THE INSPIRATION STATION

On a trip to Portland about 5 years ago I saw a signpost on the street that read: Inspiration Station.  There was a sheet of paper tacked to it that had a quote of some kind and I thought it was such a lovely idea.  I told Hub I wanted one too!  We could put it by the street in front of our house and it would be a nice companion to the Little Library our neighbors across the street had erected.  I love the idea of creating a sense of community for passers-by.

That idea sat unrealized until a couple weeks ago.  I thought of any year, this one was one where inspiration was needed.  I announced I was going  to go to Lowe's and buy some lumber and make my own post and sign.  I had no idea how to do this, so I started looking on the Internet for purchase-able random parts to make manifest the vague image in my head.  This was apparently what it took for Hub to sit up and take notice, likely picturing some monstrosity marking the entrance to our home.  I admit he was probably right. He's much better at this sort of thing than I am.  Thankfully.

He stepped in and said he'd help.  We got down to business and got a clearer idea of what I wanted, went shopping for wood, post, and paint, plexiglass and fixtures. He went right to work with his saw and hammer, I painted when the time was right, he helped with spray painting the letters and assembled and erected the finished product.  We had to pull out an overgrown evergreen and sink the post into concrete at the site we'd chosen, so it was a bit of a chore, but we did it.  

I was amazingly excited and as happy as a kid on Christmas morning!  We called it my early birthday present; I was so grateful for Hub making this happen at long last.  The next morning I sat in my living room, staring out at the sign, just waiting for folks to stop by.  Waiting and waiting and waiting.  I thought they might need a little nudge so I shot an email off to the neighborhood email list announcing the Grand Opening of our Inspiration Station and invited neighbors to drop by for a look.  I got some lovely emails in return.  That afternoon I saw a few people walk by and stop to look and one guy even took a photo!

Since then (two weeks), traffic has been light at best, at least when I'm around to look out the window.  Lots of walkers and joggers and dogs and their people, but very, very few seem to look in the direction of our Inspiration Station or walk up to read the sign.   

Part of the problem is that we live on a narrow street with a sidewalk only on one side -- opposite our sign.  Some folks just walk in the middle of the street, but if they are on the sidewalk they would have to cross over -- no problem, since we have almost no traffic, but oh well, they mostly don't.  Any time I see someone approaching our house I start to try to will them to turn their heads our way.  But they generally do not.  

Here's what I'm observing about humans walking.  On the sidewalk, they generally look in the direction opposite our house, rarely turning toward anything in our direction across the street.  Or, they look down at their feet, never looking up at all!  Or they are looking at their phones as they walk, a skill I have never mastered given my tendency to run into things or fall off curbs when distracted.  Or they will glance, but have no curiosity about what they might see...even if they are being invited to spend a whopping 15 seconds reading something they might find uplifting!!!

Can you tell I'm a wee bit disappointed?  I had so hoped to provide a moment's respite, a moment of whimsy, a moment of reflection.  I had so hoped people would come back often to see the new inspiration I post every few days, perhaps even looking forward to it.  Hub says it's early days....takes awhile to notice and become part of the neighborhood.  I guess. 

Perhaps it's a marketing problem:  I plan now to add a dog water bowl to the stones at the base.  Maybe hang a wreath on the post.  Perhaps leave $20 bills taped to the frame.  

Or maybe the idea is not so much about gathering a crowd as it is to feel a sense of generosity about leaving a silent gift to as many, or as few, as stop to look.  When I look out there, or change the inspiration, I feel joyful, thinking about what Hub and I created together, about giving a gift to my community, about using my photographs and my grandkids' art to create backgrounds for the words of inspiration.   Sure, I'd love others to enjoy it.  And my greatest lesson, which I'm learning every day during the pandemic, is that I cannot expect others to live, love, "be" the same as me.  And that's OK.  I'm learning that only I am responsible for my happiness.  And my little sign makes me happy.

