If wishes came true, I’d be about 8 or 9 again, before the entire world fell apart. My grandmother would be alive, my grandfather would be alive, and my parents would not have morphed into miserable people for who I was an after thought. Gas would still be less than $.40 a gallon, the murder rate would be 1/5 of what it is today, and people wouldn’t be arguing about the skin color of their chosen deity. My cousins would be all around me, and I’d feel like I belonged there. I wouldn’t believe that I was stupid and ignorant and I’d understand the tiny little world around me.

But wishes don’t come true, at least not regularly. Sometimes when they do come true, you realize you shouldn’t have wished for them at all, because there were things you didn’t know about or details you left out or dependencies you didn’t count on. Like the old joke that asks what is life, and the answer returned is $.25. But I only have a dime, the querant replies. And the answer is returned…well, that’s life.

And so it is. Mercy, mercy me – things ain’t what they used to be. Live is constantly surprising me. Today, I did absolutely nothing. I ate a bit of my leftover meal from yesterday, and I played at some online jigsaw puzzles. I thought about all kinds of things from long ago, and went to the bathroom for punctuation. I had great plans, but I did…nothing.

Everything I did outside the apartment seemed to involve dodging someone else trying to do the same thing at the same time – bringing the dog down the stairs, taking the dog into the activity area, sitting all alone all by myself like Cat Stephens. Somebody was always there, wanting to be there in that same place, oblivious to my presence (even with an insanely barking dog). Self-centered butt holes.

The thing about moods like this is…mama said there would be days like this. There’s be days like this, mama said. I just have to ride them out, I suppose. Take my meds. Go to sleep and do this all again tomorrow. Bleh.

I was at my usual Saturday night 12-step meeting last night, and it was a bit heavy. Someone was telling a sad tale of having to put his husband into rehab, only the man’s alcohol level was too high and he was required to go to a detox unit first. The guy was understandably distressed, ad people shared various anecdotes about their experiences or thoughts on the matter. I found myself talking about when I was on the other side of that, and people were telling me they didn’t want to watch me kill myself and so had to distance themselves. My response at the time was surly and dismissive – nobody wants to come face to face with their own shit. It smells and somebody else really needs to clean that up. So I get that.

What was a little surprising was one part of what I shared, about feeling that if people would just “do right”, everything would be fine. If they loved me enough they would change and I wouldn’t have to go through distancing myself when they were behaving badly. Where the eff did THAT come from? I really have no idea, but it didn’t feel good, and still doesn’t feel good.

My takeaway from that unexpected little jewel of clarity is…relationships pretty much suck. Love is not enough. Nobody can love you enough to change who they are, or how they are. I couldn’t love my mother enough to change my sexual orientation, and she couldn’t love me enough to change her resistance to medication. My grandmother couldn’t love any of us enough to not have cancer and stay. She’d be dead by now, so what does it matter?

I told the guy last night that I have to own all that mess that’s rolling around inside me when I am feeling like I really have a say in how somebody else runs their life, even if it’s killing them. That’s easier said than done, I was saying, because it hurts. And to avoid that pain is what drove a lot of us to getting so out of control. It certainly was for me.

So, all of that plus about $4 will get me a cup of coffee at Cafe’ du Monde (I was stunned to learn the other day that a large coffee there is going for such an incredible price – I remember when it was less than $1, but I digress). So, I’m in one of those moods. One of those moods where I really want to go downstairs and snatch some random fool off his noisy motorcycle and just bang his head on the gas tank. Repeatedly. Ugh.

I still want a snowball. I still want people to do right. And I still want somebody else to come in and clean up my shit. This place is a mess, and I just want to come back from walking the dog and find it miraculously clean. Why aren’t there miracles these days? Or at least those moments like “Bewitched” where somebody twitches their nose or casts a spell and magic happens. No, I get responsibility and accountability and bills to pay and dogs to feed and medication to take. Bleh.

Perhaps I shall take my bad mood and do something else. I ate an entire pack of double-stuff Golden Oreos between yesterday and this morning, so I can legitimately flagellate myself for something non-productive. I’ll go ahead and get that out of the way shortly, then go back to jigsaw and/or crossword puzzles until I’m sleepy…to sleep, and perchance dream. But no wishing for idyllic scenes from the past. Or even the future. I’m told wherever I go, that’s where I am, and right now that might not be optimal. Bleh.

OK, so NOLA is making progress in the power restoration – hearing from more and more people that power is on, or promised within hours. Most folks are going to be spending a few days cleaning out the refrigerator, and any damage that Miss Ida left behind.
I am grateful there was not a high death toll. I’m also grateful we didn’t see the number of home demolitions by floodwater that I’ve seen in other storms. This was not as big a storm as Katrina, but it really doesn’t matter when you have this kind of unexpected and lasting interruption to daily life.

It will be interesting to see if there are any plans for going forward because this will not be the last major storm with lasting damage that hits New Orleans or elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. We can debate remedies and mitigation for climate change from now until forever, but none of that is going to help people recover from storms like this in the next couple of decades.

Unless someone has a magic climate wand to reverse the damage that’s been done to the environment, we’ve got to figure out a recovery plan for the foreseeable future. For the second time in recent history, a major U.S. city ground to a halt because there was no way to mitigate serious damage and no way to recover nimbly or even quickly.

When a port city like New Orleans falls off the radar for even a brief time, there are impacts all over the port network of the U.S., and impacts to supply chain all over the world. If New York goes down, or even Gulfport MS, we’re going to have problems. We don’t realize the size of just the food supply network, let alone other supply chains for other things we use in daily life.

We’ve got to still be putting a great deal of energy and resources into recovery from natural disasters, because no matter what we do to mitigate climate change, those remedies will not be immediately realized. It’s going to be business as usual for quite a while, at least the rest of m lifetime.

I’m looking to see creative recovery and mitigation plans, like critical infrastructure with backups, and route diversity. I’m looking to see critical parts of the infrastructure installed underground or in silos, or something more durable than a steel tower that is subject to extreme wind damage.

How about improving on the old Civil Defense plans for shelters that were mostly underground, or in lesser populated areas? Why can’t we figure out a way to not have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of miserable and sweating people in interminable lines outdoors waiting for other miserable and sweating people to dole out a couple of MREs?

We can do better. We all know that we can do better. Katrina was in 2005, Ida in 2021, and still the same long lines, the same shortages, the same inadequacies. Yes, some things have gotten better since Katrina, but improving from a negative 10 to a positive 1 on the scale of effectiveness still leaves quite a lot to be desired. And that’s just New Orleans. What about wildfires in CA, storms in the upper North East (how much better has THAT gotten since Sandy?), earthquakes and volcanoes everywhere?

Let’s not operate out of fear, fear that we won’t have enough if we make the massive expenditures necessary to provide for EVERYONE in the next disaster. And there will be one. I agree that we have to do whatever we can to mitigate and stop climate change, but none of that is going to eradicate all threats from natural disasters. One if by land, two if by sea – but it’s hundreds by land and thousands by sea, and we’ll never – NEVER – be able to stop that. Mother Nature is way bigger than we are, but we can do a whole lot better at recovering from the onslaught.

I’ve been told that pain is inevitable in a human life, but suffering is optional. Hmmm. I’m not entirely sure there is any other option than suffering when you’ve 70 and been thrown into a situation, through no fault of your own, where the heat index is 102, the humidity is more than 80%, there’s no easy way to get water or food, and there’s no end in sight. You have no choice but to suffer, particularly if you have health issues or conditions that do not respond well to those circumstances. What if you have a milder case of COVID in the middle of all this? As they say – it is what it is.

Spend the damned money. Make the necessary changes. Do the right thing. If not to protect everyone’s life, liberty and pursuit of happiness what the hell are we here for? If we’re here for less than that don’t talk to me about loving your neighbor, giving free clothes and food to the needy, or making sandwiches and soup for homeless folks on the weekends. They are homeless 24×365 – nights, weekends, holidays and sporting events included. Just because we don’t see them when we’re locked up tight in our comfortable homes doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Love is but a song we sing, fear’s the way we die. C’mon people now, smile on your brother everybody get together, it’s time to love one another right now. (“Get Together” – Jesse Colin Young/The Youngbloods).

That is all. Carry on, but remember – everybody is not having a great day today.

So, yesterday there was a school shooting at a high school geographically very near me. Sounds like a retaliation or something very personal between two 15-year olds – one went in, proceeded directly to his target, and shot. He ran. The victim was rushed to the hospital, where he died. Two lives altered forever, and no real clue about why. That made me sad, and very anxious – living in a high crime city for as long as I did carries some weight.

