81 of 100: Instagram six-packs

I haven't been spending much time on Facebook lately. It's become too ad-heavy, too laden with groups "I might like," steered by an algorithm outside my control and druthers—and posts I might actually want to see don't seem to appear in my feed. I'm considering bagging FB, although it does offer a particular way of communicating that IG and Bluesky don't. So... we'll see.

Lately I've been posting a bit more on Instagram. I use IG and FB differently. Today, for example, I posted four shots of our white kitty Luna-ban on FB, a little chronicle (complete with mugshots):

I might post one of those on Instagram (probably the top one), but not all four. For IG, I seek out shots that I find personally meaningful or aesthetically pleasing. And I like a mix of looks or styles: close-up vs. distance, nature vs. built, local vs. somewhere on my travels. I may search back through phone shots, or lift one from years ago on Flickr, to create diversity, eclecticism. 

Here are my latest collections of six that I've featured on FB. They remind me of what a great life I have.

Norway in 2015 and the Cannery Row Dock Ricketts
statue (left); right four: Carmel River State Beach,
including on the far right the annual breaching of
the river (bottom) and the flowing river the next day

Top: grouse eggs, Ravi kitty, and window covering
(first and last from my Coast to Coast trek in May)
Bottom: Cannery Row statue and worker shack,
and construction on neighborhood bike path

Images from my birthday getaway in Murphys, CA,
plus, lower left, the Monterey Christmas tree

Homely imagery, with a Galapagos booby and
an Antarctic penguin thrown in for spice

Top left: a performance of David's recent composition
for string quartet; bottom left: termite wings;
bottom right, Fishermans Wharf Monterey

All the eyes: Lascaux, France; cats keeping a sick David
company; and Madagascar: a tenrec, a Satan's gecko,
a chameleon, and lemurs

I am toying with the idea of another Project 365—a photo a day—and reviving my fairly moribund Flickr stream, though I'd probably also post to IG. But I do seem to be wandering away from FB these days. It's not a bad thing.

80 of 100: Puzzling Adventures

Our friend Lynn found a website, puzzlingadventures.com, that offers, for $50 each, brief walking tours of various cities, guided by questions to be answered. There's one in Monterey, so five of us gathered the other day at the starting point, 100 Foam Street, and set off as team Wilderness Rangers, puzzling away for 34 stops over a few miles. It took us along Cannery Row, where yes, we learned some new things about this touristed area that none of us ever visits—because hey, we're locals. It was fun. It turns out, there is tons of informational signage and plaquage and murals galore about the history of the area, going back to pre-colonial times (though curiously, the tour also included several random segues into the 20-some golf courses in the area, none of which are anywhere near Cannery Row). We learned about Monterey's Filipino heritage, the first canneries, author John Steinbeck and his friend the marine biologist Ed "Doc" Ricketts, and more. I took a few pictures.

Doc Ricketts lives on, in statue form, near the place
where he was killed in 1948. You usually find some
flowers in his hand, placed by an admirer.

A cannery workers shack near the Monterey Bay
Aquarium, saved for posterity. And Lynn, checking
her phone for the next stop on our tour.

John Steinbeck and a few of his colorful characters,
Yuletide-ready. (The guys on the left are playing
Texas Hold'em, just so you know.)

A mural of times past on Monterey Bay.

One plaque includes the first part of this fabulous opening paragraph of Steinbeck's book Cannery Row:

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitant are, as the man once said, "whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches," by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, "Saints and angels and martyrs and holymen" and he would have meant the same thing.

When I say "the first part," I mean it stops at "laboratories and flophouses..." Yes, the plaque includes the ellipsis, suggesting that something good follows. And seriously, the crux of the paragraph is precisely what follows. Who authorized that plaque? They should be fired. 

