January 12, 2021
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Where We Stand

When I was in school, we had a name for those kids who repeatedly lied, cheated, brown-nosed, back-stabbed, grand-standed, and otherwise tried to make themselves into something they were not. We called them “fakers.” Not quite yet old enough, or sophisticated enough, to recognize personality disorders as such, we nevertheless intuitively knew that such people were trouble, were dangerous and disingenuous and not to be trusted. 

     “Kids keep you honest,” I used to say when I taught high school. “They can smell a fake a  mile away, and will call you out on it, even if the faker is the teacher.” Unfortunately, it seems a lot of those kids lost that ability as they grew up. And so the nation elected as a president someone who has spent his life promoting a brand and projecting an image of what he is not. We elected a faker.

     Originally I had planned to write a humorous post this month, a spoof on the more outlandish conspiracy theories as a farewell commentary on the craziness and nonsense that has flooded the airwaves and infiltrated social media for so many months, even years, during the Trump administration. Surely, after a 7,000,000 voter repudiation of “the Faker” and an Electoral College decision, we could clear our heads, return to reason, and learn to laugh again.

     And then the siege of the Capital happened. And no matter how the Trumpsters are trying to spin it even now, this was not meant to be a peaceful protest, it did not simply evolve into a spontaneous explosion of emotion, and it was not instigated by Antifa;  it was a planned, orchestrated attempt to take over the country, as the t-shirts on the chests of some protestors proclaimed: “MAGA Civil War, Jan. 6, 2021.” These people were hell-bent, incited by a fake leader who came out to rile them up and urge them to storm the Capitol (where he did not, as promised, join them).  It was his last-ditch effort to overturn a legitimate election, one that has gone on way too long, but one that has been recounted, upheld, certified, and supported by state and local election officials, and validated by over 60 federal court cases and two Supreme Court pronouncements. We had an all-out insurrection over fake claims of a landslide by a fake president, a sore loser who refuses to relinquish power.

     Who would have believed  it would come to this? Evidently, no one, given the expressions of shock and surprise by so many of his congressional allies and the crocodile tears of disappointment and dismay by so many of his followers. 

      What fakers! All these people who looked the other way and refused to stand up, who rationalized their support (and votes) for a higher purpose (anti-abortion, judgeships, etc.), or who simply aligned themselves with him for their own personal gain and self-interest knew exactly what they were doing. How dare they feign shock and surprise now.  And the others, those MAGA mad hatters who are so disgruntled and aggrieved because they feel left out of mainstream (inclusive, multi-cultural) America, found the perfect leader who validated their anger and helped them feel empowered. They, too, knew exactly what they were doing. How dare they excuse the violence and mayhem in storming the Capitol by claiming to have just “gotten carried away with the moment,” as one pseudo-apologetic protestor did last week. 

     So, where do we stand now? According to news reports this morning, we stand at the precipice of an all-out civil war, with preliminary attacks on all fifty state capitols this weekend and the promise of open warfare on inauguration day. Thankfully, the safety of members of congress has been assured: they have been informed that the cost of bullet-proof vests is fully tax deductible. I feel better already. They can return to the Capitol to continue to debate impeachment and removal of the Faker from office until well into the next administration, if there is one.  

     There are 74,000,000 million people in this country who voted for Donald Trump. Some of them are friends and relatives of mine and, contrary to what the far left might have us believe,  they aren’t all stupid, even if they have forgotten some of those adolescent schoolyard lessons from school. A good many of them are just plain gullible, the kind of people who have been the easy marks of hucksters and charlatans, and dictators, for centuries; others, sadly too many perhaps, simply fall into the category of “good men doing nothing” while evil spreads. The point is that they, and we, are all Americans and most of us aren’t going anywhere else anytime soon. But, it is going to take a combined commitment from all of us, not just elected officials, to heal the wounds, repair the fissures in our democracy, and undo the damage this administration has wrought both at home and abroad. I pray the country can last that long.

    As for the Trumpster, reparations for his actions will be exacted from where it will hurt him the most, not from the loss of any Republican party clout or restrictions from holding office, but from the erosion of his brand, the defection of his financiers, the demise of his golf clubs and hotels, the onslaught of civil and criminal lawsuits, the outstanding debts that will come due, and the ultimate true revelations about his assets and liabilities. “God walks slowly,” an elderly friend of mine used to say, “but He always catches up to you.”

     And God is not a faker.

December 31, 2020
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Channeling Ebenezer

The period between Christmas and New Year’s is always a time for reflection as we relegate what was to the past, anticipate what might be in the future, and struggle for a clearer perspective in the present. We may not have the benefit of ghosts to guide us as Scrooge does in A Christmas Carol, nor do our transformations generally happen in only one night, but we all have visions and memories and nightmares to inform us just the same, if only we will pay attention.

     This is especially true this year. 2020 will go down not as one long night, but as one long year of visions, memories, and nightmares living under the specter of death. That constant reminder of our own mortality, every day on the news and in our own communities, prompts more than a fleeting moment of reflection on what really matters — even among those who persist in the belief that Covid is a hoax (“…until they get it,” as one ER doctor quipped on TV).

