Our Future, Our Fate

 

"There is no season when such sunny and pleasant spots,

 may be lighted on and produce so pleasant effect

 on the feelings as now in October.

 

~Nathanial Hawthorne

 

I want to think about autumn, but things like this keeps happening...

 

Trump's campaign is trying to throw this "comedian" under the bus, by saying his "humor" does not align with their values, but they vetted him, and they loaded his jokes into the teleprompter, so once again, as far as Trump's little MAGAt posse goes, Trump gets a pass. He had nothing to do with the grotesque jokes made by the comic, and we should all just ignore the fact that each of his surrogates said pretty much everything Trump said was in the same vein as the vileness this guy spewed. It was one racist, misogynistic, lie after another. So make NO MISTAKE, that rally Trump held at Madison Square Garden was a political NAZI rally, not an American political campaign event. They are now saying the quiet part out loud. Nazism is running for president, and it's hidden in a cult of personality. So how do I get in touch with the autumn inside me, when this might be the last free election we spend as Americans.

 

 One week from today will decide our future. Our fate.

 

 

Fate, And Welcome To It

 

“Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers

 we more than gain in fruits.” 

~Samuel Butler 

 

 

Oh my. Some of the most beautiful colors of autumn, happen in vineyards, in October. Delicious ripe grapes, make delicious wines, and the Central Valley has no shortages of them. My favorite wine, Apothic, comes from a vineyard in Modesto. Grandpa owned a vineyard in Lodi, and dad spoke often about the colors of the grapes in the autumn. I wish I could have seen it, but the entirety of the property was sold years ago. Maybe one day I wish search my family tree and see if I could locate where the property sat. It would be nice to see what my past looked like. I wish I could have known my grandfather, he immigrated here in the early 1900's with 6 wife, 6 children, and a rather large sewing machine. Not long after they settled in, grandma became pregnant with my father, the only one of his kids born in the United States, and soon after giving birth she perished from the flu pandemic of 1918. See, with my fathers deep roots, finding myself living here was probably fate, and I am really okay with that. While dad never liked the valley either, he was mightily impressed with the grapes, and all the other joys of living here. Now, I understand it too!

 

19 Years And A 19th Nervous Breakdown (An Anniversary Post)

 

"Homesickness is not always a vague feeling, nostalgic almost beautiful emotion, although that is somehow the way we always seem to picture it in our mind. It can be a terrible keen blade, not just a sickness in a metaphor but in fact as well. It can change the way one looks at the world, the faces one sees in street look not just indifferent but ugly... perhaps even malignant. Homesickness is real sickness... the ache of the uprooted plant"

 

~Stephen King

 

First off, I should acknowledge that today is my 19th year of blogging, and oh my, the places I have went! From the Bush administration, to the big AOL Journals migration to Blogger, to the many wonderful photo challenges I have shared with friends, to my own migration from the big Bay Area out pricing of affordable housing, and the eventual purchase of our house, and of course, the eventual sale of our first house last year. Big stress stuff. And all that without mentioning surviving the Trump administration. A thing I didn't think possible. But keep in mind, that was an attitude I feel quite vindicated about, in light of his taking Top Secret nuclear program documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, after the asshole was voted out of office!

 

This year has been difficult. In some ways it has felt like the last 19 years has somehow rolled into past last year. The move from the house was a shitshow. I am still picking up the emotional pieces. I am tired. Heartsick. A little lost. And, well, scattered. The move was a huge part of it, but catching Covid-19 and a husband retiring didn't help. Neither did the murder of our Chevy Equinox, in a hit and run, in the wee hours of a chilly October morning. But I guess Covid-19 has had the most profound effect on my life. Little by little the Long-Covid seems to be healing itself, but it is a scary thing to think about a virus having such a deep effect on me almost 9 months later. It's an invisible monster, living inside your body, reminding you every day of your mortality.

I wish this post was more filled with joy for having blogged all this time. I want to feel more positive, but I am finding it so hard to find joy, which is known as depression. I am working with a new therapist to try and breakthrough my sadness. I have hope, and hubby is carrying the weight. Because of him I do have a lot of moments of joy. We still have our movies, and the fur-babies. We have music and jaunts bird watching. I have a good life, I just need to find it again. One positive thing did happen recently to mix things up. Our landlord is letting us stay put for at least one more year. I can stop worrying about having to move again. I'm home.

Things feel like they are trying to transition from all the painful negativity to a safe and quiet existence. I have a lot to work on while I am in this condo... this home... like learning to let go of the life I left behind in our home. I try to not think of the house. I haven't grieved it yet, so, oh goody, THAT'S coming! Right now the thing I need to let go of is my life in the Bay Area. All the places I grew up around, all the memories and ghosts I was used to dealing with. I guess I grieved it wrong or something. Or if I am being honest, not at all.

 

 I'm still bargaining with the universe over it. I search the rentals for ANYTHING we can afford, ANYWHERE in the Bay Area, and of course it's always for nothing. Affordable housing in California is practically nonexistent, but the Bay Area recently surpassed NYC in lack of affordable housing. My old life is always there for visiting, but sometimes visiting, and then leaving, hurts so much I think all it does is set me back. Trump didn't successfully get San Francisco off the map, at least not yet, so I must learn how to balance love and sorrow. Who knows what the 2024 election will look like? He could get back into office, and then who knows what button he will push. 

Sorry... it was all the uprooting talking just then.

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are too.

 They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

~Stephen King

 

~Me

August 23rd 2022

 

 

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