October 30, 2020

October 30, 2020 

Fucking Beethoven. 

Music can be a gut punch. A swell of emotion that shatters you and leaves you bawling uncontrollably as you try to make sense of the feelings you’ve been suppressing for so long. My glasses filthy from my tears of hope, fear, joy, despair... 

One moment, in a restaurant - celebrating - of all things Oktoberfest - on the night before Halloween - the full moon - the blue moon - and that last weekend before the election. Our friends two tables back, both acknowledged and missed as we recounted all the friends we haven’t seen or touched in so long. 

Then, getting into the car and there was the Ninth. The 4th Movement. The Ode to Joy. Only this was the alternate version, the Ode to “Freedom” - the version that swaps out “freude ” for “freiheit” the version conceived for the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification. The true end of the war. A point almost equidistant from the fall of Nazism and now. 

I sang and Lisa drove, I sang until I started weeping. Beethoven. Fucking Beethoven. The Ninth - the CD we bought before we had a CD player because this was the song we wanted to first hear in its digital perfection. The hope for a future full of progress - of pristine music if nothing else (jet packs anyone?). I wept. I wept until I was empty. I miss so many people, living and dead. 

I still want to unlock and cling to this joy, this optimism for the future - but I’ll suck it back up for now. Dry the tears and clean my glasses. Pour a glass and wait. 

Freude

October 29, 2020

October 29, 2020 

5 days to the election. Within a week it seems that things may finally change - but honesty we know that’s unlikely. Election day will only mark the beginning of the next round of conflict that will likely bleed into January if not later. 

I voted already. This year filled with the angst of making sure my vote would count. Distrust of the mail, a desire to vote in person, but Covid, but lines, but the fear of armed militias roaming the streets. I opted for a drop box - deciding on one by the Blue Line, where there is a manned police substation - presumably a deterrent to tampering, arson, or bombs. Still, I tracked my ballot like an Amazon package, anxiously checking the website until my ballot showed up and accepted at the registrar. 

I can’t remember an election more fraught - though 4 years ago I also opted for a drop box. This year though - conversations of should we own firearms? how much and what should we stock up on? do we need to keep some plywood at hand to board up windows? 

At night we’ve been catching up watching the Mandalorian - a fun romp, but a story that advances each episode with new enemies to kill, or surviving attempts to be killed - is it any wonder that that has become our go-to for conflict resolution? Friday a new episode of The Great British Bake Off drops, and I look forward to watching a competition in which everyone is sad when someone’s batter doesn’t properly rise. I need more models like this, where everyone aspires to be good and no one ever says, “I didn’t come here to make friends.” 

Most of the things we worry about never come to pass - I hope this remains true.

September 23, 2020

September 23, 2020 

We went out to dinner tonight. It wasn’t part of our plan. I mean, we might have hit a drive-thru on our way home - but this... 

And we shouldn’t have - for all the reasons: Covid, we’d already spent our food budget for the month, meals ready for us to make waiting at home. But glancing at our phones, seeing the latest, the GOP reluctance to support the concept of a peaceful transition of government? 

It seems pretty clear that there probably won’t be take-out during the coup. 

We enjoyed the new restaurant - outdoors and socially distanced. Ordered appetizers as well as desert, enjoying each bite as if it might be our last, as November will be here in a blink of the eye.

September 22, 2020

Autumn 

The first day of Fall 

Transition of the seasons 

The Equinox – when Night and Day 

Light and Dark are balanced 

There is the cycle 

There is the timeline 

One repeats 

One never looks back 

For the moment 

Mars rules the night 

Venus the morning 

Neither cares 

My days seem to repeat 

An endless monotony 

Of work, laundry, dishes 

And projects left undone 

There’s comfort in the structure 

But I’ve read enough Foucault 

The cycle is endless 

My timeline is not 

We dance 

Swaying forward and back 

The orbit contains our momentum 

Filling space with movement 

The direction doesn’t matter 

But that we choose it, does 

So once again I ask myself, 

Where do I go from here?

September 20, 2020

September 20, 2020 

I’m one who believed that Ruth Bader Ginsberg was one of our last remaining breaks to keep our nation from slipping into fascism so my emotions this weekend are of grief. I grieve for RBG, but also for a nation that I used to believe took the moral high ground (yes still reconciling with my idealized and propagandize education). It’s a loss of innocence , that we would all act in a way to uphold a moral right, that we are all inherently good. 

 I know that’s strange coming from someone who’s a quite a bit of a moral relativist, but I struggle all the time with “what is the right thing to do?” mostly I side with the existentialists, that we must create our own set of meaning and values for ourselves. I confess, occasionally I have been seduced by Nietzsche and the will to power. I see that explicitly expressed in the current administration despite it cloaking itself in Christian sackcloth. That hypocrisy troubles me. It’s inauthentic to the core Personally though, i feel both soiled and foolish for being duped - presuming that there still might be those who valued integrity. 

The social contract can only work if we all keep our word. It’s the only way to “win”’the prisoner's dilemma as an environment of distrust condemns us all. If the morality of this nation is to be the will of the strong, then we must be stronger. More so, we must also be merciless those currently in power as they’ve proven their unreliability. 

 I hope I am wrong in my pessimism and that we can somehow return to our ideals, that we can look at one another in good faith, that we are working for a common good. But I fear greater conflict is coming before we can have a conversation again.