lot of people are under the impression that this is a retirement community, probably because of all the danged OLD people around. It’s true that likely everyone currently living here is over 50 but I don’t think there’s a requirement in the covenants & restrictions.
There are enough people from the Hill here, either retired or still employed, to give us a reputation as “The KU Faculty Dorm,” and that makes for an interesting environment with fascinating people who’ve lived full and challenging lives. We have neighbors who are moving to assisted living this month, a reality of life… change and lots of it.
So that’s the view from four stories up on a blue-sky sunshiny April morning. The News of the World this morning is as cockamamie crazy as our most cryptic bad dreams, so I’ll just stick around here where somebody knows me.
Oh, and there’s an eclipse happening pretty soon here, something that occurs around the world every little whipstitch. For some reason this one’s causing a stir and I understand there may be select individuals “raptured out” at some point. One governor has even declared a 3-day state of emergency, advising people to lock their doors and gather in prayer circles to stop the evil effects of the eclipse. It may be helpful to consider the following:
Good morning from the heartland. I’ve accidentally fallen off the blog wagon lately… so who’s still here and how’s it going?
It’s been a month since I last published a post and that’s crazy because every day during that time I’ve opened a blank page, sipped my coffee, and stared out the windows while words and thoughts played around in my brain cavity. Sadly, that’s ALL they did, though, so I’ve discarded several insipid drafts and stopped in the middle of a few others but saved them for the one sentence that may hold water sometime.
So… I’m still here and hoping for your peace and happiness today.
**
Winter was disappointingly brief, although I realize as I speak that she could whip back around and bite us hard at any moment. It was 80° two days ago… what will THAT ultimately cost us? Nice, though, and we’ve already been haunting the balcony at every opportunity.
With my winter project basically finished, I’m at loose ends again. It’s always good in wild times to have something worthwhile to focus on because although that doesn’t change the situation, it does redirect our attention enough to filter some of the impact of what comes at us nonstop. Goals are good. They help keep anxiety at bay, herd my thoughts toward the positive, prevent existential loneliness from devouring me from the inside, ad infinitum. Better look for another project…
The daily realities of human existence are too ridiculous to be taken seriously… and too serious to ridicule. The maelstrom of emotions that accompanies every day’s load of happenings… it takes all we’ve got to stand up against its effects on us. And since we have no power over any of it the little things truly matter. A Monday morning bagel. A leisurely drive with time to rubberneck at all the progress around us. A just-for-the-hell-of-it Mickey D’s breakfast, shared at our table. Weekend breakfasts into infinity. All the Life-Is-Good vibe we can pack into a day because we do have a finite amount of time in which to do that.
And now we all see why I haven’t been writing… I don’t seem to have a whole lot to say. Except for this: You’ve helped me this morning and I thank you. Thoughts fill my head during every waking hour but by the time I get here to write they’ve faded like mist. Highly frustrating, but ya’ gotta get back on the horse at some point and ride, so instead of a cry morning this is feeling more like a git ‘er done day. Thx for muddling through it with me.
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To the cross-country sister of my heart who messaged me to say “I miss your blog posts” … thank you for saddling my horse for me.
There’s been a strange phenomenon at work for the past week… I get up and all’s well. Then Kim leaves for PickleBall, the house gets totally quiet, and a monster creeps up behind me and crushes the life out of me for about fifteen minutes. Wha… ?? It shocks me that after a lifetime I still have this many tears in reserve. Where are they coming from? And why? I mean, the world is awful, that’s a given now. And we can’t see the future. And there seem to be few viable answers. I have none at all… thus the dilemma. Powerlessness creates frustration, denial, a tug-of-war on the inside, and finally self-criticism. “Why haven’t you fixed this?”
Feeling powerless in any situation makes me angry. I’m not very good at expressing anger in ways that are non-threatening to me or others. Suppressed anger becomes depression. Bingo. Getting somewhere.
National events pertaining directly to the world we live in continue on a perilous track that portends throwing out the baby with the bath water. It’s a massive challenge to stay positive, keep a good thought, hope for the best, in fact that approach feels disingenuous and like quiet quitting. So I stay educated and current, like a good citizen, the major challenge being to keep my psyche out of the fray. This, as far as we know, is the life we get… it makes sense to care what it looks like. Just not too much, apparently.
I’m thinking I can’t be the only one to feel all of the above and more, so if you’re part of my tribe and have found healthy ways of coping with the world as it now stands, please come talk to me in COMMENTS, I’ll wait right here.
Didn’t have to wait long. Visited my friends over on Twitter aka X, and saw this from Barlow Adams, who kicks my butt every day in a good way:
It’s a summer Sunday morning, only 76° and nothing to whine about. Haha, as if. The humidity is 81%, so welcome to the Eastern Kansas sauna.
My morning routine usually involves getting up by 6:30, waking up by 10:30, and spending the interim cruising through news and the most recent shenanigans. This morning while reading comments on the app formerly known as Twitter, I was struck in a fresh way by how straight and deep the dividing lines are becoming. There’s always been this side and that side, always will be, but the convo about that has become a model for AI chat, with interchangeable words and terms, and the same immutable lines firmly drawn each time. It’s a useless conversation because it changes nothing, but we keep reiterating our personal take on it as the ground under our feet crumbles and drops away.
