An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune and misfortune at their own private pace like a clock during a thunderstorm.—Robert Louis Stevenson
Waves were sweeping up over a hundred feet across the sand to break finally in the basalt rock. Every few minutes a wave will rush in, putting the place where that child is walking several feet under water.
We like to be among the first out on the beach. Sometimes in summer than means walking out by 6am. This week low tide is after noon and we began our morning walk on the road, the last half mile north on the rocky shore and then home. We note how the sand moves, the gravel shifts into rolls and then is buried under larger stones, the new and broader rivulets of runoff, the places where shoreline vegetation is undermined, and where high banks have failed entirely this winter in the unrelenting wet.
Yes, that’s just the way the beach foam was. Gary told me I should take a photo.
From romance to plastic trash to how we can all be in this together. I’ll try to explain.
When I was a graduate student studying literature, I first heard the theory that romantic love was an invention of European novelists. People felt lust and loyalty, but actual love between two people—sexual and romantic love—was a figment of playwrights’ imagination. (It’s a silly theory.) Canadian psychologist Nathaniel Brandon claims that “in primitive cultures the idea of romantic love did not exist at all.” Even Margaret Mead declared: “Romantic love as it occurs in our civilization, inextricably bound up with ideas of monogamy, exclusiveness, jealousy and undeviating fidelity does not occur in Samoa.” Freemason Lewis H. Morgan proposed the concept that marriage was the earliest human domestic institution but also judged “the passion of love was unknown among the barbarians. They are below the sentiment, which is the offspring of civilization and super added refinement of love was unknown among the barbarians.”
[Gary argues that most of what we have assumed about physical and cultural anthropology and archeology has been turned on its head in this century.]
However, a few decades ago this idea that romance was an invention of Western culture was taken seriously enough by an anthropologist that he decided to construct a research project. He used the archetypal story of star-crossed lovers—two people who abandon convention and family in order to be together. We might argue that such passion does not necessarily lead to a golden anniversary. Even Shakespeare, after all, was poking holes in the relationship between R & J. Nevertheless, the star-crossed lover story is not merely the story of lust or friendship, but of a passionate devotion that creates more than inconvenience, where two people defy their community, faith, and family to be together. He considered such stories might provide a warning, but their existence also demonstrated emotions that most of us would not hesitate to describe as romantic love. He searched for traditional stories and folktales from all over the world. Surprise! The star-crossed lovers story exists everywhere. In ancient Greece and the forests of Brazil and Madagascar and India, China, Europe, the Middle East, and the South Seas, such traditional stories exist everywhere. Individuals do fall in love and occasionally make enormous sacrifices, even of their lives, in order to be together. They fall in love and sacrifice for their devotion. The story exists in non-literate and literate cultures in every inhabited continent and within island cultures all around the world, even in cultures that otherwise seem to have no “romantic” tradition.
It’s possible that people lied. Maybe anthropologists, like everyone, found what they wanted and expected to find. More likely, love exists.
We are human beings and part of our shared humanity is that some stories persist in all cultures, in every corner of the world, and throughout time. Like the hero’s journey, the star-crossed lovers is likely a universal narrative. Lovers who defy convention and are willing to sacrifice safety and comfort in order to be together might be one of them.
Did I need an anthropologist to prove that to me? No, I actually did not. It is what I want and expect to find is true. It is Eurocentric hubris that inspired some foolish English-speaking academic to claim that romance was invented in Northern Europe. It is shallow to assume that the only way couples stay together is reproduction, envy, jealousy, rivalry, habit, boredom, or convention. Romance lives!
So. Take-out food.
“Few of us are equipped or inclined to cook three meals a day for ourselves.”
—Tom Sietsema, food critic for The Washington Post
Tom Sietsema wrote about his discovery that the take-out food he was eating during the pandemic creates a lot of trash. He was shocked, shocked to discover how much plastic his food required.
The article was titled “All my takeout has delivered a mountain of trash. So I asked experts how to minimize it.” Apparently he had not noticed how much trash his occupation as a food critic created until he was personally responsible for disposing of it. “For three weeks this summer, I saved every scrap of takeout packaging… The cups from cold-brew breaks and the cartons from sushi and burrito runs that used to be tossed out at the office and forgotten about are now our responsibility, up close and personal — in our faces. The problem is literally knocking at our door. We have to answer it.” (I want to know where he found grass to spread out his trash in Manhattan?)
How he had not known this already?
