Coronavirus, Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Save Baron

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Wolf’s Trail. A gift from a close friend. Thanks, Tom. Amazon. (I know. But, still.) Pick-up. Yet more rain. 49 degrees this morning. Sushi Win. Spring rolls. Wonton soup. Sushi Win special role. Rigel, head out the window, ears back, facial fur streaming back. Ivory. Old reliable. 120,000 miles. Still fine except for air con and a couple of dings. Black Mountain Drive. Brook Forest. Evergreen.

When I last saw granddaughter Ruth, she told me about a movement among her peers, 14 years old or so, called Save Baron. I love this. His age peers taking either an ironic or a genuine interest in his welfare. Not exclusive notions. What would it be like, they think, to be Baron? With Melania the naked first lady and the orange topped donald as a father? Who better to underline his predicament than those entering high school this year? I hope they succeed. The world does not need another person with the donald’s politics or, even worse, his aesthetics.

Doom scrolling is impossible to dodge unless you never look at the news, online or on the tube or at your breakfast table. Headlines. Numbers with arrows. Graphs. Maps with red states, orange states, brownish states. A vaccine comment here. A why did they wait so long to lock down article there? An article on the economy here.

And it’s not like we don’t care. We do. But everyday. All the time. The slow drip, the fast drip. Hard.

Kate’s had more bad days than good ones recently. Shortness of breath, nausea, general ickiness. Episodic. A bad stretch right now. A lot of it down to Sjogren’s. The rest? Don’t know. Makes things darker here on Shadow Mountain.

I’ve had another round of allergies. New this year. Not sure what’s up with that, but it’s unpleasant. Stuffy. Runny. Headache. Colors the days here, too.

Wanted this to be more upbeat, but…

Coronavirus, Health, US History

Wondering

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Brooks Tavern’s chicken fried steak. The organized state of the loft. Putting the new laundry hamper together with Kate. This Covid life. The abundant rain yesterday afternoon and last night. Woollies, old and new. The long reach of Jewish history. Celtic myth. Nordic myth. Greek myth. Christian myth. Fairy tales.

Difficult, isn’t it, to avoid Covid? Yes, sure, in public. Where, I hope, you and yours have a mask at least. Perhaps even at home where our continuing presence makes us aware of what we’re not able to do. And, I read, that home is still the most likely place for you to get infected. Like all those auto accidents that happen close to home, I guess.

However what I’m focused on here is your mind. It’s difficult to avoid Covid there, too. Normal aches and pains of aging. Oh, wait? Is that? No, it can’t be. Can it? Got there yesterday afternoon. Nose a bit stuffy then sneezing. Aches. Was that fever? Or, a hot flash? What am I dealing with? Covid or Lupron or being 73? Wait and see. As Seoah often said. Wait and see.

This morning. Aches still there, but sneezing, stuffiness gone. Fever turned out to be a lingering hot flash. When will they ever end? As many menopausal women have wondered. Doesn’t feel like I got it this time.

Even the thought of Covid, without the virus itself, can make us sick. Doubtful. Wary. Denialistic. Has to be happening a lot these days.

Anxiety. Depression. Enhanced fear of the other, of an invisible foe. I wonder how much under the surface mental illness has become apparent? How much existing mental illness has gotten worse? We’re still not too good about admitting to our own psychic troubles or at recognizing them in others.

The longer this goes on, and the numbers of our runaway pandemic suggest it will be quite a while, even with a vaccine, the more mental illness will become problematic, not only for thousands, but for millions. What will they do?

Is anybody working on this? Is it on anybody’s radar? Wondering.

Aging, Family, Feelings, Health, Third Phase, Writing

Living

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Friday gratefuls: The Norsemen, a funny sendup of the Vikings. (which I also liked.) Derek’s continuing to cut up and cart away our felled trees. Children of Time, a sci fi book about terraforming, genetic manipulation, and the end of earth’s history. Spiders and ants and humans, oh my. Peter Praski who fixed our fan and our lights. Alan’s commitment to the political process. Sally’s thaw. The Mussar crowd.