These puzzle adventures exist elsewhere too—46 states plus DC, as well as Canada, Mexico, Portugal, and the UK. They occur in 27 cities in California: San Diego alone has seven; San Francisco two; LA five. For what they offer, they seem a little pricy to me. There were many typos, and poor instructions on how to enter answers caused us on a few occasions to miss our first guess—which means we came in 48th out of 100 other teams that have made the trip. Of course, clumsy phone fingers also contributed. And did we really care? Nah. And golf courses? On Cannery Row? Really?

But the five of us spent an enjoyable couple of hours on a perfect day, followed by G&T's at Lynn's. What else really matters?

(The concept isn't unlike that of Adventures Labs, an app sponsored by geocaching.com, only Labs tend to be ten stops max—but they're free.)

79 of 100: Two poems—Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou

Nikki Giovanni died today, at age 81. And I encountered the Angelou poem this evening in Shetland, S6E1, a funeral scene. I admire both poets very much. 

Legacies

by Nikki Giovanni (6/7/1943–today)

her grandmother called her from the playground
  “yes, ma’am”
  “i want chu to learn how to make rolls” said the old
woman proudly
but the little girl didn’t want
to learn how because she knew
even if she couldn’t say it that
that would mean when the old one died she would be less
dependent on her spirit so
she said
  “i don’t want to know how to make no rolls”
with her lips poked out
and the old woman wiped her hands on
her apron saying “lord
  these children”
and neither of them ever
said what they meant
and i guess nobody ever does

When Great Trees Fall

by Maya Angelou (1928–2014)

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

78 of 100: Dave Matthews

I was searching YouTube for the most recent Jon Stewart Daily Show segment—and found it, and found it uninteresting (how much flogging does Joe Biden really need for pardoning his son?). But there's that side column of "suggestions," one of which was this, Dave and Tim Reynolds on acoustic guitars playing "Christmas Song," which I love, and which is timely:

Also in that side column was this Tiny Desk Concert, which I had not encountered before, and wow—so cool to listen to Dave perform all on his own (and to hear his speaking voice, so different from his singing voice):

We went to a Dave Matthews Band concert many years ago, and it remains a highlight of my concert-going life. I'm sure I sang along with "Ants Marching" while I danced on the grass, while I sang, while I danced. Such a great concert.

And simply because it's hard to get enough of Carter Beauford and his joy, here's a spotlight on him courtesy of Zildjian:

I'm surprised to learn that the band was featured on Sixty Minutes (of all places) back in 2001:

Here he is breaking down his "most iconic tracks"—really interesting (it starts with "Ant Marching," then "Satellite," "Crash into Me," and then he gets into songs I'm not familiar with, because I never exactly followed him, I just stumbled into him, bought a few albums, went to a concert, and then wandered away):

And finally, there's a documentary about the Dave Matthews Band, which I haven't watched yet, but I'm parking it here for future consumption:

Okay. I've had a sweet little trip down my own memory lane. I don't expect you-all to watch these videos (heck, I don't expect you to have gotten past the first paragraph here), but I'm sure I will again. I really enjoy Dave Matthews.

77 of 100: Persimmons (a poem by Li-Young Lee)

Every year at this time I look for persimmons in our grocery story. In early November, I saw a few hachiya persimmons—the smaller, flatter variety that you eat with a crunch, like an apple. It took a little while for just a few fuyu persimmons to appear—but appear they did, and I bought three, never mind that they cost almost $3 apiece. You don't ignore persimmon season.

And one of the three ripened quickly, so we are now breakfasting on a nice slice of toasted persimmon bread. Such a treat. The other two, well... we'll see what happens with them. I hope they'll ripen up, and I'll be able to make something delectable with them—pudding, cookies, more bread. We'll see. 

Here's a poem by a poet I'm growing to admire more and more.

Persimmons

by Li-Young Lee

In sixth grade Mrs. Walker
slapped the back of my head
and made me stand in the corner
for not knowing the difference
between persimmon and precision.
How to choose

persimmons. This is precision.
Ripe ones are soft and brown-spotted.
Sniff the bottoms. The sweet one
will be fragrant. How to eat:
put the knife away, lay down newspaper.
Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.
Chew the skin, suck it,
and swallow. Now, eat
the meat of the fruit,
so sweet,
all of it, to the heart.

