The truth is, I can’t even string a coherent sentence together lately.
The truth is, I can’t even manage the most basic of activities, so I find myself gleaning hope in watching trees bud, white blossoms fall soft like snow, spring flowers bloom, and birds peck at the ground in my backyard. Life leans toward living, as poet Tom Hirons names it. So much beauty amidst the terror of these times.
I’m not quite leaning towards full throttle living, but I am breathing just a little in those moments when I’m not holding my breath. Perhaps this is you, too.
We all have a metaphorical albatross who dogs us and writes the script for the text that should appear above our head as we make our way through the world.
Remember this video? I like to watch it from time to time. It helps me remember not to flip the bird to the asshole in the white Tesla who cut me off in traffic. Because hey…he’s got an ancient, winged creature to contend with, too.
Call it the albatross effect which isn’t so different from the butterfly effect. I’ve been thinking a whole bunch about blechonomics - the dark side of money - and how we got to this place where cooperative meets world domination boardgames like Settlers of Catan and Deep State enmesh in real time.
I can’t make sense of the real versus the surreal these days. I read pieces like this and this and I wonder what the actual re: games, frontiers, and mediocre men who were hazed into manhood rather than initiated.
Watch and listen to this new TED Talk on the Broligarchy...if you so dare.
And then catch last night’s SNL skit, The White Potus ~ a wild and creepy life imitating art moment.
Deep shaky sigh.
And so, I turn to the trivial, the frivolous, and the peace of wild things, which is to say, wasting time I’ll never get back creating my ChatGPT action figure, shopping for spring-themed tablescape stuff, cutting and glueing images to make a mirror or a card that will speak to me because I can’t even, and napping with my cat who has a soft spot for the softness of her purple luxe blanket.
And when I’m not turning to magazine images to tell me how I’m feeling, I’m turning to poetry as if it might will me to be more alive and awake and activated than these times want me and you and you and you to be.
Indeed, this is what I have to show for my one wild and precious life lately ~ tryna stay sane and hopeful in a mad, sad world. And you know what’s really cray cray? Hubby calling me to let me know he made it across the border from Canada. I mean, the fact that he even had to worry as a green card holder but there you have it - these wild times in the twilight zone.
I can’t even. Seriously - that the truth.
And it seems I can’t even muster up a proper Soapbox Sunday rant so I’ll leave it at that.
Hello, my friends. Be well, my friends, and here’s a pic of my cat who is living her best life, and as always, here’s a poem.
Testify
by Eve L. Ewing
i stand before you to say
that today i walked home
& caught the light through
the fence & it was so golden
i wanted to cry & i lifted
my right hand to say thank
you god for the sun thank
you god for a chain link fence
& all the shoes that fit into
the chain link fence so that
we might get lifted god thank
you & i just wanted to dance
& it feels good to have food
in your belly & it feels good
to be home even when home
is the space between metal
shapes & still we are golden
& a man who wore the walk
of hard grounds & lost days
came toward me in the street
& said ‘girl what a beautiful
day’ & i said yes, testify
& i walked on & from some
place a horn rose, an organ,
a voice, a chorus, here to tell
you that we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead we are not dead we are
not dead we are not dead
we are not dead we are not
dead
yet