At least, that's the view from here...©

STILL DOING HARD THINGS

Some days it all feels like too much.  I try, we all try, to carry on with life "as normal" but what is normal? Many days I forget what normal even used to be.  

I know I am blessed and privileged and have very little to complain about in my physical world.  Lovely, warm home, great husband, family nearby, friends, enough food and money to not have to worry.  Creature comforts and loving support? Check.

Still, this morning I feel like the world out there is caving in and my safety is only an illusion.   Plus, I'm emotionally spent.  Saying that, there is also a voice in my head assuring me I'll be fine; I'll get through this rough patch and find hope and joy and connection again, but right now I also hear the voice full of woe and warning and feel my body responding with the familiar vertigo of anxiety.

Over on the yoga blog that I write I advised recently to 'be with what is'; that all things change, all circumstances pass.  Today I'm struggling to take my own advice.

The current president still has not conceded the election and is continuing his chaotic quest to challenge the results with legal action, lies, gaslighting, and inciting his followers (and his GOP cronies) to rise up in opposition to what is so obviously the truth:  he lost.   He refuses to allow President-Elect Biden any access to government agencies or information crucial to a peaceful and smooth transfer of power.  No amount of pleading and pressure will budge him.  

Consequently we are vulnerable on many fronts, including national security, but most immediately around the Covid-19 pandemic which is absolutely raging through the U.S. with astronomical numbers of new cases, and deaths, daily.  Biden has a plan for instituting a national response, but needs access to government agencies and information to get a leg up before he takes office.  He is being thwarted. 

We do not have, nor have we ever had, a coordinated national response to the pandemic.  It has been all lies, denials, and conspiracy theories, with a great swath of Americans thumbing their noses at science and refusing to take even the most basic precautions to protect themselves and others.  It's unconscionable. 

I am dismayed I have to live through this era of political upheaval where our American norms, values, and laws are being upended and ignored, where vitriol and violence (real and threatened) are the order of the day. I am dismayed I have to live through this era of pandemic suffering, ignorance, and blatant disregard for each other.  I am beyond dismayed that my grandkids will inherit this mess in some incarnation.  Our country won't be the same -- this is a time of historic change.  My prayer is that this darkness will be followed by light.  The jury is still out.

I try to turn to gratitude.  I am healthy.  So is my family and are my friends.  A vaccine is on the horizon, even if distribution will take many months to reach everyone; some say a year.  Biden/Harris will move into leadership on January 20 barring some catastrophic turn of events.  I'm grateful to live in a part of the country, in a state, where the governor is taking bold measures to try to protect us by establishing limits on social gatherings and mandating masks in public.  States which took early and consistent actions are not as impacted now as those who did not (and still do not).  

But as I watch the rain hit my window this morning, I look out upon a gray, wet, chilly world that seems to hold little promise for immediate respite.  My thoughts are with those who are ill, alone, dying; with their families in worry and grief; with health care workers and caregivers who are exhausted and nearly unable to go on; with all of us as we look ahead to a lonely Thanksgiving sequestered from the warmth and good cheer of family and friend gatherings just when we need it most. 

Had there been a bold and coordinated response from our government at the beginning, so much of this could have been avoided.  It did not have to be this way.  For that I am incredibly sad...and enraged.  Yet, this is what we have, where we are.  Be with what is.

I still have my little poster hanging up on a kitchen cabinet that says "We Can Do Hard Things".  It's been there since all of this started last winter.  We are still in it.  We are still doing hard things.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Updated statistics on Covid 19:  

In my county -- Cases since January: 11,934; Deaths: 258; rate per 100,000 people of newly diagnosed cases in past two weeks: 211.9 (the goal is to get this under 25!)

U.S. -- Cases since January: 11,903,133 million; Deaths: 256,658; over past 7 days, average of 162,816 new cases/day.

