Beware The Man You Think You Know

Quincy School House

Quincy, California

October 15th, 2016

  

Songs Of Sapphique

"Walls have ears. Doors have eyes.

Trees have voices. Beasts tell lies.

Beware the rain. Beware the snow.

Beware the man you think you know."

~Catherine Fisher

Incarceron 

As we inch closer and closer to Donald Trump taking office, I am finding myself thinking about different years of my life. I sometimes think about the first I heard about him. I think about how disgustingly seedy his life seemed, when the details of his first divorce came out. I remember thinking that it was a shame that affairs happen in marriages, but I remember thinking Ivana Trump was probably better off without him. 

I remember looking at pictures of the "other woman" and thinking despite the fact that she had slept with a married man, there was something gentle and likeable about her. I remember when Marla and Donald got married. She looked so pretty, and so glamorous. She looked happy, he looked like every other picture I had ever seen of him. He almost had this implication of "next" written on his appearance. And as it turns out... I was right. Marla would be thrown aside about 10 years or so down the road. Just as predicted by some of Trump's lawyers and friends.

And now the seedy, unfaithful husband will be president in 10 days and the joke is on his supporters because Donald Trump doesn't care about anyone but himself. He surrounds himself with YES people, and resists any kind of critique with not just dismissal, but aggressive dismissal. He thrashes and destroys anyone who dares question him. Whether they have his best interest at heart or not. If it's one thing we don't need in a president, it's a childish, aggressive narcissist who refuses to listen to anything that doesn't suit his predetermined ambition or inner dialog. 

We, America, are about to enter into the most dangerous time of my life, and that includes the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of JFK and the attempted assassination of Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. All things that seemed to bring us together as a nation. But things are different now, and Trump doesn't want us to come together. So, I don't know what things will be like a year from now, assuming a year from now exists. Trump seems to get a great deal of joy out of seeing American's turn on each other over him. His decisions are dangerous and at least some of his early supporters seem to be waking up to that fact, but it's pretty late in the game to have an epiphany. I don't want to see another president impeached, but Trump seems like he is barreling toward that end with his alliance with Putin, and his MANY conflicts of interest. And there is nothing anyone can do but hold on, and hope that Trump can be stopped before real damage is done to the United States. 

Rainy days make me think about what's about to happen. I can't get out and do any photography, and my body tends to be in more pain on days like this one. This week is full of rain, and jammed packed with senate confirmation hearings of some people who have NO business anywhere near holding a government office! Also later today, is President Obama's farewell speech to America. I don't know if I can watch any of it. I have mixed feelings about him as a leader, but I never went to bed frightened for my life or with a sense of foreboding like I feel with Trump. 

I have appreciated many things President Obama did in office, and other actions by him perplexed me and exasperated me to NO END. There is ten days left, and then the world will literally change forever! As I sit here right now... I don't see anything good coming from Trump taking office. Even when George W. Bush was in office, I had to reluctantly admit he loved his country, it's a lot clearer now that he still loves his country, and I can see where I was wrong about him to a degree. It was a complicated time, much too complicated for one post on this blog. 

If Trump manages to stay in the White House four years I will be 59 years old, should I survive. The thought of him in office eight years is almost more than I can take. The GOP is poised to do away with the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and they want to privatized Medicare. Trump's followers either weren't paying attention, or just plain didn't care because now it seems like they are caught off guard by the predicted cuts to most social programs. I feel sorry for them. I feel sorry that they got so caught up in the gitchy, never boring, "reality" of Trump's candidacy that they voted against their own interests! We on the left tried to tell them. We tried. God HELP US WE TRIED! It's no solace that the people who will probably be hurt the most by Trump, will be his own supporters!

But in that we are all on a collision course with fate daily, there is nothing that can be done. So I am just listening to the rain, trying to hold on and photograph the rain for what it is, a cold distraction from how cold and dark life is sometimes. It's strange how beautiful and scary a rainy day can be depending on what window you are looking out of.

"I went to bed and woke in the middle of the night thinking I heard someone cry, thinking I myself was weeping, and I felt my face and it was dry."Then I looked at the window and thought: Why yes, it's just the rain, the rain, always the rain, and I turned over, sadder still, and I fumbled about for my dripping sleep and tried to slip it back on."

~Ray Bradbury

Green Shadows, White Whale: A Novel of Ray Bradbury's Adventures Making Moby Dick With John Huston In Ireland

Mood: Quiet

~Me