Finally. I have some time to myself to write. It has been a busy week here on the shores of the great lakes. Every six months the Hubs has doctor appointments. These include time to stop in for blood work and X-rays prior to the main event, which takes even more time. I am, though, extremely thankful for health insurance. We could never manage all this on our own. This past week was his kidney doc; next week is the heart doc. Me? I am not sure that I need to have my own regular appointment to manage. I should probably contact the office to find out.
Moving on, what has been on my mind? It’s the time of year that is difficult for me on a personal level. Between Thanksgiving and mid-January is the stretch of time when the people I love have passed. Count both parents and Hubs #1 in that. Most years I manage with only a small cloud overhead, but this year, for some reason, has started on the level of a thunderhead. This is when, at best, I am irritable, and at the worst, I resist the urge to curl up and let the world go by. Time to fire up the happy light again? Yes, I realize this sadness is to be expected, and yes, I ride this emotion knowing that it will pass. It happens from one degree to another every year. Still, something unexpected did happen.
There has been a series of commercials on television for a fitness center that features “the glow.” That is, the post-exercise glow one should have when the endorphins kick in. I have been going to the gym regularly now for about two years and while I do experience some satisfaction and a good feeling on leaving the gym, I have never thought of this as the “glow.” I enjoy the time in the gym, the ubiquitous Muzak notwithstanding, and have a regular routine that works for me. I have done this long enough that now I go to the gym even when I don’t really feel like it. It’s a positive habit. That’s a good think. Yesterday I went into the gym with that proverbial thunderhead following overhead, did the usual workout, rewarded myself with my nice warm shower and left. At some point during the walk back to the vehicle. I realized that the thunderhead was gone! Voila!This must bethe glow. So this is what it’s all about. It was like waking up in the morning, sensing that the envelope of warm air around your body includes your feet. Cool. While the initial glow has faded, the sense of well-being has not. This is interesting
I’ll take what I can get. The thunderhead has moved on. Even the little cloud is considerably smaller. Think that this is something closer to a puffy summer cloud that floats on by. I can live with this. Tomorrow is another gym day. I’m looking forward to learning whether the glow with show up again. What can I say? Go to the gym, burn a few calories, and then look forward to the best. I’ll take it.
Little by little I have gathered lines from my reading that, for one reason or another, have spoken to me. In class, I termed these “golden lines,” lines to save and to savor. Every so often, I am compelled to share. Today is one of those days. I hope that you, dear reader, will find one or two of these equally savory.
Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel had this to say about the word Holocaust:
The truth is that it’s an inappropriate word because no word can express this tragedy: no word can contain the humiliation, the suffering and the loss of human life that it is meant to encompass. We use it only because we can do no better.
Wiesel, Ellie, After the Darkness, p.5
I found a lovely little book by Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, that was a thoroughly enjoyable read. Typically Gaiman, it is full of mystery and the supernatural.
I did not know what to do when adults cried. . . Adults should not weep. They did not have mothers who would comfort them.
Gaiman, Neil, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, p. 123
When I worry about the state of the country, I generally think we would be better off if there were more women in charge. There would, I think, be a different sort of approach to governing: less testosterone, more collaboration. Women are the long haul trucks of life. Where men are all sorts of flash and go, I posit that women are really the stronger sex. Lord Cornwallis got it right:
We may destroy all the men in America, and we shall still have all we can do to defeat the women.
Roberts, Cokie, Founding Mothers, citing British general, Lord Cornwallis, p. 7
I have come to appreciate Gregory Maguire’s take on Oz and other fairy tales. I managed to read all four novels of the Oz series and found this little gem:
Words have their impact, girl. Mind your manners. I may not know how to fly, but I know how to read, and that’s almost the same thing.
Maguire, Gregory, Out of Oz, p.145
Not all lines come from books. In the hoo-hah of the leaked SCOTUS draft opinion about Roe v. Wade, Mara Gay, MSNBC contributor bitingly said this about the opinion:
Those who would repeal Roe v. Wade tell us ‘Your life doesn’t matter because you’re not a foetus.’
