Still Time – A Beach Sunset

5:30 PM at the beach. There is a small sailboat hugging the distant shore. It’s going out while most boats head back in under a cloudy sky on this late Saturday afternoon. A patch of sea grass is all I can see of the sandbar where I kayak to. The tide is moving out and in a few hours, I know the sandy spit will emerge again.

I am sitting on a beach chair. I rarely do this – sit in a spot on this beach alone – at least not on a chair I’ve brought with the intention to sit. I usually come to kayak or walk, never just to sit. When I walk, I will pause and look out at the water, pick up a stone or shell I drop after a few steps. Today I am on a patch of sand where people regularly sit – often the same people in the same spots. They set up their chairs to read and roast in the sun away from lifeguards and families. It’s not a place to swim as sea grass blocks access to the water. 

A string of small waves is rolling in caused by the speeding motorboats heading home. Perhaps these boaters are hungry for dinner after a day spent on the water. This is what I imagine. Otherwise, the water is calm and I think about kayaking. It’s tempting. My kayak is on the nearby rack and my paddle and life jacket are in the car. I love being on the water although I’m a lazy paddler. I don’t go far. Mostly just to that sandbar not currently visible. It should emerge in another few hours, a small stretch of sand where the oystercatchers hang out. I like to sit and swim there.  

I took a walk before setting out my chair. I walk at this beach often.There are many serious walkers intent on achieving their steps. I am a little like that but I also come here to dream and stare at the horizon and take deep breaths. Before sitting, I walked past where my kayak sits on a rack, then out onto the pier where fishermen lean with their rods and beers. I usually stop for a few minutes at the end of the pier to look down at the water and out at the stretch of Long Island blocking the Atlantic. 

I pass the playground. I spent countless hours here watching my daughter climb the ropes, the slides and the wooden boat replica with bells to ring and a wheel to turn. She’s 30 now and lives across the country. I walk through the tree-lined path where we once celebrated her birthday with her middle school pals. Rob and I cooked on the crusty grill there.The kids wandered off down the beach away from us chaperones. Molly remembers it as one of her best birthday parties and we did nothing but cook hot dogs and hamburgers and let them be wild. 

I walked across the beach to be closer to the water lapping the shore. I come across multiple horseshoe crab carcasses upside down – legs up and still. I flip them over to make sure they’re dead. One afternoon I walked this shoreline and came upon over a dozen of these prehistoric looking creatures upside down with legs flailing. I flipped them over as I went along and watched as they moved their armored bodies back into the waves. Today, none of them moved.

The sun is breaking through a schmear of clouds. The sky below, a lemony yellow, readying for sunset. The days are shorter. While today had the warmth of a summer day, the sense of autumn prevails. I can see it in the light, the quality of the air. There’s always a poignancy to the season changes, isn’t there? I love summer and don’t like being cold but I am sure if I lived in a warmer climate I would miss these changes I have lived with all my life. I am happy to visit my daughter in California during winter to get my fix of humming birds and year-round flowers. But there’s something that balances me in these changes in light, leaves, temperature – the temporary freezing of the earth. I take none of it for granted anymore and feel challenged to meet the seasons. Even in winter I come here to this shoreline, bundled up against the winds to follow the tides and sunsets through the season.

Just beyond a small boat house is an event space and I can hear the sounds of a wedding and the couple, Mr. and Mrs. Quinn, being introduced. Now, as if on cue from my thoughts, a guitar/vocalist begins to sing a Carole King song: Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall – all you’ve got to do is call and I’ll be there. 

I look out at the water. There’s a kayaker next to the grass near my still submerged sandbar. They are not paddling, just floating. Like I do. Hypnotized by the movement of the grass, I relax as the boat lifts and lowers, rocking gently. I cannot see from here but I imagine the kayaker doing what I do: I let my hands fall alongside the boat and into the water, still warm from summer. Are they letting the tide bring them back to shore? I watch and see they are drifting, pushed away from the gently waving grasses of our sandbar. Not paddling. I recognize the sweetness of giving it over to nature, waiting until the last moments of the sun’s light before returning to shore.There is still time.

Baths in War & Peace

My house was built in 1938. The bathtub is original and there are rust stains around the drain fixture and it needs fresh calking. It’s vintage like the rest of my home. Twenty years ago, and in the early years of my marriage to Neil (who loved a bath) I soaked in a tub almost daily. 