I look for the good news every day, and it’s out there. I read the stories of people doing good things for other people, cry more often than not, and go into my day knowing there are still people trying to make life better for as many as possible. I’ve stayed in the conversation, with occasional time-outs while everybody starts to forget how annoying I am, but it might be time to simply drop out. My words don’t change anyone’s mind, and fortunately for my ego that isn’t the intention. I write to provide encouragement to people who think “I’m the only one. Nobody else feels this way.” But anyone who’s trying to tell the truth inevitably draws lines in the sand and the accompanying emotion is not one of peacefulness on either side.
I’m sensing that the default choice is to fight amongst ourselves until the lights go out and we all turn into blobs of molten clay, and then to icicles. We’re definitely a cautionary tale, and I sometimes envision the rest of the sentient universe peering at us in brokenhearted wonderment.
On another note, but likely related in some psychic sense, I amaze myself with what I can accomplish while actively avoiding some project that would contribute to the greater good, by which I mean my own peace of mind. Humans are self-sabotaging… look it up.
Once again I’ve sat here and written words and I only hope some of them meant something to somebody out there. As human life continues to decline in value, the connections we make mean everything. After about so much death and disaster, cockamamie crazy, and day after day of the incomprehensible, the planet starts to seem like a fictional place, so all we wanna know is, “Is there anybody out there who gets it? Anybody we can hang with to help make the medicine go down? Anybody still there?”
There is much we have to let go of, starting with this…
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In a world where existential loneliness is the name of the game, I wish you at least one friend you can count on, one other heart that bonds with yours. Life is both too short and too long to be otherwise.
A glorious June morning is underway, full of promise if you’re here for it. My self-assigned mission today is two-fold: reading and writing. Reading for fun and profit, interspersed with terrifying moments of writing for angst and amnesty. BOWLING FOR AMNESTY! She has a working title, boys and girls… and, we’re ROLLING!
At more than three-quarters of a century into this preposterous human experiment, I should be able to state one thing with certainty, and it turns out I can: This whole thing is insane. We emerge as the most helpless of creatures on earth, claw our way toward adulthood, gain awareness of our frightening awareness, and scream our way to the grave, because… insanity. I ask you, is there more fun to be had anywhere? We’ll never know.
There are things we CAN know, however, and do. For instance, I know the following to be true:
I read the entire poem knowing I recognized that voice, and when I saw Mary Oliver’s name at the bottom I burst into tears of joy over unexpectedly meeting up with an old friend out here in the wilderness. We crazies find each other, in this life or the next.
The world has never felt more tenuous… more divided… less inclusive. So we must each do our part to counteract that state:
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Wherever you are as you read this, STOP. Sit very still and let yourself relax from your toenails up. If you’re blessed with quiet right now, relax every cell all the way to the top of your head. Breathe. It feels really good, so do it some more. While you’re letting it all go, have a soft little conversation with yourself: You didn’t make the world the way it is. This brokenness is not your fault. Breathe in. Accept the good and the right and the real. You know how to be kind. Do that. Breathe out. Reject the existential pain that permeates everything now. Let it go. One individual human heart can’t contain what’s out there, so we have to simply lay it down and accept that being here for it is enough. And when we feel somewhat healed and therefore brave… we bear witness.
There was one assignment on our minds when we woke up this morning: VOTE. We could have availed ourselves of that sacred right at any point during the early voting period, but we value the experience of casting our votes in a building constructed in 1873 which has served many purposes and is now an art gallery and event venue built of stone, brick, and heavy timber called Cider Gallery. Its heft and patina speak of the kind of temporary permanence humans seek in life, and that particular spot never fails to renew my hope, here in Free Kansas, that democracy will continue despite all odds.
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After the voting, we went across town to La Estrella for lunch, Kim’s choice and a totally intuitive one. They’re a family business, which when we discovered them consisted of a grocery store and a tiny kitchen/restaurant space. They’re now in a shiny new location, with the grocery store on the bottom floor and an inviting restaurant and ice cream shop on the upper level. The food is authentic to the family’s origins and we can’t get enough of it, but it’s the vibe itself that pulls me in. And today, on Voting Day, it was the place to be. The patrons are from Mexico, Central America and points between, with an eclectic mix of every shade of brown/black/white. At noon on a weekday it’s mostly blue-collar guys grabbing a quick lunch, sharing tables as needed, calling out each other’s numbers including ours, a thread of I-got-you running through the room. The place was packed today and we’re so happy for their success in Lawrence USA. And on this day, when our entire way of life as Americans could well be hanging in the balance, that singular message was a gift… I got you.
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And now we’ll wait for possibly a week or more to know for sure which way things went. That’s a long time to stay curled in the fetal position, so it finally becomes necessary to simply trust the wisdom of the ages…
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Welcome to my weekly blog on life's happiness. We are all human and we all deserve to smile. Click a blog title or scroll down. Thanks for stopping by.
Creative humour, satire and other bad ideas by Ross Murray, an author living in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, Canada. Is it truth or fiction? Only his hairdresser knows for sure.
Playing for Time 
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