One of my favorite historians, Jon Meacham, just published his biography of Lincoln, And Then There Was Light. I managed to catch one of his pre-release interviews on television wherein the discussion regarded the greatest irony of these United States: in a place where we claim that “all men are created equal,” many of the founders were owners of enslaved people. While Meacham focused on Lincoln’s evolving attitude toward the enslaved, it should be said that Jefferson, author of that line, often comes up in these sort of discussions. Can we revere Jefferson’s thoughts in spite of Jefferson’s actions. While there is a much longer discussion to be had, I was gratified to learn from Meacham that during his lifetime, Jefferson’s own contemporaries did not like him. The attitude the nation has held toward Jefferson did not exist in his time. No, this bit of thought has nothing to do with Lincoln, but does address that one aspect of Jefferson that has been a touchstone for those who have fought for civil rights.
Why turn to the slave-owning Thomas Jefferson for counsel on how to live in the diverse world of a global age? The author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom was a patriarchal white supremacist; the third president of the United States and the founder of the University of Virginia had little interest in securing the rights of women and played a critical role in the disposition of native peoples from their lands.
And yet, and yet–so much of our history can be summed up in the phrase “and yet.” For all of his faults, Jefferson repays our attention. “I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringbolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it,” Frederick Douglass said in 1852. “The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by these principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all forces, and at whatever cost.”
Meacham, Jon, Annette Gordon-Reed, In the Hands of the People, pp.xii-xiv
Finally, one of my favorites–a response (a kinder one than “and so what about the theory of gravity?”) to those students who insist that evolution is “only a theory.”
A theory to scientists means something rather different from its popular use, which suggests something speculative or untested. A scientific theory is a cohesive body of knowledge, an explanation that is consistent along a range of cases and can allow you to predict what might happen in an unknown situation.
It took some time and some learning, but I have finally been bolder in my use of spices. I prefer savory to hot and I am willing to try things I haven’t tasted before. Love People; Cook Them Tasty Food is the text on my bumper sticker I keep in the back of the car. It came from my last visit to Penzy’s Spices, a local (and online) spice house where even a visit is so wonderful that I leave refreshed in spirit. Walk in. Take deep breath. Smile. The world is good.
Bill Penzy is also an activist. At the beginning of several school years, each teacher received a gift box of wonderful spice blends, complete with the aforementioned bumper sticker. I have appreciated his thoughts via email. His latest, on election day today, reflects his concern for the state of our democracy. I could write today about the same thing, but I find his words more direct and particularly to the point:
Maybe no political party is as virtuous as it wants to claim. But there was a time when the Republican party could at least bill itself as the party of financial responsibility, small government, defending democracy, supporting the troops, paying your bills, family values and even telling the truth. These values are now gone from the Republican party. And they didn’t fall, they were pushed. Maybe until now you’ve stayed with the Republicans hoping once Donald Trump was gone the Republican party of old would re-emerge. But two years later it’s clear even his sizable loss didn’t open the door to the party returning to its values but instead somehow managed to only accelerate the decline. Every political party through history has had its more extreme elements, but few have allowed the extremes to seize power and control the agenda. You saw with your own eyes what they did to Liz Cheney for keeping her word and honoring her oath to uphold the Constitution. This isn’t just not your father’s Republican party anymore, this isn’t your Republican party either. It’s been said elections have their consequences. Part of this is who gets elected, but equally important is how our votes define who we are as people. Who are you? What do you stand for? Do you really want children to have to carry their rapist’s children? Do you really want no exception for abortion to save the life of the mother? Do you really want gay friends and family members to fear for their marriages? Do you really want birth control to be a conversation between a woman, her doctor, and her local politician? No, of course not. So maybe this is the day you stop voting for all these things you don’t believe. Maybe today’s the day you stop waiting for a miracle and simply admit you are done with the nonsense, done with the cruelty and that you really just aren’t a Republican anymore. So what next? If you are in a spot where you feel safe