Soda and milk products came in glass when I was a girl. But the oil industry looked for a larger market and chose plastics, spending millions to convince us of a lie—that plastic was safe, cheap, and recyclable. Ultimately it is none of those things. The lesson here? Distrust the profit motive?
People were particularly irritated by this line: “Few of us are equipped or inclined to cook three meals a day for ourselves.” Commenters pointed out that preparing three meals was exactly what they did every day. We do not need to actually cook three meals because what about cold cereal and leftovers? A survey conducted in 2019 found that only 6% of Americans eat out daily. Gallup found that dining habits have been stable between 2003 and 2016 and close to 40% of those surveyed had not eaten out for even one meal in the previous week. Apparently even Sietsema’s readers don’t all eat the way he does. We should use containers made of materials that break down completely and quickly, he says. We should use our own flatware and reusable shopping bags.
Romantic love and plastic take-out containers—we assume that others’ habits and passions are just like ours. Maybe a literary critic had a bad break-up that lead to his cynicism about romantic love. A food critic assumed most everyone ate the way he does. We assume that what we do and value and desire is the same for everyone.
When I was in college, all shopping bags were still paper and the world did not come to a screaming halt because there were no plastic bags. The produce at Safeway was not continually misted with water and I put my veggies in paper bags. Milk only came in glass or waxed paper cartons. And in 1973, I carried my groceries home in a cotton canvas shopping bag imprinted with “Save a Tree.” I used that bag for years.
Today is Valentine’s Day and my husband is downstairs making coffee as I type. How we care for and feel about one another is not like anyone else. But love and passion, friendship and simple affection, loyalty and kindness, compassion and decency are all human emotions. We are all capable of changing our minds. We are all capable of fairness and altruism. We can figure things out. Maybe we fail sometimes. Perhaps all those good things are not functioning fully all the time or for everyone. But our best can be very fine indeed. We do not need to become a culture of outrage. Anger can drive needed change, but as a steady diet, love is healthier.
Take it easy on yourself today. Everyone needs a break sometimes. The human heart is vast; it contains multitudes.
Yeah, we knew it was coming. Despite the videos, the creepy calling after Nancy, the threats and racist catcalls that began years ago. Despite the ridicule of a disabled reporter, the ridicule of a Gold Star family, the infidelity during three marriages, the threats and bullying, we had every right to expect Congress, the Republicans in Congress to do the right thing. Gary likes to say: Didn’t they ever go to Sunday School?
Apparently all they learned was they were chosen.
Against the courage of Officer Goodman are the doors and windows broken, the officers who were broken, the oaths of office broken, the trust broken. The news has reported from the beginning that Republicans in Congress would never vote to convict. And those national media outlets were correct. Republicans in Congress chose party and power over people, party and power over the Constitution they swore to defend, party and power over morality and justice. It is unconscionable. The next time someone complains about partisan politics, look right.
To paraphrase Fiddler on the Roof:
"Rabbi, if there's a blessing for everything, is there a blessing for Trump?"
"Of course. May the good Lord bless and keep Trump . . . far away from us."
Or to quote Jesus Christ Superstar: "Could we start again, please?"
Some deep housecleaning is called for. As The New York Times reports:
“Forty-three Republicans voted to acquit Mr. Trump of inciting an insurrection against the United States—more than enough to prevent the two-thirds majority needed for conviction. Mr. Trump was found not guilty, a verdict he immediately celebrated.
“And yet seven Republicans voted to convict him, making this by far the most bipartisan impeachment effort in American history. It is worth remembering that until a year ago, when Mr. Romney cast the lone Republican ‘guilty’ vote in Mr. Trump’s first impeachment trial, no senators had ever voted to convict a president from their own party.”
“Representative Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, an impeachment manager, put it bluntly: ‘If we don’t set this right and call it what it was, the highest of constitutional crimes by the president of the United States, the past will not be past. The past will become our future,’ she said in closing arguments. ‘Senators, we are in a dialogue with history.’ ”
“ ‘The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president,’ Mr. McConnell said, ‘and having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole, which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet earth.’ ”
Mitch McConnell voted to acquit. History will judge their failure.
We are continually surprised by people we thought we “knew.” Just the other day a local woman I’ve known for forty years asked for my email address, which has the word “pride” in it.
“Does that ‘pride” word stand for something?” she wanted to know.
“Yes,” I said, “it was my grandmother’s maiden name.”
Then she launched into a whole thing about the word “pride” is “triggering” and a “trigger-word” that “we need to take back that word.”
