Winter Cold Moon
Yes. Tomorrow.
Groups have begun to emerge. Right here in Conifer there’s a good start, one I intend to join. A couple who make kites has organized it and the general thrust sounds good. Will also be a chance to meet fellow progressives who live here. Beth Evergreen has not, yet, gotten anything started though I believe that will happen.
The Wall of Meat must be checking their bikes right now, making sure their pipes are loud because loud pipes save lives, or so say the bumper stickers. The Rockettes. Wonder what they’re thinking about? All those women. I hope it turns out massive and raucous. Those bibles, Trump’s family bible and Lincoln’s. My question. Will they burst into flame when he puts his hand on them? Just sayin’.
I will spend the day with good friend Tom Crane who’s flying in today. We’ll have dinner here tonight, a fire and conversation. Tomorrow, inauguration day, we’ll motor over to The Happy Camper, where Kate and I buy our maryjane. Not sure, of course, but dispensaries all across the U.S. might see an uptick in sales after tomorrow. Gonna watch cabinet secretary appearances before the Senate? Don’t bogart that joint, my friend. Take it down and pass it over to me.
As to the knee. Which now comes near the end of my thoughts as I write. Little pain, mostly gain. My physical therapist said I was healing “incredibly well.” Good to hear. The big deal now is restrengthening muscles that have weakened over the years of arthritis caused bad biomechanics and lack of exercise post surgery. My right hip muscles are especially weak. Kat and Katie, p.t.’s at Select Physical Therapy, have me putting a small red rubber band around my ankles and walking sideways for two minutes at a time. May not sound like much, but ouch!
Jon and Jen have a good offer on their house. They accepted it and now await inspections, then closing. Provided all goes well this will relieve the last major impediment to moving on after the divorce. Jon will use the money to buy a new house in Aurora, the large Denver suburb where he works as an art teacher. He will be glad to give up the commute from Conifer, returning to riding his bike to work.
2017 will have some upsides, then. Never underestimate the power of unintended consequences, even with the Trump. Could be some positive things there, too.
A gentle snow falls at 5:00 am here on Shadow Mountain, kicking off inauguration week. As my brother, Mark, wrote, we’re about to have the biggest political change in our history on Friday. Irony, thy name today is the calendar. Yes, it’s Martin Luther King day and our president-elect, knowing still his base, has made it a day to declare John Lewis a man of too much talk. The layers of irony could not be separated without a welding torch.
The takeaway from this challenge to the roots of our Republic lies in understanding the power of the left behind. In this case those left behind are the former rulers of the land: white men and their families. Their advocates include the KKK, the White Citizen’s Council, various militia and tea party groups and Donald Trump. Wow. Look at that sentence. Yes, the election was lost because former manufacturing workers, miners, those without a college education, came together for one last grasp, leaning far off the carousel horse for the brass ring.
But. Working class whites were left behind. Their pain is real. Their anger justified. Their choice of solutions abysmal. 100 years from now historians will be able to see this strange time we call the 21st century and perhaps be able to pull apart the strands of circumstance making it what it is. Was it really globalization that cost all those good-paying blue collar jobs? How much did automation have to do with it? What role did the increasing diversity of the United States play? We are moving to a nation in which no ethnic group will be a majority of the population.
We have entered a long tunnel, dark at its core, though there may be a faint light faraway. This tunnel is the first two years of a Trumpist America. Perhaps it has a sign, somewhere near the entrance: Chamber of Horrors, Fun House, or Hall of Mirrors. It is a Disneyland populated not with Mickey Mouse or Goofy, but the spectre of starvation, a ghoul of no medical care, a banshee of Twitter posts. No one knows what to expect on this first ride through the politics with no name, the policies with no shame.
I’ve not written here about the Standing Rock protests. At least not much. Neither have I posted about them on Facebook though many, many of my friends have. Several people I know, including ex-wife Judy Merritt, have been out there. She’s going a second time this week.
And so. Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get. Trump and his rhetoric is now the national climate for acts of hate. I expect people like the KKK, Westboro Baptist, climate deniers, women haters, anti-Semites have been emboldened to act both by Trump’s rhetoric but also by the violent, thuggish behavior he not only allowed but reveled in at his rallies. In other words the climate relative to non-white, non-male, non-European, non-Christian, non-straight life is turbulent and chaotic, tending toward personal acts of violence and scorn.
On these matters I believe defense is the strongest act right now. Reaching out to the government for help against these grievances will prove futile. Jeff Sessions as attorney general? Come on.
Here’s an odd outcome of the election. I’m planning on joining Congregation Beth Evergreen. Strange, huh? Turns out you don’t have to be Jewish. Weird, to me, but true.
Then, there’s Rabbi Jamie Arnold. He’s an unusual guy: an athlete, a good musician, a composer and arranger, too, an intellectual, and an embodiment of compassion leavened with toughness. This combination of skills and character make him a compelling leader.
But mostly there’s the potential for action against the impending Trump regime. Politics is not a solo sport; it requires allies. Congregation Beth Evergreen seems to have a core of folks who’ve done actual work in political situations. It clearly has a number of folks who want to do work on the Trump watch. That includes me. My politics and my spiritual journey have always been tightly wound together so working with folks at Congregation Beth Evergreen seems like a continuation.