     So, okay, we can all agree that 2020 has been a horrible year. Between the Covid pandemic, the political divisiveness and ugliness, the racial strife and violence, the economic woes and catastrophic effects on individual families and businesses, not to mention the fires and hurricanes and other natural disasters, it seems as though all the worst ghosts of Christmases past, present and future have visited us all at once. And we struggle to make sense of it all, to gain some personal insights about ourselves, and to find some positive lessons going forward into the new post-Covid normal, whatever and whenever that may be. 

     Back in March, my initial response to the sudden upending our lifestyle was one of extreme busyness around the house. Let me at least tackle these over-stuffed drawers and clothes closets while I have the time, I figured, as I unpacked my luggage from our suddenly cancelled Australia trip. Thus began a furious streak of cleaning out, clearing out, and giving away.  In a matter of weeks, I had gone through the whole house, even through storage bins out in the garage. I felt lighter and primly efficient by letting sensible answers to basic questions guide my purge: Will I ever wear high heels again, or need china place settings for 24, or use old lesson plans? Will I ever press flowers, make tassels, weave ribbons, decorate birthday cakes, paint in oils or acrylics, do decoupage, make draperies or upholster furniture again? Gradually, the answers to those questions revealed more than just a no-nonsense verdict for disposal.

     It occurred to me that being at home during a pandemic — with limited mobility, little social interaction, few unnecessary outings, no travel, no shopping, no dining out, no theatre or concerts or crowded events — is exactly what old age is like.  It is life reduced and restricted.  In culling my possessions, I had to come to terms with my age and stage in life, with what I can’t, and probably won’t, do ever again.  As it turns out, that may be okay. Growing old is a privilege after all, not a curse — especially when considered in a year of so much untimely death. 

     From evaluating the whens, wheres, and hows of my personal possessions day after day, a  vision emerged of a life well lived and deep gratitude grew for all I have experienced and all those whom I have known. Odd how the simple, but deliberate act of cleaning out material possessions can move one to spiritual insights, but that is exactly what happened. I realized that I have no regrets whatsoever about how I’ve lived my life, and that were I to die tomorrow (which I certainly hope won’t be the case), I could only be profoundly thankful for the wonderful life I’ve had.   

     Now I have never been what you could even remotely call a peaceful person, neither on the inside or the outside. A Type A to the nth degree, I have always been animated and busy, my mind wandering in a thousand different directions, my attention focused on “what’s next” rather than what is now or what was then. My Mother’s life-long, and  ultimately dying, wish for me was that I might find a sense of peace one day. I always dismissed that as impossible, saying “I just wasn’t born a peaceful soul.” 

     Isn’t it ironic, then, that in this year of such universal chaos and fear, death and destruction, anger and violence, I have become more calm and collected than I have ever been— dare I even say “peaceful?”  I have been able to focus intellectually and to produced some satisfying creative work. I have stepped back from the passions of divisive politics and come to accept that which I alone cannot change. Rather than causing resentment and depression, the Covid-induced time-out has actually given me a quiet space in which to reevaluate not just my possessions, but also my activities, my faith, and my relationships going forward. I have learned what I can do without; more importantly, I have learned that everything I really need is right here at home.

     Scrooge’s overnight transformation made him into a person who no longer feared death because he had learned from the spirits how to live. “His own heart laughed,” Dickens writes, “and that was quite enough for him.” My encounter with the ghosts of 2020 has not been as dramatic as Ebenezer’s perhaps, but it has produced a very real change in attitude toward acceptance and appreciation of the present without undue fear and dread of the future. Do I miss my friends and family members and hope to be able to visit them again in person sometime soon? Certainly. Do I dream of another fabulous trip and hope to wear my Outback hat in the Outback one day? Absolutely. Am I over the nightmares about what might happen next and anxiety attacks over what I can’t control? I can’t be sure, but I have to trust in a peaceful heart. 

     And if I can do that, maybe I have not the ghosts of 2020,  but the spirit of my Mother to thank.

December 12, 2020
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Oh Tannenbaum!

  As it has been for the last several years, our tree this year is a 10 foot Nordmann fir that came in from Oregon. Over the last few years, Nordmann firs have become our favorite because they have softer needles and resist shedding as the tree dries — a real plus in the hot, dry climate of Texas even in December. We got it up a little earlier this year, since our local nursery only gets a limited shipment of taller, unique variety trees, and because a run on real trees in this pandemic year was being predicted (and has, in fact, occurred). Anyway, it is a beautiful tree, full and perfectly shaped, though our son had to haul it home for us in his Ford F150 and help us set it up. 

     I am one of those rare people who has had a real, live Christmas tree every year of my life, no matter where I lived. Not to say that they have all been as beautiful and regal and this one, but still… When I was a girl, our tree was always purchased from the local Optimist Club lot set up downtown. A dear family friend worked that sale every year, and he would set aside a nice tree for my Mother and me and then help us get it secured into the trunk of the car. (The tree was never that large, maybe 5 feet or so, but remember that cars were big and trunks were roomy back in those days).

     I look at old photographs of Christmases growing up with those scrawny, wobbly trees decked out in multi-colored bubble lights, various kinds of glass ornaments, and wads of silver tinsel, and I have to laugh. Somehow, the tree was always leaning sideways — maybe because my Mother usually didn’t get the tree into the stand too securely, so she’d tie it to the wall with string. But no matter. That tree with its mishmash of colors and assorted decorations seemed magical, even as I got older, and it gave rise to our enduring tradition to “sit and enjoy the tree” with some hot chocolate, or something stronger.