Living in Europe during the early 90s, Neil and I experienced all sizes and shapes of baths in the many rentals and hotel rooms we stayed in. One memorable hotel in Italy had a tiny square tub that puzzled us. It looked like a little shower pit with no curtain. Neil, ever the comic, folded his 6 foot 4 frame into the cubby bath and held the shower head to his ear as if he was making a call. It was a fun photo op (I’m still searching for said photo!) but not an acceptable tub.

The bathtub was one of the first things Neil assessed when we landed someplace new.The best was in our apartment in Zagreb – long enough for him to almost stretch out. Because he was one of 6 children in a working class family, Neil learned to share bath water. He was chivalrous: regularly ran a steamy bath for me, set out a towel and sometimes, even when we had electricity, lit candles. When I was limp-as-a-rag-relaxed, rather than empty and refill the tub, he’d climb in and use the same water. It would still be clean(ish) as a bath was as much about relaxing as it was scrubbing and I took care and appreciated the frugality of his practice. Besides, this conservative bathing was necessary during our courtship days in a war zone.

Neil and I met and fell in love while we were both based in Bosnia in 1992. He lived at the Holiday Inn in Sarajevo and I was in a small flat in Kiseljak – a village about an hour away through checkpoint filled roads. Access to water and electricity is often weaponized in war. Besides making life miserable for populations, there is a huge increased risk of disease. Many days we’d turn our taps on and nothing would come out – especially at my flat. Journalists and relief workers were housed at the Holiday Inn and Neil, who worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were always more likely to have water and thanks to generators the news outlets relied on, electricity. Both of us had learned the trick of filling the bathtub and any other available containers whenever water was available.There were many days I’d bathe in an inch of cold water. In the early days of our courtship, when I’d stay with Neil at the Holiday Inn, he put his electric kettle to good use, topping off the usually tepid water. Those baths were particularly sweet for the preciousness of both water and warmth in the winter of 1992.

I don’t remember when I shifted away from taking baths to showers. I suspect it happened gradually as our life became more hectic. And certainly, like most things, we’d stopped sharing bath water. Water is precious. Love is precious. I feel this but my thoughts here are a muddle when I try to write more – about water, about war, about love. How does that sense of these things change when the world falls apart around you? I can tell you that everything changes in war. If you don’t know this, my hope is that you may never need to find out. 

We take so much for granted. Those of us who have it, mostly presume our comfort. When I first moved to Zagreb – still near but not as affected daily by the war, I marveled at the abundance of water and electricity. But soon enough, I no longer thrilled with joy every time I flipped a switch and had light or turned a faucet to a flood of hot water. It became expected: of course I have these necessities. I can fill a bath, take a long hot shower, and watch television at night. I expect it. And I have it – a drinkable abundance of water, plenty to fill a bath. Because, by some chance of birth, I was not born a child in Gaza, Ukraine, South Sudan, Haiti, Afghanistan – so many places in the world who live without basics. I try to remember that I was once lucky to have the inch of water to bathe in.

Nature. And Not Nature.

I was watering the garden on a recent morning, staring out into space with hose in hand. From the corner of my eye I registered my neighbor’s dog moving around their yard. I was looking through the picket fence that divides our property so I saw only bits of his golden coat between the slats. I wondered why he wasn’t barking at me like he usually does. He’s a good size dog. I went back to aiming the hose at the garden.

When I glanced up again, a small set of antlers was floating over the top of the fence. Just little horns. And then he lifted his head, looked over at me with minimal interest before jumping the fence into my yard. It was he who I’d seen — not a dog.

Young buck stepped across the wood chips under the peach trees, nibbling at the weeds before leisurely continuing on to the side of my house. I dashed inside, grabbed my phone and quietly went out the front door, hoping to capture a photo or video. I know deer are common in many neighborhoods around here but not in my fairly urban one so this encounter felt magical.

Creatures have been showing up in my yard a lot this summer. Another recent day, while washing my dishes and gazing out the window over the sink, I saw a good size coyote saunter through the side yard. A little alarming but all are welcome. Especially now that I don’t have a little dog to worry about.

The regulars are also still here including an abundance of chipmunks and squirrels and of course, birds. And the groundhog. I say ‘the’ because this year I have only seen one. And it is not the one I remember from last year. Likely, there isn’t just one but I pretend there’s one so I don’t feel overwhelmed. But truth is, there are holes galore around here and that makes me think there are groundhogs-galore too. 

