Watching from the Window

Imagine the painter after a day at the easel in a room, now salon not studio. Le dejeuner cleared from the red tablecloth. He looks outside. A foreigner in Paris. Homesick for Hungary. Hopeful for himself, for his talent, and with good reason. He will become the Father of Modern Hungarian Art.

But not before he is tested. He will be interned in a displaced person’s camp as the Great War begins. Paris Interior, on exhibit in San Francisco, will be detained as enemy property, spoils. War, pandemic flu, it will be years before the world rights itself. Have faith.

If Those Three Words Were a Statue, We Could Take it Down.

“Merciless Indian savage.” The Declaration of Independence contains these hateful words.

I did a double take when I saw the phrase emblazoned on a tee shirt in Southwest Alaska. The dark-haired girl wearing it was laughing with a friend. Her bright eyes and brilliant smile offered a refutation to the offensive words.

Contrast the clutch of fishermen on the ferry who bristled with antipathy as a Native man walked past. I stared at them, a witness. Spoke as an ally when the local clinic turned away a Native who needed emergency treatment. The founding fathers got those three words wrong.

Freecycle the Election

Offer: Votes counted, recorded
 Wanted: Respect the process
 Wanted: Respect the poll workers
 Wanted: Respectful governance
 Offer: Divisive grandstanding
 Wanted: Cooperation, infrastructure fixes, progress on climate change, social justice, fair wages and workplace equity, election reform, Covid stimulus, policies informed by science
 Wanted: Problems solved
Offer: Solutions denied
 Taken: by “fake news”
 Offer: More of the same
 Wanted: Critical thinking
 Offer: Knee-jerk opposition  
 Taken: The path of least resistance
 Taken: in by divisive grandstanding
 Given: More of the same
 Offer: Both sides media
 Wanted: Fact based media
 Wanted: Fact based politics
 Wanted: Starting now: communicate, listen, empathize, come together.

Baby Gift

Trying to cheer me up, a friend said, “Imagine a start-up selling a flying car. A guy named Tad, with genius hair and cargo shorts, runs things. Like Icharus, he falls to earth. Landing in an old growth forest close to the coast, he’s looking for a mechanic when Chloe comes along on a breath of pine and salt water.

“They marry. They’re happy, too, despite the devil on Tad’s shoulder teasing that he could have had the world. Tad pays that devil no mind. A new dad, now he’s flying by the seat of his pants.”

Me too.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1933- 2020

“I don’t say women’s rights—I say the constitutional principle of the equal citizenship stature of men and women.”
― Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; …public discussion is a political duty; and… should be a fundamental principle of the American government.”
― Brandeis concurring with Holmes in Whitney vs. California, 1927

“He (Nabokov) used words to paint pictures. Even today, when I read, I notice with pleasure when an author has chosen a particular word, a particular place, for the picture it will convey to the reader.”
― Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Quotations from Goodreads in a review of Ginsburg’s book, My Own Words (2016)

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/49756700-my-own-words

John Lewis- 1940 to 2020

John Lewis was buried this week in Atlanta. He grew up in Troy, Alabama, where using a public library was for whites only in 1956. Sixteen years old, he sent the city council a letter, the first of many times he protested Jim Crow.

Arrested 45 times in civil rights demonstrations, he was known for making “good trouble.” Also for mobilizing political action with the phrase, “We’re going to march.” In 1987, he marched into Congress representing Atlanta.

Can’t stomach an unfair legal system? Can’t accept people getting arrested for exercising the First Amendment? Stand with John Lewis’s legacy. Support change. Vote justice.

Gnome More Mr. Nice Guy

The gnome winked. “Disturb you, did we? Meant to, didn’t we?”

Annoyed, I watch the ivy root I’d been hacking slither into the ground.

“Burrow they do. Like rumors they monger, multiply.”

I slump in the dirt. “It seems hopeless.”

“Aye, Whac-a-Mole.”

“Then what, let them take over?”

“Nae, ye be between Odysseus double monsters. Then strap yourself down and through it ye go.”

Churning waters, sailor’s oars pulling strong. A group effort. Is that what he means? “I don’t understand. Is it restraint or escape that let us resist the siren’s song?”

“A bit of both. Then dig in.”

Adulting

Since the virus started, Lolly made her own decisions. Even hard ones, like, could she go across the street for a physically distant chat with her best friend, whom she’d known since first grade. Tempting fate, maybe.

Her parents worked at the hospital. They self quarantined. She missed seeing them and arguing about the silly things that had seemed important three months ago.

She said, “I love you.” Made omelets and sausage plated with sprigs of parsley which everyone ate alone. So grown up. So post high school. So very responsible and thinking about others more often now. Real adulting.

Stressed in Space

I’m about to explode. Despite training in enhanced mindfulness techniques, there’s a tension in my thighs and my toes itch. I’m leaving suspended relaxation. From the ceiling viewing screen, I see we haven’t left the atmosphere.

Hibernating in self-contained pods, we hope to make it to Mars in a self-driving ship. Some billionaire’s idea. What a bad time for insomnia since success depends on no one eating for six months.

This is my sister’s idea of togetherness. She’s a long time yogi. I’m not. Though I’d like the company, I hope no one else wakes up. I need to relax.

The Luck of Three

His father told him good things come in multiples of three. Then, he left his third son at the crossroads. Taking a contemplative path into mountains and mists, the youth finds an ox, a horse and a royal ring. Riding the horse, leading the ox and wearing the ring, he’s stopped by a bailiff. The man’s skin and bones poverty cries out for help. The youth hands the man the ox’s rope.

Giving the horse its head, he arrives at a castle where the glint of the ring summons the queen. Three well solved quests later, she makes him king.

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