Everything Politicized

This morning I find I am appalled, depressed, discouraged, maybe even a bit hopeless about the state of our country.  When wearing a face mask in a pandemic is politicized, it’s worse than pretty bad.  Everything and everybody has become politicized.  Maybe I am set off by the tv programs I watched last night:  the second part of a documentary on Bill Clinton and then a Frontline expose called “The United States of Conspiracy” about Alex Jones.  I’d never heard of Alex Jones, but they made a strong case about his incendiary and negative influence on our politics.  I think he’s literally crazy and using his platform saying anything with no regard for truth for the prime purpose of benefitting himself.  He’s like a caricature of what unregulated capitalism looks like.  Trump takes some of Jones’ crazy ideas and amplifies them.  How did we get in such a terrible state in this country?  The Clinton documentary highlighted Newt Gingrich.  Bob always says, “It all started with Newt Gingrich” referring to the lies and corruption in the Republican Party.  Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky didn’t help either.  I think people voted against Hillary Clinton in the last election because of Bill’s moral lapses.  Social media used without any moral compass to amplify propaganda and lies has confused many in our country to the point where truth hardly matters any more.  Are we headed into deeper darker times?  Is Trump going to stay in the office of President and destroy what’s left of our government even if he loses the election?  It’s hard to know what one person can do.  I need to go into the garden and breathe.

Fruit of the Pandemic

With all the days of such bad news, I just knew there had to be something good somewhere.  Well, here is one good thing.  During the early days of the sheltering in place, I picked up a needlepoint stool cover my mother had started years ago.  She died in 1997, so it’s been sitting behind a door in my study for quite a while.  I don’t know when exactly she bought and started this project, maybe in the early 1990’s.  She’d completed maybe 20 to 25% of it.  There was a big plastic bag full of needlepoint yarn, one needle and no instructions.  I always intended to finish it.  Now I had the time.  I’d saved the stool from mother’s things.  I remember her sitting on the beach at Balboa doing the green needlepoint that is now in tatters covering the stool.  I remember my brother falling off the stool when he was 2 or 3 and breaking his collar bone.  It was always in the houses we had when I was growing up.  Tonight I finished the new needlepoint cover!!!! I felt like hooping and hollering but Bob was dozing in his chair and I didn’t want to disturb him.  How many hours did it take?  I didn’t time myself, but I’d guess more than 100 hours.  It is truly a fruit of the pandemic and the time I have.  It’s an heirloom for sure.  I don’t know who will want it but I hope someone will want Gramma’s needlepoint on their great-grandmother’s stool.

An Anniversary

Last week Bob and I celebrated our 54th Wedding Anniversary.  Needless to say, it was a quiet one.  We started the day with a special breakfast, giving each other funny cards with sweet messages written inside.  How old school are we?   Bob thought we needed to do something special so we set out to go to one of our favorite places on the face of the Earth —-Pt. Reyes National Seashore in Marin County.  We usually go to Abbott’s Lagoon and that is where we headed.  I’d packed a picnic lunch.  We walked the familiar trail through the coastal scrub, Bob spotted familiar birds—-white crowned sparrow, Brewer’s blackbird, California quail.  We walked over the little bridge where the otters are and on to dunes heading toward the shore.  But first we found a log, sat down and enjoyed our lunch.  It’s really fun to sit next to your sweetie and have lunch in a most beautiful place on such a special day.  I am entranced by the dune flowers.  It must be one of the hardest places on earth for a plant to live, yet there were many different kinds and all of them blooming.  Of course, I had to take a photo of each one because as I came upon it, I thought it is more beautiful than the last one.  We walked along the shore, watching the waves crash, feeling the wind on our faces.  I picked up little smooth green stones.  On the way home, we stopped in Pt. Reyes Station, where no one seemed to be wearing masks, to get a latte before driving home.  Bob bought me a big beautiful bouquet of purple and blue flowers.  When I think about how many years we’ve been together and all the things we’ve done, I am profoundly grateful.  Grateful for our amazing family, grateful for our many wonderful friends, grateful for our good health, grateful for all the adventures and travels we’ve had and grateful for the work we’ve been able to do.  It’s been a wonderful 54 years and one of the benefits of the pandemic sheltering is our increasing appreciation for each other.  Now isn’t that just a wonderful thing!

Beginning of 5th Month - Loss of Innocence

It’s Day 123,  the beginning of the 5th month, of sheltering in place from the pandemic for us old folks.  There is no end in sight as the cases here in California and around the country are surging upwards at an alarming rate.  I am dreaming about shame.  Shame, I think, from the way Trump and the national leadership has so poorly handled the pandemic crisis and that the U.S. is in such bad shape.  Shame for the racism always here but now so exposed.   Shame our children must endure on-line learning and if they go to school such restrictions.  Never in my lifetime have U.S. passports been banned from entering Europe or Canada or Mexico.  I’m ashamed for us all.  Nevertheless in the midst of this horrible situation all sorts of places are adapting.  I had a dental cleaning yesterday afternoon.  The protective gear the office describes the hygienist wearing sounds like astronauts gear.  I think I’ll just keep my eyes closed so I won’t freak out.  The Botanical Garden is opening, this week only to Members, next week to the general public with required masks, social distancing and lots of hand washing stations.  Of course, it’s all outdoors.  It’s opening one fellow propagator told me because the Garden is a “feel good” place for so many people.  With Covid numbers rising so fast here, I wonder if it’s wise to open just now.