     When my husband and I were first married and living in New York, we too bought a real tree from a civic group lot, but we chose a bigger, fuller Balsam. We (he) would tie the tree to the roof of our car and then, when we got to our building, the two of us would haul it upstairs to our apartment from the parking lot. We had no ornaments or decorations, of course, so we started from scratch shopping at a nursery that featured fabulous holiday displays. For some reason, we went with a pink-and-white sugarplum theme, along with tiny pink lights. By the time we left five years later, we had accumulated quite a collection, and so continued to decorate our main tree, and then eventually a second tree in larger houses, with all the sugarplum stuff. (I only finally gave up those bins of pink sugarplums, along with the idea of a full-size second tree, when we moved here about 10 years ago.) 

     Ah, but it was those 30 plus years living in Connecticut where our Christmas tree expertise and our New England winter style really evolved. In Stamford, our living room had a high, vaulted ceiling which easily accommodated 14+ foot tree, and we discovered tree farms where you could cut your own fresh tree. Our yearly sojourn became the Jones Family Tree Farms up-county in Shelton, CT.  Never mind that in the middle of December in Connecticut, with the wind and the cold and the snowy sleet, even the hot chocolate served up in the Homestead Barn wasn’t enough to warm the chill; we were determined to live the Norman Rockwell picture-perfect Christmas.

     At the Jones Farm  we were introduced to varieties of trees we had never encountered beyond just the Balsam. There were Frasers, Douglas, White Pine, and of course, the king of them all, the Blue Spruce. Initially, we opted for the magnificent Blue Spruce, with the slightly blue/grey color and the strong boughs that hold large ornaments comfortably. These trees are extremely heavy and the calibre of their trunks are quite large. We had Blue Spruce for quite a number of years until we could no longer lift them and could no longer abide the prickly nature of their needles. Then we switched to Frasier firs, lighter in weight and easier to handle.

     It was during these years when my Martha Stewart kicked in and that we went to a pheasant theme with bronze-brown accents. Large Martha glass ornaments, pheasant feathers, and bronze spiral drops became our dominant theme, and I even hand-painted the little white lights bronze and rust. (I was into glass painting at the time. ) You can’t really tell this on the photo above, but believe this compulsive person, those lights are painted!

     We discovered Nordmann firs here in San Antonio and, once again, we have a high ceiling which can accommodate a tall tree. Everything was fine until about five years ago when we got the tree stuck in the doorway and had to call a neighbor to help us get it in and up. Since we are still putting up a tall tree, we have had to enlist the help of our son. He doesn’t mind, bless him, but the time may be coming, as it did with the sugarplum  decorations and a second indoor tree, to say “Enough.”      

       So, while we have had a real tree all these years, my husband and I began to seriously discuss investing in a high quality artificial tree this year. But then we dithered about, ordered some sample branches of trees we were considering (which still haven’t arrived), and then decided that maybe we would go on and enlist our son’s help and struggle with a large live tree one last year. Now that it’s up, I’m glad we did. We can “sit and enjoy the tree” one more time and postpone the inevitable one more year.

November 25, 2020
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Look to the Light

     It has been a long year, for all of us, and hope and comfort have been in short supply. Thus, we have each been forced to find various ways to sustain ourselves. My way, as I have often talked about before, is my art, my art quilting and my writing. My creative endeavors have gotten me through many difficult periods in my life including this very long year because they are absorbing. Psychologists call it being “in the flow.” 

     But, flow or not, you can’t create when you are highly distracted, so you have to turn off your phone, tune out the TV, discount social media, and retreat into your own world of work. As chaotic and complicated and troubling as this year has been, some of us have managed to hunker down and produce, thus preserving our sanity and having something worthwhile to show for all these months spent at home. Ideally, we not only save our own sanity, but maybe we also contribute something to the larger community.

     “Look to the Light” (above) is created from my own photograph from the Glass Hall of the International Forum in Tokyo. I took this photo years ago when we went to Japan to launch a ship being named in honor of my husband and his work in the international shipping industry. In truth, though we have traveled far and wide, we would probably have not gone to Japan had it not been for this particular honor and opportunity; had we not, what a missed opportunity that would have been!  Japan is an exquisite country, and Tokyo a marvel of good manners, good design, and unfailing civility, particularly remarkable in a city of 37+ million people.

     My art quilts are usually designed from my own photographs, which are often of places, particularly buildings, with which I have special connections and which have left a lasting impression on me. This particular building in Tokyo did just that. Though the architect, Rafael Viñoly is not Japanese (he is Uruguayan-American), he managed to capture both the simple elegance of the Japanese aesthetic and the structural integrity of a building meant to serve real people in a dense urban environment.  I was so struck by this building when I was there, so moved by the experience of being it in, and so uplifted by the sheer beauty of the design, that I have never forgotten it. Nor have I ever abandoned a desire to capture this image in an art quilt.

     I have worked on this project most of all of this COVID year. The major challenges, and there were many, were ones of perspective and color values. My foundation photograph was excellent, if I say so myself, but even so, creating a representative piece in a totally different medium, especially in fabric, is not simply a matter of blowing up the image and making a pattern. This structure, after all, has been constructed by a renowned architect, so who am I to try to replicate his genius? But I do try.

