Mary Beth Writes

How many feelings have you cycled through since the Inauguration? I’ve been the Lance Armstrong (without the drugs or cancer) of ups, downs, responses, relief, and outrage.

I read that the Twitter word trending last Thursday morning was “slept.” As in “I slept well last night for the first time in four years. How about you?”

I went for a long walk last Wednesday morning; it was a charming 7 degrees here with no wind, so it was pleasant enough but not exactly a stroll on a beach. Len had turned the TV on to the Inaugural (we have TV on in the morning here about as often as we discuss Kafka with the cats). I walked back into my house just as Lady Gaga was singing the Star-Spangled banner. I stood there, sweaty in umpteen layers. My glasses fogged as my tears formed and fell with the swelling of her voice. And I don’t even LIKE that song…

I said aloud to the cats, “Yes! THIS is the nation I claim with all my heart.”

So much has been written. I don’t need to replay/re-say what we all saw and heard. It was a beautiful day.

Except I hope you didn’t miss Jill’s ivory cashmere coat and dress. What was not made clear enough were the embroidered flowers along that hemline; Delaware’s peach blossoms are over her heart. Since she is a teacher inside this coat is this Ben Franklin quote. “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

These photos are from the Instagram account of the designer, Gabriela Hearst.

 ...

It's only been a week since the Biden administration took over. It’s a relief to have grownups back in the White House.

But what ridiculous irony is this? The more we learn about the deadly intentions and treacherous planning of the Jan 6th riot – the further away from a call to investigation and charges most Congressional Republicans move. I do not get it. Is the chaos and deception of Trump this influential? Still? This is dangerous and crazy.

I can’t fix it and I can do very little to influence what happens next. Paying attention is the American hairshirt; to love our fellow humans enough to witness what is happening and to care.

Last night we finished Season 1 of The Bridge. The plot, which exists in at least three streaming TV series, is this. A body is found on a border; Denmark/Sweden, England/France, Texas/Chihuahua. Two detectives respond – one from each country. While they are sniping about who has jurisdiction, EMT’s try to pick the body up to put in an ambulance – and the body falls apart. Because it is TWO half-bodies. Half in one country, half in the other.

Now they both have to take the case for their half body, plus work together because it was obviously one murderer. Different laws, regulations, department staffs, and personalities create a story that pulls one’s attention away from everything else (I’m not going to tell you how often we have done the supper dishes at 10:30 because we got sucked into the show). The female detective is on the autism spectrum which gives her strong abilities to solve complicated puzzles. The male detective is on the lackadaisical scale; he's smart, experienced, intuitive, and not good with marriage vows.

They’re at loggerheads until they know each other well enough to trust each other. After that, their partnership is fascinating to watch. This isn’t a romance, its fiction about people working together.

I’ve read two good books lately.

“Deacon King Kong” by James McBride is the comedy and tragedy of African American life. It’s 1969 and all the characters live in or near an urban housing project in south Brooklyn. The main character is Sport Coat who is a 71-year-old alcoholic widower. He’s charming, talented, irresponsible and he talks to his dead wife all the time. She talks back.

The book was dryly funny. There were also several times I had to put it down and walk away because I could see characters losing their souls to the ugliness and limitations. But then I would go back into that world where character and love are as powerful as racism and evil.

… 

“Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi is really powerful. She’s a new Black writer, her novel is infused with the racism that defined and infused her childhood.

Gifty is a researcher studying the brain chemistry and mechanisms that cause people to become depressed or addicted. She is focused, motivated, and very alone in her world. The novel flips between brain research on mice, her memories of her depressed mother, and her anger at and grief for her heroin-addicted brother.

Gifty (like Gyasi herself) grows up inside a Fundamentalist congregation. She experiences love, loss, death. She lives in the dark shadow of the undiagnosed clinical depression of her mother who doesn’t believe in depression.

Gyasi describes her adult angst and anger at the church which taught her that questions were sin and that faith required believing everything they said. This is one of the clearest novels I’ve ever read that worked from and through that dynamic. It 's a good explication of what we are watching now, iwhere “conservative religions” is a demand to ask no questions. 

As timely as hell.

Do you read or watch TV more or less when times are turbulent?

Are you reading more, or less, now? 

 

Comments

Thank you again and again!!!!!
Mary Beth's picture

You are welcome again and again! I appreciate your thank yous! I need to know (writers are needy this way) that people are reading and I am glad you let me know.

It's painful for me at times because my flawed eyesight isn't conducive to sitting down and reading a book... It took years of training my eyes to work together to get to this point... Unbelievable to me but I'm reading more than I ever have in my entire life... One right after the other... Why is that? Is it because of the English professor? I don't believe so, it started before we ever met... Is it to escape the craziness going on in the world? Or my own problems?( there's always something ) I can't answer that in the affirmative either because it seems like with every book I pick up the people who I'm reading about have way more, or bigger issues/problems than I could dream up... I guess it's to escape my world or to see that mine isn't really all that bad... I've at least survived most of my stuff with a few scar's to remind me... I've got no answers but I'm glad to have the opportunity to escape for at least a few days...
Mary Beth's picture

I think falling into the world of someone else's story - novel, show, tales told by a spooky old grandma across a fire in a cave... I think they way we fall from our lives into someone else's tale is a clue to understanding 'spirituality'. That our lives are in our spirits and how that works is the truth and mystery we keep aiming at.

We hardly ever play the TV or “ TAA- VEE” as my Louisiana husband still calls it. We did crank it up for the inauguration. I cried and I think he got a bit misty. I have been into escapism and volunteering these last four torturous years. I watch British murder mysteries on YouTube. I wish those Republican fools could realize that they, too could have been ripped apart by that rabid mob. There was at least one faction represented that hates government, red or blue. God Save America!
Mary Beth's picture

It's humorous and true that escapism and volunteering are BOTH the business of our hearts. And both bolster our hearts. Weird, that. This afternoon Homeland Security is telling us to be alert for MORE rightwing terrorist action. I read a tweet that is is time to call them Radical Christian Terrorists. Since we call others Radical Islamic Terrorists.

As the past 4 years progressed I read less (hard time concentrating), watched TV more. I also knitted more (therapy) hence the TV watching. Got lost in British Shows... Of the 3 versions of the Bridge ( like I said watched a lot of TV), the best is the original Scandinavian version. Then the British one and the American, which is my least favorite. The original story varies enough that they are all worth watching. AS for reading: I recently re-read "A Tree grows in Brooklyn" which was as wonderful as I remember it. Just picked up The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich. I think I am going to suffer while reading it, but I believe it will be excellent. Will post back. The Inauguration was emotional. Don't understand the Republicans. They frighten me. Thank you for your posts! Patricia

I was also gratefully teary over the inauguration - knocked out by Amanda Gorman's poetry, moved by Lady Gaga's powerful sincerity in singing the Star Spangled Banner, hopeful and relieved listening to the tone of Joe Biden's speech . . . and smiling at the fact that Bernie's practical parka and home made mittens were the fashion statement of the day. What I've noticed with myself since the "peaceful transition"; is that I no longer tense up and grit my teeth when the word "President" is mentioned in news reports. We witnessed the power and ability of the words of an ignorant, fear mongering and souless man who became President (how did that happen???), unable to put even halfway intelligent statements together; influence, change and motivate hate and violence in an unsettlingly large number of people in our country. My hope is that President Biden's influence from his powerful platform will move things in a more peaceful, united way of acceptance and love. It's going to be a long road, but we're all on it together.
Mary Beth's picture

You said this so beautifully.

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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.

...

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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