There are rabbits. More of them than groundhogs, I’m sure. I’m fond of bunnies, especially when they are babies. This year the little ones seem particularly fearless, continuing to nibble the grass even as they see me approach. That’s what happened a few days ago when I went out to pick some zinnias. I greeted the little guy: “Hello, little bunny! You’re quite the brave one, aren’t you?” I unhooked the gate to the rickety fence of the garden where the zinnias are.

(A sibling?)

As I bent over to snip my flowers, a whoosh-whoosh caused me to turn. Flying away was a bird of prey – one with feather leggings and a very large wing span. It had swooped in just behind me, only a few feet away. Yes: brave bunny had been spotted and snatched. Little squeaks faded into the distance as the massive bird flew across the rooftops with its meal.

I stood in shock, zinnias in hand, I searched the lawn but I knew it was gone. I was heartbroken. Yet this is nature. I know that. And I love birds of prey – not just little bunnies. (I only wish it had taken a chipmunk or squirrel. Is that terrible?) Surely bunny’s mother would be looking for it? 

Can you imagine? Someone just swooping in and taking your loved one as they’re going about their business? This is what predators do. This is what’s happening now, every day to (mostly brown people) in our community. The hawks’ behavior makes sense. What these masked thugs are obediently doing does not make sense. Not to me.

I will never forget nor forgive the evil of what is being done to our neighbors, our brothers and sisters. I hope you feel the same. We must support and protect each other. Suggestions welcome.

Early Morning After a Summer Storm

The rain blew in at night with fierce winds, dramatic thunder and lightning. It moved through fast but enough rain fell meaning no need to water the garden. Last night, after a particularly violent gust, I heard a noise and peered out every window looking for downed branches or toppled furniture but saw nothing. This morning, while the kettle boils for my tea, I walk the yard to look for damage. I see that the garage door popped open. Maybe that was the noise I heard. I’ve been lazy, keeping it closed by laying the weight of a rock against the door rather than wrestle with the ancient lock from inside. There’s not much to steal in there but still, I’ll make more of an effort now.

Around the back of the house, a potted fern has toppled. I set it right. The air is cool. The oppressive heat and humidity of recent days has lifted. I see my neighbor Ken through the fence. He is sweeping up the water from around the kids’ play area. I’m fond of this young family. I call out a greeting and we chat. He tells me the electricity went out for about 10 minutes. Mine did not. Their house is a little higher up and must be on a different line, he says. I promise that later, I’ll retrieve and toss back the ball that landed in my weedy yard. He’s taken to sending me photos of my garden with circles drawn around where the most recent ball has landed. These make me laugh. They are welcome to walk through the gate and retrieve it but it’s better I do it since it entails ducking under low-lying peach and pear branches through ankle high plants. I’ll put on boots and spray for ticks. 

I go back inside and make my tea and rather than my usual ritual of going back upstairs to sit on my bed and read and write, I go back out on the porch. I straighten the cushions and hang the plants back up from where I put them on the ground last night to catch the rain. The sun is low enough that it’s still shady on the glider where I sit to watch the morning and drink my tea. A slight breeze is blowing and feels delicious on my bare arms and legs. A firefly moves across the porch, slowly floating mid-air like a lazy helicopter. Almost daily, I find one around my kitchen sink, seemingly lost. I scoop them up and move them outside. Maybe this is one of those kitchen-displaced bugs, lurking from days ago. I wonder — isn’t it time for them to sleep and recharge so they can glow later? 

I look up at the branches of the Norway maples. A group of four remain as my only shade in the front yard. I miss the oak tree cut down a few months ago because it was dying. The house feels naked now, fully exposed to the full morning light.The stump and logs rest in the corner of the yard waiting for my missing handy man to come with his splitter. I make a mental note to text him again. A few birds are flitting between branches overhead and I shield my eyes from the sun to try and get a better look at them. I think they are likely Robins, perhaps the ones born on my porch only weeks ago.

While I’m gazing up at the branches I notice that the leaves on these trees are sparser and smaller than usual this year. I worry, are these trees dying too? The leaves on the Mulberry tree growing next to the garage are also less dense this year although the berries are abundant. Are my trees also mourning the missing oak? Swallowing the last of my tea I think yes — they yearn for and miss their yard companion of decades. I know a little about this yearning but I trust they, like I, will carry on and bloom brilliantly again for years to come. Now they are mourning and I understand as I too still search for shade no longer there.