     For me, the inspirational message  of this quilt is the uplifting spirit of hope, of  looking out from the darkness up to the light. I have finally, after much difficulty and anxiety, finished it and am submitting it to an international SAQA (Studio Art Quilts Association) competition for an exhibition called “Light.” As usual, I am proud that I made the deadline for submission (end of this month), but I am also proud of the work itself. It may be one of my best, and it is certainly my most memorable and representative 2020 project.

     The message here, for myself and everyone else, is best stated by UPS worker Ben Hertle of Maple Grove, MN: “Don’t give in to darkness and fear, there’s beauty everywhere.” (NBC, “Inspiring America” segment, 11/25/20) 

     And that is my wish for you this Thanksgiving: “Look to the light.”

November 13, 2020
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Comfort Cookies

 Mallomars are back on grocery shelves, just in time for cooler weather and a cup of afternoon tea. The little marshmallow and graham-cracker cookies coated with dark chocolate are released every September by Nabisco. From their beginnings in New Jersey way back in 1913, they were only sold from September through March, supposedly because of the warm weather risks of melting chocolate.  Today, of course, refrigerated trucks can easily alleviate that problem, but the fall and winter “Mallomar season” is now such a time-honored tradition that it has also become a valuable marketing ploy.

     Here in South Texas where hot days (and hurricanes, evidently) pay no attention to the calendar, Mallomars usually don’t appear in local markets much before early November, and even then, warm temperatures somewhere in transit can deliver us cookies with a “chocolate bloom.” (They are fine to eat, but they just don’t have their dark and shiny appeal.) No matter where we live, those of us who came to love these comforting old-time cookies while living in the greater New York area, where 70 percent of all Mallomars are still sold today, keep a keen eye out for the appearance of those little yellow boxes, bloom or no bloom. 

     The Mallomar season is very short here in Texas. Even the largest grocers get only a limited supply of boxes and when they’re gone, they’re gone, usually in a matter of three or four weeks. This year, especially, capturing Mallomars rivals the quest for hand sanitizer and toilet paper!  People are stockpiling like never before.  I bought four boxes on my first discovery a couple weeks ago, and just went back and bought four more. I doubt there will be any left when I make a third trip.

     A box of Mallomars contains 18 cookies (at 55 calories each); serving size is two cookies, but who are we kidding?? When you wait for these treats all year long, two can be gone in a New York minute! I have actually seen eager shoppers open a box right there in the supermarket and start munching (before mandatory masks, of course). And these treats are expensive. They run $4 or more a box, which during the pandemic when no one is spending any money on anything else but groceries, seems like a negligible indulgence. But this year, in 2020, friends up East tell me that big supermarket chains such as Stop n’ Shop are offering coupons and specials on Mallomars for a mere  99 cents a box, or two boxes for $4 — thereby offering a sort of national security blanket to a country in dire need of comfort and reassurance.

     To borrow the words Queen Elizabeth once used to describe an awful year in her life (1992),  2020 has truly been an “annus horribilis” for Americans. That may be the one, and only, thing all of us can agree on, and it’s not over yet. While there may be some lights at the end of the tunnel to guide us through our most immediate problems — the coronavirus, the economy, civil unrest, a functioning government — we still have to get through the tunnel. The lights can motivate us, but dare not mislead us; there is a difference between optimism and delusion. 

     Every four years, a presidential election gives Americans the opportunity for a fresh start: if the incumbent is reelected, a second term usually comes with a reevaluation of policies and procedures and a wish list of expanded goals for an enhanced legacy; if a brand new president is elected, then there is usually an implicit promise of positive change and an offer of a “honeymoon” period of cooperation and compromise. Even when an election has been hard-fought and the electorate divided in their choices, pundits, politicos, and the general public all point to the power of the poll as proof that America works and take pride in the fact that our democracy is secure, even if our own preferred candidate didn’t win.  

    But not this year.

    Forgive me if I wasn’t “dancing in the streets” last week. I am under no illusion that once Biden is installed as president, if he ultimately is, that the whole country is going to break out in a unified chorus of “Kumbaya” and that everything is going to “return to normal.” Not so. Our divisions are so deep, our distrust so entrenched, and our fear and apprehensions about going forward are so visceral that healing, in any sense of the word, will take a very, very long time. Even with a voter turnout of 160 million people, we are so polarized through these last four years, and so crippled by that division, that there is no reason to dance, much less pat ourselves on the back for preserving democracy. We have been perilously close to losing it; we still are. As a people, we are tired of the chaos, the confusion, the conspiracy theories, the inflammatory rhetoric, and the hatred. We have all lost in this election: lost the trust, the mutual respect, the belief in our institutions, and the faith in our democracy going forward. I am, along with Donald Trump, in the early stages of grief, albeit for different reasons.

     So some of us cling, metaphorically, to our past delights, to happy little yellow boxes  of Mallomars presenting themselves at just the right time in just the right month at just the right season. Here late in 2020, we need all the comfort we can get.

October 27, 2020
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What’s Up Jack?

(Photo: “Jack,” a quilted wall hanging, 32”x40”.)