Photo Credit: raindrops.  Pixabay.com

LIFE ON THE FARM

We've lived on a 3/4 partially wooded acre for nearly 40 years.  It's in the heart of the city up on a hill with lots of historic houses (which in our area means, like 100 years old, tops, so I'm approaching "historic" too. LOL)  The part of the property that isn't wooded is spread out on three different levels and all of it requires a lot of tending.  It used to be a family affair.  So much so that our now adult sons have each purchased homes with very small yards and very little to tend.  So I guess we pretty much worked them into a PTSD situation they did not want to repeat.  We have had landscaping crews on and off over the years to help us, but they never really lasted -- either unreliable or not up to Hub's exacting standards.  So mostly we've done the "yard work" ourselves.  We've literally crawled over every square inch of dirt on this property multiple times.  I always dreaded the multiple "yard work" weekends over the seasons, sometimes in lovely weather, often also hot, or cold, rainy, and dark -- literally dark as in finishing after the sun went down on some occasions.

Several years ago, I finally got my long desired redesign of our side yard. A flat expanse of grass along the wooded ravine was transformed ("was transformed" as if by magic?  NO!  WE transformed it with sweat and back breaking work!) into a lovely "park-like setting" (as one of our re-fi appraisers phrased it) with berms containing perennial beds, new trees, shrubbery and three raised beds for veggie growing.  We had gone from "doing yard work" to "gardening".  It sounded very classy and we joined the ranks of those in our age group who call themselves "gardeners".  We did not necessarily love the work, but we did love the look of it all tended and blooming.  Still do.  I started to refer to my yard as "the garden", and it's been a busy place this Covid-year for distanced family picnics. 

In the lower yard, we inherited two 40 foot long rows of raspberry bushes set in a 15 x 40 foot patch of dirt.  We have no idea how long they were here before we bought the property in 1982, but they were well-established and very prolific.  

They have been a point of pride, and a nuisance, the entire time we've lived here.  The weeds grow in that area as prolifically as the summer berries, so that's a HUGE job every year, digging out weeds and crabgrass on hands and knees and muddy, wet bottoms.  Then the berry canes need to be contained with props and wire to keep them from falling all over the place.  Once producing, for about 3-4 weeks in late June and well into July, picking begins and gallons of berries come off the vines almost every day, needing to be frozen on flat cookies sheets then scooped into freezer bags and stuffed in every nook and cranny of the freezers, leaving no room for my veggie pizzas!  In fall all the old canes have to be cut out and removed, making way for the new ones to winter over and give us another crop.  Also more weeding.  At some point in the fall, we spend a day thawing all those berries and turning them into dozens of jars of jam that we give away and eat ourselves the rest of the year.  

I have felt at times like those berries rule my life and more than once have threatened to plow them under.  But alas, I would never do that because I apparently I also love them...not just the berries which are delicious, but the whole enterprise as a feature of our life on this land.  They have born fruit in years of tending and in years of neglect and we have enjoyed it in spite of the complained-about work.  It's not 4th of July at our house without fresh raspberry sundaes while watching the fireworks from our porch.

A few years ago Hub decided the "raspberry patch" was large enough to also house an apple espalier, so he found a grafted, 4 variety plant and propped it up on a fence and we waited for our apples.  Hmm...not super great, but last year just before our trip to NYC we saw that by the time we returned home we'd have our first decent harvest!  We returned home to a bare plant.  The deer had eaten every single apple.  

Early this summer Hub decided to build a deer fence around the whole area.  It was a lot of work.  But handy-guy that he is, he planned, purchased supplies, and built a 6 ft high fence with swinging gate.  I took one look and said,  "Now we have a farm!"  I think a fence with a gate qualifies as a farm feature.

So this summer, we've moved into farming.  The raspberries produced as they do, especially one end of the patch.  The apples grew big and beautiful.  We looked forward to apple pies and cobblers and just the sweet crunch of apple in the mouth.  In early October, after about three days of not looking,  I wandered down there to check if they were ripe enough to pick yet.  They were GONE!  Again we saw evidence of deer activity.  They'd jumped the 6 foot fence!  Hub said he should have made it 8.  Damn!  

