There are two things in my way
A dispatch from bewilderness
Observations, while sometimes funny, are also real in a way that can make the laugh catch in your throat. Like things which flash by at the intersection of fear and hope. They may, at times, be clever and funny, but they can be painful, too.
This brings us to narratives. We see the world through narratives and mine are shattered, splintered, sliced. This is caused by my age and my brain. Well, those are two things in my way. Well, really more than two.
Other factors may include pesticides, the president, the news, each successive new cabinet member, each slash of each department that formerly tried to keep us safe. As in safe food, safe water, safe air, safe air transport.
Then there’s LA burning up and down, the dismantling of productive programs for health and education, the dismantling of hard-working families, plus seemingly successful attempts at destroying democracy. Both ours and others.
All funded with billions from President Musk. I mean, oh, you know what I mean. Billions which might have gone toward toward fairness, decency and health — instead make the rich way richer and the powerful way more powerful.
And now to the topic of health. Everything you do affects your health. Everything you don’t do affects it, too. Like a lot of people didn’t do enough to elect the person I way preferred. And a lot of other people did enough or more to elect the person they preferred.
Meanwhile, lives are in the balance, including the life of this planet. And the use of such things as reason and justice or hate and nukes. So — in the face of the world as it is — one might ask oneself, why write? And believe me, I do ask myself that very question more and more all the time.
Writing is tough. I rarely enjoy it. Sometimes it hurts. I don’t do it for money or power or fame. Yet here I am, out of frame, out of order, writing anyway. Even when I’m more than tempted to quit. Here I am, twice each week. Hoping to offer a bit of hope and a sprig of surprise. In posts that take two minutes or less to read and way longer to write.
Please ask yourself what is right with you. There's probably a whole lot that is right.
I am going to hold tightly to the Sprig of Surprise...and breathe in its scent as times get even more challenging. In my mind it smells like Lemon verbena.