     My mother was a doll house miniaturist. Knowing how much I have always loved Halloween, she surprised me in 1993 with a fully furnished and decorated haunted house she had made for my birthday. She shipped it up in a huge box from her home in Texas to my home in Connecticut. Not only was it a big surprise, but it was all the more special because she had put her own time and talent into making it. That house has survived three moves and, though it is looking a little more dilapidated these days, it has continued to be displayed in our home every year, including this one. (See photo of it on my journal post dated Oct. 30, 2019.)

     Today is my son’s birthday and, in the tradition of my mother, I made him the quilted wall hanging shown above. His home is mid-century modern in style, orange, gray and white in color scheme, and completely devoid of tchotchkes and clutter of any kind. With that description, need I mention that he is an architect? Need I add that he is very particular about his living space? But he LOVED this art quilt — he really did — and it pleases me to share with him my art and my fondness for Halloween. (If you look closely, you can see a section of white fabric printed with architectural floor plans just above the large pumpkin.)

     I must confess that this is not my original design, but is based on a pattern named “Jack” for a collage quilt by Laura Heine (Fireworks Inc. in Billings, MT.) I adapted it to the materials I had on hand, of course, and did not follow her instructions for collage, choosing instead to do the whole thing in appliqué and free-motion quilting. I was drawn to the overall pattern because of its highly stylized interpretation of a familiar Jack o’lantern theme and was originally planning to make it for myself if I could find the time. But then my son came over one day and saw the pattern lying on the table in my sewing room and kept commenting on how different it was and how much he liked it. Since I never know what to get him for gift occasions, and since my shopping these days is pretty much limited to the grocery store, I decided to set aside the art quilt I’m currently working on and press that sewing machine pedal to the floor to get this one done by his birthday. Seeing how happy and surprised he was to find it completed and realizing that it was for him made the stress of a completion deadline worth it. 

     Working on a piece named “Jack” clearly referencing a Jack o’lantern got me to wondering where that term originated. I discovered that the name Jack has been a generic name for a man or boy, often a peasant, since the Middle Ages. It is not necessarily pejorative, and is even a preferred nickname for the more formal name of “John,” as in Jack Kennedy. In the 1700s, a jack was slang for a farthing in Britain; gradually it  began to mean a little of anything or nothing at all, such as in “You don’t know jack,” or “It don’t mean jack,” or a “Jack of all trades.” In contemporary language, a jack can be either a male donkey, a jackass (the female being a jennet), or a boorish, foolish, inappropriate man; jackass is not really a swearword, but does have strong negative connotations when directed at a particular person. 

     In the 19th century, when All Hallows’ Eve gained in mischief and superstition, country boys  used to carve turnips and other root vegetables, light them, and roam the highlands at night to spook people. The Jack o’lantern as a term is thought to have come from an Irish legend about a man called Stingy Jack, who was mean-spirited and selfish and thought he could trick the devil into not coming after him. But, when Stingy Jack died, the devil did come after him, condemning him not to hell, but to forever wandering the earth in the darkness with only an ember of hellfire to light the way.  When Irish immigrants came to America, the legend of Stingy Jack endured but the pumpkin became the vegetable of choice to carve on Halloween.

     I expect this year’s Halloween to be a rather subdued holiday, what with parties and haunted houses being discouraged and trick-or-treaters likely to be kept at home.  Even I restrained my  decorations this year. As a friend of mine remarked recently, “As if the Covid and Trump aren’t scary enough — who needs Halloween?” 

     Certainly, 2020 has been a scary year all along, made scarier still with the angst and uncertainty ahead. But it seems to me that Halloween this year holds a special metaphoric meaning, followed as it is by All Saints’ Day on November 1, All Souls’ Day on November 2, and the US elections on November 3. If, indeed, we citizens are in a battle for the very soul of America, then we’d better pray that voters recognize the power of voting and carefully consider the ramifications of their choices. Otherwise, we are all condemned to become Stingy Jacks, tricked by the devil and destined to roam into the darkness of the future with only the embers of hellfire left for light.

October 9, 2020
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An Autumn Birthday

 Fall has officially come to South Texas. I know that not because any leaves are changing color, but because we’re having those 30 degree daily temperature swings that are so typical of this time of year.  Mornings are quite seasonable in the 50s or 60s, and if you’re out and about early, the piles of pumpkins and gourds that have suddenly appeared in the supermarkets and garden centers will cause you to forget the recent months of unrelenting drought and string of 100+ degree days. But then, by late afternoon with the thermometer edging up toward 90, you recall them all too vividly and hasten to go out and water those potted mums you just purchased. They are already drooping and you haven’t even gotten them into the ground yet!  

     But we try. My husband, bless him, really tries, because he knows this is my favorite season and he knows how much I miss New England in the fall. Usually, we would have made a trip up East to New York and Connecticut around this time to see friends and enjoy the foliage, but not this year. So he has gone out and bought pumpkins and mums and created planters (see above). A few years back, he even planted two beautiful red oak trees, which have now grown very large and do, indeed, turn color even here, albeit late in the season  — very late, like in January. I have been threatening for years to spray paint all the trees in our yard orange and yellow, but have so far settled for bringing fall indoors with artificial swags of leaves from Michael’s and arrangements of faux fall baskets. This week I even started to introduce some Halloween decorations inside, because it is my favorite holiday and the ravens and witches make me happy.

