Like Finn waiting for a bit of my breakfast, I mostly wait for November in an electric expectancy (not feeling like a boiled frog, in other words.)*
I am tentatively hopeful for the turn around that Biden’s election would represent. I am tentatively hopeful that another Blue Wave will overwhelm the GOP’s voter suppression campaigns. I am tentatively hopeful that Operation Legend will backfire and that trump’s push to be more visible will only reveal how advanced his dementia is.
One hundred and three days.
I will get to yesterday’s comments later. But first dog walk! Then a zoom writing class.
We got a marvelous pounding rain last night.
During the walk, I listened to Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and creator of the Equal Justice Initiative and the lynching memorial in Montgomery. But you knew that. And you probably knew that the memorial features jars of earth taken from lynching sites.
Here’s a moving clip about a woman collecting dirt for the memorial along a remote road being approached by a white man in a pick up truck.
https://overcast.fm/+QLhWC4oWg/36:44
The one minute story exemplifies Stevenson’s core belief about racial healing.
“We deny ourselves redemption when we insist on denying our broken past, our ugly past, our racist past
Until we tell the truth, we deny ourselves the opportunity for beauty. You know, justice can be beautiful.”
If the clip doesn’t work (still figuring this out), play from 36m on your usual podcast app.
Christ figure w/African face made of shrinky dink
* would we know we were boiled frogs? I don’t mean to return to yesterday’s pessimism, but isn’t that the whole point of that analogy — that we wouldn’t notice the ever increasing temperature of the water until it’s too late?
Ebb and flow…each moment the emotions fluctuate. Drenching rain and dog walking is a good thing. Hope is still not lost.
We must find hope someplace, when we can…then hold on tight.
Great listen on the clip. Thanks.
yes, that’s always been my understanding regarding the boiling frogs analogy. We wouldn’t know.
and isn’t that kind of how we got here???
Dee, I’ve just filled myself with the thoughts, writings, images, and information that you so generously provide here. Thank you especially for the link to the memorial clip, and for sharing the collage in your last post, I find it powerfully moving. Even in all of the weary darkness, your strong spirit shines.
I was listening to Bryan Stevenson on Ezra Klein yesterday and that story of the jar of dirt brought tears to my eyes and hope to my heart. I am so glad to see your reference here. As to boiled frogs…I think we do notice what is happening, but are finding ourselves powerless to stop it. If we can eliminate the scourge in November, we have to build new bulwarks against all these transgressions. I, too, am tentatively hopeful, but also afraid of what might be brewing in the meantime as Republican desperation rises.