And I thought, really? Gay pride is triggering? …Who are you?
My older son complained that he had emailed a journal three times last year asking when a paper he’d authored that was due to be published. They finally responded to his email the day before yesterday.
I’m not sure why, but I said: karma is a bitch.
He countered that I had corrected that use of the word karma decades ago.
Oh, right. I know better.
Westerners are inclined to use the term “karma” as shorthand for “What goes around comes around” or “As you sew, so shall you reap” and “He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword.” Which is not at all the meaning of the term, but we pretend it has to do with just deserts. (Yes, that is correctly spelled even though it’s pronounced in this usage as “desserts.”)
I do not believe we are being punished, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Life does not work that way. We do not always or with any consistency receive punishment in life for misdeeds and rewards for virtue. It seems like it might be nice, but no.
We should feel better about ourselves when we are kind and generous and open-minded, but too often the kind, generous, and open-minded among us are the very ones who question our own motives and experience remorse over minor failings.
Never mind.
And anyway, that is not what karma means, in its original use. Karma is more like destiny. More like the path we are supposed to follow at various stages of our life as child, student, parent, and on to a quiet retirement.
The other day we found 23 pieces of sea glass. This was not a reward but the result of three hours of searching. On our way home, the couple who were standing in the middle of our path thought I hesitated to pass them because I was afraid of their completely pleasant dogs. It was the people themselves I was afraid of. They seemed completely amazed when I told them this. Who knows where those people have been?
There’s this pandemic? Hello? I go masked if I might come within twenty feet of someone outdoors. I am always masked before shopping for groceries. On the beach I walk well up into the rocks when people come by on the sand. I wait for them to pass. I try to keep my distance. Rarely do the people we meet seem to understand that. Maybe they trust the same magic that sends them jaywalking in Cannon Beach, speeding or crawling along. They’re on vacation and can’t be touched?
I have often joked that tourists behave as if they think: I’m on vacation, the rules do not apply to me. Maybe I’m not far off?
A new member of Congress was complaining that we needed no laws about civil rights or freedoms since we are all free according to the founders, and it’s already guaranteed. I wondered what she was thinking? Does that mean that because the Declaration of Independence says we are all granted life, therefore murder need not be declared a crime? Her reasoning was ridiculous. Flat-earthers are ridiculous. QAnon are ridiculous. How do people believe this nonsense?
We live together in a society that agrees to certain truths. Murder is wrong. Every society that has ever existed agrees that murder is wrong. Human beings have always agreed that killing for personal benefit is murder and therefore wrong. Theft, cheating, lying, breaking our promises? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. We all agree. We have always agreed.
Kindness, charity, compassion, love, honesty, devotion? Right, right, right, right, right, and right. We all know this.
We do the best we can to do right. Sometimes we fail and when that happens in any society, we apologize and make amends. We do this not merely from fear of punishment, but because we want to be good. We want to be productive, useful, just members of society. We abide by laws that are not intended only for some but for all. We agree to do this as civilized people.
We do not always get what we deserve, but we should always try to give the best we can.
This is what I think of as an appaloosa sky. Today the sky is pale gray, smooth as colorless butter, showing a horizon where it meets the green ocean.
This must be a more hopeful week, a milder and gentler week, a less eventful week, while still a week to get things done. We need a better year, and we’ll have it too… eventually. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of our lives. Whether we deserve it or not, we’ve got it coming. Ya’ think?
I completed a draft of our taxes yesterday. That wasn’t too bad, even though I didn’t have all the stuff I need. But since I can’t submit till the middle of next month (the IRS is running behind), I will complete the forms all over again in a couple of weeks to check for errors. Just in case. (Because, seriously, the forms have been changing each year which means I actually have to read all the instructions every year.)
I’ve only woven twenty-some inches on the new warp. It’s getting done as I figure out the colors a half inch at a time.
We got out for a walk this morning between pouring rain and snow on the coast range. We managed more than a half mile onshore without getting run over by a wave. Sometimes it was close.
Our friend’s medical appointment went well this morning—no major intervention and everything is functioning again.
Some politicians are already blaming others for not working across the aisle even though that first group has never made any effort to even talk to the others in the past years.
And we shouldn’t prosecute criminals, according to that party that has been whining about law-and-order for . . . ever. Because why exactly?
The new Cabinet is being confirmed, we’re insisting people from infectious areas prove they are not sick, the feds are going into war-mode to ensure supplies necessary to inoculate an entire country are available, and Harriet Tubman is going on the $20 bill.