     I also know it’s fall because Columbus Day is on Monday and my birthday always comes around Columbus Day. For many years, at least in the Northeast, Columbus Day marked a big holiday weekend, a chance for dedicated “leaf peepers” like us to get away. We often traveled to upstate New York or out to eastern Connecticut to enjoy shopping in quaint little towns, staying in a quiet country inn, and photographing those spectacular landscapes. At this time of year, local newspapers and weather forecasters keep area residents updated with color-coded maps and fall foliage advisories for the best scenic driving routes. Even just a day trip was an invigorating autumn experience, especially if it fell on my birthday.

     So, today is my birthday, but I obviously don’t have plans for a fall trip up East this year, or anywhere else anytime soon for that matter.  2020 has been a difficult year, memorable for lots of awful reasons, and hardly a year for celebrations of any kind, even birthdays. Yet, I decided to make this birthday memorable in a different way: first thing this morning, we drove up to New Braunfels to the county elections office to hand deliver our “mail-in” ballots. I figured that this is probably the most important election in my entire lifetime, so I could drive a bit to ensure that my vote counted. What better day to do that than on my birthday.

     Even before all the news broke about post-office shenanigans, we were already experiencing  repeated instances of lost/non-delivered/mis-delivered mail over the last few weeks, so the seeds of distrust in the reliability of the US Mail to properly deliver the ballots this year were already sprouting. (It so pains me to say that because I have always been such an avid user and advocate of the US Mail and always proclaimed ours the best mail delivery system in the world, at least until now.)  Originally we intended to show up in person for early voting early next week, but we then discovered that Texas does not require masks of either voters or poll workers. (A  subtle voter suppression tactic for those at risk during a pandemic.) So then we decided to use the mail-in ballots that had already come to us, to fill them out and personally drop them off.  And then, after mail-in ballots had already been sent out, Gov. Abbott suddenly decreed there be only ONE mail-in drop-off location in every county, regardless of size or distance ( a not so subtle voter suppression tactic, pandemic or not). So, we drove up to the county seat this morning before early in-person voting begins;  at least our location wasn’t a couple hundred miles away as it is in some places. 

     The effort today was my gift to myself, my satisfaction in exercising my responsibility and in being done with this election. And I am so done!! So tired of it!! So through with all the old incumbents on both sides of the aisle and the old ways of doing things: the gerrymandering, the lobbying, the big donors, the bullying and the good ole’ boys network. I noted, as I filled out my ballot at home, that out of the 21 races listed from president all the way down to county courts, women were contenders in 16 of those contests.  The times they are a changin’ — and it’s high time! I hope, in some small ways over these last few months, I have contributed to some of those changes.

     At the end of the day, my birthday did, in fact, end up to be a celebration, even if a somewhat restrained one. I had lots of cards and phone calls, a nice long Zoom visit with close friends far away, some extra special gifts, and a pizza party tonight with my “social triangle,” my husband, my son and my dog. It’s good; it’s all good, and I’m good to go, I think,  for a few months more of all the craziness, the Covid, the restrictions, the isolation, the political fracas.

     An autumn birthday in the autumn of my life reminds me of the strengths I have with which to persevere. 

September 24, 2020
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Forty Days and Forty Nights

The US Presidential election is forty days from today. In spite of Covid and the economy and the civil unrest and the death of RBG and all the talk of potential voter fraud, it will take place. However contested the results may become, the election will be a pivotal event for this country — dare I say even one of  “biblical proportions.” 

     Forty days and forty nights. That phrase, in itself, is weighty with significance. Forty years are mentioned 146 times in the Bible. The great flood lasted 40 days. Moses spent 40 years in Egypt and 40 years in the desert while the Israelites wandered and manna rained down. Mohammed was 40 when he received his revelation, and Jesus was tempted for 40 days and nights before his public life.  Christians observe 40 days of Lent; even human gestation is about 40 weeks. Ultimately, the meaning of 40 indicates a very long time. Need I say more about the importance of these 40 days?

     Yet, in the case of this election, forty days of preparation and penance may be both too long and not enough. Can we as a people endure 40 more days in what already seems like a very long time of continuing rancor and vitriol, protests and violence, threats and recriminations? Haven’t we had more than enough of political posturing, personal insults, conspiracy theories, robo calls and campaign ads?  Trump filed his reelection paperwork for 2020 with the FEC just five hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and has since held over 325 campaign rallies during his time in office. Haven’t we had enough already!

     But time is also running out. In some states, voting  has already begun, even though there has been no funding to ensure election security and no resolution of the post office mess. Prompted in large part by health and safety concerns due to the coronavirus, the Trump-Biden election of 2020 is reaching new heights (or perhaps we should say new lows) in terms of voting rights litigation: some 190 lawsuits in 43 states and DC have been filed to challenge state election laws regarding mail-in ballots, registration deadlines, polling sites and voter eligibility. Most of these cases are still working their way through the courts.  

     Meanwhile, voter interest has soared, particularly among young people, and registrations have doubled or even tripled in lots of states: for instance, a record number of 1.5 million new voters have registered here in Texas and we have only two weeks to go before early voting begins on October 13. (Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order adding a one-week extension to the usual 17 day early-voting period to reduce crowding and increase safety, but this extension is now being challenged in the Texas Supreme Court.)

