Some days are like this: filled with a sense of vulnerability and gloom. A friend used to call them my “Eeyore moods.”
I have some idea why today. The pipe bombs. The unavoidable reality of having a white supremacist President with legions of ill informed but well armed followers. The way the media conspires to amplify the negative and repeat the lies, always at the expense of the Democrats.
It didn’t help that what I wrote in class today provoked almost nothing but comments about being confused — even though comments are supposed to be restricted to the positive (I get it. My style tends to the impressionistic — my heroes being Woolf, Kincaid, Faulkner and not Chandler or Hemingway. And there are folks in the class who don’t know any of the characters and others who have met them but don’t remember them. Plus, and this is a biggie, having revised earlier writings so intently for two seasons now, I have a real sense of how preliminary these class sketches are).
Still, last week I “got” something I can use pretty much word for word and I’d always prefer to blow people away.
And then there’s the way the two groups I’m in have formed external bonds that aren’t entirely exclusive but are noticeably less vibrant in my direction. Noticing how I need to update my availability.
Plus there is K’s travel schedule. I think he may end up having been gone for more than 25% of the time in 2018 — a lot of that weekends.
So. Keeping going with chicken soup (literal chicken soup), walks with Finn, postcards for Phil Bredesen of TN (he’s running for Corker’s seat) and a new utterly absorbing Netflix series, “The Bodyguard.” And quilting.
Oh. And then there’s taking pleasure in gifts that come in the mail. This sweet little pop up notebook, from Michelle. Thank you, Michelle.
Finn, please be careful of those pins!
I worry about those pins! So far he’s been lucky.
Forgot to say, I’m quilting something too and the old man won’t even pick it up from the chair!
It’s no fun getting stuck.
How lucky we are to have this place where we get to grow in the knowledge of why we connected in the first place .. I feel much love in these words.
Yes. Very lucky. I’m surprised but glad that love is what came through to you.
Love in that you have this place .. that Marti has this place. This place where thoughts and feelings can be shared so openly and honestly.
Some days, the gifts from the land, my dye pot, my quiet walks, my altar incantations, my deep breaths as I take that first cup of tea in the expanse of the New Mexico sky just don’t hold…just don’t soothe, just don’t calm.
These recent horrible events, the evil at the top, the reality of our ripped, divided country, threatens to overtake my intentions with anger and I find myself wanting to retaliate in some grandiose fashion, wanting to scream, wanting to wish I truly could invoke a spell of banishment.
BUT all I can do is to continue with my intentions, continue how I live my life, continue believing that this madness will end, continue to believe that we can come together, respecting each other, knowing that we are who we always hoped we were, that we can rise up, by word, by deed, by hope, by prayer, by belief in each other…
AND continue to give thanks that there are places, such as here, where I can vent and know that it is understood…
I just love the way you paint a piece of your landscape and share your intentions here in the comments. There always comes a sense of purity and expanse. Than you.
Big Hugs Marti ..
Marti~ Our mensch. Your words paint a picture on my heart. xo
So well said!
Dee~ it seems as if Finney-boy has really come into himself and matured into a grand pal for you as you move through your days. The days are hard, but the love is big. xo
He’s worthy of all the dog/god commentary there is. And such good company when K is away!
I have Eeyore moods for days, sometimes weeks on end sometimes for no apparent reason, all we can do is wade through them, I think my current one has a lot to do with the having only ten years left to change the world we live in before the inevitable tipping point of global warming. I am a pessimist I know but everything else fades into incomparison to that. Is that a word, not sure. Here is to better days, more pattern, less outrage.
Hey Debbie. Just rediscovered your blog. Will move to sidebar later so I can access more readily.
I think if I lived almost anywhere but in the US, the compelling, gripping, overwhelmingly discouraging news about climate would be at the fore. But with a madman at the helm and a complicit congress and now, a partisan Supreme Court, all I can think about is ousting these creeps. Chomsky has said the the most dangerous organization in the world is the GOP. This is not hyperbole. Again the sentiment expressed this morning on a podcast, Gaslit Nation. The commentators put it bluntly: the GOP is the party of death. They want to take away health care, they are systematically dismantling regs in favor of polluters, they are forging alliances with our enemies to facilitate wealth for oil and gas oligarchs, they are cavalier and racist about asylum seekers, they are science deniers…. the list could go on.
Did you hear the recent melodious sound that came out of the Antarctic ice ? Colbert jokes about it being a fart. But, it seems that the earth is trying so hard to get our attention and we are failing.
Thank you, I don’t blog that often. Yes I can’t say I would want to live in the US with a not quite despot as a leader; we have some pretty awful leaders over here as well, I hate to think what state the country will be in if we have a ‘hard Brexit’.
I haven’t listened to the melodious sound, if it sounds like a fart it would hardly be surprising the ice is probably trying to remove the plastic and chemicals out of its system as well as the hot air expounded by many countries governments about the environment.
Ah, what is it about pop-up books? Even seeing one in 2-D is enough to make my inner child sigh with contentment.
It’s true! It’s the best combination of books and magic.
Having survived (but still scarred by) the 1960’s, I have hope for the Future. If only these 20 somethings would vote. Neither of my adult children will vote–they don’t want to be “responsible” so I hope the generation after them will take responsibility.
Optimism is an act of courage, some say, so more power to you. Of course I am hoping that the Blue Wave will show up as control in one of the houses of Congress. That’s hope. I pretty much read the riot act to my twenty-somethings. They are both registered in other states and planning to vote blue all the way down the ballot.
Yes, Eeyore moods for sure. I am countering the waves of terror about this upcoming election by trying to open my heart to what is, rather than curdling into a fist. My dog is helpful in this, too. Expansion rather than contraction, as the oncoming wave towers over us. Also, I really like the Bodyguard too…
You put it well, as usual. I too am trying not to spiral into fear, which is always contracting. I wish I was more of a praying person.
(((Dee))) this Full Moon is making powerful magic fore change, the pendulum is swinging
We can hope. And hope I do.
Let me lift you some. My big chick and I voted early here in Georgia, Blue! The polling place was busy, many volunteers at hand. People checking their ballots “almost” out loud. Smiling, determined faces. A full parking lot and not a damn Trump sticker on anything that I could see.
This is soooo good to hear!