NO, WE'RE NOT FINE

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard" H.L. Mencken, Satirist and Cultural Critic (l8980-1956)

today I was reading a poet who talked about greed and stupidity and hate.

Such everyday things now.

I could write a poem about that, I thought.

I read, I scroll, I listen to the news.

I see who's on deck, who's failing already.

But then I thought, I'll be OK.

The stock market's rising, I'll be OK. 

I have a home, I'll be OK.

I have health insurance, I'll be OK.

The woman who cleans my home, the man who mows my grass, they aren't criminals.

It must be the others that are.

The boy who loads my groceries, he isn't lazy.

It must be the others who are. 

The mothers and their children who shop with me in Food Lion, they're not vermin.

It must be the others who are.

I haven't met anyone who doesn't deserve a hand up, but I must be wrong. 

Anyway, I was born here, I'll be fine.

If I don't care about our country, the world, or the future, 

I'll be just fine.

On second thought, I'm not in the mood to write a poem.  

                               

                                                       Nina Naomi

SOME VERSE FOR TODAY

 

In a City Apartment

Outside the door the hedgerow grows

By rusty links of chain along the walk.

A lonely chipmunk skitters over litter, lawn and leaves

While honeysuckle vines entwine

Around the fence, white petals overshine,

Tendrils reaching, straining, fragrant, sure.

Not thwarted by old boundaries torn.

I should be so bold amongst the litter of my years. 

 

 

Where Lies My Heart?

Where lay my heart on Bonfire Day? 

Did I forget how I must pray?

Mistake my need to verify?

Or am I freed from all that made me cry? 

 

I shall not now repeat what once I kept.

Those thoughts unbidden nor will I regret

My choice to save the future from the past.

I've sent my sad words into flames at last. 

 

FEAR OF THE FUTURE

It's so easy to fear the future right now.  Especially if you're a person with empathy and you keep up with the news.  

We fear for women and girls of child-bearing age.  Don't we wish that no person alive ever needed an abortion?  But that has never happened.  

We fear for school children and churchgoers and Black people and anyone simply living their days peaceably until they become the next victim of gun violence.   We fear for Ukrainians still defending their homeland.  We read that fifty migrants were found dead in a tractor-trailer in San Antonio today.  What have I missed?  What comes tomorrow?  And if there's sorrow within your own family, how much harder then to cope.  When my mother was dying of cancer, as I shopped for fresh night clothes for her, I couldn't stop crying.  Grief can be brutal.  

What might we do?  Experts say that any act of self-love helps our mental health.  This could be noticing and accepting how we feel.  "I feel sad.  That's OK," we might say to ourself. Or angry.  That's OK too.  Or hopeless.  "Others do too.  I'm not alone in my feelings."  Perhaps I need sleep, or a walk outdoors, or a break from the news.  Or to talk with others or help in some way. There's always a way to help.  Or to give it to God if we can.

This writing I am doing right now is self-care for me. Many say that writing is emotional processing, much like talk-therapy I think. 

It's true that not every storm is followed by a rainbow.  There's debris, downed limbs, flooded homes and clean-up.  But it is also true that after every storm we clean up together.  It's never me against the world.

We can even use our negative emotions as reminders to take care of ourselves.  Something that triggers a PTSD response can help me remember that I haven't been defeated before.  Devastated I'll admit, but not defeated. 

Right now my personal life is good and there's that disconnect, living on two levels: the one that makes the nightly news and the one that makes dinner.  You may be the same, that's the least we can hope for.  So we go forward, trying to avoid overthinking and to accept what we cannot control.  And all the while looking for ways to take care of ourselves, small and large.  A cup of tea, a vacation, play-time, letting love blossom, talking with a friend, spending time or money working for good.  Maybe even looking at history and knowing that the McCarthy Era ended.  So did the Vietnam War.  We've endured 9/11 now, and January 6.  Post-Roe will not be the same as pre-Roe.  There are good people in government too.  

Let's do the next right thing, as the psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) originally said, and our fear of the future will be manageable too.  

In peace, Nina Naomi    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"WHAT HAPPENS NOW IS HAPPENING TO US"

"We have arrived.  What happens now is happening to us."

Anna Seghers, born Anna (Netty) Reiling (1900-1983)

A German Jewish writer who escaped Nazi Germany wrote these words in 1939, eighty-one years ago.  In her historical novel The Seventh Cross she had reached the concentration camp, which she avoided but where other members of her family would perish.  In 1939 she could not know the outcome.  But she felt a moment of recognition, that moment when we see ourselves as historical subjects.  When from an imaginary future platform we look back to see the importance of our present lives. 

For weeks and months now this has been us.  The coronavirus has arrived.  So has the social reckoning about race.  What the virus is doing is being done to us.  Whether racism can be eradicated will be decided by us.  Wherever we live, on whatever continent in whatever country or state, what happens now is on our watch.  We are the ones making history, everyone alive today. 

Strange but I don't see these words as negative.  I like it that whatever happens, happens to us all. Most of us understand that we're in the present together and however the future unspools we'll be there together too. ("No Man Is an Island," 5/29/20)

I've touted www.Mindful.org before.  Today in my in-box were three questions:

1. How can I love myself today?
2. How can I love others today?
3. How can I love the world today?
   

When I was in the throes of parenthood I never thought about loving myself.  If I practiced compassion toward myself it went unnoticed by me.  Love and care for the children was automatic, but I didn't think much about the world either.  Nothing to brag about. 

But life is different now.  Everyday I'm loving the world, nurturing my own green spaces, keeping the butterfly bushes healthy, feeding the birds, contributing to the right causes.  Wearing face coverings and wishing everyone were.  Thinking about safety and friendships and vocations in new ways.  You are too, aren't you?  We are doing this.