Gratitude Journal: Finally, Some Really Good News

Today, I saw the surgeon to see if he would provide the hip replacement treatment I desperately need.  JT accompanied me for the appointment.  More than anyone else, he has seen the ways in which I’ve been increasingly disabled by my hip.  A 23 year old being the up-close witness to my pain and sadness in the last three months is not an easy journey.  He has been an absolute rock for me and it’s not an exaggeration to write that I wouldn’t have gotten here without him.   He’s not the only person in my support network - far from it - and I am incredibly lucky on that front.  But he has had to rescue me from myself over and over again since the pain became unbearable in August.  As my mobility has faltered, he has filled the gap. 

We came to today's appointment a united bundle of nerves, arriving early, tense with anxiety and each of us with an eczema breakout.  I was convinced that the surgeon would move the goal post for surgery, demanding that I lose even more weight (I've lost 30 pounds in just under 3 months). But we needn’t have worried.  From the outset, the Physician’s Assistant was clear: you’re getting the hip.  The surgeon popped in and asked for more x-rays and within the half hour I had my pre-surgery packet and a promise that the scheduler would be in touch within the week.  There is a wait list but surgery will happen toward the end of  January.

 I am incredibly grateful to arrive at this point.  I couldn’t have gotten here without JT,  my sister, the pain management doctor I was lucky enough to find, and so many of my friends who cheered me on when I felt like my prospects were bleak.  At supper last night, JT poured us each a finger of bourbon and we drank a cheer to my new hip. I thanked him for all he has done to get me here; he reminded me that I had been by his side in 2022, when things were hard for him.  We’re a team, he said.  Tonight, we’re a team that feels both grateful and unstoppable.

A Night with Neil DeGrasse Tyson

In my experience, a Neil DeGrasse Tyson event is a bunch of scientific true believers.  I can say for certain that was the case for me, JT, and my friend H.  We saw Tyson on Thursday night and, like the fan crew we are, we cheered when the wisdom of science range true.  

Talks like this - surrounded by hundreds of people who know that only science can save us - provide a sense of real hope in a world that often feels bleak.  That’s happy.

Holding on to Hope

The last month has found me skating delicately around a very unhappy hip.   It’s hard to be my hopeful self when I’m in pain.  The scarcity of my optimism makes it all the easier for fear to take hold.  I don’t see the orthopedist until the 21st so it’s rather a long wait for some answers and - I hope - some relief.  I’m not patient in the best of circumstances and so I’ve really had to lean in to my calming meditation ways to keep it together these last few weeks.  It feels like life is frayed while I wait for some answers for my hip and try to hold off the fear that there will be no relief.  I’m grateful for days when the discomfort isn’t unbearable; when I can get in a 2-3 hour stretch of sitting-up sleep; when I feel a little more like my busy, capable self.  And I am holding on to the hope that there will be treatment that will work.

Just in Time

I stood in the kitchen this morning, looking out the windows toward the East as the glow of a vibrant pink sunrise slowly filled the horizon, glowing behind the branches of the leafless trees at Winter’s close.  It was beautiful; an unearned glory for a day that needed it.

Spring Break starts this afternoon and it’s been a long week - far longer than the 5 days it apparently lasted - and the time off is badly needed by everyone: me, my students, my teachers.  The Winter quarter is often difficult and this one has been no exception.  As the hardships added up, our collective patience thinned, and we arrive at this day with a great need to refresh our reserves.  

When things get tense, I remind myself, my students, and my faculty that we can disagree and still move forward if we can all be people of good will.  It’s not as easy as it sounds.  It requires everyone to step outside of themselves to see that there is a bigger picture.  It has the value of being both a guide in the moment as well as a clear map for moving forward.  It’s worked before and I’m hoping that that charm endures and can guide us into the light this time around as well.

Amaryllis Tuesday: February 16

Over the last few days, the first three flowers have emerged on my plant and the pink and white striped flowers are lovely when they greet me in the morning.

