Walking the Flats

 Today Bob and I went for a walk in the Flats of Berkeley.  We walked streets almost randomly, some were much more beautiful than others.  Most of the houses were from the 1920-1930’s.  I’d always wished we lived in such an area because from there one could walk to markets and cafes.  It seemed to be there, one would be more in the flow of Berkeley.  Bob was intrigued by one house that was raised up a whole level, creating a totally new understory.  There was a table saw on the curb, offered for free. “Bob,” I said, “ you’re not thinking of taking such a thing?:  No, he wasn’t, but it stressed me to think of him bringing more to our house.  As we walked passed the busy and famous Monterey Market, we turned down a side street, Albina St.  It was a special treat of the walk.  We passed St. Mary’s High School entrance, but didn’t explore it.  Around the corner we came upon a lovely small red house, with a lock on the outside.  Whatever could it be?  As we walked on, we saw the chickens.  Ahhhh, a chicken coop.  Then the owner of the place, came and spoke with us.  He’d built the “Taj Mahal” for the chickens ten years ago from cast off doors from the “Big House”.  Sure enough the walls were made of old doors.  As we walked on, we came upon the “Big House”.  It was a.mansion, with turrets, and porches, with the yard full of palms trees and tree ferns.  In the sidewalk were numbers embossed saying 1889.  I expect the mansion was alone on the field of Berkeley in 1889, overseeing many acres on the flats of Berkeley.  It was a marvel to come upon this.  As we walked further west, we turned on to the Green Way walk by the BART tracks.  There were rusty metal cutouts of cows, the third artistic cows I’ve seen in Berkeley, all pointing to the early dairy farms in Berkeley.  Schools, mansions, chicken coops and farms, all in Berkeley and much more!  Berkeley streets are really fun to walk, you never know what you’re going to find.

Tears for RBG

 Two days ago, Friday September 18, 2020, Ruth Bader Ginsberg died.   I teared up upon reading the shocking news.   I am heartbroken.  She was such a fighter for what she believed in.  A titan of a feminist, she fought for women’s rights and equality in all ways, in all places, for such a long time.  She fought so fiercely for so long to stay alive.  Her dying wish was that the next President after the election appoint her successor.   For me to know that such a strong woman had my back is no small thing.  Not only did she have a truly brilliant intellect, she had heart, she had style.  Her values of justice, equality and respect of all shined through her actions her whole lifelong.  Because of the documentary made about her several years back (RBG), I learned more about her life and her accomplishments and appreciate her even more.  She is my hero.  On the Friday evening news, I heard her quoted saying “think about how you want the world to be for your daughters and granddaughters” in one of her cases for women’s rights argued in front of the all male judges of the Supreme Court.  She won five out of six of her cases at the highest court in the land.  She was nominated by Clinton to that Court in 1993 and was nearly unanimously confirmed with 96 votes in her favor, only 3 against.   For 27 years, she has been the liberal lionheart of the Supreme Court.  We could always count on her to be fair, just and careful in her opinions.  

I have been deeply affected by her death for two reasons:  first, the sexism I experienced in nearly every place I ever worked and second, my concern about who will nominate her successor.   I grew up in the 1940’s and 50’s when to be born a girl meant you were born less than a boy.  Boys could grow up to be doctors, lawyers, scientists, businessmen—whatever they wanted.  As a girl, I was raised to become a wife, mother and housekeeper.  It’s all my mother ever wanted for me.  My grandmother explained to me the only reason to be educated was to be educated companion for your husband.  The only reason to have a career in your handbag was in case your husband died and you had to support your family.  Girls could be secretaries, nurses or teachers in those days.  The imprinting was deep and powerful.  When I was in high school, I wasn’t allowed to take physics because I was a girl.  In college, I remember being pushed aggressively against the wall and angrily told it was wrong of me to get a higher score on a test than this young man had, after all he had to get into medical school.  In a medical school interview I was pointedly asked why they should take me when I would just get married and drop out of medical school. The places were for the men.  And on and on.  It wasn’t the time for female empowerment.   In my own way, I’ve fought my whole life for female empowerment.  RBG had to deal with this culture too.  All females did.  Thank goodness times have changed.  She was a leader in the legal foundation for the changes in our society that have leveled the playing field for women’s opportunities. .  Imagine getting paid less just because you are a female?  Equal pay for equal work is now a right.  Even though it has been the law for a long time, at a school where I worked for many years, the men always earned more than the women.  The Headmaster said it was because they were head of families and needed it.  I’m happy some things have changed.  My granddaughters can be whatever they want to be—-doctors, lawyers, business leaders, scientist or homemakers.