Donna undresses, her stomach is white.
In the yard, dewy and shivering
with crickets, we lie naked,
face-up, face-down.
I teach her Chinese.
Crickets: chiu chiu. Dew: I’ve forgotten.
Naked: I’ve forgotten.
Ni, wo: you and me.
I part her legs,
remember to tell her
she is beautiful as the moon.

Other words
that got me into trouble were
fight and fright, wren and yarn.
Fight was what I did when I was frightened,
Fright was what I felt when I was fighting.
Wrens are small, plain birds,
yarn is what one knits with.
Wrens are soft as yarn.
My mother made birds out of yarn.
I loved to watch her tie the stuff;
a bird, a rabbit, a wee man.

Mrs. Walker brought a persimmon to class
and cut it up
so everyone could taste
a Chinese apple. Knowing
it wasn’t ripe or sweet, I didn’t eat
but watched the other faces.

My mother said every persimmon has a sun
inside, something golden, glowing,
warm as my face.

Once, in the cellar, I found two wrapped in newspaper,
forgotten and not yet ripe.
I took them and set both on my bedroom windowsill,
where each morning a cardinal
sang, The sun, the sun.

Finally understanding
he was going blind,
my father sat up all one night
waiting for a song, a ghost.
I gave him the persimmons,
swelled, heavy as sadness,
and sweet as love.

This year, in the muddy lighting
of my parents’ cellar, I rummage, looking
for something I lost.
My father sits on the tired, wooden stairs,
black cane between his knees,
hand over hand, gripping the handle.
He’s so happy that I’ve come home.
I ask how his eyes are, a stupid question.
All gone, he answers.

Under some blankets, I find a box.
Inside the box I find three scrolls.
I sit beside him and untie
three paintings by my father:
Hibiscus leaf and a white flower.
Two cats preening.
Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth.

He raises both hands to touch the cloth,
asks, Which is this?

This is persimmons, Father.

Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk,
the strength, the tense
precision in the wrist.
I painted them hundreds of times
eyes closed. These I painted blind.
Some things never leave a person:
scent of the hair of one you love,
the texture of persimmons,
in your palm, the ripe weight.

And to end on another lovely note, also by Li-Young Lee:

One Heart

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

76 of 100: Judgement at Nuremberg

Today, on good ol' Facebook, I spotted a photo of Al Franken and his grandkids sprawled on a couch, with the caption "Our annual family viewing of Judgement at Nuremberg." They all looked rather glum

and I wondered if it wasn't a joke. So I did some investigating, and found similar pictures with similar captions—varying levels of engagement, but engagement, definitely—from the last two years:

Judgement at Nuremberg, huh? For Thanksgiving? Yeah, it's probably just an elaborate, sustained joke. But anyway, it got me to bite.

I'd heard of the movie but never seen it. I googled, and found that it was made in 1961, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Maximilian Schell (who won the Academy Award for best actor), Burt Lancaster, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Richard Widmark, and Montgomery Clift—oh, and even William Shatner, before he became Captain Kirk. It gets 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, 8.3 on IMDb. And it clocks in at 180 minutes.

I figured, if it's something Al Franken wants to encounter year after year—on Thanksgiving, of all days—with his grandkids' total acquiescence—(ha ha?)—I should probably see it. I also figured, at three hours long, we could pause it halfway through and watch the second half tomorrow. (It is currently playing on Amazon Prime, but only for three more days. Caught it just in time.)