I got in touch with my best friend back home, and was surprised that he was able to answer the phone. I called his cell phone, but it forwards to his home phone, and that is where he answered. He was , of course, without power post-hurricane, but he and I had one of the prolonged laughing/snorting/guffawing heart-to-heart talks like in the old days. We never have 30-minute talks, we have 3-hour talks. I have a lot of history with him, and he knew my mother, and we talk about anything and everything. We are equivalently irreverent, and there are no sacred cows in our list of targets. That made me happy, and content.

It’s amazing how quickly I can shift gears at times. Usually the shift goes in the other direction, but this time I was rather pleased to see it go up rather than down. I had posted something on FaceBook earlier, about being kind. Perhaps I have taken that to heart,. I’m an empath, and I feel what other people feel. It’s like slapping myself in the face when I’m snarky to people, so perhaps the opposite is true.

Yesterday, I continued my upward slope when I tackled one of my meal delivery offerings. It was Carolina-style pulled pork sandwiches, which I sometimes really enjoy and sometimes really hate in restaurants here. I obediently followed all the instructions, except for the one about cole slaw with jalapeno ranch dressing. We don’t do jalapeno stuff – unless there is a defibrillator nearby and someone who can do CPR present. But I added what they said to add and baked what they said to back, and *presto* there was a meal. Amazing.

The meal that resulted was designed for two people, but there is only one of me so I ate only half of it. I ate the rest of it today, and it was as tasty as it was yesterday. I was rather proud of myself when I looked down at the empty baking pan and realized I had not wasted any of it, and had done a fairly decent job of portion control. That made me VERY happy.

So, all of that to say…I’ve done a couple of things that have worked for me this week, and I haven’t gotten bogged down in the doldrums about something that made me very sad. I wonder if this is how the rest of the world lives. I know it’s not, though, because there wouldn’t be such a huge market for anti-depressants. Nonetheless, I felt as though I’d entered another plane of existence.

Now, if I could just give myself more joy by cleaning up this place a bit, I’d be on Cloud 9. But let’s not get carried away.

So. Things in New Orleans are still…grim. They have no end in sight to life without electricity, and in some cases without safe drinking water. If you have $1k or more, and a working vehicle, you can pick up a generator from a home improvement store. Good luck hauling that home and getting it connected. Plus you have to get fuel.

It’s a fascinating prospect to imagine an entire municipality without electric power. Hospitals have generators and emergency power, I believe, but I remember that wasn’t a guarantee beyond the 3rd day of power outage. Hopefully those circumstancecs won’t be duplicated this time because the roads are mostly passable…but even gas stations are out of power so where fuel might be available could be an issue.

Last I heard, there were cooling and recharging centers that had been opened in recreation centers and other public places, and MREs were available at some drive-up sites. People can’t get away from the situation anywhere in the city. It would be interesting to see how far out one had to travel in order to find places not affected by the power outage, but that option is not available to everyone. The reason many people chose not to evacuate during Katrina was because they had no transportation. They were trapped, and the same people are probably trapped now. At least they know everyone is going through it with them.

I’m still flabbergasted by the concept of aerial transmission lines in a municipality. I also can’t quite understand exactly why not just one, but eight transmission lines failed. This sounds like a design flaw at the least, and this sounds like craziness. It reminds me of the levee failures during Katrina – they had not been maintained properly for many years, and everything worked just fine…until it didn’t. Until it really counted and there was no margin for error. And that’s what I wonder about the electrical facilities in New Orleans right now – had the power company been courting disaster for several years and this time, they ran out of luck?

Maybe this is how most of us live, courting disaster and living on the edge so to speak. Sometimes we dance on the edge, do gymnastics on the edge, totter on the edge. When our luck, or skill, or time runs out…it’s a hard fall. In our society, we often press our luck due to lack of financial resources, whether you’re a single financial unit or a major corporation. And…the bigger they are, the harder they fall. The power company in New Orleans is huge, so they fell hard. Unfortunately, they took over a million “little people” with them. That sucks.

It’s hard not to compare Hurricanes Katrina and Ida. They were two entirely different situations, although both resulted in rendering a major city inoperable. Over a million people left to manage however they can, by any means necessary. One might expect to see this in some other country, or some desolate and war-torn environment. It must feel exactly that way in New Orleans right now, like they have just emerged from the fog of war to find life as they knew it a week ago nonexistent. With no end in sight. Suffering with only the remnants of comfort scattered about, but of no use. It’s a very hard stop.

I hope people are being kind. I hope people are working the hardest they can to find a solution for this spectacular failure of the local electrical grid. Actually the grid is probably fine, because it’s idle. There’s nothing getting to it at this moment, because there’s nothing left of the transmission facilities. This is a disaster.

I don’t know enough about how the power company transmission products worked to say they screwed up, or should have done better, but I have to wonder how all eight transmission lines failed. Not just a couple, not just the one that failed because the transmission line fell into the river after the tower holding it collapsed in the high wind. I just have to wonder how and why there was no backup, failsafe, or something to restore even some power somewhere within the boundaries of the city.

Sitting in the dark is frightening. It is the apex of powerlessness, and you realize how small you are. When this has happened to me, I marvel at the silence when there is no hum of lights, or appliance motors running. It is as quiet as a tomb. My mind plays tricks on me as every leaf blowing or wood beam creaking thrusts me into a whirlwind of improbable explanations – mouse? BIG RAT? bats? ghosts. yup, ghosts…ghosts are taking over and I will soon be visited by mournful spirits who are going to remind me of all my past foibles and force me to repent of my evil ways.

Imagination is a wonderful thing, except when it’s not. It amazes me that my imagination is somewhat weaponized against me. I will imagine the worst case scenario whenever i have occasion to be imaginative. Why can’t I imagine some idyllic world where everything is just fine and I am happy and things are great. In technicolor. No drab black and white scenarios. I need munchkins and emerald cities an yellow brick roads, not ogres and crumbling urban facades and potholes.

Today it’s raining here in my little corner of paradise…we’re getting what’s left of the deteriorated hurricane. It’s still uncomfortable warm and humid, although we’re told this is a cool front, meaning we won’t get over 80 degrees today. Big whoop. There’s a good breeze, with a few moderate gusts, but these are still pretty warm. I have done my time in 90 to 100 degree heat, with 90% humidity, so I know this is pleasant comparatively. I definitely feel a great deal of empathy for my New Orleans folks, because as I keep saying, this has no end in sight. Three to four weeks before repairs can be effected is just nuts. Godspeed, my friends.

When you feel as though everything is falling apart, and that you can’t do a damned thing about it, that’s a horrible feeling. You hope it’s temporary, but even an hour in such a state of hopelessness feels like an eternity. As my cousin posted on Facebook earlier…some people have lost everything AGAIN. Be kind. That is all we have – kindness, compassion, tolerance. You can’t tell someone going through such a thing you know how they feel, because if you’re not going through it with them you DON’T know how it feels. Every situation is different, even if the circumstances appear to be similar. When I went through hurricanes and storms that paralyzed things, I was younger, the city was in a different state, I was living differently. So I don’t know how this post-Ida situation feels. But I can empathize, and that is a different story entirely.

People are grieving, is what they are trying to say. We are all grieving, but over different things, some more immediate and some that appear to be more threatening. The situation in New Orleans remains dire, because some people will not make it through the heat and lack of regular meals and isolation. The storm’s direct casualty rate was negligible (as though any person’s death can be truly negligible) but there will be more deaths indirectly caused by the evil spawn of Hurricane Katrina. We have to remember that.

Every time I switch on the lights today, or use hot water, or adjust the air conditioning I need to remember how many people can’t do that right now. New Orleans brings it to mind very acutely, and painfully, but in reality there are millions more people across the globe who are in these dire circumstances every day, and not due to a weather event. We are very privileged, we Americans, even though we have forays into that other world.

There are wildfires in California, and people are losing everything there as well. There are volcanoes erupting in other parts of the world, and people have lost all that is precious and familiar to them, including their families. Afghanistan is a fearsome mess right now, and truthfully has been for more than two decades. People, most notably women and girls, are living in abject terror of the new regime.

These are the cyclones not born entirely of weather but of oppression and intolerance and hatred. Those zones are where civility and empathy and compassion are at the lowest pressure, and that’s where a destructive system forms. That’s the way of it.