As we stood lamenting, we also took another look at the berry plants.  One end of the rows seemed less happy than the other.  We didn't know why those plants had not produced well this year and did not look healthy --perhaps old age?  But we decided, hmmm, this might be an opportunity to reduce the raspberry load.  We decided to take half the raspberries out and replace them with blueberry plants. I thought when Hub said "a few blueberry bushes" it meant maybe three or four.  We came home with nine!  Three early season producers, three mid-season, three late season.  We expect to have blueberries from June to September, along with our July raspberry harvest.  So much for reducing work and opening up freezer space.

We spent last weekend doing the fall weeding, digging up raspberry plants we had decided to remove and bagging them to pass on to our sons, who decided to take them rather then see them in the "dump pile".  We spread 2-1/2 yards of "Garden Booster" compost with dairy manure, which did in fact remind me of my childhood driving through farmlands in Illinois just after spreading fresh manure.  We planted our blueberry bushes with a mixture of Garden Booster and pine needles to add acid, covered it all with a garden fabric to inhibit the weeds, and literally finished Sunday night after dark, by flashlight, just like old times. I look at our fenced berry farm with pride and hopefulness.  (We have yet to totally solve the apple/deer problem, but we have some ideas.)

Now that I'm a farmer, I may move into ranching.  However, ranching really does imply some sort of livestock.  Our big garden storage shed was an abandoned chicken coop when we bought this property but I really have zero desire to re-populate it with chickens.  About the only animal that really appeals to me to care for is a cat or two.  So if I could I get me a herd of cats for my ranching adventure, that would be great!  I'd have dozens of every breed!  I'd be a Cat Rancher extraordinaire!  "Hey, Hub...I have an idea!" Yippie Yi Oh!  Yippie Yi Yay!   

At least, that's the view from here...©

Kitty Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com

DANCING IN THE STREETS

It's over (ish).  The election, fraught with so much discord, distrust, and disarray, has been decided.  WE WON!  Well, "we" if you were supporting the Biden/Harris ticket, which I most certainly was.  

On Election Night November 3rd we sat glued to the TV watching returns come in.  Nothing was decided by the time I went to bed at 10:00 PST.  Hub stayed up until 1:00 a.m.  We were back at the TV on and off on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I couldn't take hours upon hours of hearing nothing but the trickling in of votes and ongoing commentary that was nothing more than speculation, so I went to bed early and then was awake at 4 a.m. tuning in to the overnight results, which continued to come in agonizingly slowly.  I did learn the names of important counties in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia and could recognize all of their election officials by sight, for what that's worth.  I also know what the vote counters were wearing and how long they each worked and where they sat/stood to count.  I saw the current president's supporters chanting "Count the Votes!" in Arizona and "Stop the Count" in Georgia, depending on how their candidate was doing.  It was ridiculous, but pretty typical of his whole regime.

We had been warned that we might not know the result for many days given the Covid-induced numbers of states allowing mail-in ballots, with all of them having different rules on when votes could be counted and for how long.  We had been warned, also, that there would be a "red mirage" of early same-day vote reporting that showed the GOP candidate ahead, but that lead would disappear as the Dem. votes came in later from mostly mail-in ballots.

Still, by Thursday night we were no longer patient and no longer remembering that the "red mirage" was not reality.  We were, many of us, relieved to be ahead but dismayed, angered, and saddened to find that there would be no "blue wave" of overwhelming repudiation of the man in charge of the chaos of the last four years.  Some of us raged, sobbed, stomped our feet, and sat in mute disbelief.  (Well, at least one of us did.)  This was not how we had hoped it would go.  Nor was it what the pre-election polls predicted.  We are now finally and truly OVER listening pollsters.  Something has gone awry with their methodology.  