And... wow. We were riveted. No pausing required. Indeed, I can't recall such a compelling movie, not that I've seen recently. It hits so many important issues. Ones that are always current, even if you're not living in post-Nazi Germany, having to do with right and wrong, being engaged or getting by, speaking the truth or not. And Spencer Tracy: he is mesmerizing. (Though I have to say, I wondered if Stanley Kubrick didn't base his Dr. Strangelove on Schell's defense attorney Herr Rolfe, they sounded so alike in their agitation.) 

Anyway, here's the movie trailer:

And this URL provides a bunch of scenes. 

But really, if you haven't seen the movie, or even if you have, I'd recommend it. It's powerful, in a way that strikes home still today. And may always do.

Thanks, Al. I'm still pissed at what the stupid Democrats did to you. You should be in Congress still.

75 of 100: Look up

I recently got a new camera, a Ricoh GR IIIX—a fixed-focal-length stick-in-your-pocket job that I am going to learn about and play with in another week and a half when we head up to the Sierra foothills for my birthday. I am hoping it will replace my iPhone as my go-to imaging device, for various reasons: I'll be able to shoot RAW without worrying about filling my phone's memory; and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to put the phone away for extended periods of time—no apps, no news, no distractions—and pay more attention to the world around me. 

As part of this particular "new me," I'm considering kicking off another 365 Project—a photo a day in 2025. Though we've seen how well I've done with this modest (100-count) blogpost-a-day project. I apparently don't take myself too seriously anymore when it comes to resolutions. But... maybe I'm just in need of a different sort of challenge? Maybe photos are calling me home? One can hope?

As part of this new (possible—no promises) resolve, I intend to start posting again on Flickr, which turned out to be a great repository for imagery, and where I still have some old friends (of the never-met-in-real-life variety, but what else is new?). 

Today as I started the afternoon walk with my friend Kate and the doughty dog Milo, I happened to look up:

Taken with the iPhone.

When I posted that shot on IG, I tagged it #lookup. And then I wondered what other photos I have on Flickr that exemplify this lookuppiness. And I found a few after a not especially exhaustive search:

Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo

This is the same power pole as in the first photo above.
The tall one.

Up up with penguins (in Antarctica)

Look up, you say?

As I searched for these, I wondered, Maybe a weekly theme for this next year's project. #lookup would be a good starting one. 

Anyway, yeah. Wish me luck!

P.S. This post had zero to do with Facebook. Just noting.

 

74 of 100: Wisława Szymborska, poet

Where did I happen on this poem? (All together now:) Facebook! I enjoyed its exuberance, and its happy ending. So I share it here.

Consolation

by Wisława Szymborska
translated by Clare Cavanagh

Darwin.
They say he read novels to relax,
But only certain kinds:
nothing that ended unhappily.
If anything like that turned up,
enraged, he flung the book into the fire.

True or not,
I’m ready to believe it.

Scanning in his mind so many times and places,
he’d had enough of dying species,
the triumphs of the strong over the weak,
the endless struggles to survive,
all doomed sooner or later.
He’d earned the right to happy endings,
at least in fiction
with its diminutions.

Hence the indispensable
silver lining,
the lovers reunited, the families reconciled,
the doubts dispelled, fidelity rewarded,
fortunes regained, treasures uncovered,
stiff-necked neighbors mending their ways,
good names restored, greed daunted,
old maids married off to worthy parsons,
troublemakers banished to other hemispheres,
forgers of documents tossed down the stairs,
seducers scurrying to the altar,
orphans sheltered, widows comforted,
pride humbled, wounds healed over,
prodigal sons summoned home,
cups of sorrow thrown into the ocean,
hankies drenched with tears of reconciliation,
general merriment and celebration,
and the dog Fido,
gone astray in the first chapter,
turns up barking gladly
in the last.

73 of 100: Red-eyed birds (and a couple of friends)

I don't even know why I'm numbering these entries still, but I am—on to 100! Why not? 

Today, though, I'd like to simply showcase some faces. In particular, some faces with red eyes. This was prompted by a photo I stumbled on on FB (I should just call this blog "Facebook Inspiration") of condor #665, Redwood Son, by Tim Huntington (click on the photos to see them large):

But that got me thinking about other birds with red eyes. So: here are a few, for your wonderment.