to do it, I’ve heard from customers making the leap and telling the world the Republican party is no longer for you can be quite freeing. People will be excited to have you on our side. For those of you living more complex lives in less liberal communities with all the scary bits about what Republicans have become, there’s something to be said for starting out with a slightly stealthier approach. Maybe borrowing a page from the LGBTQ+ rural teen handbook and living a double life for a while is your safest bet. Ultimately this is more about who you are than about who others see you to be. Today who you vote for is far more important than who people think you voted for. I know this isn’t easy, but I think you may be surprised just how many of your old values have found a new home in the Democratic party. At the heart of conservatism is the belief in passing on an at least as good of a world to future generations as the one we inherited. To achieve this we must preserve the environment, education, and equal rights. To think, the Republican party was started to end slavery. Times change. Please don’t let yourself be locked into continuing to vote for what you don’t believe in. Both our nation and our planet face serious issues that can’t wait another decade to be addressed. You being among kindred spirits where you no longer have to hide your empathy and compassion just to fit in is the first step toward preserving what’s good about this world. Come join in. You are welcome. Plus, our side has the tastier treats 🙂
Today, November 8–election day—Penzy’s Spices is one of several businesses that have closed for the day so that their employees have all the time they need to cast a ballot. They do not need to choose between earning a living and being an active citizen. What can I say? There are good words for employers like Bill—and even better, these are good places to spend one’s dollars.
One of my late husband’s sayings was “Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.” He used it whenever we observed some behavior that was so incredible that it defied any other sort of explanation. One day, having had some spare time, I google-searched that line and came across an Isaac Asimov novel, The Gods Themselves. It has an interesting structure, opening with Chapter 6, then using chapter 6 as an overview for chapter 1. The timeline bounces back an forth–a chapter 6 overview of chapter 2, then a chapter 6 overview of chapter 3 and so on. The novel itself is written in three sections, each taken from the line my husband used so often. Against Stupidity takes place on Earth, TheGods Themselves is set in a parallel universe, and Contends in Vain is set in a lunar colony. the structure takes some getting used to, but it was worth the effort. Some of Asimov’s characters reminded me of the issues involved in Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy–the parallel universe features three distinct genders, all of which are necessary for procreation. By the end of the novel, I was nodding in agreement with the title, and once again, with the husband I have lost.
An easier read is Stephanie Dray’s The Women of Chateau Lafayette. The novel is based on a true story of the women who have protected a castle in France. Dray takes us a journey that involves the women who have protected the castle and its denizens, focusing on Adrienne Lafayette, wife of the Marquise De Lafayette–yes, that marquise who helped the colonies defeat the world’s most formidable colonial power. She works to assist her husband, but when threatened with the guillotine during the French revolution, she has to make a choice. The second woman, 1914’s Beatrice Chanler, a New York socialite takes up the work of convincing the United States to enter the Great War after seeing firsthand the devastation in France. Finally, the novel moves into the 1940s where we find Marthe Simone, an orphan who had grown up in Chateau Lafayette. Independent, resilient, an artist and a teacher, Marthe Simone survives during the Nazi occupation of France, learning important lessons about who she is and who she is willing to be. Dray weaves these histories together, little by little revealing to the reader the bits and pieces of history that becomes so important to 1940s Marthe. It’s a big book at 576 pages, but well worth the time it takes to read it. Yes, a hangover worthy book.
Madam, by Phoebe Wynn is one of those British-boarding-school books, set this time on the rocky cliffs of Scotland. A prestigious institution, Caldonbrae Hall occupies an ancient castle and has an equally ancient reputation for excellence. Into this setting comes Rose Cristie, 26, who is first intimidated by the reputation of the school, where all women are addressed as Madam. Though the school has a reputation for preparing girls to be resilient and ready for the future, not all is as it seems and while Rose seeks to adjust her feminist, pragmatic mindset to the philosophy of the school, there is much that seems awry. This includes whatever has happened to her predecessor. It is a dark, yes gothic, novel that kept me turning the pages to discover the real secrets behind Caldonbrae Hall. Pour a cup of tea, curl up, and settle in. Madam is quite a ride.