I don’t want to be a part of any destructive system any longer, so it would be a good thing if I keep up my internal pressure. That’s pressure of responsibility, of doing the next right thing. That’s pressure of rejecting the easy way because it’s easy, but keeping up the resistance to the darkness. That’s what we’re called on to do, I believe. Do the next right thing, even if it’s the harder thing. Nobody promised me an easy life, but sometimes I get to feeling like it shouldn’t have to be THIS hard.

Maybe it really doesn’t have to be THIS hard, and maybe it’s really not. Perhaps I simply need to change my perspective to realize that it’s not that hard. I am so fortunate to have what I have. I forget that at times, but I believe that’s truth – this could be so much worse. Being a part of the culture of outrage really doesn’t fit me very well, and definitely not over the long term. More importantly, that culture has really shitty music and no sense of humor, so…bleh.

Posted on FaceBook earlier:

How can it be blazing sunshine and hot outside my windows when there’s a hurricane raging on the Gulf Coast, forest fires on the West Coast, and people being blown up in Afghanistan? This seems impossible until I realize how small we are and how little of the whole picture we actually see. Our vision is, indeed, myopic.

My heart is with my home state today. It’s not the first major hurricane to hit Louisiana on August 29th, and it won’t be the last. It’s slightly odd that the end of August seems to be some kind of esoteric magnet for cyclonic activity on the Gulf Coast, but Mother Nature does indeed move in mysterious ways. Is there a message there? I don’t know, but if there is, I think we aren’t getting it.

Buckle up, my friends. Whether you’re dodging the winds and the tidal surge down South, or just trying to make sense out of what’s going on around you in your corner of the Universe, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Hurricanes start in areas of low atmospheric pressure, then winds rotate around that aberration and form tropical waves, then tropical depressions, then storms, and finally hurricanes. This has been going on since the beginning of time, although most believe global warming makes the cycle more intense. I dunno, because when you’re in the middle of it, the how and why really doesn’t matter much, just survival.

After a big storm, when chaos is the name of the game and there’s no power and you can’t figure out which way is up (even when there’s blue sky where your roof used to be) you’re not thinking about much else but how to get back to where you were before it all happened. That’s natural. On some level, everybody is trying to do that after COVID lockdown. WE want to get back to “normal”, to the way things used to be.

I’m not sure things will ever be the way they were before COVID, before the latest natural disaster that upended life as we knew it…before. It hurts. It hurts even more when you realize the disaster wasn’t entirely natural – it had a lot of help from short-sighted and possibly malicious human actors. The feeling of betrayal is a constant when you understand there was nothing natural about it.

There is nothing natural in Afghanistan right now, or for the last several decades. There is nothing natural in parts of the United States, even when standing among the purple mountains’ majesty and the proverbial fruited plain. There is nothing natural about hate, and greed, and hubris. Hubris makes low pressure, makes us flat and incapable of carrying our own weight, like a tire that’s been leaking for some time and finally goes out of round. It is of little use if the inner pressure cannot be maintained.

So, hold tight, folks. We are going to lose some things. That doesn’t have to mean everything is lost, but it will be different. It must be different, or there will be more loss. We can’t keep rebuilding in the same fashion as…before. We have to build new, we have to have to build bigger and wider and stronger. The internal pressure of the tire can’t be maintained if most of the air is outside the container. We can’t pick and choose which molecules are welcomed inside the circle.

Mother Nature keeps tearing down what we’ve built. Maybe that’s because we’re trying to separate ourselves from the Earth and from each other.

As I said, my heart is in Louisiana right now, but that’s really not all that different from any other day. It will always have my heart, no matter how many ties hold me here. I would like to believe my heart is big enough for all of it, and has enough love to go around.
Houses and cars and … stuff are just things, even though it hurts to lose them. The people…the music…the hearts…the spirit of the land … that’s where we can be found. That’s what is irreplaceable. It might be hard for a while after this, but allons, cher – we can’t stay down too long before the music starts playin’ and the beat starts thumpin’ and before you know it, everybody dancin’ and second linin’ – ’cause dey can’t wash us away.

“In meteorology, a cyclone is a large scale air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above. Cyclones are characterized by inward-spiraling winds that rotate about a zone of low pressure.” (Wikipedia)

A strong center of low atmospheric pressure. Rotation. Inward-spiraling winds. That feels really familiar. The phenomenon of inward-spiraling winds resonates mightily with me.

My winds have always spiraled inward, drilling down to a finite point like the collapse of a star on its way to becoming a black hole. Down, down, down, and down some more. It begins with light, however. My question lately has been where does that change, where does light give way to darkness? Is this a choice or simply inevitable? Is there some point of no return?

I am reflecting a bit on cyclones today, because there is yet another tropical cyclone bearing down on the Gulf Coast of the United States. It’s expected to make landfall on the Gulf Coast somewhere between Texas and Alabama on August 29th, which seems like a cruelly ironic twist since that’s the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Katrina was a magnanimously devastating weather event for New Orleans in particular, as more than 80% of the city flooded for more than a week. The hurricane itself had glanced off the side of the city, but the drainage system failed and, well, the rest is history. As a subsequent Mayor of the city explained, “Katrina was not a natural disaster. It was a man-made disaster brought on by politics and the failure of all levels of government.”

We call the cyclones hurricanes in this part of the globe. They start with what is termed a “tropical depression”, which seems to fit me in many ways. I believe there’s a definite progression around low-pressure systems as they become more organized and rotation begins to manifest. I believe the sequence is first low pressure, then a tropical wave that gives rise to a tropical depression. The depression becomes more organized and shows signs of rotation around a defined center and is then termed a tropical storm, and if organization is maintained the storm becomes a hurricane. The delineating factor is wind speed and rotation, so with each step in the sequence, pressure drops further and wind speeds increase as the inwardly-spiraling rotation becomes maximized.

Growing up with hurricanes and cyclonic systems all my life, I have always found them alternately beautiful and terrifying. The wind blows the water, the water floods the land, the land becomes too soggy to hold up the buildings, the buildings sink beneath the water. The people die. Even with several days warning there’s often no escape from the torrent of rain and the fierce winds, and there’s often no place for the excess water to go but your living room, bedroom, and kitchen. This is complete and devastating powerlessness.

In my recovery program, we are urged to accept that we are powerless over people, places, and things. This is a difficult concept for a lot of people. because we immediately resist the idea that we have no power, that we are weaklings. I don’t see it that way. I understand that I have personal power – the power to choose, the power to accept reality, the power to have compassion. I have no power over mood-altering substances, because the disease of addiction is one that tells me I have no disease, that I’m just fine even when I’m up to my eyebrows in self-generated disaster. So that’s the context in which I am powerless. Period.

Powerlessness, for me, simply means that I cannot change reality, no matter how fast I talk or how good my arguments may be. The past is a reality, and I cannot change it. Reality also dictates that future events are shrouded and unknown to me, so I cannot manipulate them in the present. I cannot change things like how other people feel, the color of the sky, or the unique pattern of my fingerprints. That, for me, is just reality. As long as I keep banging my head in futility against it, I am likely to have only an aching head to show for the effort.

So, all that to say that I started as a low-pressure system. My pressure drops whenever I am trying to change the unchangeable. When I am hung up on that futile endeavor, I am a depression, tropical or otherwise. Low pressure. It sounds tempting, if I conceive of low pressure as that which is exerted upon me, by external forces. But like air pressure in a tire, I have to maintain enough internal pressure to keep up the shape and form of the tire, and thus make it a useful implement. That’s the reality of it.

When my pressure is low and I become the proverbial flat tire, I am of little use to anyone or anything, but I generate a great deal of inwardly spiraling wind that rotates around a smaller and smaller area of low pressure – the eye of the storm. That is when I can do the most damage to everything around me, with little discretion. That is when the storm rages and the winds howl and things get broken. Lots of things get broken.

When I reflect on that energy, the rotating and spiraling forces, I feel that it is not simply a weather system, but a metaphor for how I rotate and spiral inwardly. It is cyclic, and I have been taught that rather than make an attempt to control it, I should take whatever precautions I can (especially avoiding harm to either myself or others) and let it do what it’s going to do. That may sound like a cop-out, but taken in the context of my own emotional circumstances it may be the kindest thing I can do for myself.

When I am grieving, there is a cyclonic force raging inside me. Attempting to control it, or bargain with it, or deny it only results in a stronger storm. Letting the emotions run their course is kinder, and generally allows the storm to peter out in due time. Mind you, that only applies to my own emotions, not the actions I might choose to manifest in consideration thereof. When I am grieving, and feel so incredibly awful, I still don’t have the right to manipulate circumstances that will affect others. That’s where the light turns to darkness, and sometimes there’s no turning back. A super-nova is generally not reversible.