Red-eyed vireo

Eared grebe

Western grebe (with chick)

Black crake, South Africa

Canvasback

Black-crowned night heron

Spotted towhee

Fire-eyed diucon, Chile

But now for a couple of non-birds:

Oak treehopper

Red-eyed tree frog

Tenasserim pit viper, Thailand

Just why all these creatures have red eyes isn't clear. In birds, it may be for display purposes—to catch the eye of a mate. In reptiles and bugs, who knows? But the effect sure is beautiful.

72 of 100: Jack Gilbert, poet

One more poem relating to darkness—and light—which I discovered in my little Wordle group on FB. See? FB is my source of all illumination anymore. (Yeah, not really. But I still do encounter the odd delight, and so I keep looking, at least once a day while posting my Wordle result.)

A Brief for the Defense

by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

71 of 100: Yusef Komunyakaa, poet

I ran across the first poem here, by Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1941, or maybe 1947), on FB, and was struck by its emotion, and the memories it evoked of my own visits to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. (The poet, known in those days as James William Brown, served a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1966.) His poem also got me thinking about reflections as a possible prompt for my weekly poetry group. And when I searched for the word "reflections," I found the second poem. Both so beautiful, so powerful, so painful. So I share them here, now, with you.

Facing It

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Reflections

In the day’s mirror
you see a tall black man.
Fingers of gold cattail
tremble, then you witness
the rope dangling from
a limb of white oak.
It’s come to this.
You yell his direction,
the wind taking
your voice away.
You holler his mama’s name
& he glances up at the red sky.
You can almost
touch what he’s thinking,
reaching for his hand
across the river.
The noose pendulous
over his head,
you can feel him
grow inside you,
straining to hoist himself,
climbing a ladder
of air, your feet
in his shoes.

70 of 100: Reading list on American history

I happened on this list on FB, via Katie Couric, and thought I'd add it here, to accompany my earlier post on books about fascism. Because, well, you know. This one is titled simply "The 12 Best Books about American History." I have some reading to do.

The Situation Room: The Inside Story of Presidents in Crisis by George Stephanopoulos
Jailed for Freedom: American Women Win the Vote by Doris Stevens
These Truths: A History of the United States by Jill Lepore (in which she "analyzes whether America has delivered on its original promises of political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people")
Lies My Teacher Told me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen
Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America by Ijeoma Oluo
How to Hide an Empire: A History of tthe Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr
America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee
A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Women, Race & Class by Angela Y. Davis
Stamped from the Beginning: The Defiintive Hisory of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
1776  by David McCullough
1491:  New Revelations of tthe American before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

And in the comments, many people mentioned William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which is not about the US, of course—at least, not yet. I have had that book for decades and never read it (it's one of those immense books), but I see it on the shelf and I might just have to pull it down and get going...

69 of 100: more poetry, on a darker note (Jeffers, Stafford, and Voigt)

Further scrolling on FB, as well as an email from the Academy of American Poets, gave me these, which seem also appropriate:

Shine, Perishing Republic

by Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire,
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught–they say–God, when he walked on earth.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

by William E. Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

Practice

by Ellen Bryant Voigt 

To weep unbidden, to wake
at night in order to weep, to wait
for the whisker on the face of the clock
to twitch again, moving
the dumb day forward—

is this merely practice?
Some believe in heaven,
some in rest. We'll float,
you said. Afterward
we'll float between two worlds—

five bronze beetles
stacked like spoons in one
peony blossom, drugged by lust:
if I came back as a bird
I'd remember that—

until everyone we love
is safe is what you said.

 

68 of 100: Alberto Ríos, poet

As I scrolled through all the doom and gloom of Facebook this morning, I came across the occasional attempt at uplift. Including this, a post by a poet who taught in my MFA program many years ago. So I thought I'd share it—for what it's worth. And for the people who will be voting in the next election for the very first time.