Sounds Like Bombs to Me

I’m not a fan of fireworks. I prefer to see the tiny explosions of fireflies lighting up as they dance across my yard. I love the quiet drama of a sunset, purple and orange streaks exploding across the sky. For the thrill of big noise, I’ll take a sometimes terrifying summer thunderstorm. Nature is the boss and her destruction intense –  but she does not intentionally target populations like man does with bombs that, by the way, sound just like fireworks. 

It’s almost 9 PM and I’m on my porch catching the last of this stunning day that was July 4. And boom – the first explosion in the neighborhood is off. Now a smattering of smaller machine gun sounding explosions. For anyone who has heard the real thing – this sucks. I had it easy. I was getting paid to be in a war zone and was able to take breaks and be in Italy or Austria ordering good wine and cappuccinos within hours. I knew people who could not leave, who didn’t want to leave their homes. To become refugees. So they did their best to protect themselves and family while bombs fell. They ventured into the street to get water, food, firewood, running on streets where they knew snipers hid in burnt out buildings ready to arbitrarily shoot them in some sick game. And this was a pre-drone time. I can only imagine how terrifying things are now. I don’t want to imagine either – but here I am – imagining. 

Because I remember these sounds I hear from my front porch – as mortar shells exploding in Bosnia and Croatia. Once on the drive up into the mountains above Sarajevo for a meeting with a braggadocious man (now living in the Hague for war crimes) a tank fired off into the city. Our car was heavy and armored but the force of the explosion lifted the SUV. We made the rest of the drive silently, deafened and wondering about who and what was hit this time. How many injured, how many dead?

Don’t get me wrong – I once enjoyed watching the sky lit by exploding flowers and falling stars shot off on a barge in the distance. I have oohed and ahhed and enjoyed the festive atmosphere of a fireworks display. They are beautiful. But from my porch on a summer night it feels ominous and I think about war.

Sorry to be a downer but that’s my take. And besides, fireworks, especially uncontrolled neighborhood pyrotechnic displays are terrible for wildlife, little kids and pets.  

There’s a brilliant organization around here (https://wildlifeincrisis.org/ ) that rehab every kind of critter. They’ve reported an increase in injured animals being brought in because of fireworks. And the internet is full of people looking for pets that ran off in terror. Our long gone Cairn Terrier Tetley hated them.

Here’s to sparklers!

Peace!

A Robin’s Nest – and my bout of NIMBY

A robin built a nest on my front porch and I’m not thrilled. I know, I know! I feed the birds all winter, keep the bird bath clean and full and yet here I am getting all NIMBY when it comes to sharing my space. I was thrilled to see a local osprey fly off with one of the branches I’d collected from my recently downed oak tree imagining it’s new life as baby bird home. But when my feathered friend chooses my sweet porch to build in, well, I wasn’t happy. A little too close? What kind of hypocrisy is this? I have reflected on and chastised myself for this poor attitude. I don’t offer the following as a defense, simply an explanation.

With the warmer days, I get to expand my living space outside and I’ve been busy cleaning up. The front porch is my favorite spot to drink my tea in the morning, ponder the yard and life. And now, I feel thwarted. I had my chance and confess, I considered removing the nest when I saw the beginnings of grass stuck in the corner space right above the pillar next to where my laundry line begins. I really thought about it.

Momma Robin won. I did not touch the nest. This morning I watched her fly back and forth, beak full of damp leaves or wads of earth and now bits of dropped flotsam litter the area. After depositing her load into the nest, she hops in, shimmying down with a fluff of feathers to make sure it’s just right. Within a few days she’s woven the messy strands of straw into a formidable little home.

Don’t get me wrong – I love birds and respect a nest. I’ll skip whole sections when pruning my privet hedge at the slightest suspicion there’s someone nesting. When cardinals settled in to raise their babies in between the branches of a rose against the breezeway windows, we tiptoed passed for weeks. But this spot is my Grand Central. I am always in and out and live out here as soon as the weather warms. I hang my laundry off the line at least once a week.