This feeling of powerlessness is quite a fine line to tread, a many-edged sword to burnish. On the one hand, I have to admit there are many thing over which I have no power or control. On the other hand, I have to be responsible for those things over which I have power and control, namely myself and my choices. I don’t have to do any of this. There’s no law that says a person has to pursue recovery if they are addictive. There’s not even a law that says you have to be a nice person who takes responsibility for their own actions.

But there’s some part of me that says I don’t want to live like a free loading irresponsible person who takes what is not hers, and who cares little about the damage she causes. It’s a choice. That’s where my power resides, and that is the point of no return. When I’m abdicating my throne and being irresponsible, nobody else may know that I’m full of it, but I know and that’s enough. That is the point where light can turn to incomprehensible darkness inside me, and that’s a choice only I can make.

I am hoping this hurricane will not wreak havoc on New Orleans when it makes landfall in a day or so. Conversely, I am not hoping that it bypasses New Orleans in order to wreak havoc elsewhere. Every part of this planet has its own impending diasters built in – California is dealing with fires and draught again, the Pacific NorthWest is dealing with unprecedented high temperatures, glaciers in the Arctic are calving and volcanoes the world over are spewing lava every which way. The planet is dynamic, and that which it destroys appears again in other forms and in other places. We don’t get to choose.

Today, I suppose I will try maintaining a steady orbit about my center. I don’t feel at peace, but I don’t feel not at peace, either. Some days, I suppose that’s as good as it gets. In times past, I might have considered that a reason to contemplate ending it all. But, unlike those days, today is a good day to die if that is what occurs. As John Donne reflected long ago, Death itself dies at the point a soul is freed and becomes eternal. Fly like an eagle, till I’m free…fly like an eagle, let my spirit carry me.

So. I am still watching the eagles in Juneau Alaska, and the young’un is pretty much done with the nest. It fledged over a week ago, and has been in and out and lookin’ all grown up and stuff. Perching wherever it dang well pleases, getting the landing manuever more refined, doin’ their own thang (’cause it’s yo’ thang – do whatcha wanna do). This has been a sweet journey, and the days are short before the eaglet – now a fledgling – will disappear from camera view and start its own life. Those of us watching will never know whether it’s a male or female, because Alaska, or at least the site of the nest, doesn’t band or genetically test its eagles. I am thinking it’s a female because it seems to be a little bit larger than the male parent, but who knows. The nest site named this eaglet Kindness, and the parents are Mama Liberty and Papa Freedom. As if they care. But the watching humans cared, and we were all in on the quaint little family of apex predators that taught us so much about how to be…human.

I’m also watching some bats – flying foxes – and a big mix of birds in Praetoria, South Africa. The bats are odd…there are a few smaller fruit bats on the South African site, but whatever their type, they really don’t fly very well. They have the strangest wings, pointy and not really feathered. They have fingers or feet all over the wing span, and can latch on to just about anything. Then, of course, they rest upside down. The jury seems to be out on why they have adapted that posture, maybe to save time if attacked while at rest or asleep, but who knows. I find them creepy, but fascinating.

As I’m watching these birds, I’m usually wondering what they might be thinking (if they actually think, of course). The other day on the South African cam, which is a feeder cam, a freaking IBIS showed up. The ibis is a pretty large bird, and took up the entire feeder platform. It was as confused as the other birds, which were MUCH smaller (and way more noisy) critters. There are lovebirds of may colors, and exotic sparrows, thrushes, and even doves. There is a red-eyed speckled pigeon that was the largest of the regular feeding species…until the ibis showed up.

When the ibis plunked down on the platform, the mouse birds dispersed in a blur, the love birds eventually abandoned their feeder spots, and even the speckled pigeon (which can be somewhat of a bully) fluttered off. The ibis was left to its own devices for several minutes, and looked as though it was at a buffet…trying this seed ball…sticking the tip of its beak into the hanging seed feeders, sampling another suet ball…um de dum, let’s see what THIS tastes like. Then, as quickly as it arrived, it was gone in one might wing flap and a hearty *whoosh*. It took only a few seconds for the other birds to come back and get down to the business of eating again, and all was well.

I truly wonder where in the heck an ibis came from in Praetoria, although it’s kind of a sacred bird in Africa, though I always associated it more with Egypt. Close enough, I suppose.

All of the birds that show up on that camera are fascinating, some of which I’ve never heard of. The green wood hoopoe (bizarre name) doesn’t look all that green to me, more irridiscent blue, but it’s beautiful. The love birds are more like parakeets in various colors, including blue and white and somewhat rainbow-striped. The mouse birds have really long tail feathers, and tend to convene in large groups around a feeder or piece of fruit. The speckled pigeon, as I said, can be somewhat of a bully owing to its size. There’s also a red-eyed dove, which is essentially a pigeon as well. One of my favorites is the hornbill, which is about as big as the speckled pigeon, although two-thirds of its body is made up of its bill. The bill is, as the name implies, shaped like an animal’s horn, and often proves somewhat unwieldy to manipulate. Apparently its tongue is located pretty far back in the oral cavity, so to get food down its throat requires the bird to almost toss the food up in the air and catch it so that it is propelled to the back of the throat. Ah, well – a design flaw, it seems.

That particular feeder also attracts a couple of no-bird visitors – the bushy baby (which is adorable and has eyes that take up almost half of its face), and the genet. The genet is almost feline in appearance, and moves a lot like a cat. It’s not much bigger than a fairly good-sized domestic cat, but has a really unique pattern of spots, like a leopard. It’s pretty laid back and comes mostly at night, like the bush baby and the bats. Watching the activity at night is like gaining access to a secret world, where the rules are entirely different. from daylight hours. I would love to see what else is lurking beyond the camera range.

Watching these birds gives me some odd sense of piece. Everything in their world is exactly as they expect it to be at any given moment, because they really don’t have expectations. They have needs, and they have instincts. When they are hungry, their instincts lead them to food. If there is no food, they expand their search range. The sometimes compete over food, particularly if the supply is limited, but they have their own ways of determining dominance. Sometimes those disputes are settled brutally, but that is the way of nature.

Most of our observations seem to be intent upon assigning human characteristics to these no-human beings, and it often sounds like fairy tales. There were people watching the eagle camera who were convinced the eaglet was staring at the camera, but in actuality the eaglet had no idea the camera was there. It was located in another tree, a short distance away and mounted higher than the nest. Now that it has fledged, it seems the fledgling – or its parents – lands on top of the camera since it proves to be a convenient ledge perch. They just do what they do, and have no idea of the drama we assign to them from afar.

I sometimes have the bizarre wondering of whether extraterrestrials observe us here on Planet Earth in much the same way. Watching us doing what it is that we do, even when we don’t know what the hell we’re doing…raising families, searching for food, eating, treating each other brutally and then tenderly in the same breath. If we are being observed, it must be like a space-age soap opera, and I hope we are more amusing to them than we are to each other.

Perhaps I have become so enamored of these birds because they do not have to be concerned with the news, or current events, or emotions. They are not concerned with Afghanistan, or the Taliban, or politics. They don’t have their sleep interrupted by memories of stupid things they did five years ago, or the mating dance they did that didn’t go quite right, or the mate that just disappeared and never came back. No worries about health care or having enough money. They just go…on. It’s been demonstrated that elephants, some monkeys, and a few other species do grieve when a mate or comrade disappears. Sometimes they don’t know what has happened to the other, but they know something has changed and their partner is missing. But they go on.

I suppose we humans go on as well, but with a great deal more angst and hand wringing than is necessary at times. That’s because we have the feelings, emotions, sentiment, like and dislikes. Those emotions get in the way of action at times, although sometimes they motivate action. Frequently, however, they point me, at least, in the wrong direction. That, however, is what differentiates us from animals that operate more on instinct. I won’t reflect on which is better, which is the larger economy of scale, because I think it is what it is, and what it is equates to the way it is supposed to be.

Do things happen for a reason? Is there some predetermined plan that dictates every moment, every intersection of actions and reactions? I don’t know, but I know that when I do things that I feel have no purpose, or meaning, or result in nothingness I feel that I have wasted my time, or my energy, or my reason for being…or something. When I was taught that gratitude was an action word, I didn’t comprehend the meaning for quite a while. The explanation that made it easier for me was this – if I am grateful for my truck, I will take the actions necessary to prolong its service. I will make sure its routine maintenance is performed regularly, I will be observant about its performance, and so on.