Still on vacation. Enjoying my focus on domestic chores like putting up smoke detectors (10-year batteries. Thanks, Tom.), laundry, getting the fan fixed, the stumps ground down, windows washed, and gutters cleaned. Cooked a bit, not up to my pre-Seoah standards. Out of practice. Will improve.

Pleased with the healing of the angry skin around Kate’s stoma site. Gradually. Gradually. Next up we have to knock down the nausea that ruins her days. Not sure how to do that, but we’re gonna focus on it. Help her have more strings of better days. So dispiriting when she has to leave the breakfast table to lie down.

Still feeling that limbo Kate talked about. In between. Not at a threshold, not in a liminal space, though I’ll appreciate that when it comes.

Getting things cleaned up and reorganized has been good. Feels good. My mind has fewer anchors like, oh, when will I get around to that? That being those books and papers on the bookshelf in the living room. That being getting the final trees down for fire mitigation. That being the gutters that need cleaning. That being the disorganized state of the loft.

As I pull up the anchors, I can feel the engine beginning to rumble below decks. No idea of the destination when I can finally slip away.

A friend recently talked about all the volunteer work he’s been doing since retirement seven years ago. Do I still need to feel productive, he asked? Maybe there’s something deeper going on here?

Has made me think about our American obsession with work. A Calvinist slant to our hearts. If we work, we’re good. If we don’t work, we’re lazy. Or, bad. Makes retirement a conundrum. Work is over with. Let’s get to it, then. Get to what?

Work. In my imagination a post-neolithic revolution idea. Tend the field. Care for the animals. Fix the house. Govern the village. I’m sure the hunter-gatherers had their obsessions, too, but I don’t think it was work. In the third phase we try to leave work behind us only to reinstate it covertly. Or sometimes vertly.

My suspicion is that we all need something that gratifies us, satisfies us, gives us a chance to be who we are. I cast off the mantle of work for those things and name them living.

Politics, US History

We Can’t Waste This Crisis

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Buddies Alan, Tom, Bill. Sally, too. Kate’s openness. The meal I made yesterday, which wasn’t so good. Derek. Who will continue transporting the fallen from our yard to his wood stove. Peter Praski who fixed our ceiling lights in the living room and comes today to work on the fan. Jude and his shipping container. Eduardo and Holly with Holly’s brother there in an Airstream. This mountaintop neighborhood. Diverse politically and economically.

Oh, John. Teddy. Harvey. Woody. Bill. Margaret Sanger. Sexual predators, racists, eugenicists. Harvey and Bill, definitely bad men. But Bill was funny. Harvey produced good movies. Woody makes real art. Margaret Sanger championed birth control. John and Teddy, good men, I think, who chose not to think critically about their views on race.

Luther: hate sin and love the sinner. Not my theological world anymore, but the sentiment is true. None of us are all this or all that. Judaism teaches that we have a yetzer hara, or an inclination to serve only ourselves, and a yetzer hatov, an inclination to bear the burden of the other. Mussar as a spiritual discipline teaches how to balance these two and how to use even our yetzer hara in non-harmful ways.

Yes, a difficult idea. Yes, one that could be used to whitewash (pun intended) the most awful of people, but true nonetheless, I believe. Hitler was a painter. Not a good one. But, still. Does his apparent love of dogs forgive him for his anti-semitism and rancid cruelty? No. But it can be a point of connection between his humanity and our own.

At its best this idea allows us to see our own flaws, to imagine ourselves as a complex person, to not get trapped in the oh, I’m no good at all, or the I’ll never amount to anything psychic swamps. And, to not view one-dimensionally the others in our lives, in our history.

No more than we should forgive the Nazis for their atrocities should we forgive racist, sexist actions, policies, religious beliefs. We must stand against all actions inspired by claims of superiority or inferiority based on secondary characteristics. Must. Always.

MLK said we cannot legislate what is in peoples hearts. But we can make sure their thoughts do not become actions. That’s what the Civil Rights Act, the Affirmative Action legislation, the Voter’s Rights acts were about.

What will we need now? I don’t know. I’m waiting for Black and Latino communities, First Nations to define that. We could pass the E.R.A. That would help women.