I’m not sure how to navigate now. Do I not use the porch? I want her to feel safe and comfortable raising her babies here. I’ll have to figure it out and so will momma Robin. She still takes off when she sees me in the window. So now I’m a little worried I didn’t make her feel welcome.

I looked it up – incubation period is about 2 weeks and another 2 for the babies to move out. Did you know that most bird nests are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA)? Don’t tell our current administration about this though – God forbid that any vulnerable living thing be protected. That law will go the way of all the other protective legislature if the emperor gets wind of it.

What an opportunity to recognize and work on myself. I left the nest alone. I obeyed the good law. I’ll love my neighbor. Now I’ll settle in do my best to practice this lesson on living my life with integrity from the best teacher ever: nature.

Support our National Parks.

https://ourparks.org/

Changing Gears: A Writing Conference

It’s been 4 months since I stopped working and I still marvel that every day is all mine. I was a responsible employee and 8 AM to 5 PM belonged to the company. I could have been a goof-off since I worked from home but my boss trusted all of her team and I honored that faith. I confess I cooked up the occasional soup and definitely scrolled through my phone too much but I did not go shopping or have lunch with friends on the clock. My time felt owned. I needed to stop working to reclaim my consciousness. It was time to find my own rhythm to the days before there are no more left.

I’d been doing advance planning for a year or so before my last day of employment. Like riding a bicycle up hill, a biker needs to anticipate the slope and shift gears as pedaling gets harder. Before I stopped working in December, I did a lot of adding up income vs bills, I joined the YMCA so I’d have an exercise routine, planned trips and read a lot. 

I read for inspiration on how to live a rich and creative life over a certain age. This is how I found Oldster Magazine (https://oldster.substack.com/) – an online publication created by the writer and editor, Sari Botton. Oldster includes a great interview series with interesting and off-beat people I can relate to, about what it’s like to age, to be – old! Sari was one of the instructors at the Southern Vermont Writers’ Conference (https://greenmtnacademy.org/pages/southern-vermont-writers-conference) that I just attended. She had posted in Oldster about scholarships for writers over 65. I applied for and won one! What a gift! I returned a week ago Friday, from a nourishing and inspiring 5 days in Manchester VT. I’m still processing the experience but here are some thoughts –

There were two other workshops on offer but I signed up for Sari’s 5 day workshop on Writing Compelling Personal Essays. I struggle to describe what feels like a time of alchemy, especially in that windowless hotel conference room of our workshop. Sari asked big questions and used prompts to get us to go deep in our writing. And we did. In those 5 morning sessions, our little group grew braver by the day, writing pieces that made everyone else cry. Hearts were shared in all their broken beauty. The writing was superb.

Initially I wanted to shy away from writing about what I think of as old pain as if sadness and sorrow can be packed away in the closet like clothes that no longer fit. The 8 of us in Sari’s group wrote about profound losses, heartbreaks, struggles – and created beauty. Pain cracks us like nothing else, opening our senses up to the profound, the stuff of life. This is what interests me and what I want to be doing – mining the riches that live even in the darkness. There, like the bottom of a compost pile, is where fertile material lies.

By the end of the week this group felt like a tribe and remains a goal post for me to be honest and go deep. Being open, seeking and truthful feels like resistance these days and I’m all in on that. Each paragraph of writing shared, set another stone for the way. Comments were insightful and generous. We listened to each other carefully, honoring and following each others voice. There was humor, sass, sexiness, gentleness, tears spilled for ourselves and for each other. A kind love grew in our mornings together under Sari’s gentle, smart guidance. 

I didn’t arrive or leave with a specific intention about writing, I only know that writing compels me and a day feels better when I do it. I don’t want to write in a vacuum. Having readers and getting comments, (thank you!) enriches me as does working with other writers. Life might feel solitary but we are not alone. What reader doesn’t find that to be true after reading something that resonates? Perhaps, someone will find comfort, solace in my writing, may feel less alone.

Caren and Kim, who launched the Southern Vermont Writer’s Conference, created something wonderful by bringing together this group of writers and instructors – weaving together a community of strangers, many becoming new friends. If you write, check them out – they’ll be doing it again next year. You’ll want to be there!

Pruning Fruit Trees and Intent

Peach and pear trees in New England should be pruned in late winter while still dormant. The trouble with this schedule is I am also still hibernating. However, I recently managed to brave the cold and tackle my 2 pear and 2 peach trees. I waited until most of the snow melted to avoid injury. Other than the odd branch poking me in the face, I came away unscathed.