The little dog that came to the ER every day, all day, for days was finally rewarded when her elderly person was released from the hospital. That happy story was in Turkey.
Right here in the front yard, a flock of birds landed and pecked at the ground. They are finding something to eat. Seeds or crumbs or new tiny seedlings. The jay came by and was underwhelmed.
I am reading a good book with an abomination for a cover design—the designer drew in a cartoon fishtail with a completely fake wave pattern on a painting by a famous, deceased painter. This should result in serious demerits.
And I am watching Season 2 of The Magicians in order to calm down.
It is raining this morning, not hard but hard enough to provide an excuse for staying in. We walked long yesterday morning and the world was cold. There is snow at the summit of the coast range, but we aren’t driving anywhere today. We’ve had a fire in the wood stove every day for weeks. Rain means cloud cover and cloud cover means the temperature is up but there will be no gorgeous dawn or appaloosa sky.
The sky, the sky, the sky!
Everyone I talk to seems to be apologizing for forgetfulness and mistakes. The entire country might be on high blood pressure meds from the tension, or something to address depression, moodiness, forgetfulness, errors, confusion, and general stress. Zoom, FaceTime, phone calls, and email are temporary fixes. Our drugs of choice are only coffee and alcohol. Last night Gary and I shared sparkling wine that sent us off to bed in good spirits. Literal and figurative, emotional and physical good spirits. It was a celebration of nothing in particular, only that we are still here, still muddling along.
Gary is downstairs listening to a CD from The Searchers, his favorite group from the 60s (they were still playing a year ago). I have spent several days working on a poem for a local event. (With my luck they will not like it, but honest, I couldn’t write a cheerful “pandemic” poem. Others will.) As I sent it off as an email attachment I had word that the gallery is taking down the show the end of the month. They did not sell anything of mine (or from two other people). Yes, disappointing. But the poem . . . here’s the first stanza:
Birds fell from the sky this past
summer, a warning as defiling as riots
and bloody marble, the risk of living
in dangerous times when all times
prove dangerous.
Waves washed up into our hedge this morning, but it settled back for our afternoon walk.Continue reading →
Don’t most Americans feel that violent thugs do not represent the best of what our country has to offer? Don’t we believe that reason and fairness should rule over tyranny and violence?
Again, may 2021 lead us all to rediscover the virtues of hope, charity, faith, compassion, justice, temperance, and courage.
Simple courtesy and ordinary civility would be welcome. Truth, justice, and the American way? Surely. we remember all of that?
For days the rain has been heavy and steady. Air slides into the edge of the sea without making a line. White sea foam piles up at the rocky edge of our walk and even at low tide the sand is swept by high waves every few minutes. A bluff slid away up the beach because run-off has been so heavy. We try to go out for a daily walk anyway. A wave caught up with us once, wetting our running feet and splashing up the backs of our legs. We laugh about that. Even though we are careful and keep a close eye on the surf, the ocean is tricksy. We have come home rain-soaked almost every day for a couple of weeks. One day it took me two hours to get my hands warmed back up.
I keep trying to make resolutions for the coming year. What do I want to accomplish in 2021? What are reasonable promises might I make to myself?
I believe in keeping my word.
Last year about this time we decided to try giving up all seafood. It was not quite a promise, but we thought we might try for a month. We hadn’t eaten seafood more than once or twice a week, but we considered that might be too much. What was happening in the oceans prompted us to give eating fully vegetarian a try, just to see how much we’d miss the flesh.
Little bowls of tasty somethings, flowers from the garden in December, and red beeswax candles gifted by a friend. A better year coming, more hard times, but better.
Instead of having dinner at Ove’s (not that that would ever be on the program this time of year) we decided to spend the money on Oregon blue cheese. Seriously, our dinner tonight is all snack foods, but tasty good ones. Our cocktail napkins have beautiful roosters. Cock-Tails—get it?
On our final walk of 2020, we worked up and down the rocks to get there and found sea glass, agates, rounded pumice, and two of the little stones Jan calls “pinkies,” turned back south at the metal stairs, came home on the road, met a neighbor, and it rained most of the time. We were both wet from our walk, but that was hours ago. We have showered and washed our hair, and dressed in nice clothing we nearly forgot we owned in order to celebrate the end of this terrible, no-good, rotten, lousy, inept, appalling, no-holds-barred-we’re-glad-it’s-nearly-over stinking year. Can we say putrid?
&PRIDE Press 