Samhain                                                    Moon of the Winter Solstice

Earlier this summer I went outside and found holes dug under the orchard fence.  Vega and Rigel had figured out a new way inside.  Once in they dug up the earth around three of our apple trees, in one case exposing about half the close in root system to the air.  When I saw this latest breach of our attempts to lead two live, dog owners and gardeners, I froze.  Something just crumpled.  I couldn’t deal with another one.  Not again.  This was one time too many, the straw…well, you know how it goes.

I told Kate how I felt.  She said she understood since it was the way she had felt the last couple of years working for Allina.  That got me.  What I experienced was almost disgust, a visceral abhorrence and she had felt that toward her employers.  Wow.

Later on, after the feeling waned, I once again repaired the breach, came up with a new system of entrance denial, which Vega and Rigel promptly conquered.  So, I went at it again, then winter came.  We’re on hiatus now till spring with the ground frozen.

When I flipped on NPR today, as I drove over the pharmacy to pick up my drugs, there was a debate beginning on gun control.  When I heard the opposing arguments, I had that same reaction.  Disgust.  Ultimate weariness.  A not again feeling.  I turned it off immediately.  This is not the first time I’ve had this feeling about political discourse.

Each time I have it I turn off the radio, put down the newspaper.  Put my fingers in my ears and go lalalalalala.  Then, I think about all the years when I didn’t react like this.  When, instead, I joined with others of like mind and took political action.

Each time I turn my head away from a political debate, I feel a frisson of guilt.  If folks like me don’t stand up, then who will?  And, the only necessity for the advancement of evil is for good men to do nothing.  I know this.  I believe it.  I even realize the self-righteousness trap in this logic and know it must not defeat action.  Still, at times, like yesterday, I turn away.

Am I certainly right?  Of course not.  Is my opinion as important and as valid as anyone else’s?  Of course it is.  And I’m not alone.  Yet, at times, my feeling is that the political world has moved past me.  That I’m too old, too short term, too distant, too something to do anything.  At some point, I know, as with Vega and Rigel, I’ll lean in again, listen, parse, perhaps even organize.

Right now though.  It’s lalalalalala all the way.