Trump has to go. The sycophants of his in the Senate and House, too. That’s the sine qua non to grab this moment for the significant change that can happen. After that, it will take a lot of sausage making. But we cannot waste this crisis. It offers too much.

Aging, Family, Feelings, Health, Memories, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Here We Go

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Trash pickup. Significant rain yesterday and last night. Coolness. Kate’s reading. Right now, All the King’s Men. Her honesty. The deepening of our time together. Mutuality. More of that. Turbination. Money. CBE. Zoom. Lights. Electricity. Solar panels. My keyboard. The third phase.

Week I, vacation. Missing my workouts but staying true to my vacation. Putting up ten-year smoke detectors. Cleaning the oven. Going to the bank. Putting together a new laundry hamper with Kate. Cleaning the living room, the garage. Focused on domestic tasks.

But. There’s a flaw in the ointment. Kate reports feeling erased as I reorganize the kitchen, pick up more of the chores. That’s a strong word, I said. Well, we can’t do this if I’m not honest. I agree.

Mutuality is the key. She feels like she’s lost her partner role. I don’t. I see her pay the bills, fold the clothes, make masks, deal with her multiple medical issues. When I can’t figure out how to put up the smoke detector, she knows. When I need to know how to clean the oven, she knows. Her brilliant mind is intact and needed. By both of us.

Her grasp of medicine, which she wears lightly, makes our life so much less fraught. She can discern the serious from the don’t worry about it. Her honesty, which is a core quality for her, means no guessing.

Part of what’s happening is that the Lupron is gradually losing its grip on my hormones. That means I have more energy. Combine that with Kate’s big improvements: leakage fixed, stoma site healing, lung disease stable, stent in place. Relief and joy come more often.

As I feel better, I want to do more around the house. But that gives rise the being erased feelings in Kate. You can see the dilemma. Communication and thoughtfulness on both of our parts is necessary. Mutuality being the key.

Marriage. A pilgrimage. An ancientrail with ecstasy. And despair. Joy and fear. Anger and reconciliation. A pilgrimage toward the true holy grail, humanness. Still on the trail, backpack secure, walking stick in hand, cape wrapped round my shoulders. Here we go.

Commentary on the news, Health, Humor, Politics, US History

A Trumpburger

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: The clan. Riyadh. Singapore. San Francisco. Shadow Mountain. Cool mountain mornings. Beau Jo’s pizza. Kep walking on my back this morning. Rigel sniffing her way into breakfast. The new perspective aborning. Gettin’ ‘er done. That new drill. Those ten-year battery smoke detectors.

Let’s start with cows for relaxation.* Or, cow cuddling. Yes, it’s a trend. Before that steak dinner get up close. Might let some of those dairy farmers on the brink achieve a new revenue stream. Other than milk in a bucket. Why not? Cows are big. They’re warm. They’re ungulates.

Also prey animals. That’s the steak part. Probably something folks in India knew long ago. Sacred cows.

That was the sweet part. Let’s turn to jackbooted thugs wandering the streets of Portland grabbing U.S. citizens off the street. Homeland Security. Put in a picture here of my hat that reads: Let’s make Orwell fiction again. Where are all the second amendment freedom-loving Boogaloo bros? This is the kind of government overreach that they prattle on about. Could be a come to Jesus moment for the far right and the far left. Finally, an enemy we can agree on. Not holding my breath.

Then there’s cutting money for covid testing, contact tracing, and the CDC in the new Trumpian budget. More money for storm-troopers, a lot less money for the storm. Not forgetting the obvious move right now of the Administration lawsuit to zero out Obamacare. In the middle of a pandemic. Or consider. Who speaks for the W.H.O.? Not the plague flea in the Oval Office.

One positive for Biden’s campaign is Trump’s promise to restart the daily Coronavirus briefings that served him so well before. Let’s play another round of What Will He Say Next?

One thing he said next is that he will send Federal troops into other big cities. This is not the start of a dictatorship. It’s the realization of one. I’d like a black and white photoshopped image of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Trump. I will hang it on my wall as a precautionary tale for my grandkids.