That works just fine for my truck, since it’s a inanimate object. I have a harder time with sentient beings, even my dog. That’s where the unconditional part comes in – if my gratitude is conditional, I’m not sure it amounts to a whole lot. I cannot be grateful for my dog IF she behaves well, and doesn’t poop in the living room. There’s a logical – and ethical – error in there somewhere if I am only grateful for her 60% of the time. Do I then provide optimal care for her only 60% of the time? That really doesn’t work very well, and I feel that I would be pretending to be a deity if I did that.

The sticky part of that understanding, however, is that I comprehend the concept of conditional love and acceptance and even gratitude very well unless I come to apply unconditionality to myself. I do not forgive myself well, I do not offer myself grace. It’s the damnedest thing, and provokes most of the anxiety I experience. Memories of missteps and outtakes from years in the past still take up space in my head, in vivid detail, as though I experienced them yesterday (or sometimes 5 minutes ago). I suppose I could handle that if those experiences remained memories, like a video on rewind, but I consistently will attempt to replay them and behave differently. WTF? I know I can’t change the outcome, but these fantastic forays into what I should have said, what I should have done, how I should have responded get really old. Really, really old.

Why can I not let go of these things? What about retaining those hooks is working for me? Is it the misery itself? I cannot imagine misery is working for me, in any way. I do not want to be miserable. Is it the drama, the poor, poor me – look how inept and horrid I really am. If you really knew me, you wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. You would understand what a big fraud I am, how I have everybody fooled and thinkingi I am a decent person. You just don’t know who you’re fooling with, don’t know who I really am, but when you find out…you’ll be gone.

So there. Maybe this whole fraud thing is some kind of intricate pre-emptive strike against abandonment? That might be way too simple, but it has a bit a of resonance . Maybe somewhere deep inside I figure that I know – instinctively – how to screw up and push people away before they can push me away. Maybe that’s buried in here somewhere, and that is what ultimately motivates me in relationships – get too close, feel the heat, throw some cold water on things and I will need to bare my fangs, extend my claws, draw some blood. Self protection is maybe how I see it, on some subconscious level. I suppose at this point I’m just not sure how to stop that instinctual reaction, especially when there is not actual threat. Of course, threat is purely subjective, and I suppose that I feel pending threats everywhere. All the time. All. The. Time. It is exhausting.

There is a large part of me that feels I will go to my death (and I hope that is a very long time from now) with this same mechanism firing blanks at some invisible target. Some days I feel I am my own target, even though I project the assault externally. But it seems to make a weird kind of sense that if I aim at something I fear will abandon me, that is ultimately a deprivation of what I am seeking so … I am taking aim at only myself. That’s kind of messed up, but it makes sense in some kind of weird way.

Maybe I’ve had way too much therapy. Maybe I spend too much time in my head, although I rather enjoy being present far more than being oblivious. I feel that works better than checking out all the time and harming other people because I’m just not paying attention to anybody but myself. I sometimes wish that I could stay in some zone where everything and everybody is at arm’s length, no extreme emotions or feelings, enough distance to feel warmth but not get burned. Such a complicated little thing I am.

I suppose this is all a reflection for another day, because I have just been to check out the eagles’ nest and Mama skidded in with a fish, but there was no young one to receive it. She hung around for a bit, eating it alone, and then calmly flew away. The young’un is probably out enjoying their newfound freedom, the open sky, all the sights they’ve never seen before. Mama is probably not having feelings of abandonment. She is probably just going on to the next thing and understanding on some deep level beyond thought that all is well, and as it should be. I envy her. She’s just an eagle, doing what eagles do in the moment at hand. As it should be.

Posted this on FaceBook this morning…

Ya know…Afghanistan is a mess. It’s been a mess for more than 20 years. The Former Guy made a campaign plank out of “endless wars” and said we needed to get out of those. After he was elected, he reduced the troop count in Afghanistan. He wanted to invite the Taliban to Camp David, and seemed to court a relationship with them. He said we needed to get out of there ASAP. So, now we’re on the off-ramp, but the exit is backed up and suddenly it’s all The Current Guy’s fault. This has been a disaster in the making for a couple of decades, and even before, and it’s pretty complicated.
I cannot even begin to imagine the frustration and probably bitterness of anyone who has lost a loved one during that war as they wonder what the hell was it all for. The confusion and trauma of any soldier who came home from duty in Afghanistan with life-altering injuries. What the hell WAS it all for?
Let’s not forget how and when this war started – it was President George W. Bush who started this war, in his quest to defeat al Qaeda and capture Osama bin Laden. I contend that such passion was fueled – literally – by the promise of controlling oil in that region. We asked the question of what’s in it for us a lot more than asking the question of who is being harmed and how can we improve life for the Afghanis.
Exiting from Afghanistan is not as simple as packing up a few tents and heading to the airport. Was this a flawed exit plan? Possibly, but again – it’s complicated. Things are VERY fluid there, and the Taliban is not exactly cooperative, despite showing a conciliatory face to the news cameras. I believe we are being distracted by the personal stories of those who are in danger of being left behind, and comparisons to the fall of Saigon at the end of the Viet Nam war. Given all of that, I don’t believe it’s time to critique the exit while it’s still in process.
Nearly 100k people have already been evacuated from Afghanistan, and that’s no small number. There will be thousands more. Now, we’re going to have to figure out what to do with them after they’ve left their homeland, and how they will fare if/when they get to the United States. Make no mistake – this is an immigration issue, and there will need to be a pathway to citizenship for this latest group of entrants. Let’s see how this goes – our track record for handling refugees isn’t all that great.
It’s heartbreaking to see people so desperate to leave their homes, fearing the onslaught of an abusive totalitarian regime. We will not be able to save them all. There will be horror stories of those who couldn’t leave. That will be hard to see, and hard to accept, but it will not be a time for casting blame. War is a brutal and messy business and there are always people left behind, innocents who suffer, lives that are lost cruelly and tragically. The only winning move is not to play, but we played and so must accept the outcome.
We have many other things to be concerned with, and that is not to say those issues are of more or less consequence than Afghanistan. Our democracy is still in peril, and we must attend to it lest we be in the same position of chasing aircraft on the tarmac and desperately trying to escape our homeland. It can happen, so we cannot afford to ignore that possibility. The need for U.S. election reform is dire, and voter suppression is still very real. The efforts to undermine the will of the people are gaining strength, often because the people don’t know what’s happening or how the system works to begin with.
The rising death toll of the COVID pandemic is also worthy of our attention. The steady impact of the vaccine-resistant on health care infrastructure is real – there are people who cannot receive non-COVID treatment because there is literally no room at the inn. Once again, hospitals have no available beds, in ICU or otherwise, and private rooms are non-existent in some cases. Elective surgeries are being cancelled once again. Some patients have been shuttled to nearby regional hospitals that have available beds, miles from home.
The message is still the same – pay attention, stay woke (no matter what that means to you), don’t just talk but act. Don’t assume someone else is going to act on your behalf. If you don’t know, ask. These ARE the times that try our souls…and we’d best show that we can withstand those trials. As Brene’ Brown has said, sometimes life taps you on the shoulder and says, hey – I’m not fucking around here. It’s time.
It is time for us to stand and deliver. The gauntlet has been thrown, and if you don’t believe that, just look at the death toll from COVID and then watch grown people having mask burning parties and fighting at local government meetings. This should NOT be an invitation to a new edition of The Burning Times That is simply absurd. Most reasonable people understand that mask mandates have nothing to do with personal freedoms and liberty, but the die has been cast and unreasonable people simply cannot navigate the issue.
Democracy will never be perfect, but I still believe it’s the best and most humane chance we’ve got to live well. There is a lot of work to be done, because we got off track a while back. We got off track and got hung up on individual gain far more than collective progress. Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness was never a selective promise, but we haven’t done a very good job of defining who makes up the collective.
It’s not too late, but it won’t be easy to do that. Those who have been excluded are calling out, rising up, making their presence known. It’s uncomfortable, and it feels as though everything is out of control and we’re losing everything.
I suppose it’s a time for faith, faith in the original promise of self-evident inclusivity. Faith in ourselves. Faith in our ability to figure out a solution that is equitable and fair. It’s possible, but only if our sights are set on the future and not the past. Restoring the past is not only impossible, but it won’t solve anything. The world has changed around us, and we’ve just got to keep up or be crushed by the turning of the wheel. Trying to run a 2021 society with 1960s rules won’t work.
It’s a choice. We can hold on to an illusion of a past time that some of us liked, or we can build something new together. We don’t need to condemn or deny the past – we can be honest about it, celebrating where appropriate and grieving where necessary. Mistakes are a normal part of growth, and that’s all this is – another effing growth experience. We needn’t be afraid of growing.