Susan Power’s collection of essays, Roofwalker, is about as far from the life of Caldonbrae Hall as one can get. Susan Power is a Standing Rock Sioux whose fiction and nonfiction essays she considers both “stories” and “histories.” I loved this collection in which Power focuses on the intersection of Native culture in urban settings. While I like them all, “First Fruits” was by far my favorite. If I were still in the classroom, I would use this with my upperclassmen because of its focus on a student’s first year at Harvard, where she encounters the issues of being Native in Cambridge. Another entry, wherein the protagonist and her mother visit Chicago’s Field Museum where they find the dress of an ancestor is equally compelling. This collection, like Braiding Sweetgrass, I plan to add to the shelf.
Finally, consider The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. On the best seller list for some time, The Vanishing Half features twin sisters who have run away from their small southern town when they are sixteen. Years later, one twin has returned to her home town and lives there with her black daughter. The other lives elsewhere and passes for white. Her white husband and daughter have no idea of her past. Covering a span of 40 years as well as the distance from the deep south to California, the novel is about far more than the issues of lies and truth, given that lies and truth have implications for future generations as much as they do about survival in the moment. As withMarie Benedict and Victorian Christopher Murray’s The Personal Librarian, the issue and implications of passing is fraught with danger. It has to be like living on a knife’s edge. Having weighed the advantages and the risks, it has to be a difficult choice.
I had two errands today: one, to put the Hub’s ballot in the mail and two, to go in person to vote early. I was going to wait until election day next week to enjoy the ritual of in-person-on-election-day voting. Then I decided that there was nothing that was going to happen in the next few days that would change my mind about my choices, so off to the local early voting place I went.
We have been lucky lately in that there have been only a few robo-calls from the campaigns. For some reason, every robo-call has been from the Republican side. There was a moment, however, when I got a call from a real person who was canvassing for Ron Johnson. Now I am, for the most part, a reasonable person, but this call sent me off the rails. I believe that democracy calls for participation. Ergo, I had written to both Wisconsin senators during the infrastructure debate. These were not cut and paste emails, these were carefully crafted to address each senator’s stance, using arguments each senator had presented. It took some time and some thought to develop these. I heard from Tammy Baldwin’s office about forty-five minutes later. I am still waiting to hear from Ron Johnson’s office. To that end, I let the person on the other end of the line know what I thought about Johnson’s apparent choice to serve only those citizens whose position supported his thinking. He seems to care only about some rather than all of those in his constituency. Yes, I confess, my tone of voice was angry. I didn’t even get to mention Johnson’s sycophantic behavior in relation to the twice-impeached disgraced former president. I didn’t get to mention that no, I refuse to take equine de-worming medicine or any sort of drug that wasn’t approved by the FDA for use against COVID. I didn’t get to mention that vaccines were good thing. Never mind Johnson’s stance on Social Security and Medicare as a Ponzi scheme. No. I spoke my introductory remarks, got an angry response from some female who probably had had enough of people like me, and then did something I generally don’t do. I hung up. Firmly. (Boom)
For the antidote to that adventure, I listened to President Obama talk to crowds in Michigan and Wisconsin yesterday. (Thank you, C-Span.) I heard what was essentially the same speech twice with some variations in names and in his response to the crowd. The Hubs didn’t understand, I think, why I did that. It wasn’t for anything more than the need for some hope and a bit of change. As a choice, it was better than watching football. These days I find the NFL more difficult to watch. Yes, bring on Barack and bring on Michelle. I could use me some quality rhetoric. The fact that I agree with them is beside the point. In the end, Barack Obama takes us to the church of the republic. He reminds us what needs to be done to move us forward on the path to a more perfect union. Don’t Boo. Vote. Put down the remote. Put down the phone. Get off the couch. Vote.