Kate asked me the other day about the Trump Presidential Library. Always fun to speculate. Maybe big golden arches with an L.E.D. counter for lies. Let’s say it will start at 45,000. Inside will be screens of tweeted screed, a backroom full of unread briefing books and intelligence updates. Food, you ask? Of course, included in the $45 a person admission will be a large chocolate shake, a Trumpburger, and an order of Freedom Fries. That American Flag napkin is take-home souvenir.

What else can we do? We have to laugh at him. If we take him seriously, all is lost. He’s an unserious man, a man of no depth but infinite in his cruelty and his greed.

Vote. Please. Get your neighbor to vote. Get your family to vote. (No, not red hat Uncle Harry) but everybody else. Please. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.

Did I mention vote?

* “A farm in upstate New York is offering self-care seekers the chance to spend 90 minutes cosying up to cows. The Mountain Horse Farm explains that cows are “sensitive, intuitive animals” who will “pick up on what’s going on inside and sense if you are happy, sad, feel lost, anxious or are excited, and they will respond to that without judgement.”” Guardian

Coronavirus, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Science, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Mountains skipped like rams

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Summer and the (new moon), the Lughnasa Moon (moon of the first harvest)

Monday gratefuls: Clean floors and toilets. Chex Mix. Cinnamon rolls. Shrimp. Claussen’s picked up the pallets. Neowise. Samwise. Tolkien. Robert Penn Warren. The harem of Elk in the lower meadow. The confused Mule Deer Buck on Shadow Mountain Drive. All of our wild neighbors. And, our human ones, too.

When Kate and I went to see Amber last week, the meadow at the bottom of Shadow Mountain Drive had a harem of 20 Elk Cows, several Calves, and one proud Buck, strutting, head high. It’s a large meadow that lies between Conifer Mountain and Shadow Mountain, at the base of both. It has a Marsh that attracts Moose sometimes and an expanse filled with Grass that gets baled for hay later on in the year, this Meadow also attracts Mule Deer and Elk.

Seeing wild Animals living their lives is thrilling. Makes life in the Mountains awe-full. Delight, joy jumps right into your chest. The Mule Deer Buck that couldn’t figure out what to do with the metal barrier on a curve closer to home evoked concern. I flashed my lights for oncoming cars to warn them. The courteous dirt bike rider behind me was cautious. The Buck was unpredictable. In the five and a half years we’ve lived here I’ve seen only one dead Deer along the road, so these situations work themselves out.

As I reached in to pull out the Denver Post, I looked up at Black Mountain. A few small cumulus Clouds crowned its peak. The ski runs are dry, jagged brown scars down its face.

Unbidden, as happens often, we live in the Mountains wrote itself on my inner screen. A muted sense of wonder followed and I stood there, the latest doom-scrolling in my hand, captivated by the Mountain summer.

When Israel went out from Egypt…The mountains skipped like rams,
    the hills like lambs. Psalm 114, NRSV

The Mountains are calling and I must go. John Muir

These are not ancient Rocks caught in the stupor of inanimacy. These are not piles of Stone pushed up from the Earth’s Crust and left alone. These are Mountains. Tall, steady, confident. Like Vishnu they are stability, order, toughness made real. Shadow Mountain allows us to live on its peak and on its sides, but it could take away that permission. One massive burn through its forest of Aspens and Lodgepole Pines and our houses would be gone. Shadow Mountain would remain. The forests would grow back.

We are so Mayfly like to these sturdy beings. Our kind may not last as long Shadow Mountain. Surely won’t if we don’t change our behaviors. Yet it gives us a home, like it gives a home to our wild neighbors. A Mountain forgives those who tread its flanks. Except, perhaps, for those who shave off its peaks, ruin it with strip mines. Or, hard Metal mines that pollute Streams, kill Wildlife.

Time though. Time is the Mountain’s friend. It waits as its colleagues Rain, Snow, Ice, Lightning, running Water scour what human’s leave. Tumble it down through Creeks and Streams. Dilute it, spread it out. A million years on Shadow Mountain will look much the same, perhaps a bit shorter, perhaps a bit narrower, but still substantial. 9358 Black Mountain Drive will have long ago become a forgotten pimple.

We can learn from the Mountains. Even our Mayfly lives can gain from patience, from being slow to react, from purification in the waters of the heavens. We need these lessons now, in these Covid 19 times.