I figure when the end times come, I will sleep through it all. I can usually sleep through quite a lot of conflagration, especially if I am in a moving vehicle of some type. The best sleep I’ve ever gotten was in a train, many years ago when I was a kid and we used to visit my grandmother by train. The Sunset Limited, which ran a route across the Gulf Coast and I believe all the way to California. It fell on hard times when AmTrack had a better way (not) of providing rail service, and then it derailed in Alabama a few years ago because a barge hit a bridge that it had to cross. That was a mess, but as far as I know, the route is still active.

All that time ago, when I rode the train regularly, there was a dining car and conductors and pullman porters. We never had to spend the night on the rails, but I knew even back then how important the pullman porter job was in the Black community. Those were high paying and honorable jobs back in the day, and the men who held those positions did so with pride. They were among the first to settle the neighborhood where I grew up, one of the first subdivisions in the nation that provided opportunity for African-American families to own property, and live in safe communities. Those were the days, my friend…we thought they’d never end.

Those days are gone, but there are new days, some better and some worse. That’s the way of it. It does us no good to compare today to yesterday, or to focus our energy on restoring yesterday. If yesterday seems to be a time when things were so much better than now, that’s only because we’re pretending to be victims. We, collectively, created today and until we accept responsibility for that we can’t build a better future. Believing that bringing back yesterday is the solution to all our problems is merely delusional thinking, the kind of delusional thinking normally evidenced by dying people. It’s the dream of water in the desert, the fantasy of an emerald city on a hill where all dreams come true. In reality, that ain’t happenin’.

So, here we are scrambling. Scrambling to get people out of Afghanistan, scrambling to pass a Federal budget, scrambling to escape the predictable scourge of a corona virus that really doesn’t give a damn about our politics or our income levels. Scrambling. It’s only paranoia when they’re not chasing you, and they are chasing us. All of the monsters under the beds, all of the past bad deeds, all of the bad Karma that has accrued from those bad deeds of the past. I don’t know if we can run that fast, and my feeling is that we just need to take our spanking with grace and dignity and be grounded for a couple of weeks.

People are still carrying on about refusing the COVID vaccine. First, a lot of the resisters said they didn’t want to take it because it hadn’t been approved by the FDA. Well it’s now fully approved, at least the Phizer product, so…you were saying? Hospitals are clogged up again, so elective surgeries are being cancelled. Someone on my FaceBook feed said her mother needs an blood infusion, and can’t be admitted because there are no beds available in the hospital. People would rather take a veterinary de-wormer rather than a vaccine that millions of other people have taken, with no ill effects. What the hell is THAT all about? It makes no sense.

I have spent the past two weeks as a gratefully masked person, not just out of caution for virus transmission, but seeing as how I was awaiting dental reconstruction. I was about ready to pull the damned broken tooth out of my mouth with pliers if I’d bitten down on my inner lip with it one more time. Fortunately, I got everything repaired yesterday, and thank goodness. It cost less than I had figured, but still a chunk of change out of my pocket. Regardless, I feel as though I can safely give up my gig as an extra in the movie “Deliverance” or maybe “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. People make all kinds of negative judgements when you have obvious dental issues, although at this point I have nothing nice to say about such people. You just never know why someone is in a position that leaves them with broken or missing teeth, discolored teeth, decaying teeth. You never know, and shouldn’t judge. But they do. So…screw ’em.

Anyway, I had a lovely nitrous-oxide trip for the procedure, which involved repair of the tooth next to the broken tooth and, more importantly, mega shots of novacaine. I am not good with needles…and that’s why I’ve never been able to make it to a tattoo parlor. When I’m under nitrous, I go places. It’s like a meditation session on steroids…with pleasant vibes and sometimes communion with non-physical entities. All is well, and that feeling of warm fuzzy cosmic vibes goes away as soon as the gas stops flowing. I usually remember it all, though, and find it a good prompt for reflection afterward. Regardless, it’s all over now so on to the next one.

My dog had a small health crisis, last week. Last Thursday morning, she very suddenly was not able to empty her bladder. She was straining, but nothing was coming out. I couldn’t tell if she was in pain, or just confused. It had to have been somewhat uncomfortable, I guessed. So, I called the vet Friday, and off we went yesterday morning to let them observe her and run tests. A few hours later, the vet called and said she had a bladder infection. $200 later, I had her back at home with antibiotics, and life went on. After a couple of doses of the antibiotic, she is doing much better and I saw urine coming out of her when she squatted to pee-pee earlier. She must be relieved, no pun intended.

The eaglet in Juneau has fledged, and it was beautiful. It stood there for a few minutes, alternately preening and flexing its enormous wings, then bobbed its head and took off. It was pretty graceful for an inaugural flight, although the legs hung down for a bit longer than seemed usual. But, landing gear down or not, the bird came back to the nest a while later with nearly a crash landing, but…nobody died. It’s been a few days since the fledge, and the young’un has been back and forth to the nest on their own may times since then. Mama and papa are still providing food until the little one (who is now adult-size) can begin hunting and foraging for itself. It’s an incredible thing to see, because these birds operate entirely on instinct. There is no intellectual or logical component to how they do what they do. They are guided by instinct, not sentiment.

I can’t quite tell whether humans have lost their instinct, or whether instinct has lost the battle with sentiment. I’m not sure it matters. We have certainly arrived at a point in our evolution where comfort outweighs nearly all else, at least in First World existence. We have come to feel entitled to comfort, and even opulence, to the point of false pretending that such is normal. I enjoy my creature comforts as most people do, and am the first to admit that I would absolutely suck at surviving in a world without those benefits. I am not ungrateful for air conditioning in my humble abode, gasoline in my horseless carriage, and modern contrivances that allow me to make food and beverages in an instant. I do not, however, think for one minute that any of that is normal, because I’m in a numeric minority of people who enjoy such things. Most people on this planet live without such things, and they know it, and I know it. So i cannot presume that how I live is normal, nor am I entitled to it. Everyone doesn’t have what I do; some have more and some much, much less.

I don’t quite understand our fixation on the past, which is viewed in largely selective fashion by the most passionate amongst us. We cannot simply return to a time we remember as good, and wholesome, and safe, and more comfortable. The rest of the world has changed, and as I keep telling people in organizations struggling to maintain themselves these days, you can’t run a 2021 operation with 1955 rules. It just doesn’t work, and it shouldn’t work. We cannot edit or rewrite the past, even the past of 5 minutes ago. But still, we try and many contend that if it was good enough for their parents back then, it’s good enough for them now. This, however, is complete and unadulterated hogwash.

But I digress. Right this minute, this is where I am. I don’t feel it’s necessary to dissect every aspect of this moment’s reality, although I would really love to know what the eff is wrong with people denying the need to be vaccinated against this seemingly insurmountable viral pandemic. But, I will probably never understand that, and it does me no good to be angry about it. My instincts are telling me to stay low, continue wearing a mask in public, don’t opt for larger gatherings of people indoors and without adequate ventilation. So that’s what I’m going to do.

I somehow ordered meal delivery from a service without realizing I had done so. The other day, a soggy box arrived (it was raining outside, and I am hoping that’s why the box was soggy) with the fixings for three meals. I truly don’t remember ordering that, but here it sat. The meal selections did look somewhat interesting…shrimp with couscous and zucchini, baked-potato-style chicken with potatoes and corn, and something else I haven’t tried yet. There was only one hitch…after I’d unpacked the box, the proteins were not included. There was no shrimp, or chicken, and I wondered if that meant I had to provide those main ingredients. I was a little perturbed, and wrote it off to being a bait and switch type advertising scheme.

Regardless of the missing proteins, I did manage to perform the minimal actions for the first meal, which was the chicken sans chicken. The potatoes and corn were actually quite tasty, I must say, and I thought it would have been really delicious with the chicken. I was looking forward to the shrimpless couscous. A day or so after the potatoes and corn, I decided to dispose of the now-dried shipping box, and for some reason thought to remove the now thawed ice packs. As I was pulling out those packages, I discovered something very interesting. THERE WAS A SECOND LAYER TO THE BOX, and the missing proteins had been sitting (and spoiling) at the bottom of the box for nearly three days. Dammit.