RBG’s dying wish is that her successor be named after the election by the next  President.  With the election only 45 days away, there is so little time.  Mitch McConnell Senate majority leader said hours after RBG’s death he was moving forward to get a new judge in place before the election.  This is an act of incredibly horrible hypocrisy as he refused for more than 11 months to let Merrill Garland, Obama’s choice, go to a vote or even a hearing saying it would be up the next President.  Completely contradicting himself he is now pushing through a vote in a matter of weeks.  It is a crucial matter for the future of the Court for a generation.  The already ugly politics is about to get uglier and Trump and the Republicans make me sick to my stomach.  I really dislike wishing anyone the worst, but I’m afraid in these times, there are many that I now wish the worst for and they are all politicians.   In these turbulent times, Go in Peace, my hero.  We’ll get up and carry on!

Signs of Autumn

 As the pandemic rolls on, the days of sheltering in place have begun to seem the same.  Someone said it’s like the movie “Groundhog Day,” every day you wake up and do the same things over and over again.  I’m more numb than stressed about the pandemic these days.  I read, I think in the NYTimes, that one way to ease the stress of the pandemic confinement was to really notice seasonal changes.  So today, when we went on a walk on the trails in Tilden Park, I looked for signs of seasonal change.  It is almost the Fall Equinox and the last time we walked the trail was in May or June.  The  terrain is mostly forested and the dappled light looked the same to me.  I love dappled light, but I couldn’t see the angled light of autumn shining any differently than the more direct light of summer under the tall pine, redwood and California bay trees.  I noticed it was definitely drier.  The clay soil on the path had deep cracks in it.  A big leaf maple was already dropping it’s big brown and yellow leaves on the trail.  They were beautiful, like a Sierra Club photograph.  The green Western Lady Fern’s frond was curled upward exposing all the little brown sporangia.  The spores will have to wait a couple of months before the rains come and give moisture for them to sprout.  They’ll be ready.  The tall purple-flowered artichoke thistle had dried out and sent it’s seeds off in a snowy blanket covering the undergrowth.  The back lit seed hairs glowed.  Autumn is coming.  Soon the days will be shorter than the night.  I’ve started planting again in my garden.  Yesterday I pulled out the spent tomatoes and planted lettuce.   Today I planted five perennials I’d propagated.   The season is changing.  Autumn is the most dangerous season around here in N. California.  It’s the fire season and that fills me with dread.   It is also a season of harvest.  It is a season of hope, a time to plant bulbs and trees.  It is a season of orange, brown, gold and red.  It is a season of pumpkins.  It is a season to be grateful.  

Hummingbirds

 On the 6th consecutive day of unhealthy air, days when all people are advised to stay indoors so as not to breathe in all the smoke particles, I’ve been wondering what it is like for the animals, especially for the birds who always breathe so rapidly with their high metabolisms.  Where can they go to hide out?  I was just now watching two hummingbirds, Anna’s most likely, feeding on our chartreuse and purple flowered Salvia mexicana. They were so close together as the darted from one blossom to the next.  Hummingbirds always chase each other away.  I’ve never seen them so close, sharing the blossoms.  I wondered if they were mother and youngster, not so competitive as the males or maybe they just don’t waste any energy chasing each other around when they are stressed by bad air.  I wonder how this terrible smoke affects all the animals?  

The Worst Air in the World

We had the worst air in the world yesterday here in Berkeley and the Bay Area.  Today is the 27th day in a row that we have had a “Spare the Air” day here.  These are days when the air quality is so bad that we are requested/required not to do anything that might contribute to further air pollution, like the Smog Alerts I remember from my youth in Los Angeles in the 1950’s.  Yesterday visibility was measured in yards, not miles.  We are to do as little driving as possible and of course, no fires.  The previous record was 14 days in a row in 2018 from the Camp Fire that burned up the town of Paradise.  After the strange and apocalyptic orange air on Wednesday, the air has been particularly awful, filled with so much smoke that has dropped ash all around.  Looking out yesterday (the air quality index was in the high 260’s —very unhealthy air) the air was a visible gray thick with smog (smoke plus fog) that burned your eyes and made it hurt to breathe.  I was paralyzed most of the day, sitting still, not having energy or focus to do much of anything.  Thank goodness I could take a nap.  