Commentary on Religion, Coronavirus, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Politics, US History

A Hard Place to Be

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Sunday gratefuls: My partner, Kate. Our sweet girl, Rigel. And, our good boy, Kepler. Kate’s stoma site looking better. The front yard, looking clean and foresty with the stumps gone. The backyard looking good, will look better before Labor Day. Window cleaners, gutter cleaners in August. Yeah. Rethinking our Covid life. Republican, Trumpian angst.

Every limbo boy and girl
All around the limbo world
Gonna do the limborock
All around the limbo clock
Jack be limbo, Jack be quick Chubby Checker, 1962

Remember the limbo? Wonder how we’d all do now? Those of us in the Boomer brigade. Would not be pretty, I imagine. Kate and I used this word today to name a source of sadness. Covid has put our lives in a limbo between then, PC, and, whenever, post-C dominance of life. Her illness puts our lives in limbo between our old life together and whatever happens next. In some ways the third phase is a limbo phase between the younger, active days of education, family, career, and that old scythe wielder in the black hoodie, death.

Limbo was an abode near hell, a permanent eternal home for the just who died before the birth of Jesus and those who died unbaptized. Limbo is the ablative form of limbus, or border. Reminded me of liminal. Comes from a Latin word that means threshold. On the threshold of hell lies a well-bordered realm for those who couldn’t fit into a medieval Roman Catholic understanding of theodicy.

Yes, that’ll do. We are, through no fault of our own, needing to stay at home, in limbo, our homes being the border between us and the hell of Covid. And the threshold, the liminal space, is a place now filled with danger and possibility.

The ancient Celts believed the liminal times of dawn and twilight were magical, the optimal time to work spells, to conduct rituals. Many religious traditions have waking up and going to bed prayers, rituals. Jews, for example pray in the morning to open the literal eye and the metaphorical one. Episcopalians pray at night: “Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”

Limbo is a tough place to be. Liminal spaces like dawn and twilight, or liminal places like an ocean beach or a lake’s shoreline, offer entrance to another world, one unlike the one we are currently in. At night, sleep. In day, wakefulness. On the beach land underneath us and oxygen in the air, in the water, water beneath us and oxygen trapped, for us, in its molecules.

What’s beyond the threshold of limbo? A Biden presidency? A world made safer with vaccines, good testing, and contact tracing? A healthier Kate, able to get around more the world? We just don’t know. We are not, however, unbaptized souls trapped in a metaphysical realm, but flesh and blood trapped in a disastrous political situation compounded with a pall created by plague.

We are souls in waiting. A hard, hard place to be.

Politics, US History

Dumb Ups

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Summer and the Moon of Justice (saw the crescent Moon of Justice with Venus on Thursday morning. One of the most beautiful sights in the sky. To my eye.)

Saturday gratefuls: Downtime. Vacation. Finishing the reorganization of the loft. Finally. Well, mostly. Kate’s weight up. Scott Levin, regional director of the ADL. His seminar on racism yesterday. Kate energized by the gospel service at CBE. (on zoom) Ribs from the Smokehouse. The quiet. Leaning into managing prostate cancer as a chronic disease.

Taking a break. Wondering why I didn’t do it sooner. Going head down, staying in it. Sometimes necessary to get through a rough patch, but tiring, even exhausting if it becomes a permanent response to daily life. That would be me over the last few months to two years. I need to reset my day-to-day attitude. Doing it.

Looking forward to regular writing hours, picking up the paint brush, the sumi-e brushes. Needing to create, not only respond. Hikes. Gotta those going. Gonna try albuterol before going out. That plus my camel pack will at least let me get some distance into the forest, up the mountain.

CBE sponsored a seminar by Scott Levin of the regional Anti-Defamation League. I’ve been involved, as I think I’ve mentioned here, with civil rights since early college. Led a couple of marches in Muncie, Indiana, a very racially divided city. Got death threats. I was 19.

The Tillman anti-racism seminars in seminary. Twice, once with class mates in Minnesota, once with students from Morehouse College in Atlanta. Robert Terry workshops. Dumb ups, smart downs. Prepared a video based training curriculum for anti-racism training for clergy and congregations.