All of our yards are filled with snow; overnight there was rain (happily, it was too warm for ice or snow) and its flowing in the streets because it cannot sink into the ground.  Another Winter snowstorm is forecast for this week....February isn’t planning an easy departure.  But for all of that, these flowers symbolize hope and today I hear that message load and clear.

Inauguration Day!

I took these pictures of the sunrise on January 11 because the light was splendid and the color made me stop to enjoy the sight.

Because even the darkest of nights comes to a close.

Because this kind of beauty fills me with hope.

In a few short hours, a new president comes into office.  Finally, we can shed the avarice, greed, and incompetence of the old.  With President Biden, there is Kamala Harris, our first woman Vice President.  Both are cause for great celebration.

Desmond Tutu once said that, “Hope is being able to see there is light, despite all the darkness.”  He and his nation overcame a greater challenge than we face but today, far all the ugly darkness that has been these last four years, I feel the hope.  I see the light.

My heart is full, y’all.  Hope is on the way.

In Search of Our Beloved Community

Middle school kids have loads of loud energy and my normal school life is a loud affair.  Often, the end of the day school day finds me in search of some stillness and quiet.  But the pandemic has rather reversed that calculation and so music provides company as I work.  I listen to many types of music but reserve a soft spot for the songs and artists who feed my soul.  U2 is on that list.

There is a U2 song, “One,” that I have always loved.  It’s a sad song, about a break-up, I suspect, but there is a line that recurs in the chorus about love and humanity that doesn’t feel broken or lost or hurt.  To me, it feels like a mantra of hope: “we get to carry each other.”

Not “have to.”  

Not “must.”  

Not “should.”  

But “get to.”  I’ve thought of that line so much over the years but especially this year, when the pandemic has meant that so much feels uncertain and different; even at times careening out of control.  When I’ve felt powerless in the face of it all, I’ve reminded myself to find the strength to carry someone else.

Martin Luther King Day is always a chance to remind myself of what matters, what’s truly important, and how we must all do our part for justice in the beloved community.  I think Dr. King believed that we must carry each other; and that we get to do so it is an honor as much as it is a duty. 

January’s Front Porch

Plotting and planning front porch decor is one of my happy pleasures in life and I look forward to a porch that is a welcome place.  In this cold season, I don’t spend loads of time out here but the month’s table reminds me how much I do love the time I spend here in the warm weather.  The month’s theme is hope….for new leadership, for a vaccine, for the health and safety of us all.

The green ivy, hearty despite the cold, leads the way.  The wooden trees were a gift from JT, who knows me well.  The wintery flag with wildlife and snow is a reminder to look for the common joys to be found in this sometimes bleak month when we work to keep our bird feeder full.

The wreath is homemade and a work in progress.

This January feels like so very much is on the line.  But in this house, we live in hope, the most powerful emotion in my toolbox.  I am hopeful; I always am.  It's the only solace I know when fear threatens to enter.  

Hope, Fear and Everything in Between

I can’t be the only person who felt that the past few days have been 96 hours of time filled with a historical and political significance greater than such a small amount of hours can rightfully contain.  As long as I’ve taught, I’ve explained to my students that political time is different than regular time, in that significant political events can happen suddenly and that the conflagration and reverberation of them can consume our attention for far longer than the moment lasted.  At the same time, a hard month or a year can feel interminable as you live through it though as historical time such days can often amount to less than a hill of beans.

Both of these things are true, though rarely at once.  And then along comes January 2021 to shake all that what we think we know.  Today I remind myself that there are some things - important things - that we do know.  

Some - perhaps many - of the January 6 Insurgents were bent on ugly violence toward a democratically elected government.  They call themselves patriots even as they fly the flag of a racist - and failed - rebellion.  That is not patriotism.

Donald Trump, a man who won the Electoral College without winning the popular vote, deluded himself into believing that meant something.  After a lifetime of self-absorption he never once considered anything, least of all an oath to uphold the Constitution, more important than his own desires.  Our democracy will pay a price for this far longer than he will govern.