“Mu daughter is seven, and some of the other second grade parents complain that their children don’t read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children’s’ rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent’s rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says ‘PRIVATE–GROWNUPS KEEP OUT’; a child sprawled on the bed, reading.”
Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
I came across Anne Fadiman’s thoughts a few weeks ago; it took a bit of time to sort out my response to them. Finally, after this past, crazy week in which I was unable to post for lack of library time, I finally have a chance to put my thoughts together. None of them, dear reader, should be surprising. I was a passionate reader as a child. On beautiful days, Mom would kick me out of the house saying “It’s beautiful. Go outside.” Sometime she would add “and play,” but often she didn’t. Little me would pick up my book, take a seat on the top step of the porch and return to whatever adventure in which I had been engrossed before being interrupted. I have always been a reader. There was a meme out there that relates to reading as staring at the remnants of dead trees and hallucinating and one certainly could make an argument for that. On the other hand, such an approach to so wonderful a thing as reading seems so cynical. Reading is power.
Our house had books. Our house had two daily newspapers: one morning, one evening. While, after a long day of work outside the house, Mom sat down every evening after dinner for a smoke, a coffee, and the newspaper. On the shelves in the living room were collections of the World’s Greatest Literature, a five volume collection of the novels of Pearl S. Buck, and the Collected Children’s Classics. We eventually got a set of World Book Encyclopedias that I loved to browse through. I don’t remember learning to read. I had some chair time with my sisters and the Little Golden Books and then, somehow, I took over on my own. I had plenty of examples of my sisters with books in their hands. When I was five, I joined my eldest sister in the attic bedroom. When I was eight, she was off to college and I had the room to myself. What a joy! She let me have the light that snapped onto the headboard for nighttime reading.
The attic room meant several things, among them, a distinct lack of supervision as to how long I read into the night. I didn’t need to use a flashlight; I had the headboard lamp. More than once I woke in the morning, book in hand and light still on, having fallen asleep at some point. Eventually Mom caught on to my post-bedtime adventures and would walk out to the sidewalk to look up to see if the light was still on. Only then would she come up to shut things down. The attic room came with a large old book case. Two shelves contained my collection of equine figurines, two shelves held my personal collection of books, earned one by one by babysitting at the grand price of fifty cents an hour.
It was in high school that I discovered that not all reading was for pleasure and adventure. Luckily for me, I came to enjoy Dickens and loved Shakespeare. I even loved The Scarlet Letter. (Loved Hester and Pearle; hated Dimmesdale.) Perhaps all of the hours with my nose in a book gave me the breadth of knowledge to come to enjoy the “older” authors. Our high school had an unusual rule: No paperbacks in study hall without permission. Permission meant that one’s English teacher had to sign the book. I came to my freshman English teacher with a copy of Orwell’s Animal Farm for his signature. A new teacher, he said that he had to check with his colleague next door because he knew one Orwell was not for study hall. Returning, he signed my paperback, saying that it was Orwell’s 1984 that he was not supposed to permit. The public library was just down the block and across the street from my high school campus. After school that day I immediately went in, searched on my own, and found a hardcover copy of the forbidden book. What can I say? I was curious and resourceful. Animal Farm could wait.
When we played transcriptions of opera overtures in band, I would go to the library, listen to the original orchestral version and read the synopsis in Milton Cross’ Great Opera Stories. I thought other students did the same. It came as a big surprise to me when I learned otherwise. I thought everyone would do that, would want to know what it was we were playing. Small, self-motivated forays into research came in handy. I learned my way around any variety of sections in the large central library well before I needed to know.
