Mary Beth Writes

This painting is by Andrea Kowch  http://andreakowch.com/

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Regarding Time: It’s been about a million months since the quarantine started. It will be an at least one epoch if not two, until a vaccine is available to quell it. Election Day is here now (I’ve already voted, have you?) yet it feels as if it will never be done and gone. Even when Nov 3 arrives we could be in for more epochs of anxious and angry waiting as ballots are tallied, argued over, recounted, all while lawyers and politicians fight and scrap.

These are Crazy Times. When you your anticipate some kind of good ending, that’s hope. When you don’t what’s going to happen, that’s Advent. I guess we are in Crazy Advent Time now.

Remember back the olden days when we had one or two crises at a time, and we all talked about it for a couple days or even weeks? I sit down here to write about one horrible thing; they literally took breast-feeding babies out of their mom’s arms at the border. Trump PAID those 400 people at his “rally” yesterday- where did he get the $? In my district some voters received ballots that don’t have my Democratic candidates on them. Senator Ron Johnson says Covid isn’t that big a deal, then he got it, he’s not said much lately, apparently one of his kids-in-law owns a corporate jet on which he flies Dad so RoJo doesn’t have to mix with the hoi-poi. Friends went to a demonstration last night against the cop shooting of Alvin Cole. Friends left at 7;30 with people leaving in orderly fashion, as heavy armor including a tank rolled into the area. Who's instigating violence?

 It’s Just This Crazy. Being a reasonably sensitive and caring person in this time is like living with bees in your head.

I think this is the part where I should tell you what to think and how to address all this. Hah. I don’t know.

In 2018 I wrote a sermon about Julian of Norwich. I think of Julian often  when I’m overwhelmed. This time we are in is not as horrendous as her time was. She spent her adult life considering how to respond to suffering and loss and craziness. Maybe you’d like to read my old sermon. Right Here. 

Goofy News: I mentioned that I was going to wear colorful clothes for a week to see if it made any difference in my daily life. It didn’t. But Judy suggested I feature fashion photos of “what I wore this week.” Which seems like a good way to lighten a mood.

Monday – I met some friends outside and this worked.

 

Tuesday I forgot to take a photo, but this is the shirt I wore.

Reaping nasturtium pods for home-grown capers. Orange pants are camouflage when sneaking up on nasturtiums.

We hiked at High Cliffs State Park. Note my sporty clip-on glasses.

My daughter lived in Egypt one summer. That’s the Arabic alphabet on the scarf!

A casual Saturday.

I’m ready to wear a black t-shirts again. Thinking about what to wear every day was above my paygrade.

After uncovering the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer this week, the FBI released a list of the white nationalist men accused of this crime. I grew up in Michigan. I perused that list to see if I would recognize any of the names. I don’t.

But isn’t this telling about what’s real and what’s not real in our nation?

To live in a propaganda state means one absorbs what the media puts in front of us. We learn to be anxious or afraid or racist around whomever the state/media designates as “scary.” Adult Black men and women. Asian people, no, I should say people of Asian heritage. Anyone with tawny skin speaking a language we don’t know - as if most of us could recognize Arabic from Urdu from Vietnamese. People speaking Spanish. A woman wearing hijab. A person with disfigurements. A person talking to themselves with what might be mental illness.

Most of us who are not the above, are NOT anxious around scruffy white men. Even though, right now, the FBI is telling us that white nationalist terrorist groups are our most serious threat.

We need to readjust our brains. The danger isn’t where the stereotypes insisted it was. It is exactly this close – that when we see a list of white national terrorism suspects, we scan the list.

This close.

And this. If one has too many green tomatoes. Ahem

One can make a very tasty bread by using your banana bread recipe … but … replace the mushed banana with diced/smooshed green tomatoes.

Comments

Love your outfits! I wear the same 2 shorts or jeans since march 17th when I learned classes would go to online. My dress clothes lie in a wrinkled heap on closet floor. I am bored with myself and I love the idea...will try it this week. Thanks for another piece full of intriguing truths.

Good pictures. Good read. Flu shot and voting is on my agenda for the week.

I love your wedding photo, and your nasturtium-camo outfit!
Mary Beth's picture

Thanks! Our wedding was on a very steamy, hot June Saturday which one can sort of tell by looking at my enthusiastic hair.

I just love the humour, mettle, political insight and sheer goddamn determination to live in right ways in these 'crazy times'. So though we've never met, many thanks for sharing all this, and cheering and making human our days. Juliet from Oxford
Mary Beth's picture

Thanks right back at you, Juliet from Oxford. Sigh, I miss Endeavor. Anyways, thank you for your comment and thanks to all of you who respond. Without readers, writers are a sorry lot.

The photos are making me smile --- a bit of fun in the middle of all of this. You look great, and the photos of you & Len made me think of our many good times together. Those dinner conversations are much missed, and wouldn't we have lots of topics these days:) We are voting early, in person next week -- can't wait to get this party started! Keep writing, when I see your post to let us know that something new has been added I have this conversation with myself --- should I read it right away or save it for something special later? Hugs!

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A-Z P is for Procrastination

6/2/2023

Procrastination. Or how the American Revolution was won. 

"You can lead a horse to water but you can't grant him the serenity to accept the things he cannot change.” (Tweet by Bob Golen) 

P is the next letter to write about in this project to write an essay for every letter of the alphabet. Someone suggested Procrastination.

Guess what? I’ve been putting it off.

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GNTL - So Many Words!

5/30/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives - Words!

The month of May might have been above my paygrade. I contributed to a weeks-long writing project in our congregation. I met friends more often than usual to talk and catch up. Two grandkids came for a sleepover last week. Our daughter and her little dog spent last Friday with us. Saturday another grandkid slept over.

GNTL - Kathryn's Garden

5/29/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives - Kathryn’s Garden

My friend Kathryn sent some beautiful photos of her garden to me this morning, I asked if I could post them here and she said yes. 

Some of you know Kathryn Rouse so you know this is not a garden-come-lately. She’s been building and growing her garden since, I think, the late 1970’s. The bunny in a hurry is a Bill Reid sculpture.

I think Kathryn's photos are the right frame for the poem.

A-Z Observation

5/24/2023   O is for Observation

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was a pre-telescope Danish astronomer who looked at the sky more precisely than anyone before him had done. He was obsessively careful about measuring what he saw and he studied the sky every night he could. To accomplish what he wanted he reinvented and fine-tuned the sky-gauging tools of his era – sextant and quadrant.

You may have seen these tools in paintings of old-time sailors. They would hold them up to their face, look at the stars, figure out where they were in the world.

GNTL - Squirrels & Gardens & the Sonoran Desert

5/18/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

My garden thrives in ignominy.

Yesterday I posted some frugal things I’ve done lately at the Non-Consumer Advocate website. I do this because the kinds of people who try to be frugal are often (not always) people who I wish would come over here and read my website, too. I don’t write too much about frugal strategies but I write lot about values. We are in the same Venn diagram, right?

GNTL - Walk, Mounds, Spirit

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

5/17/2023 

The local TV weather folks talked about ‘a pneumonia front’ for two days. I’d never heard the term before but we all know temps can change fast, right? It’s more generally called life on planet earth. Keep a jacket handy if you can.

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