Worked on several initiatives with both Latino and African-American clergy and communities. Sin Fronteras, without borders, was an organization created with Latino activists to pay for the application fees for green card hopefuls. Helped create a “grandmother” ministry in the Powderhorn Neighborhood, led by a Lakota grandmother, Bea Swanson. Went out to Wounded Knee with food during the occupation by A.I.M.

Not any work here in Colorado. Yet. CBE plans to engage more. Maybe I’ll get involved. Harder with not being a reliable attender to meetings.

The Scott Levin seminar was dispiriting in some ways. A lot of liberal nonsense, at least one conservative ostrich, no problem, not here. Scott himself has a good understanding of systemic racism though he didn’t go very far into it. A few folks who understand the linkage between bigotry and power that produces and reinforces systemic racism. That was heartening. More such folks than I’ve encountered in a religious community before. (a white religious community)

Racism was, and remains, our original sin, starting with Columbus, continued by the English settlers, enshrined in our constitution with the 3/5th’s compromise, continuing even after the civil war with Jim Crow, segregation, barriers to voting, employment and housing discrimination. And, yes, police violence. Violence has, since the days of slavery, been used to keep people of color down. Look at the ICE holding centers right now.

This is the time to support the movement. There is a chance for real change with racist Donald in charge and making sure the nation stays riled up. That’s good for the prospects of deep and lasting change. Especially since it’s an election year. Marrying street activism with a Democratic sweep of Congress and the Presidency could set the stage for a new day in race relations. May it be so.

Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

When is dawn?

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Thursday gratefuls: The loft. Amber, a smart nurse. Anti-fungal powder. Curative foam. Ruby. Her air conditioning. Freeways: Hwy 285, 470, 70. Wadsworth Blvd. Wheatridge. Kate, her equanimity. Kep. Rigel. All my zoom connections. Books. The internet.

Doom-scrolling. Just did a bit, trying to read the tea leaves. No flying cars. No neon-washed nightscapes. No replicants, no replicant bounty hunters. Blade-Runner days and nights. The reality of 2020, a year after the 1982 movie’s dystopian version of Los Angeles, is so much grimmer. So much darker. So much worse.

The President of this version of 2020 chose the midst of a pandemic to push a case to the Supreme Court that would take health care away from millions. He’s also chosen this time to unfreeze executions in the Federal Prison system. His administration has children in cages, supports white supremacy and white supremacists, thinks Black Lives Matter is a hate group. The chaotic White House response to the worst pandemic of this millennia has killed thousands of Americans and led us to the number one position in the world for new cases, now over 65,000 a day. With no Federal activity to slow it down, let alone stop it.

The election in November. He’s way behind, that orange festooned buffoon. Or, so say the polls. But we all have poll shock, having been gulled once. Gulled once, shame on us… Just read a Politico article that said one problem with polling potential Trump voters is that they don’t usually vote. They come out for him only, and hang up on pollsters.

Doom-scrolling is not necessary. The headlines of each day’s newspapers scream the dysfunction of this once confident, world-leading nation. George Will had a column yesterday in the Washington Post titled, The nation is in a downward spiral. Worse is still to come. WP. It’s last line is, “This is what national decline looks like.”

Let’s call it red hat irony. The man who campaigned on making America great has gutted us. Stripped away our credibility with foreign allies. Defended our Cold War enemy against election meddling charges and ignored its pay for slay reinsertion of itself in Afghanistan. He has let a pandemic run wild among our people while stiff arming the poor, the needy, the teeming masses yearning to be free. His pandemic policy might accomplish his goal of reducing immigration down to almost zero.

This country. My home. Probably your home. Its flag, my flag. Its military, my military. Its people, my people. Its beautiful, majestic land, my land. Why wouldn’t we all have tears streaming down our faces as we see it now, in retreat, many of us in self-imposed exile in the nation of our own home?

This is not the American Century, nor the American Millennia. Hell, we couldn’t achieve an American Week or Day. Let’s hope that the old cliche holds, that things are darkest before the dawn. We can’t see ahead right now and that’s pretty damned dark.