It smells like snow outside. A big storm is barreling up the coast. As long as the pipes don’t freeze, I’m okay.
Just hosted a small resistance group loosely using the Indivisible guidelines. We are a small group — only eight tonight. But six are lawyers, so there is some brain heft.
I spent the morning cleaning, making Moroccan stew, walking Finn and devouring a small volume by James Baldwin.
Here are two quotes from “The Fire Next Time”:
“The brutality with which Negroes are treated in this country simply cannot be overstated, however unwilling white men may be to hear it.”
“Most people guard and keep; they suppose that it is they themselves that they are guarding and keeping, whereas what they are actually guarding and keeping is their system of reality and what they assume themselves to be. One can give nothing whatever without giving oneself — that is to say, risking oneself. If one cannot risk oneself, then one is simply incapable of giving.”
And lastly, I found this picture while cleaning up earlier. This little guy had a birthday today.
Happy Birthday to that little guy!
thanks, Nancy — he’s way closer to you, geographically, than to me.
As my boy is closer, geographically speaking, to you than to me!
Golly that super adorable little guy makes up for a whole lot of lousy anything else (maybe even the rumor that our “chief” has got to redesigning the Executive branch). I’m actually looking forward to the storm. It takes my mind off my troublesome gut and new rash–I got batteries, candles, food and pipes are not my responsibility, but they say if you leave the water dripping it should save you. Fire looks inviting and Baldwin-brilliant Baldwin: “Well, if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected — those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! — and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person — ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” (from No Name in the Street” 1972
He does indeed make up for a lot of lousy else!! And thank you for the Baldwin quote — what a great final line. Re: storm, I’m looking forward to it too. Have nowhere to go tomorrow. How great is that? Hope you stay snug as a bug. Sorry to hear about belly and rash.
Stay warm & thank you for this introduction to the writing of James Baldwin x fingers he’s in our local library, am reading Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible what a compelling story, was so disappointed by The Lacuna (couldn’t finish it) & Flight Behaviour (good concept but the characters were cardboard cutouts) she’s the queen of the opening few pages then just let me down from then on in both books but this one is brilliant!
The smell of snow … thank you for recalling this for me. And fire … real fire, not the ersatz gas log version.
You saved the best for last … what a great picture!