no exit

by bam

there seems so little worth my saying these days. the stock markets plunge. the pink slips abound. research labs, the ones that might save lives, are all but padlocked. it’s been argued that measles might be cured with megadose of good ol’ vitamin A, and why not wipe out bird flu by letting it run rampant? (i could not find either fix in my old nursing texts, circa 1976.) 

the urge for me to go mum and wait it out has never felt stronger. i use my political voice in other realms, but feel reticent to bring it here, which has brought me a wee bit of backlash from one or two who think i ought to use this platform as a public square for political discourse. 

i’ve always considered this a space away from the melee, a place where we play by otherworldly rules of kindness, gentleness, mercy. (over my dead body, those will never be abandoned—here or elsewhere.) the mission here, from the very start, has been to train our focus on the timeless truths that course through the quotidian. politics, as worldly as it gets, is messy. by definition, a battle of wills and ways. there’s little room for sacred, and sacred is my aim.

maybe 1,217 posts in 220 months is far exceeding my welcome. maybe the age of trump is my flashing exit sign. but maybe that’s false surrender. 

maybe i’m just too chicken to face the backlash sure to come even if i try to frame my arguments in civil discourse. the flummox here is that the ones i love who see things another way, they are not hearing the same news i am. that’s the breakdown. or a breakdown. the definition of trusted news source seems to have brittled over the years. when i say trusted, i mean objectively combing through the facts, listening to a swath of voices, each expert in her field. (being a talk show host, or a peddler of ivermectin does not make you an expert, in any way, shape, or forum.) and, forgive my peculiarities, but i like my facts delivered without sass, or ridicule, or put-down. vengeance makes me rhymes-with-comet.

“trusted” in the age of trump seems to mean “you see things the way i do, so i will choose to listen to you.” and, by the way, “i’ll trust you’ve done our homework.” all else is evil. is out to get us. is symptom of demented mind.

we cannot converse if our words and thoughts and big ideas whiz by on orbits all their own. and without a grain of truth to stand on, we’re not standing and we have no standing. if i’m in my silo, and you’re in yours, and ne’er the twain shall meet, then we might as well build a wall and cut the continent in half. you take mountains, we’ll take prairie. no one gets the five great lakes. 

even my propensity for gathering bits of poetry and prose is feeling rather flimsy. is it hyperbole to say we’re on the verge of the collapse of democracy? what to call the dismantling of a century of intricate, mold-breaking science and biotechnology? what happened to the beatitudes—blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, the meek, the merciful? whither the golden rule: love as you shall be loved? be it in africa, or gaza, or ukraine; in blue cities, red swaths, or canada or mexico or greenland? 

though i’m tempted to hold back on poetries this week, to leave this simply as a placeholder, i shall forge quietly ahead with one or two worth tucking in your noggin.

Once upon a time,
When women were birds,
There was the simple understanding
That to sing at dawn
And to sing at dusk
Was to heal the world through joy.
The birds still remember what we have forgotten,
That the world is meant to be celebrated.

–When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

from my friends at SALT Project, a bit of anne lamott (whose birthday is april 10) laid out in verse form. this is from an interview in 2011 with NPR’s michele norris, a once-upon-a-time chicago tribune writer, who asked annie how the meaning of easter had changed for her over the years:

When I was 38,
my best friend, Pammy,
died, and we went shopping
about two weeks before she died,
and she was in a wig
and a wheelchair. 

I was buying a dress
for this boyfriend I was trying to impress,
and I bought a tighter,
shorter dress than I was used to.
And I said to her,
“Do you think this makes my hips look big?”
and she said to me, so calmly,
“Anne, you don’t have that kind of time.” 

And I think Easter has been about
the resonance of that simple statement;
and that when I stop,
when I go into contemplation and meditation,
when I breathe again and do the sacred action
of plopping and hanging my head
and being done with my own agenda, 

I hear that, ‘You don’t have that kind of time,’
you have time only to cultivate presence
and authenticity and service,
praying against all odds
to get your sense of humor back. 

That’s how it has changed for me.
That was the day my life changed,
when she said that to me.
+ Anne Lamott

and here’s a little nudge from former u.s. secretary of labor robert reich on speaking up in these tough times:

Every one of us has a town square. It may include our social media accounts, our local book club, or our dinner table. Use your town square to speak out in favor of democracy and against what [that which you see as anathema to decency]. Do not shy away from difficult conversations; seek them out. Engage the curious. Educate those who seek information. We all have a role to play, so don’t assume your voice is too faint or your platform too small.

point taken, mr. reich. point taken. i’ll talk decency anywhere and everywhere.

and finally, as i’ve spent these past few weeks tapping out a manuscript for what might be a book, i found these closing lines from WS Merwin’s poem remembering his mentor, John Berryman, to be well worth taking to heart:

I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t

you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write

do you remember the most beautiful thing you read this week, or saw this week, the thing that gave your heart a lift????