     And now, with only 40 days left, we have the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a new urgency, at least among conservatives, for confirmation of a replacement on the Court by Election Day. Democrats, still smarting from the Merrick Garland travesty and Republicans,  fearing another Bush vs. Gore election dispute with a 4-4 Court have turned what should have been a time of respectful mourning and thoughtful consideration for the legacy of a great woman in American history into yet another “political bonfire,” as columnist Maureen Dowd puts it. (“Will the Election Turn on RBG?” The New York Times, Sept. 18, 2020) Too little, too late.

     Bible stories and the signs and symbols in them retain their relevance not simply as matters of faith for those who believe, but also because they offer timeless lessons about human behavior and ways to express the meaning of our own experience. We return time and again to the stories of the Old Testament and the parables of the New Testament for the same reasons that we revisit Shakespearean plays or reread classic works of  literature. Human nature never changes and the good, the bad, and the ugly remain ever with us — and within us.

     I have been alternatively amused and appalled by the conjuring of all the biblical references  during the Trump administration, culminating on June 1 when he, himself, stood outside St. John’s Episcopal Church brandishing the Bible as both a material symbol of divine authority and  a convenient prop for another show of political theatre.  Talk of the apocalypse and the anti-Christ notwithstanding, along with the eagerness of the “rapture” believers for it all to come to pass, I do have to admit that I have actually become unnerved of late by the fires and the floods and the plague that America is battling. The long-suffering Job might have asked, “Why us?”

     And now the locusts are swarming in East Africa in the biggest infestation in a century.  I hope they don’t make it over here.  As Job might say, “We really have had enough already.”

September 18, 2020
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The Incredible Shrinking Woman

A couple years ago, as I watched my Mother’s world grow smaller and her ability to navigate even the simplest tasks diminish, I mourned the fact that she was shrinking. As she moved into her 90s, the woman who was once my idol and my strength became less and less able  — unable at first to see, to drive, to read, to write, to speak, then to walk, to compute, to communicate, and then ultimately to live on her own. Toward the end, once she was in assisted living  but while she was still alert and attentive, she was not even able to control her own basic bodily functions. Multiple strokes had robbed her of herself. Being a witness to that slow but steady loss is an unspeakable sorrow and sadness that I may never get over. 

     I have days now during the Coronavirus epidemic and my almost total shut-in that I feel my own self shrinking. No, thank God I haven’t had a stroke, but my world is growing smaller and my vision is becoming impaired by the cloudiness of the future. This is not a happy state of mind.  While I have been very creative during these last eight months, and actually quite content at home to read and write and sew and cook, I am also increasingly aware of how very isolated I have become, and how even the smallest details in my limited environment have taken on outsized importance. 

     Nothing escapes my notice these days. Whether it’s a minor toe ache in the middle of the night or a dust bunny in the corner of a room on a sunny afternoon, I must move to immediately address it; a messy drawer or a misplaced piece of paper can derail my attention from other things for hours; a small spot on the carpet that I never saw before can propel me to eradicate stains that weren’t even visible before to shampooing every floor covering in the house for two solid days. This is likely the beginning of OCD.

     I know I am not alone. Everyone these days is hypersensitive to every little thing because we are all at home day after day and focused on our immediate surroundings. This is exactly what happens to people as they age: preoccupation with the minuscule increases as the fear of losing control over bigger issues takes hold. Every ache, every pain, every small inconvenience is a cause for concern and alarm, sometimes to the extreme. Every discussion with others becomes a test of wills between the elder who is afraid and the caretakers who always seem to know better.  For those of us who are not quite yet elderly, this is not a way to live; this is a recipe for hospice care.

     So, while I realize that my current situation due to the pandemic presents something of a “rehearsal” for old age, I also have to guard against letting my own fears push me into “getting old before my time.”  How can I continue to engage the larger world when I cannot travel, cannot see my friends who live all over, and cannot experience all the people and places and activities that have come to define both my lifestyle and my life? How can I, who escaped the provincial confines of small-town life early on in favor of a larger venue with a global world view, be content to sit in place while that world grows smaller and smaller before my eyes and I grow smaller within it? Six months into all this, the only thing that isn’t growing smaller is my search for answers to those questions.

     Yes, yes, I know — a lot of people these days have bigger, more immediate worries as a consequence of the pandemic (or natural disasters, or civil unrest, or economic uncertainties, or any one of a number of other serious concerns) than my existential angst over how to live my now-rather-limited life.  To be sure, I am grateful to be comfortably retired and to able to spend my days at home without the heavy responsibilities of work and school and family to worry about. Nevertheless, the “there but for the grace of god …” platitude can only be quoted so often without dissolving into cliché and losing real meaning. Six months is definitely pushing the use-by date. 

     So, my current response to impending shrinkage has been to immerse myself more and more into my art, specifically my art quilting and the goal to gain acceptance into a SAQA international competition. (See post “In Residence,” July 10, 2020.) I have now exhibited in three regional exhibitions (submissions limited to residents of certain states or regions in the US), but so far, acceptance into a global exhibition (open to world-wide submissions and exhibits touring countries around the world for a year or two) has eluded me. In the last few weeks, I have begun a project to submit by the end of November. The theme of the exhibit is “light,” and I have what I think is the perfect composition based on a photograph I took some years ago in Tokyo. It’s a complicated project and I am already experiencing some challenges to my skill set, but then I’m all about growth these days.And isn’t that what art is really all about? 