So, when all major networks announced a winner at around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday November 7, my overwhelming feeling initially was just relief.  Finally!  Then it sank in and euphoria arose.  WE HAD DEFEATED HIM!  After 4 years of his abuse, of a slide into deeper authoritarianism, of resistance and work and worry and oppression, of chaos and dismay and disbelief, we had said, "NO!"

Spontaneous parties erupted throughout the United States with video of major metropolitan areas showing people taking to the streets in joyful exuberant (masked) cheering, dancing, and singing!  And not only in the U.S.  -- people in European capitals joined in, with one correspondent musing that it felt like his experience of seeing dictatorships toppled.  Indeed.  Saturday was a day of celebration for sure, especially when we all settled in to watch Kamala Harris -- first woman/woman of color Vice President -- take the stage in her Suffragette white pantsuit, then Joe Biden after her to deliver a beautiful and moving speech about healing the soul of the nation.  Tears, joy, relief.  Overwhelming relief. Many, including me, described the feeling of as if a great weight had been lifted from our bodies.

Not all of us were joyous, of course. And that part is very troubling.  Here are the vote totals today:  Biden 76,408,662 (50.8%) 290 electoral ; Trump 71,495,756 (47.5%) 214 electoral.   A week later, only North Carolina (leaning Trump) and Georgia (leaning Biden) are still outstanding.   It was a record-breaking turnout, over 66%, with Biden winning more votes than any candidate in history.   But what that also indicates is a country divided along party lines that shows no sign of healing, yet.  

The current president has refused to concede, is pursuing a zillion simultaneous lawsuits in a variety of states (all defeated or thrown out so far) and has instructed the Justice Department to investigate voter fraud (with absolutely zero evidence of such) and will not allow the GSA to give permission to the Biden campaign to start the official transition process.  So there's that.  A bunch of his administration and Congressional sycophants and his citizen supporters are "all in" on this move to stage an electoral coup.  They won't succeed, but they will keep us mired in anger, chaos, and confusion -- and will play up the "stolen election" lie to keep their supporters violently and rage-fully blaming the "socialist democrats" for taking over their country and their rights.  It's scary.  And sad.  And infuriating.

And yet, something wonderful and important has happened.  We fought back against a credible threat to our democracy.   A majority of Americans chose experience, decency, and hope.  We chose a man of character and empathy, with vast experience in leading.  

And we chose a woman to be at the top (or near enough for now) -- a dynamic, intelligent, capable, joyful, charismatic woman of black and East Indian descent to be Vice President.  This is a phenomenal thing for me to finally see in my lifetime.  I had been an early and ardent Harris supporter for her presidential bid until she dropped out.  I happily switched my allegiance to Elizabeth Warren, whom I also adore.  But to have Kamala back and in charge is a gift I didn't expect to get.  There is a person in power who knows my lived experience as a woman, who is a role model for my granddaughters who will grow up in a world where it will seem impossible for them to believe this used to be unheard of...a woman at the highest levels of our government.  I feel like dancing.

At least, that's the view from here...©

THE NIGHT BEFORE...

 I don't really know what to say here.  It just seems like some thoughts, however confused and incomplete, should mark this occasion.  Tomorrow is Election Day.  But really we have been participating in an "election season" for weeks.  Tomorrow is merely the last voting day, not the first or only one.

Many states have done early voting for years either in person or by absentee ballot. Our state has been a vote-by-mail state since 2011; we receive our ballots about two weeks before election day and can vote up to midnight (postmarked or dropped at Dropbox) on Election Day. This year with the pandemic raging many more states have gone to vote by mail, some for the first time.  There are various new rules in place about when the ballots must be returned: some postmarked by election day and some returned by election day.  

Voter suppression tactics are rampant.  