A House Called Tomorrow

by Alberto Ríos

You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries

And fifteen, bringing with you
In every breath and in every step

Everyone who has come before you,
All the yous that you have been,

The mothers of your mother,
The fathers of your father.

If someone in your family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:

The bad do not win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.

We simply would not be here
If that were so.

You are made, fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.

You are the breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward

Through it all, even if so many days
Feel otherwise. But think:

When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—

It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.

From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,

The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:

That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,

Is ourselves. And that’s all we need
To start. That’s everything we require to keep going.

Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.

Be good, then better. Write books. Cure disease.
Make us proud. Make yourself proud.

And those who came before you? When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.

67 of 100: Election

As I turn in on this election eve, I can't say I'm surprised at the apparent outcome—as I more or less was in 2016, when so many of us (I want to say "all," but that's obviously not accurate) thought Hillary would win.

Welp. I am faced with so many questions, considerations, conundrums this time around. Chief among them, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY? Because seriously, Trump is clearly crazy. And those around him who aren't crazy clearly want to tear this country apart through their greed and intolerance.

But I don't want to investigate all that—because honestly, what to say about insanity, or divisiveness? I'm just thinking about me, in my waning years, and how I will negotiate this sadness.

Basically, I think I'm just going to have to pull my head into my shell, bury it in the sand, hide it (and the rest of my body) under a rock. Retreat. (Call me self-centered, go ahead.)

By that, though, I don't mean moping. I mean, investing more in my own creativity, my own appreciation of this life, my own sources of wonder. I can't do anything about the darkness that is, it seems, sweeping the entire world. But I can ward off darkness personally. Indeed, I must, if I'm going to stay sane.

And I also include actively cultivating my friendships: together, we can share the wonder and keep the light shining. (My friend Lynn asked the other day if there's room for her under my rock. Absolutely! And for anyone else who wants/needs to take shelter. We are in this together.)

I have pondered the idea of moving elsewhere, but that wouldn't fix anything. I do like it right here, in a beautiful place with great weather, and my house will be paid off next year. I'm set. I can travel all I like. Even if I lived in Mongolia, I wouldn't escape the fact that my country had installed an insane person in the White House. I'm American, and that's my lot. It's not a bad one; I will continue, for now, to believe it's something to embrace. Fifty-one percent of the country to the contrary. (Or 51 percent of voters, which as a German/Dutch friend pointed out is a tiny fraction of the total population of the country. How could so many just not care???)

And yes, I may become more involved in my local community, though even there, I'm somewhat played out on the volunteer front: I have given my time in so many realms for decades. Currently, I am taking a break from wilderness rangering—though I know that getting out into nature will be a balm—so my only regular volunteer gig is a weekly literacy session with a lovely Oaxacan woman. (I do not know her immigration status, but I hope she's immune from Trump's threats.) But maybe more opportunities will arise. Staying involved (in life) will continue to be important.

I am about to turn seventy. I had hoped that by now we'd be living in a better world, and yet too many people want to send us backwards. In some ways, I'm done fighting it. It's really up to the younger generations now, to try to make the world they want with what they have and know. It won't be easy.

Me, I think now I'll just appreciate my husband (with his stage 4 cancer diagnosis, so who knows how long I'll be able to do that), my beloved goldendoodle Milo (just turned 14, so ditto), my cats Luna and Ravi. I will continue to appreciate my healthy body, and keep on walking, which I love. I will travel. I will write and read and learn, and take photographs. I will cook. It's really not so different from what I've always done.

Except, that "always" has relied on a background of sanity and hope. There's friction now.

So okay, maybe even in my waning years, I will have to cultivate ferocity as well.

Fuck. Or do I mean, Fuck yeah. Or both. In any case, okay: I'm game. I have no choice.

NYT, as of 12:07 a.m. 11/6