I wish they’d included an invoice that said “your box should contain the following” and listed all of the packages included. Or a simple page with an arrow that said “look below this partition” or something like that. I repeat…dammit. So, I wasted chicken and shrimp on this virgin attempt at not eating every meal outside my apartment. I just ordered a second shipment to do the service the justice of preparing the meals as intended. I must say that what I’ve eaten so far is pretty good, so maybe this will reduce the pizza delivery frequency and the Door-Dash expenditures. We’ll see.

I have a doctor’s appointment on Thursday, or maybe it’s tomorrow. I’ll have to check. I’m not looking forward to it at all, because I really don’t want to hear her carrying on about my weight and sending me to some other racket of a weight loss program. I’m not interested at this point. I know I’ve gained, but the compulsive eating spurt is beginning to wane. I have been wondering these past couple of years whether or not there is some seasonal and innate trend that my body follows, where I gain weight in the late spring into summer in preparation for winter. Come to think of it, though, last summer was a little different although we were in COVID response and the weather was not as brutally humid as it is now so I was able to get out and walk with the dog a bit more. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just looking for excuses, but this past 18-month period has been an aberration of nearly every pattern or trend that I know. And I don’t want to hear this new doctor whining about it. Not having it.

My regular Tuesday night 12-step meeting ended a little while ago, and we were talking about old behaviors, and what to do when they rear their ugly heads. My contribution involved my frantic Sunday afternoon, when a friend came asked me to have lunch. She was in from out of town, and we had lunch Friday as well, and I agreed to go on Sunday. Almost as soon as I had sat down in the restaurant (we sat outside), another friend called asking for a huge favor. She needed me to drive her grandson two hours to the East, where they would meet us and take him two more hours to their home to say goodbye to a dog they were going to have to euthanize.

This is not a 12-year old kid but a 20-something. My first thought was if the dog needs to be put down, don’t make it wait four more hours to be put out of its misery. I said I would do it, although I had another meeting at 7pm and it was past 2pm when they called. I kept trying to make that happen, even though I was going to have to rush in order to make it all work out. I had lunch with the first friend, who then wanted to go over to the church to see the memorial inscription for her mother and father. So we did that, and decided to use th bathroom while there.

That was a most unfortunate idea because I somehow set off the burglar alarm. The police called and asked for the code. I thought they meant the alarm code, but knew there was a break-glass code, so I gave them both. The operator said she couldn’t take both, so what was the code. I gave her the alarm code. She said thank you but called the office administrator to report that I didn’t know the code. *sigh* The police were on their way. My friend was in the bathroom, and I had to go, but my anxiety was so high at that point that I couldn’t think straight (or in a sensible fashion, at least. I never think straight.) After talking to everybody involved, we left – the alarm finally went silent and I was able to arm it again. Locked the door, said goodbye to my friend, and tried to calm my nerves.

I pulled out of the church driveway, and was about a half-mile down the road when I saw a police car turn into the driveway. I headed back, after dodging a spontaneous flurry of traffic, and pulled back into the parking lot. The officer got out of her car, and she so cute I was nearly speechless. I somehow managed to explain what had happened, and gave her my driver’s license so that she could write her report. I was in no hurry. All too soon, our business done, I pulled out of the church driveway for the second time, still intent on ferrying this grandson to points East.

On the way to the thoroughfare that would take me to the grandson, I ran into a massive traffic jam. That was unusual for a Sunday, and it took me nearly 30 minutes to travel only a couple of miles. The dual travel lanes were merged into one, with fire trucks lined up on the should of the road, nearly every police car in town double-parked next to them with lights flashing. Police officers were in the road directing traffic. There was an unbelievable accident on the on-ramp to the highway business loop, with a full-size pickup truck on its roof and a passenger sedan inserted into the truck’s passenger window. The truck had hit another car, apparently from behind, and it had in turn hit some other vehicle. The car hit from behind had been propelled into the other vehicle so hard that it had crumpled in accordion fashion into a space less than half of its normal body length. If somebody wasn’t killed in that incredible fusion of twisted metal I will be surprised.

After seeing that crash, and realizing it would be a suicide mission to pick up the grandson and drive like a mad person for the next two house, I decided to call it quits. I hated to do it, and felt as though I was reneging on a promise, but every fiber of my being felt as though it was a bad idea to continue trying to make that trip. I came home. They understood, and thanked me for being willing to try, but I still felt badly. As usual, I needed to be the hero. When will I ever learn?

I can’t be the hero so much any longer. I need a hero, or at least I need to be my own hero. Maybe that’s what aborting that rescue mission was all about – I needed to care for myself more than I needed to make the impossible happen so that someone would be pleased with me. It was difficult to make that decision, and still feels as though Atlas has let the world roll from his shoulders. How dramatic.

Another box from the meal delivery people showed up today…I thought it was coming tomorrow but *poof* there it was today. The delivery person didn’t even have the good grace to walk it up the stairs – they left it on the first floor in between apartments. I just happened to notice a familiar looking box and went over to inspect the address, and it was my order. I had to lug the whole thing up the stairs, while trying to maneuver the dog on her leash (she was preoccupied with another dog that was being walked in front of the building). I’ll go in to unpack this latest shipment in a moment, and hopefully not throw away half of it this time.

I want to put a bumper sticker on my truck that says “Back off. I’m trying.” That’s how I feel lately…I’m trying, so cut me some slack, back up. Back up and get off my back. I have nothing to give you right now, because I have been depriving myself. So don’t start anything with me. Don’t be mean, don’t be cruel. If you don’t want to experience me, then don’t. There was a sign on someone’s Zoom square at the meeting tonight that said, “There are three places you can go for free – your own lane, out of my business, and away from me.” True dat. I’m not sleeping through any of this.

OK, I am now officially falling apart at the seams. Maybe not even the seams, just sort of bursting out of the usual container. Metaphorically, that is not a bad thing. Realistically, and even logistically, it’s a bit unsettling. No, it’s a bit of a pain in the ass.

I’ve been dealing for the past nearly three weeks with this broken tooth and the resulting aesthetic that brings to mind a cattle call for extras in the movie “Deliverance”. This is not the rendering of a make-up artist, though – my teeth have literally fallen apart. They’ve never been all that great, and never been taken care of all that well, but damn.

The dentist did a whole lof of studying and contemplating and deliberation in concocting a plan of action, which involves another appointment more ten days from now. I suppose they had to order parts? This feels a bit like what happens when my truck needs repairs, and I bring it to some people who confer and do things I cannot understand. The problem is resolved, however, and I drive off unburdened of multiple layers of my financial security. That will be the end result of this dental journey – they will fix the problem by doing things I don’t understand, then relieve me of several hundred (or thousand) dollars, parts and labor included. And yes, I am grateful that I have the ability to have a solution, but again…damn.

This morning when I woke up, courtesy of the canine alarm, I reached for my glasses before getting up. And the left arm of the frames detached itself from the rest of the apparatus. I think it’s a question of a screw that has fallen out, but I couldn’t see well enough to make that out. So, here I sit peering through frames that fortunately still rest on my nose, but without a left arm. Damn.

As I write this, I am sipping on a fresh cup of coffee but fully aware that an aroma is wafting its way toward me. It’s not the fragrant aroma of freshly brewed coffee, however. It’s the fresh deposit of this skanky little mutt who delights in making regular transactions of this nature whenever she can. Even after having been outside. Even after having been fussed at, screamed at, forced to run cowering under the bed. Damn.

So, I am retreating into the recesses of my thoughts for a bit. Reality can wait a few moments for me to return. I’m not able to make a contribution at this time. I’ve got…nothing right now. So, I will drink my coffee and go to my happy place where there I really don’t need glasses and my teeth are perfect and my dog is well trained and obedient. Yeah.

For some reason, in the midst of all the logistical chaos of this morning, I had an unwelcome memory of the day my mother died. I had not even made it to her bedside yet, but that day was a certifiable nightmare. It was early morning, and I had arrived at the airport for the scheduled flight that would take me to the end of her life. There was a problem, however, a massive problem – the airport had shut down because of a power outage and it was just a mess. I was standing in a long line of people, in sever pain because my back and right hip were trying to go in a different direction than every other part of my body, and the gravity of possibly not making it to my mother before she died was crushing. I was alone, as usual, and I stood there crying silently in that line, defeated, and powerless.

After about an hour in the line, I had finally inched my way within arm’s length of the ticket counter, and there was some malfunction and we were informed there would be a delay. I vocalized, in my inside voice, a spontaneous but sarcastic comment about having all the time in the world for them to get things moving again. The man in front of me, a tall 40-something white guy, turned to me and said, “I know you’re upset, but we’re all having to wait, so … I mean you’re almost to the counter, but we all have to wait.”