Even after giving away cut branches to other hopeful souls willing to gamble on blossoms emerging from sticks, plenty remained. The wattle fence from last year turned out to look a bit ragged but was useful and effective, not only in preventing visitors from stepping off the front deck onto dangerously wobbly steps, but also providing me with kindling all winter. I just burned the last of it and have prepared the new branches to create another natural barrier. Hopefully this one will be pretty as well as practical.

Still to be cut are a few higher branches that require a ladder to get to. Last year it crossed my mind that I’m getting too old to be climbing my trees. This year I intended to enlist a pal to stand by in case I fell while swinging my handy little electric saw around. But who has time for that? I felt safe and stopped at the first glimmer of self-doubt or weariness. I’m stubborn but careful. I did wait for the snow to melt, after all.

I wrote about pruning and making my wattle fence last year (click underlined link above to read) and maybe I will again next year. Maybe the trees and I will both be around. This is a wish and a hope. I think it’s important to send hope out to the universe while also nurturing it in our own hearts.

Pruning is a kind of hope and commitment towards the future. Otherwise everything goes to shit. Cutting off what’s not needed requires attention and care and can’t be done willy-nilly. I’m hanging on to that. Sometimes I feel the darkness encroaching so I look for light. Sometimes that means forcing myself out in the cold to trim my trees.

Amazingly, as hard as last year’s cuts were, more branches grew back even longer. I have 7 foot pieces in my pile. Last year I wrote: “I know that these harsh cuts were necessary if the trees are to thrive.” While true, that sentence now makes me a little uncomfortable. We hear some version of this from the liars as they gut our government. One difference: we don’t hear the word ‘thrive’. They are not interested in us thriving or in some cases, even surviving. These guys are in it only for themselves. They are not doing this for you or me. We are the serfs.

I recognize the importance of cutting back. I am all for getting rid of waste, increasing efficiency and finding fraud but skill and best intentions are required for making cuts. Fraudsters should not be doing that job. These are nefarious men driving us deeper into debt as a country and individuals as they scheme and get richer and richer. It’s obscene. We’d get rid of the deficit and pay for health care, education – basic human rights – if these same creeps would pay even just their fair share of taxes. Nope. That’s not in the cards. We need a new deck of our own.

We cannot give up hope, nor stop speaking up. Make sure your representatives are really representing you and let them know if you think they’re not. It gets easier to make calls and the young people answering the phones are great.

I suggest signing up for daily emails from the link below. Craven is a very smart activist who suggests different simple acts of resistance. It took me less than 5 minutes to make calls working off easy scripts provided in this beautifully titled site: chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions@substack.com

By the way – the peaches and pears mostly get eaten by the wildlife. It’s nature’s way and there is enough to go around – we need to share.

Keep the faith, make the calls and don’t lose sight of your joy!

Doing Sensible and Human Things

I booked my trip to a yoga ashram in the Bahamas back in November, not realizing I’d depart the day after inauguration of the evil one. Fortuitous, right? Packing up and leaving the country for a week of meditation, yoga, good food and the Caribbean was a perfect preventive step against being overwhelmed with anger and despair. So far so good.

These are my pals – not me!

During my week away I rarely looked at my phone and read only headlines. I badly needed a social media and news detox. Newly retired, my abundance of time coupled with a motherly compulsion to follow the LA fires and Molly’s proximity had me spending way too much time scrolling.

On the way to evening Satsang

Scrolling is a solitary pursuit but at the ashram I was surrounded by community made up of a diverse group including students doing their teacher training, swamis, karma yogis and vacationers like myself. I managed to connect with too few of the oh-so-many interesting people during long vegetarian meals and barefoot beach walks. Every day I had deep conversations about life, the world – inner and outer – with kin spirits from all over the planet and across generations. Returning home to my quiet life did not feel lonely after so much fulfilling sociability. Inspiration still reverberates and I am reminded that community will save us.

Can you see the little red booted bird?

As will art, including music, writing, plus much laughter, dance, walks, nature and most of all – love! We cannot let the monsters diminish us or our joy!

The other day Molly shared this quote to live by from C. S. Lewis written after the bombing of Hiroshima:

“If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies but they need not dominate our minds.”