     I may feel small right now, but I am forcing myself not to think small, to act small; I am forcing myself to ignore the dust bunnies in the corner and the messy drawers in my library and to immerse myself in a creative flow. This is my attempt at a bigger life in a larger venue, a global venue, in restricted circumstances.  If I can’t physically travel around the world, then maybe I can reach out to the world through art. 

     And maybe I can keep Tiny Alice from slipping down the rabbit hole where she was always somehow missing the size she needed to be.

September 5, 2020
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A Tale of Two

     “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” it was the before times ….

     Our current national situation has generated a whole host of phrases and expressions attempting to express the inexpressible. One that has recently gained currency is “Before Times,” or BT (which carries something of an apocryphal or biblical connotation) to indicate the “normal” before the coronavirus pandemic set in.  For many of us, BT has also come to mean the “normal” before Trump set in. In any event, now that we haven’t been living in normalcy in many respects for quite a while, we are starting to question exactly what normal life is/was, and what a return to it might really look like. It may be that the return to the old normal, the BT, is simply not possible anymore, maybe not even not desirable. Maybe it will never be again. 

      Charles Dickens’ historical novel, A Tale of Two Cities  (1869), is set mostly in Paris during a time of pre-revolution from 1775 forward. Studied as a classic by students for generations, the novel dramatizes the horrors of The Reign of Terror and the impossible decisions faced by ordinary people caught up in forces greater than themselves. Yes, Dickens is part of the “Western Canon” of dead white men, but he was arguably the best-known novelist of his time, an unwavering champion of social justice, and a forewarning messenger about the perils of ignoring timeless lessons from the past. The moral of A Tale of Two Cities is that there is duality in the world; there is light and darkness and the truth is found in who you are and what you do. People are responsible for their own choices — as true in BC and AD, and in BT, as it is now. Amen.

     We are living our own “tale of two” in America these days and, I fear, in as much of a pre-revolutionary mood as were France and England in the 1770s.  Even in the BT, we were a tale of two already dividing against each other: rural and urban, white and minority, men and women, rich and poor, blue and red, educated and uneducated, native and immigrant.  We managed to subvert and suppress many of those differences often pretending that they didn’t exit, but this is how revolution begins. Ignore, dismiss, and deny. And then along comes a leader who not only sees those divisions, but knows how to manipulate them. So now we are more completely divided than ever,  resisting, protesting, even taking up arms because our leaders don’t understand, or don’t care. “Let them eat cake.”  Amen.

     Having watched the two political conventions in the last couple weeks, my own sense, along with that of many political commentators, is that we are collectively cultivating a civil war  between two Americas. Each side, blue and red, sees itself as the vanguard of truth and salvation; each views the other as an existential threat. Somewhere in the middle, where most reasonable Americans reside I think, are those of us who both fear for our future and the future of our country, but who also don’t believe that politics has to be a zero sum game. When Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian who is hardly prone to extreme statements, says that “we may be a year away from losing our democracy,” then it is time for all of us to get woke, as the current expression goes, to assume some citizen responsibility for our national situation, and to recognize whatever intransigence we might be holding in our own personal positions.  

     We need to remember that ours is a “representative democracy,” meaning that even though we have this one-person-one-vote ideal, we are really voting for those who will in turn vote for us, their constituents, as our representatives on matters both local and national.  Nowhere is this representative system more dramatically illustrated than in the Electoral College. When voters cast their presidential ballots, they are actually choosing how their state’s electors will vote, and in all but Maine and Nebraska, the votes of the electors is a “winner takes all” affair. It is interesting and important to note that the U.S. Constitution does not, in fact, require states to even have a popular vote. The legislature of a state could assign electors for the presidency even if no popular vote were conducted! (Now there’s a scary thought.)

     Consequently, one’s individual vote in a presidential election really doesn’t count if that voter is a member of the minority party in his/her state, which explains why there is such furious campaigning and fundraising in an effort to turn a red state blue or vice versa. Given all this  mishigas, it’s amazing that the discrepancy between the popular vote and the electoral college winner has ONLY been an issue in five presidential elections: 1824, 1876, 1888, 2000, and 2016.  But hey! Stay tuned. Nothing is normal anymore.

     Everything these days is “unprecedented.” Everything is “beyond the pale.” Everything upends convention and pushes the boundaries of law, behavior, and tradition. And the Covid pandemic only adds to the chaos and fear. The only thing that is normal post BT is not being normal at all. We are having a national anxiety crisis and feel as though we are losing our collective minds, if not literally our heads. As Michael Steele, the former chairman of the RNC responded recently to some outrageous event or another, “I simply have no head left to shake.” Amen.

     The guillotine was constructed in Paris in 1792 on what is today the Place de la Concorde (photo above). Interestingly, while people had been chopping off heads for centuries, the guillotine was intended to be a more humane form of execution, designed to make death instant and less painful, while still emphasizing the revolutionary point that equality in death is equality under the law. Yet, the guillotine persists as an image of horror and fear and mob violence. Recently, Amazon employees erected a makeshift guillotine in front of Jeff Bezos’ house to protest the obscene wealth he has now attained ($192.5 billion) while most ordinary employees earn only $15 an hour. Off with their heads. 

     “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” it was the before times …  Good or bad, it may never be again.