Life got busy, as it always does. For a time I lived in a town without a library. Picture a desert. It was sad–I was sad. I managed. My post-grad-school life consisted of work and books. Living single and living frugally allowed me to buy whatever books and music I wanted. The only problem with that is having to move all those books and LPs from one place to another. I eventually sold most of the books, kept the LPs and dove into motherhood. Motherhood and career took more time than ever, but when it came to reading with my little one, we read. We read those Little Golden Books–the Pokey Little Puppy and the Saggy Baggy Elephant were favorites. Then we found them on video as well and added Scuppers the Sailor Dog to the collection. The wonderful thing about reading to children is that we get to revisit those moments of longer ago that were so pleasurable. Rumpus! Rumpus! Rumpus!
So yes, I grew up in a household that valued reading. My son grew up in a household that valued reading. We may not have had books on the toilet tank, but there was the moment when going through toilet training, I found my son pacing around the living room. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I have to pee and I need a magzagene,” says he. Apples and trees. Even now I rarely go into the bathroom without some reading material in my hand. Yes, children do as we do, not as we say. We may prohibit certain words, but when Grandma uses them while driving, it’s easy for little people to pick them up. Other words, words we find in books, enrich our ability to express ourselves, to make analogies, to understand allusions. Life without these connections means we might not get the entire message or the joke. I cannot imagine my life without the books I have come to love. . .and the books that are yet to be discovered. We read for information, for “how to” directions, but the greatest of the experience of the book is the pleasure we derive from the journey on which the author takes us.
I have always found television advertisements interesting and sometimes entertaining. There is one, however, that has gotten me thinking about the accuracy of its approach. T. Rowe Price, an investment firm that claims to be staffed by the retirement professionals has a new advertisement out that is all warm and fuzzy and, yes, I think fuzzy in its thinking. The ad opens with a review of the things that we will always remember: the purchase of our first car; the purchase of our first house; the purchase of a strange, furry floor lamp. But, the ad goes on, some things last forever, like love, happiness, and confidence. My thought was Really?
This might be my inner Buddhist speaking, but nothing last forever. Literally nothing. Not love. Not happiness. Not confidence. That is not to say that I am feeling nihilistic, I simply think the world and its peoples are in a constant state of change and that all change is not necessarily transformational. The challenge is to see the transition, understand it, then move forward with it. In simple terms, ride the wave. Bruce Lee said it–be the water. Water I understand.
One of the reasons I live where I do is that we are blessed with water. Water is calming, enervating, amazing. Water both gives and takes life. It manifests change. It plays a part in creation and in destruction. We are carried in an internal sea and born on a wave. We learn Socrates’ approach to change: “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on the fighting the old, but on building the new.” So it is that we deal with change.
Love, happiness, and confidence are not permanent. The Hubs I married almost 40 years ago is not the same Hubs I am with today. He is in the same body, but my feelings have changed. Less fire, more warmth. Happiness? For me, happiness lies more in contentment, in gratitude, in a feeling of connectedness to the world and the universe. It’s not the whoop-de-do feeling of having my favorite team win a World Series, though I have enjoyed that feeling. Confidence? It takes a long time to build confidence but it can be destroyed in a moment. Harsh words, a lack of encouragement or support, neglect, can all destroy whatever confidence may have been built. We can go long stretches feeling strong, feeling confident, but it goes without saying that confidence is a more fragile thing than we want to admit. Any sort of stretch of personal disasters can shatter it. Once lost, it takes time to rebuild.
On the other hand, another close listening to the commercial reveals that we should invest in love, happiness, and confidence. These things are worth investing in and therefore, like love, happiness, and confidence, we should choose to invest with T. Rowe Price because the company is whatever: trustworthy, smart, and maybe confident. Now investing in love, happiness, and confidence makes sense. When we invest in these things, we work at them. We pay attention and nurture these things. I understand that side of this. Nevertheless, it shouldn’t take several listenings to catch that one sentence in this commercial that uses the word invest in relation to the love, happiness, and confidence triad. Perhaps I am overthinking or perhaps it’s all the years teaching rhetoric that enables me to analyze on the spot, but then again, I missed what was an important single word. On the other hand, think about how many times I have paid attention to this advertisement. Someone out there might be happy about that.