The entire essay remains relevant. This passage leapt out at me as so true – just substitute recent events (or not!):

“What the wars and the weather and the atomic bomb have really done is to remind us forcibly of the sort of world we are living in and which, during the prosperous period before 1914, we were beginning to forget. And this reminder is, so far as it goes, a good thing. We have been waked from a pretty dream, and now we can begin to talk about realities.”

Current reality isn’t good. I feel like we need to stay informed, talk about and figure out what we can each do. It’s terrifying. The presidency was bought by the richest man in the world who has already staged a kind of coup – stealing private information, waltzing around like it all, we all – belong to him. Now they (think) they have us where they want us. The tech bros and the emperor (who has no clothes) are all bad. I am not clear about my own footing, where to step next – but hey – it’s the year of the snake – a time for shedding skin and re-birth. It will be uncomfortable for a time but I believe that the reality of what these creeps are trying to put into place will hopefully become apparent to the fooled ones. I believe that we’ll be okay. We’ll find a way to live – better for all. We have to.

There are so many lessons to be learned from history across the world, and in our own communities from those who have long lived under injustice and oppression. Now more than ever, in whatever ways we can, we must fight against authoritarianism, to protect the vulnerable, the earth, each other. We can do this.

Here are a few links of people and organizations I follow for factual information and guidance on how to push back. Please feel free to add your suggestions in the comments.

(Robert Reich suggests: “…you might call your senators and representatives in Congress and tell them you don’t want Elon Musk messing with your Social Security or anything else. That number is 202-224-3121.”

Democracy Now

ACLU

Robert Reich Substack

Heather Cox Richardson – History Behind Today’s Politics

Southern Poverty Law Center

Under the Desk News on Instagram

Fires Raging – What’s the Plan?

For days I followed the news and social media and studied regularly updated Los Angeles fire maps to count the scant (5!) number of blocks of buffer between the ‘Recommended Evacuation’ zone and where my daughter lives.

December 2024 – Foreboding clouds over the Pacific Palisades.

During the holidays Molly, Rufus and I walked along the spectacularly gorgeous stretch along the Pacific. Not long after I returned to Connecticut, news cameras set up on that same sidewalk to report on the flames destroying homes in the Palisades. Smoke hung like nuclear clouds behind the newscasters over the lovely-now-deadly hills that border the Pacific. On one of our walks in December the ocean was particularly wild and clouds were almost frightening, hovering over the mountains in the distance. I took the photograph above. It seems like a disturbing premonition of things to come.

December Walk through what will soon be in the recommended evacuation zone.

The terrible destruction of the fires, the awful loss in communities across the city, is heartbreaking and shocking. Winds have whipped through those gorgeous dry mountains forever. This latest destruction is historically the worst – because of humans. Greedy humans, mostly men, who ignore climate change and care more about their own wealth and survival than us little guys. Most wars can also be tracked back to the same base intentions. When I worked in peacekeeping at the UN my boss would in whisper to me, refer to the leaders sitting around negotiating tables as gangsters.

And today in this country we make our own version of gangsters, official. Welcome to the autocracy. Inauguration day.

I have no idea how to navigate these next years but I will do my best not to live in anger. I will turn to and build my communities and find new ones. Neighbors coming together is a powerful thing. We see this in LA and hopefully, in our own lives. I certainly have. Hope and love lives in communities as do solutions.

My first instinct is as a parent – to protect my child. No matter that she lives across the country and is a grown woman taking excellent care of herself. I watch the flames, worry about the smoke and bad air, climate change. I fear for her future with this new administration. Yes, she is white with the privilege that comes with it – but she is a woman. I fear for young women and tell them to stock up on birth control for starters.

Here’s a ray of hope: today is the day we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. Initially my reaction to inauguration day being the same as Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday celebration seemed terrible. An insult to his legacy. Now I realize, this is a sweet invitation to focus on remembering MLK and looking for hope and a way – rather than pay attention to the depressing pomp and parade of oligarchs ready to take the reins. Martin Luther King Jr. offers us a different door with a path to follow. We must keep the dream alive! Be Love. We can do this.

*The King Center: Established in 1968 by Mrs. Coretta Scott King, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change

I find Timothy Snyder’s list still stands and provides . Author of On Tyranny – a book I purchased and sent out to many friends last time this nightmare was in power. Time to dig it out again. Or just refer to the list link above.

PS: Molly is safe and loving her life in beautiful California.

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