Hmmm. I had no words for this icon of compassion at that moment. My thoughts were, immediately, “#%^@ YOU, ASSHOLE! My mother is actively dying, at this moment, so shut your insensitive mouth.” But nothing came out, and everyone was spared a hysterical woman in an Academy-award winning monologue illustrating the anatomy of homicidal rage stemming from grief and powerlessness. As usual, I knew that I needed to get on that flight more than I needed to kick that guy in the balls, so I remained silent. But it was difficult.

For me to remember this on at this point, on this day, when my mother has been dead since 2017, is beyond interesting. What’s even more interesting is that I cannot remember that guy’s face, but I remember that he was tall and white and a man. That’s what I remember. And he was quite surely an asshole. It intrigues me, however, that I remember his race and gender, and the memory seems to be somehow underpinned by that information. It’s a post-traumatic memory, and I remember the emotion of it all, but it seems important for me to remember race and gender. All these years later.

I don’t know where I want to go with this memory, not sure it means anything in terms of those points of remembrance. For some reason, it feels significant, though, and I have a feeling it will come to me later why it’s significant. Why I still have this pin in a map that says “tall white man, asshole” – not “insensitive guy, day my mother died” or maybe even “airport nightmare, day my mother died”. I will reflect on this a lot more, because the first things coming to mind are that I’m still holding on to an identity as a victim, as a racial and gender minority. This is where I go when I am powerless, it seems. I was powerless not because some tall white man said something insensitive, but because there was an accident on the Interstate near the airport that knocked out power to the entire area and shut down air travel for several hours. Interesting.

So, looking more at where I go when I am feeling powerless is somewhat interesting. Only somewhat interesting, because it feels like something fundamental, foundational, close to my core beliefs. I am not entirely sure I like that, but more importantly I am not entirely sure that doesn’t inform my reality on other levels that are seemingly not connected. That is a very wordy way of saying that I’m not sure I’ve dealt with my internalized oppression as well as I think I have.

While all this internal dialogue is going on, I’m listening to CNN in the background. They are talking about COVID, and the fact that Louisiana has the second highest infection rate in the nation, and there’s at least one hospital in the state capiral of Baton Rouge that is out of ICU beds. They are asking people in the hospital why they didn’t get vaccinated, because nearly 100% of the people hospitalized now are those who are unvaccinated. One guy said he didn’t have time. Another lady said she just wanted to wait for more evidence of how people would fare after being vaccinated, but she ran out of time. Sorry to say that I understand the “I didn’t have time” explanation way better than “I wanted to wait and see”. Wait and see WHAT? See yourself in the hospital?

We seem to give life ultimatums, and I suppose that is a way of believing that you have power. One of the tag lines in recover is “life on life’s terms”. Before I got into recovery, I resisted that with every fiber of my being. If the world told me “no”, I was going to show it that I could make it “yes”. This was a total illusion, of course, but it made me feel somewhat better in those days to feel that I was defying the odds, doing things everybody said I couldn’t do. Some of that was the hubris of youth, of course, but it was the hubris of an alcoholic youth. Addicts are notorious for bargaining with the Universe. We don’t want to see the life we know, the life that is not working, die. It’s a grieving process, in slow motion, and we don’t know we’ve already lost something.

When COVID reared it’s spiky head in the public consciousness more than a year ago, we had no vaccine. People cried out for a vaccine, for something with which to fight the scourge. Now we have a vaccine. And people refuse to receive it. What gives, folks? When the vaccine was made available, there was a great deal of angst and opinion wrangling and of course politics, but I went to every doctor I have and asked them what I should do. Without exception, they all said, “Get the vaccine. As soon as you can, however you can, whichever one you can.” So I did that. I don’t pretend this gives me immunity, but it’s the best chance I have. That’s it. Just like the flu shot – it’s mitigates my risk of getting a sever case of a virus that wants to kill me. I’ll take whatever I can get.

Aside from watching people in Louisiana fighting for their lives, and other people fighting tooth and nail to quell the vaccine resistance, people in Tennessee simply lost their minds over all of this. The governance in some counties looked at their infection rates, and decided the best course of action was to reinstate mask mandates. So they did. And people went out of their minds, making nonsensical charges about constitutionality and violation of personal rights. They went out of their minds, threatening officials who promoted the mask mandates, and even citizens who agreed with the mandates.

I cannot quite understand the rage that has resulted from telling people to wear a mask for some portion of their time in the presence of other people. Not when you go to sleep. Not when you are making dinner. Not when you are in your car. Just when you’re interacting with other people you don’t live with. It’s a piece of fabric that covers the nose and mouth. It’s not a weapon of mass destruction, and it’s not permanent. Get a grip, people. Chasing someone out of a public meeting because they believe that is a little over the top. Screaming at them “We know who you are, and we know where you live, and we’re coming for you!” is, well, just nuts.

“We’re coming for you” is a lot of the rhetoric that was hurled at the January 6th insurrection, apparently meant to instill fear in the hearts of politicians they’d named, those who disagreed with their view of what should be happening in the country. “We’re coming for you”. Coming to do what? Coming to kill? Exactly what are you coming to do? Be clear. You can’t kill everyone you disagree with – just like I can’t. There will always be more. You can’t kill an ideology, or passion, or a way of thinking.

The attempts to wield power by intimidation and murder have been been going on for centuries. The Crusades, the Holy Roman Empire, Attila the Hun, Adolph Hitler, Sadaam Hussein, Idi Amin. It’s about power. It’s about do as I say, or I will simply kill you. Conformity and compliance is worth far more than your life. You should know where you stand, and where you stand is only important to a political system as far as it serves to support the system. It’s not personal. The agents of the system ay seem to be personality-driven, but it’s only the system making sure that it survives. We’re living in the Hall of Mirrors, and things are not as they seem.

People are born and die every day. Every single day. How they are born and how they die is really irrelevant to the overall population. Our personal ties to the living and the dead notwithstanding, organic functions like viruses and bacteria know nothing about the lives they take because they are not sentient. Every living thing has one purpose – survival. The only reason there are variants of the corona virus that causes COVID is because the corona virus is surviving. That’s what it does, no more and no less.

We humans are a consortium of cellular functions, and we have the same goal – survival. We like to pretend that we are very far above that base level of existence, because of our higher sentience, but perhaps we are not. I think out sentience merely complicates our efforts to survive. When people commit hate crimes, there is some level on which they feel their survival is threatened. Whether that’s reality, or not, is irrelevant. They believe they will somehow be destroyed, cease to be, by the object of their hatred. I get it.

When Dylan Roof shot nine people in that church in South Carolina, he told the victims that he had no choice. “They” were killing and raping people, presumably “his” people, and he had no choice but to stop them. It made no sense to most of us because the people he killed were not doing anything but reading the Bible, and many of them were older people, but the threat had been implanted in him and it wasn’t going to respond to reason. Timothy McVeigh made a similar decision when he bombed the Federal building in Oklahoma City, saying that he was acting in defense of American liberty and resisting a government that was becoming tyrannical. The September 11th terrorists were in pursuit of a higher ideal, one that was embedded in their religious ideals of how the world should be.

Survival. If you believe your survival is threatened and you feel powerless, you’re going to do whatever you can to bring yourself into power. If you’re a certain personality type, you may act within the confines of the social contract in which you’re contained. If you’re another personality type, you become a pilot and hijack airliners to crash them into commercial buildings. We’re coming for you. We know where you live, and we’re coming for you. These should be chilling words coming from the mouths of Americans, and directed to other Americans.

If anybody should be coming for anybody else, maybe we should be coming for ourselves. Where have we gone? It’s very easy to lose yourself in these days of non-stop sensory input. It’s very easy to lose yourself in someone else’s web, in someone else’s vision. It’s very easy to lost yourself and all that you’ve known when you feel powerless and devalued. We need to be coming for ourselves. We know where we live, and we’re coming for … us.

We can do this. We can restore civility, and compassion, and sensitivity. Incivility, insensitivity, and lack of compassion are not relegated to one race, or gender, or ethnicity but we often become distracted by those attributes. I contend that our distraction serves only those who seek to destroy us. We’re not really contributing to our own survival as a species by killing each other. That’s pretty simple. VIruses are not terribly intelligent, because they kill their host. They survive as a genus only because they mutate, evolve, and infect other hosts. Because they’re not sentient, viruses don’t have debates about which of their strains is more desirable or more representative of what they believe is the original and most superior strain. Seriously.