Republican party bosses are taking counties and states to court to try to curb counting some ballots they deem 'late' or in defiance of some silly rule.  For example, even a Republican-appointed judge in Texas ruled that they cannot throw out nearly 130,000 ballots they say were returned inappropriately at a drive through dropbox location, which had previously been approved.  The Republicans then took the case to appeal at a Federal District Court where the conservative judge also ruled against them.  These lawsuits are frivolous and meant to slow the process down and sew seeds of doubt in the election process.

Tactics like these are happening especially in swing states and in areas where there is a majority people of color -- those who typically vote Democratic.  Closing polling places is also a favorite gambit -- creating geographical and time barriers to voting.  Voters must stand in long, long (6, 8, 10, 12 hour) lines to cast a ballot at the one remaining polling place.  Famously, an Administration hack was appointed Post Master General recently and he immediately dismantled sorting machines in certain post offices and removed street corner mailboxes as well.  He declared no more overtime to get mail delivered on time and the mail delivery has slowed to a crawl in some areas of the country to thwart mail-in voting.  

All of this and so, so much more is providing a greater, not lesser,  motivation for folks to be sure to vote, to be sure nothing stops anyone from casting their ballot, to be sure not to wait until election day to have their say.  Nearly 100 million people have already voted!  This is nearly 2/3 of the total vote in 2016.  We don't know what this means for the outcome, of course, but it bodes well we think, and at least demonstrates the determination of voters this year.  Why? 

The past four years have been a nightmare of chaos at the top levels of our government.  Norms, laws, values, traditions have been denigrated and turned on their heads.  Hate speech, name calling, lying, deception, gas-lighting, and corruption have been daily occurrences.  Americans are divided by ideology, culture, and deep dislike for one another (not to mention the casual and overtly intentional acting upon the racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia some thrive on.)  Many of us feel exhausted.  Many of us are not sure what to do if he wins another term, or even if he refuses to leave in defeat, as he has stated.  

On the other hand, many believe the lies they've been told that Democrats are closet socialists and are out to destroy America.  So they are motivated to "save" their country too.  

But here's what I'm thinking tonight, from my perspective:  

I'm amazed at the way so many have fought for a chance to vote him out, to vote early, to stand in long lines, to be undeterred. 

I'm grateful for wise, articulate, caring, compassionate people who will not give up, who will lead, and follow, and create, and keep going.  

I'm grateful for the people I've worked with to write letters and postcards to Get Out TheVote and for those who have made calls, sent texts, waved signs, reached out via social media, made contributions -- who have sacrificed their time, talent, and treasure to try to ensure a change for the better.

I'm grateful for the Facebook groups, the historians, the commentators, the people I will never know but who make up those with whom I am aligned and from whom I've gained knowledge, strength, and support.  

I'm grateful for the free press, for reporters who have been denigrated and threatened every single day and have still done the hard work of unearthing all the wrongdoing and letting us know about it.  

I'm grateful for Democratic elected officials who did every single thing they could to thwart this administration's wrongdoing even knowing they did not have the political power to really stop him; they fought with what they had and made sure everyone knew what was happening in spite of their best efforts.  

I'm grateful to know there are millions of American citizens who are just fine with a racist authoritarian in the White House.  I need to stop living in a fantasy of believing we are all in agreement on values; we are not.  I'll never again believe in the inherent goodness and rightness of the United States of America, believing as I did until 2016, that good people would not let a bad government survive and thrive.  They will and they will cheer for it.  

I'm grateful I now know how fragile our democracy is and how easily it can be lost. 

I'm cautiously hopeful about Biden/Harris winning the election.  And like many, the PTSD of 2016 kicks in like a bad luck charm the minute I express that optimism.  There is so much pain to overcome.

So, bottom line, I am grateful to believe, still, that fighting for diversity, equality, compassion, and democracy is a courageous act and that no one I know is giving up on that.  No matter what happens tomorrow, we are in this together.  We will get through and we will persevere.  No matter what happens tomorrow good people of goodwill will not be defeated.  Love wins.  Eventually, always, love wins. Let's start tomorrow.

At least, that's the view from here...©