Much on my mind lately is the Russian threat to use nukes against Ukraine. There are those who have said about President Biden’s comment that we are closer to Armageddon than any time other than the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. I agree with him. While President Putin says that the US has set a precedent in 1945, he neglects to consider what we learned about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: turning the atomic monster loose means mutual assured destruction for all of us. It is no understatement we use the acronym MAD when we discuss the use of nuclear weapons. Thank goodness the movie Fail Safe was not a documentary.
Putin also needs to remember that he started this war. His use of tactical nukes is an offensive use of the weapon. I mean that in both senses of the word. The US used the atomic bombs to end a war in which the US had been attacked first. The argument goes on as to whether their use was necessary, but it goes without saying that even though the cost was great and the ramifications across recent history potentially world-ending, Japan surrendered.
I and my generation lived through that Cuban missile crisis. I was in eighth grade at the time. I came home from school, flipped on the television to discover the 1962 equivalent of breaking news. Mom came home some time later, about as discombobulated as I have ever seen her. This was a woman who was good in a crisis, but her anxiety bled off her spirit in waves. During the years leading up to this moment, we had family discussions as to what to do if we were in school and my parents were at work and something like this happened. Where were we to go? The parents made plans. My classmates and I all wore stainless steel ID bracelets that would supposed to identify us in case we were hurt or killed by the blast. Yes, early on in our school years, we ducked and covered. Like hiding under a desk would keep us safe or that a stainless steel ID bracelet would survive.
In October of 1962, the reality was that a terrible accident could happen. It was like the ending of the Arthurian legends. No one knows how that mythical last battle started, but start it did. In the flames of a nuclear attack, there would be no one left to record the last battle. The second day of the crisis, we went to school as usual. Mom and dad went to work, knowing that somehow we would get through this. I have no memory of how that school day went, though I remember that President Kennedy had declared the blockade of Cuba and that our neighbor’s son was on a ship that was designated to enforce the blockade.
Whenever we discussed the family what-to-do plan, Mom always concluded with the thought that this plan was important, that we were capable of carrying it out, and that though the route would be difficult, we would get through it. She also felt that God wouldn’t let us do anything stupid. Somehow things would work out. Truly, things have. I don’t have her faith. Given that God introduced genocide in 40 days and nights of rain, I am not all that confident that he would not finally think to step back and allow us to destroy ourselves. Not rain, but fire.
The Doomsday clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight in January of 2022 and, to my knowledge, has not been changed. If I remember correctly, the powers that be who control the clock change it only at the turn of the year. Nevertheless, it seems that we are much closer to midnight today than we were in January. There are so many issues we face that we have created on our own that it is easy to be overwhelmed by them. Yes, history has taught me that things work out. We go through some turmoil and then things come back to level. The world seeks stasis. I had been hoping that we would make progress in dealing with the climate crisis when Putin invaded Ukraine. Now I hope that wiser heads will prevail. Somewhen the men who currently run the world will get over themselves and that the pissing contest will end. The question is not only when, but how.
I spent some time reflecting on my recent entry about the midterm elections. At some point my wandering mind took me to Wagner’s comic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nuremburg. Briefly, this is one of those fairy tale stories where the hand of the lovely maiden (Eva), daughter of the local goldsmith, has been promised to the man who wins a Master singer’s song contest. Of course, Eva has already fallen for a newcomer in town, Walther von Stolzing, who (unfortunately) is not a member of the Guild. Enter Hans Sachs, the cobbler and the wise man of the city who helps Walther navigate the intricate and arcane rules of master singing. Walther has stumbled badly by adding his own elements in act one and is humiliated. By act four, Walther creates his own original song that ultimately wins the contest and the hand of the fair Eva. Rather than Wagner’s 20-hour Ring cycle, it was Die Meistersingers that our music history prof had us study. Study and know all the leitmotifs (yes, there was a test) and come to understand how Wagner constructed the musical fabric of the opera.