Courage, in the form of some members of Congress and their staffs, some Capitol Hill police officers, and some of our leaders, can inspire.

Other so-called leaders inspire only contempt as they wickedly flee the sinking ship that is the Trump Administration.  Worse yet are those who defend it, hopeful that their own ambitions can find fruition in what remains of the Trump coalition.  Shame on them.  

Cultivating democracy is hard work but the work of us all, undertaken with hope and sustained through our effort and engagement, even as that is hard.  Especially when it is difficult.  President-elect Biden says we can do hard things and we can.  Indeed, we must.

Old Man Tree; January 1

There was a nearly full moon in the night sky for New Year’s Eve.  Late in the night, we stepped outside in the still cold air to admire the moon and, in my case, to ask for its blessing on the new year to come.  Things didn’t stay quiet for long as my neighbors let off fireworks and generally gave release to the tensions and fears of 2020, welcoming 2021 with cheers and laughter.  The celebrations were joyous as we all faced forward to 2021.

I welcome this year with open arms and hope, even a tentative confidence, that we can rise above the ignorance and fears that have characterized the last four years.  We need to do better; indeed we must.  The load to be lifted is heavy but I have confidence that we will come together and try anew to be the shining city on the hill that we must work toward becoming.  

In the spirit of this hope and to welcome the start of each month in 2021, I will post pictures of Old Man Tree, the giant red oak that lives in my backyard and daily frames my view of the world outside my door.  Today he presides over the snacks we’ve left out for the backyard wildlife.

I love this tree, which is one of the oldest red oaks in my county.  The arborist who keeps Old Man Tree healthy and well believes that the tree is more than 130 years old.  He’s seen a lot, this tree, and he endures, steadfast and strong through the storms of this world.  His continued health is my responsibility.  I take that seriously.  

He got a new face last month and like all of us in Sassafras House looks for a new year with hope.  There is much to be learned from this tree that bears witness to our lives.  I intend to do just that in the coming year.  

The Faint Light Ahead

The Pfizer vaccine has received emergency FDA approval and distribution in the United States will begin this weekend.  The Moderna vaccine is expected to follow within two weeks.  

The amount of hope that this news brings is hard for me to quantify.  Thanks to a complete absence of national leadership, the pandemic is worse than ever in the U.S. at this moment.  We are averaging one million new cases a day; deaths are approaching 1,000 a day.  In New Jersey, with a population just below 9 million, things are better but we are struggling as well, with somewhere between four and six thousand new cases each day.

There is still a long and dark Winter before us but this vaccine news feels like a faint but steady light at the end of a very long tunnel. 

Frontyard Flowerbed in December

Winter has taken hold around here, as it was bound to do,  and the flowerbed has been cleaned out for the season.  While I did that, I planted a couple dozen bulbs.

I’ve a lot riding on the Spring of 2021: actual leadership in this nation, prospects of a vaccine to fight this horrible pandemic, the usual joys of longer days and warmth.  And now we’ll have some extra crocus, daffodil, and tulip flowers to admire.  That's happy!

November 6

Today is my birthday and, like an extra treat, I had the day off from school.  It’s been such a tentative week, filled with hope at one moment and dread in the next so I slept in a bit.  Then, while I stood in the morning sun of the kitchen to pour my first cup of coffee, T came downstairs to let me know that Biden and Harris had taken a slim lead in the Georgia vote count.

In that moment, it felt like the morning sun shone a bit brighter.  The glow of that hopeful light has stayed with me all day.  The warmth of the day, the growing certainty in the outcome of this election, my confidence that help for our nation is truly on its way, has made for a very nice day.  After a nervous week, I can't stop smiling.  In this year of years, that alone is worth celebrating

Though I repeatedly told my students we would not know the outcome of this election on Tuesday, I hadn’t quite realized what that uncertainty would feel like.  I have spent the better part of the last four years convinced that November 3, 2020, would be the day we began the process to bail ourselves out of the disaster that is Donald Trump.  I never wavered in my confidence that he would lose re-election.  But as election day came to a close, though I knew we’d have to wait a few more days to know the outcome, for the first time since he took office I considered the prospect that Trump might win re-election.  