I’ve been reflecting on the way this pandemic affects in my life.  As I look back to life before the pandemic, everything seems so care-free and innocent.  We could go anyway we wanted and did so without thinking about it because that is how it had always been.  When I think about all the tours at the Botanical Garden I led and how I knelt down to get close to the little children on tours at the Botanic Garden, now all I think about is the potential for germs to be exchanged.  Will I ever have the opportunity to lead a tour again and if I have the opportunity, will I choose to do so?  I don’t know.  When I think about concert halls and the close seating, the crowded lines of people walking out at intermission or the end of the concert, I now see big potential for germ exchange.  Will I ever want to go back to those crowded closed places?  I don’t know. The crowded BART cars no longer look innocent, now they appear threatening.  Will I ever want to take BART to the Symphony again?  I don’t know.  I’ve considered airports dangerous places for germ exchange for a long time.  All those people in close contact from all over the world, crowding together in long lines waiting for security checks, all those people in the halls crowded together scurrying here and there and all those people crowded in the little space on airplanes.  Will I ever want to fly again?  I don’t know.  As I look back to the time before the pandemic, we seemed so innocent, so unaware of dangers.  I can’t go back and reclaim my innocence.  It’s lost.  Will I ever look at usual crowded situations the same way again?  I don’t know.

So Many Plums

July is the month the plums ripen.  This year has been a banner year for plums.  Our old Santa Rosa plum tree has had its branches bent down with the weight of the ripening plums.  One thick branch even broke.  Bob has taken it on himself to pick up the recently fallen plums and harvest the ones on the tree as they ripen.  Each time he comes up with another pot-full of plums, I groan.  I’ve made two big batches of plum jam, a plum cake, two big pots of stewed plums, two plum pies.  Egads, I don’t really like plums.  Now I can tell my true friends:  they’re the ones who’ll take some plums off our hands.  Until the plums are gone, we’ll just keep doing our best to process and eat as many as we can.  It’s comforting to write about plums when Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s resignation is on my mind.  He resigned today after 21 years in the military because of “a campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation led by the President.”  He was a key witness in last fall’s  House Impeachment hearings.  I was very impressed that he told the truth about a call he had been on between our President and Zelensky, President of Ukraine.  Vindman trusted in our government for his protection.  He trusted in the United States and that trust has been betrayed.  He has been betrayed by our President and the Republicans.  For years now the Republican Party has bent truth and spread lies and I have not been able to understand how people put up with that, let alone vote for that Party.  Now after 3 years of Trump, we all understand that Trump’s method is an exaggeration of the past Republican method.  Just tell so many lies that the truth becomes a relative political term.  Telling the truth has been a core value for me.  I am ashamed of my country.  I am desolate that a hero of mine for telling the truth

has felt he had to leave his job in the military.  Whatever is our country coming to?  Good thing I have plums to keep me busy!

Starting 18th Week - Fireworks

It’s been a birthday I’ll never forget, so different from anything before.  The day began as Bob cooked bacon and put out the red “You Are Special” plate for me.  He had arranged for the whole family to join in on a zoom call to sing Happy Birthday.  It was great to see everyone smiling and waving and singing.   He gave me three thoughtful presents and a card card reading “Yeah, it’s a card.  A PAPER one.  Happy Birthday, old school.”  So true, I love birthday cards.  Bob and I celebrated alone by going out for a long walk.  It was the longest walk we’ve done, nearly 6 miles and we walked up and down the most Berkeley paths!  We counted 13.  I loved it.  Then we came home and we took long naps on our twin sofas.  What would I do without Bob?  Ironically it was a completely clear night, perfect for fireworks.  But all the firework displays, from every city around the Bay were cancelled to eliminate to possibility of people congregating to prevent spread of the virus.  Nevertheless, as I sat and looked out as the evening light fell into purple blueness with a orange glow on the horizon, fireworks started up, in the neighborhoods all around the Bay.  Everyone has been hearing fireworks going off for the last month.  The evening of the 4th seemed to be the Grand Finale.  There were so many booms, so many rockets with  red glare, so many sparkling showers of twinkling white light, I couldn’t quite believe it.  The newspaper said there were lots of fires set by fireworks all over the Bay Area.  To the north, in the city of Richmond, there were the most.  It made me wonder about why are so many people shooting off fireworks?  What do the fireworks represent for people who spend their scarce money for them?  In light of the pandemic, do they mean, we will get through this pandemic ?  In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, do they signify fists in the sky, the fire of resistance?  Are they meant to bring a bit of joy in the midst of such hard times?  Are they meant to hold up the 4th of July and it’s long tradition of fireworks honoring our country especially in this year when so many of us feel ashamed of how the United States is doing?  Or maybe people just love playing with fire and setting off rockets?  Whatever the reason, I love that there are still fireworks on my birthday and I thank Bob for a great day!