The title of this musing, Wahn, Wahn, überall Wahn, comes from Hans Sachs’ aria at the beginning of act three. Act one had ended with a disastrous audition by Walther as scored by the local town clerk, Beckmesser. In the consternation and confusion of the end of the first two acts, Hans takes time to reflect on what has happened, singing Wahn, Wahn, überall Wahn*: Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness. Hans stands between two ideas–that of the traditions that have formed the foundations of the Meistersingers and the opportunity to admit some fresh air in the person of Walther, who can transmogrify a staid society and bring new energy to the Guild with his own creativity. Indeed. Walther’s aria is a prize song.
So where does all of this stand in relation to midterm political advertisement fatigue? Perhaps nowhere, given that the midterm elections have absolutely nothing to do with Wagnerian opera. What this snippet of baritone aria does do is offer a means of expression of my general attitude toward the political landscape of the country, a musical accompaniment for my fears for our experiment in self-government. You may, dear reader, have your own personal soundtrack for this moment of your life, but for me the falling notes of the opening phrase say it all.
In 2010, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart held The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington DC. The two men combined their ostensibly separate rallies into one in which the arch-conservative Colbert was led to the light by clearly more liberal Stewart. The rally itself was organized as a counterweight to a a rally held two weeks earlier by Fox news commentator Glen Beck: Restoring Honor. The Colbert/Stewart rally was fun, full of good music, banter, with a crowd in which many wore costumes and carried clever signs. Clever signs rather than angry, often expletive-filled signs. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the rally on television and even now, wish I had been there.
What a difference a decade (or so ) makes.
I think of the current midterm campaign as the campaign to instill fear and anxiety. Really. There has been enough mud slung in the television ads to build an adobe McMansion. One candidate says that the other has released criminals onto our streets, then lists the numbers–so many murderers, so many thieves, so many child rapists. Cue the ominous music. The other candidate says the party of the first part is lying, that he doesn’t want to defund the police, that he wants safe streets and safe neighborhoods. One candidate owns a construction company where women in the work force were groped, assaulted, and told they had to acquiesce to sexual favors to get ahead. There were comments on a conservative talk radio station that women had to expect that–the equivalent of boys will be boys. What did those women expect?
Dignity? Worth? Respect?
Then there is the obvious threat Mr. Owner of the Company poses in a state where there is much infrastructure to be built. Mr. Owner of the Company happens to own a company that, among other things, builds roads. Does this sound ripe for more corruption in government or am I overthinking here? Oh–and then Mr. Owner of the company won’t tolerate crime on our streets. He never says what he will do about it, but it feels like martial law under the National Guard hangs over our collective heads. He is strongly anti-abortion, even to the extent that there are no exceptions for rape or incest, much less the life of the mother, but if the voice of the people of our good state, as represented by the GOP dominated and enabled-through-gerrymandering, legislature decided to make those exceptions, he (in all his wisdom and law-abiding goodness) would sign the bill.
Gee, thanks.
The Hubs is so disgusted, he doesn’t want to vote. Me. I am so disgusted, I am voting. No, I don’t like either candidate. I don’t like either of our candidates for US senate, but I think I am voting for the candidate I dislike least. The incumbent never responded to a letter I sent during the infrastructure debate. I’m still waiting how many months later. Ergo, he responds to those who agree with him. I can’t shout “off with his head”; I can cast my vote for his opponent. I think it all comes down to turnout.
Yes, for me, the driving issue is the threat to our democracy and to women.
In the end, I want this to be over. I want the cannonade of fear, anger, anxiety, to stop. I want to have the commercial airwaves left to the insurance salesmen and the ambulance-chasing lawyers. It has been written that this is the most expensive state campaign ever. I believe it. It’s the producers of ads and the media making the money through selling air time. Hey, someone is making out. I look forward to the post election day break in the gloom and cynicism. I suspect that we might get, perhaps, 72 hours of peace and tranquility before the 2024 drumbeat starts up.
Musings 
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