It made for a hard week.  Today, as the clouds cleared to reveal the blue skies of a Biden/Harris victory, I feel hope - real, true, and powerful hope - and I am so profoundly glad of it.  I sat in the backyard all afternoon and gloried in the feeing.  That's happy!

Election Day Eve

I have an app on my phone that I use to countdown to the anticipated events of life.  Most of the time, the events are the small treats that make up my happy world: a countdown to my birthday, or to a concert to which T and I have tickets, sometimes a countdown until JT comes home, or until the first day of Spring.  Nearly everything to which I look forward is lovely but not necessarily of major consequence.

And then there is the countdown I’ve been watching since the day Donald Trump took office in 2017 and I begin to hope and work toward a new president being elected in 2020.  It’s been a long, long time coming, this day.  I remember November 2019 when we reached 365 days until the 2020 election and I dared to think we might dodge a bullet.  

2020 said ha! to that and then some and as these long days of pandemic anxiety have ticked past I’ve measured time against the coming reckoning.  

Today, with election day just 24 hours away, I feel the first glimmers of lasting hope that I have felt since 2018, when Democrats did so well in Congressional elections.  I had hope in 2016 as well and nothing in the last four years has let me forget how hard that Electoral College loss proved to be.  This time around, fear and  uncertainty still loom; given what happened in 2016, I’m understandably nervous  But there has been so much activism and energy since then.  With each passing hour, I remind myself that lightening won’t strike twice.  Today, I feel excitement and hope that our nation may yet turn the corner from the self-induced wound that is Donald Trump.  And as the countdown ticks through its last hours, my hope grows and grows.

Report from the Home Front: Hope and Love edition

A week into Spring Break, a week I have spent safely at home working on school materials and trying to relax, it feels like time is working in a whole new way.  On the one hand, the days are strangely similar.  On the other, nothing feels the same.

T and I had tickets to see the Indigo Girls live this coming Saturday.  The concert was postponed and instead we watched them live on-line last night.  They played and answered questions and at one point more than 60k people were watching.  It felt like a community of the hopeful and with the music still whirling about my head, I am grateful for the break in anxiety.

When I feel my fear mounting, I count my blessings and I am grateful that I have work to which I can attend.  And then I limit the amount of news that I read or listen to and pick up a book.  I don’t need any more panic in my landscape.

I’ve done most of the work to turn my craft table into a desk for me to manage remote learning when school resumes on March 30.  I’ve made lesson plans to get things up and running.  I've made supper for my family each night and we've eaten together, which is very nice.  Next week, I’ll practice the remote learning lessons in earnest, getting my videos, digital assignments, and screencasts together.  So far, those activities and chirping birds has helped to sooth my jangled nerves.  In times like this, that feels like enough.

Hope y’all are well and taking time to tell your people you love them.       

Only Love

I find the current Trump-empowered political nightmare frustrating beyond measure and I’m long past responding to Trump’s daily stupidity by thinking that this time he’s truly crossed the line.  He has crossed the line; he does so on a daily basis.  But I have no idea where that boundary is for Mitch McConnell and the Republican party.  And until we get there, we must survive the daily horror that is Donald Trump.

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Barack Obama’s first inauguration and as I looked at pictures from that day and remembered my own memory of that splendid moment for our nation, I felt a wave of despair.  It feels so far away.  And here I am in 2019 groping in the darkness for a step in the right direction.

Today, Martin Luther King Jr. can once more lead the way for us.  I am frustrated; I am angry; I am mad.  But those emotions will not help our nation to move forward.  As Reverend King reminds us, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

Only Light.

Only Love.

Holding firm to Light and Love and the powerful hope that the arc will once again bend toward justice.