The fires in California have burned up more than 3 million acres this year and the fire season is just officially beginning.  Oregon and Washington are burning too.  Maybe it’s worse up there.  There are reports of whole towns burning up.  There is no doubt conditions are worse in the West than they have ever been.  One climate change event triggers another and they are acting like a positive feedback loop with more and more fires burning hotter and faster than ever before.  The news said the catastrophes are falling like a line of dominoes, one on the other, amplifying their effects.  It is totally scary.  It’s affecting us all and for me the horror is that I have no control whatever.  We seem to be just reacting to the changes that affect us all.  Climate change demands us to take drastic actions in our life styles to combat it. As Gov. Newsom said, “if you have any doubts about climate change, come to California, we’re living it now.  It’s a climate damn emergency!”  We need leadership.  We need to stop thinking in just the short term immediate future, but make changes to prevent any future warming.  Greta Thunberg where are you?  Driving a Prius isn’t enough.  I must stop flying.  Demand the government organize our country to change it’s energy use.  This crisis has my attention and I want to do something constructive before California totally burns up.  

Red Morning Light

 It’s 9 o’clock in the morning but you can’t tell by looking out the window.  The fog has come in but it’s colored red.  It’s as dark as it is at 5:30 in the morning before the sun comes up.  Even the birds have settled down and stopped their singing.  It’s eerily quiet.  Like an eclipse, but it’s not an eclipse.  Bob says it’s a high level blanket of smoke from all the fires in California.  I’ve never seen anything like this.  All I can think is apocalypse.  I’m shaken to experience such a scary thing for the first time at my advanced age.. I sit here shaken.  

The coolness the fog brings is a sweet blessing after 3 days of a brutal scorching heat wave.  The air temperatures outside the house (Bob now has remote thermometers) measured 109 on the sunny side and 104 on the shady side at the peak.  It was hot enough to heat up the inside of our house to 96 degrees even with all the window shades drawn and the house closed up early to keep out the heat.  It radiated in.  Even the cooler downstairs approached 90 degrees.  We sat limply waiting in front of our fans waiting for the air to cool down.  And the smoke made the hot air bad to breathe.  But S. California had it worse.  Woodland Hills near Los Angeles hit a simmering 121 degrees

I am surprised how much this is bothering me.  I realize how much my life, my energy, my outlook is determined by the light.  I’ve always been very sensitive to the quality of the light and this is doing a whammy on me.   What is the world coming to?  I remember the killer fogs in London.  Is this our killer smoke?  After the pandemic, the economic woes, the nasty divided politics, the heat waves each one worse than the ones before, the terrible fires that has California forests burning up, the red flag warnings (meaning high fire danger), now we seem to have lost the light.   Really, it’s too much.  

Writing a Sermon on Forgiveness

 In less than a week, I’ll be videoing my sermon on Forgiveness for the little church where we attend.  The Pastor has gone off on paternity leave and organized a long line up of diverse people to preach.  I’m second in line.  The lectionary scripture clearly pointed to forgiveness at the topic.  It is a good topic, a relevant topic for these times.  I’ve preached lots of sermons on it but this year, it just wouldn’t come together.  I’ve been struggling mightily for several weeks.  I wrote a first draft, revised it three or four times and then finally threw it out and started over today.  I think it is so difficult because there is just so much that needs to be forgiven in our country right now. Everything is so politicized and divided just now, the pandemic is so politicized that I wonder if forgiveness itself is a politicized topic as well.  I worked on “The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant.”  It is a confusing story about a king who wants to settle up some debts and calls in a servant who owes him a really huge amount.  The king demands the impossible payment and the servant begs for more time.  Immediately the king in a huge outpouring of mercy forgives the whole debt and sends off the servant scott free.  The servant (now called the Unforgiving Servant) immediately encounters another slave who owes him a pittance and demands payment. The servant can’t pay, but the Unforgiving One, grabs him by the throat (yes, it really says that in the scripture) and throws him into prison.  The king on hearing what happened reverses his previous merciful forgiveness and throws the Unforgiving One into prison to be tortured.  No forgiveness in the forgiveness story.  I had/have so many questions.  Is forgiveness only a one-on-one act?  What about instructions and whole races of people that need to be forgiven for complicity in acts from long ago. What’s the relationship between mercy and justice?  So many questions.  This afternoon a sermon just flowed out of me.  My thoughts and questions had solidified into a cogent text.  We’ll see how it looks in the morning.