Hey mom, up again at this ungodly hour, second day in a row. I don’t know, 2AM rolls around and for some unknown reason my body wakes me up, and I stumble to the kitchen to check the time, after a pee, with wee Pika streaming along behind, tripping over her as I turn back to decide… do I wake or do I try?
Well, as yesterday, so today, I sit here and watch, read, stunning, living in those times that take up a whole section of the library, ya, not all there cracked up to be, eh?
Anger and rage marching in the streets, but this time around I’m way up here in the Great White North.
Now, though, more verdigris, or Kelly green, with sweeping vistas of chartreuse, as late May brings the land of my birth to a teetering edge.
Last time it was this bad, 52 years ago, I was just a month shy of a year, living in that dinky little trailer in North Carolina, oblivious.
So mom, a police officer in Minnesota has murdered a black man, George Floyd, on the street, in uniform. Guy was handcuffed, something about passing a bad check, like $20 or something. While handcuffed the officer knelt on him, pinning him down, man said I CAN’T BREATHE… but he kept his knee on him almost 3 minutes more after everyone watching could clearly see the man wasn’t responding anymore.
Because he was dead.
Fourth day, maybe 3, now, and the commander of chaos of course is trying his level best to make everything worse.
Actually, the theme seems to be to go out of your way to make everything worse.
Yesterday morn, coffee in hand, sitting here, scrolling through twitter, and reading commentary, articles from the Washington Post… cause I bought a subscription.
Then… just after dawn… watching as right there live police in Minnesota arrest a black CNN cameracrew…like, right live on TV… filming away. After the crew was asking where they wanted them to stand, said it a few times, but nope, arrested the crew.
Not the white CNN guy, just the black guy and his crew.
Said afterwards it was a mistake, but by then the damage had been done, the message clear. Racism ain’t a dogwhistle, hint hint, not anymore. Racists feel comfortable and at ease to mouth their misogyny, their hatred, no longer the lunatic fringe, they are fueled by the commander and chief, the man at the top, he has their back… Nazis… are now “very fine people”.
I kid you not mom. This is where we are.
Sure, the cop was fired, along with the other 3 officers that were there.
But, the anger and fury… fuelled by unemployment, and let’s not forget… greatest unemployment since the depression, economy in freefall, middle of pandemic with over 100,000 Americans dead from Coronavirus… and yesterday morning after they arrested the CNN crew, I just sobbed… tears just started falling from my eyes, and I could just see the teargas, fires, bodies, armed police, rage… and I cried, with this feeling of helplessness like a fist in my chest.
And, there is nothing I can do but watch it all unfold.
Well, no, there is something… which is turn that stuff off and go outside and enjoy my garden. Which is a blawdy blessing, dear lord, you have no idea mom. That little space is my … well… truly my sacred space, my Temenos.
I do not honestly know what I’m feeling, not exactly. There just is no one feeling, more this jumble mix of sadness and anger and frustration and uncertainty, and worry and anxiety, and horror, grief… each one, cycling through over the course of just an hour… or minutes.
This morning watched as protestors outside the White House tore down the barricades, Secret Service in a line keeping them back… watching it being live-streamed on twitter by a White House correspondent for YahooNews.
https://twitter.com/hunterw/status/1266632334050308103
The country of my birth mom is ripping itself apart. That horrible man, he does nothing to help, everything to make it worse. I don’t even think the man knows how to empathize, how to feel any sort of compassion, or ever has any sense of responsibility to lead, to bring Americans together.
Bringing them together just doesn’t suit his evil purpose… he is incapable.
He is not qualified to lead a line of rats off a sinking ship.
Somehow, I’m positive he would manage to get them all killed, all but him, for his own purpose, somehow sell them out.
He’s just… well… he’s actually but the figurehead at the top of a stinking pile of rubbish… garbage administration… garbage people… garbage GOP, the party of racists and spineless pieces of crap. Men and women elected to lead, yet all I’ve seen is a bunch of scared sycophants and cons. scaredy-cats and pearl-clutchers.
Oh, but it doesn’t stop there mom, oh no.
Now… now, we have what my favourite historian, Timothy Snyder, calls Anticipatory Obedience, where the people themselves, without orders from anyone, do the bidding of dear leader. As this administration has thrown out any pretense of pretending, they are fascist and authoritarian and all journalist and media are the enemy.
Cops firing right at the media. Unbelievable to watch in real-time.
There is a war taking place down yonder. And sure, there may be guns, there may be marching, but this war is one of the hearts and minds, the country they want America to be… a democracy… or just some neo-fasist dictatorship with the Trump family at its head.
I shit you not mom, that is where we are.
Yet, the shining ray of hope in that, is that those who are out there protesting are of all colours, all creeds, all beliefs, they are a united front, standing up to amplify the message… that #BLACKLIVESMATTER.
Racism and hatred of all those who are not Christian and white, is Americas Achilles heel, and is the gaping wound that any who want America to rip itself apart, its how they get what they want, which is to bring that country to its knees.
All day yesterday, kept flashing back to that spring day 3 years ago, sitting there at my front door, washing the dirt of seasons off, listening to that beautiful and haunting version of Appalachian Spring, with YoYo Ma and Allison Krause, that song now reminds me of those fables I had of the country of my birth, shattered by that man. That man.
Oh, mom, but this is more than just about one awful man. More than just one more dead black guy at the hands of a cop. More than racism, more than hate, more… it is bubbling up, and I can feel that rage that now is set to engulf them. Ignited by a man who does not care. Fired up by those who have their motives, fuel to the already smouldering rage rippling through the whole country, like tremors from deep down inside they have suppressed.
And I, I can only watch. Well, and after that good cry yesterday, Pika and I had a nice walk, went down to visit the Sycamore Tree, tell him our woes, and feel the breeze. It felt good.
The future is not mine to see, I can only have faith, I know Americans, and this may not be their finest day… but they shall overcome.
I still believe. And, I don’t know what will happen next, but I feel this sadness, you know mom, because I love that country. Damn it all. It just makes me sad to see such hatred and violence, and chaos and confusion, and sinking to this, in just 3 years. THREE YEARS. That is all it took for them to… and by them I mean… I don’t know… the powers that be, the Russians, the republicans, Trump, evil, injustice, it all makes me sad, and angry, and frustrated. All at once, in one breath.
And I exhaul, I sigh, I cried again this morning.
But I believe. I know they shall overcome. They will.
They are better than all this crap.
Anywho, I gotta go out and sit in my garden. Love you mom.
by PaulaB 
These are dark sad days.
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They are.
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