I Believe in Hope

My birthday is in early November and this year, as is sometimes the case, it’s on election day.  Truth be told, though I made a list of gifts I’d like to receive, I really have only have one birthday wish: lots of Democratic wins tonight.   Those wins will be especially sweet if they put more women in elected office.  I want a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.  I’d also like a blue Senate, though I realize that’s an uphill climb.  If Beto O’Rourke somehow manages to win in Texas, I’ll be ecstatic.  I’ll feel the same way if Phil Bredesen wins in Tennessee.  In New Jersey, I’m excited about Mikey Sherrill and Tom Malinowski.  I think there will be some exciting Democratic wins in governor’s races.  I have my eye on Andrew Gillum in Florida and Stacey Abrams in Georgia.  These candidates are just the tip of a blue wave.  So many of the Democrats on the ballot today are my sort of candidate.  Given the horrifying outcome in 2016 and the last two years and, I long to shed some tears of joy when deserving Democrats win tonight.

T and I are having a birthday celebration at home and we’ll watch election returns all evening.  I’ve made plans for some celebratory food because that’s what I do.  I did this for the 2016 election and still remember assembling a cheese tray and thinking about how exciting it would be when Hillary made her acceptance speech.  We all know how that turned out.  Tonight’s returns can’t reverse that history but they may help us to reverse course and signal a wave of voters who demand decency and kindness in their elected officials.  I’m hopeful for an outcome that at least puts the brakes on Trump’s ugly madness.  

In 1984, the year I turned 17, election day was also on my birthday.  I had worked for the Mondale/Ferraro campaign and in true teenaged idealist fashion, I believed they would win.  As Reagan rolled to a landslide re-election victory, the idealist in me remained alive.  She’s been around ever since.  The last two years have challenged that world view.  

I stand here today at the edge of the abyss, with hope on one side in the form of leaders like Beto O’Rourke and Stacey Abrams.  On the side is the racist, sexist, ugly rhetoric of Trump and the modern GOP.  It feels like the most important election of my lifetime.  I’m going to vote with the blue wave this morning.  It’s a vote for our better angels.  It’s a vote to begin to take back my nation.  It’s a vote for hope.

Living in Hope

My default response to troubling news is to announce that I will live in hope.  When I say that, I mean it.  It’s not always easy to live in hope but only light can carry us through dark times.  Only light makes the world better, so hope is what I have. 

And it’s not as if hope is a weak doctrine.  Hope can inspire and push me forward.  Just one smidge of hope means a flame that will grow larger when it identifies other signs of hope.  It’s powerful in the bleakest of moments.

In the world of politics, this week has seemed bleak.  The resignation of Justice Kennedy feels paticularly unsettling.  I woke up this morning to Donald Trump blathering on that he is honored that Justice Kennedy has confidence in Trump’s ability to appoint a worthy successor.  Kennedy didn’t say that, of course, and I respect his legal scholarship enough to believe that he doesn’t think that, but the fact of Republican control of the Senate and Kennedy’s retirement remains nonetheless.

I need hope now; we need hope now.  And it is there.  It’s in the words of John Lewis, who yesterday reminded us, “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

It’s in the face of  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on the night of her impressive primary victory in New York.  It’s in the words of scholar Tressie Cottom who celebrated Ocasio-Cortez’s victory with a tweet that made me smile, “If you elect all the socialist brown women with a strong red lip game things won't be magical BUT IT COULD NOT HURT.”

We are concerned.  We are vigilant.  But we are together and won’t be frightened into retreat.  Because when you live in hope you know that there is light ahead.

Oh, 2016

This year, I wrote a monthly book report on the last day of the month.  I managed to fulfill that goal and there is a book report coming your way tomorrow.  So I’ll take the day before the end of the year to note my reflections on  2016.  

It somehow seems fitting to try and bring this painful year to an early close.

For the record, 2016, you were a real pain in the ass.  In hindsight, the Blizzard of 2016 may have been the metaphor that set the stage for 2016.  There was only one big snowstorm in my neck of the woods last winter, but it was a doozy.  In so many respects, 2016 was a typical enough year.  But when it made a punch, it was playing for keeps.  The stunning, horrible, no-good election of Donald Trump to be the American president has to be the worst event of the year from my point of view.  That it happened because notions of facts and truth seem to have been replaced by “I read it on the Internet” may be the enduring bad news of my life time.

2016 reminded us that racism and violence go hand-in-hand and are ever-present in our nation.  We learned that accomplished women can be dismissed by unaccomplished men and women who’ve drunk the patriarchy koolaid.  In Aleppo, Syria; the Sudan; the Congo; the Philippines, and other places we’ve learned of the depths of human depravity and the limits of the world’s willingness to help the powerless.  

Ugh.

Though I’m eager to see the year’s bad news come to a close, I remind myself that 2017 will bring the inauguration of an unqualified, self-absorbed Cheetoh Kleptocrat to the presidency.  I fully expect 2017 to be the year Americans discover that we no longer rule the world and, worse than that, perhaps aren’t even qualified to govern ourselves.   

I try to live on the optimistic edge of the universe but 2016 has made that a challenge.  But I prefer to live in hope.  I know so many others who will join us to do the heavy lifting to make sure that hope prevails.   And so I choose promise over fear and look to 2017 with hope in my heart.

Some Leaders with the Courage We Need

It’s been more than a week since Donald Trump won the Electoral College and became the president-elect.  I wake up every morning and my first thought is horror at this development.  With the exception of a seemingly conciliatory victory speech on the night of the election, the news has not been very hopeful.  A steady parade of Republican lobbyists have joined the chaotic and unprepared transition team, now headed by a virulently anti-gay Mike Pence, soon to be our nation’s vice-president.  The potential Supreme Court judges are unthinkably awful.  The choice of misogynist white nationalist Stephen Bannon as a lead presidential advisor is horrifying.  The steady-presence of Trump’s three spoiled and smug children acting as advisors is sickening.

I could go on but I won’t.

What we need is some good news.  In the midst of this mess, we do have leaders and thinkers who will hold the line, stand up to racism and hate, and otherwise show us a better path forward.  And so I offer this list of leaders with both the courage and perseverance to see us through the coming Trump Administration.

These folks are Democrats; my list isn't inclusive.  I'll have a Republican list out soon.  In the meantime, these people make me hopeful about the future.  

In the Senate:

Cory Booker of New Jersey

Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts

Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Kamala Harris of California(newly-elected)

Chris Murphy of Connecticut

Kirsten Gillibrand of New York

Charles Schumer of New York

Tim Kaine of Virginia

Tammy Duckworth of Illinois (newly-elected)

Richard Durbin of Illinois

Sherrod Brown of Ohio
Jeff Merkely of Oregon
Tom Carper of Delaware
Ron Wyden of Oregon
Mazie Hirono of Hawaii
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
Chris Van Hollen of Maryland (newly-elected)

In the House of Representatives:

John Lewis of Georgia

Elijah Cummings of Maryland

Nancy Pelosi of California

Adam Schiff of California

Frank Pallone of New Jersey
Mike Honda of California

Some impressive Democratic governors:

Jerry Brown - California

Andrew Cuomo - New York

John Hickenlooper - Colorado

John Wisniewski, candidate for Governor in New Jersey

A few mayors not taking any nonsense:

Rahm Emanuel in Chicago

Eric Garcetti in LA

Bill de Blasio - NYC

This is by no means an exhaustive list; it is a nice place to turn if you need hope.  Follow these folks on Twitter; pay attention when they give interviews.  Check out their websites.  Support them.  Know that they have courage and both the ability and willingness to lead us in a better direction, one based in inclusive diversity.  Know also that they will stand up to racism, sexism, xenophobia, and anti-GLBT policies.  That’s gonna matter moving forward.  Liberals, we aren’t alone; not by a long shot.