'Twas the last blog post before Christmas

when all through the house,

clutter reigned, but luckily no mouse. 

 While at home, to herself, the writer asks,

 (therefore no need to wear any cloth masks)

will there soon be heard massive outrage and clatter?

We've wanted so much change that matters!

Yet four such difficult years are now ending.

Give us fortitude for the future that's pending.

On to equality, fairness, compassion!

On putting democracy back into fashion! 

Stay safe, stay brave and stay healthy, too.

Be grateful I can't sell this to get wealthy! Whew!

 

 post #522

not a Christmas photo, but I'll try for one this year

This was a trial Christmas photo one year, in Denver, but it happens to be a favorite of mine. Can't remember what in the world I was saying to them....

          We have had a single day this year with visible snow on the ground.  So far.

 

 

 This last photo is from a few days later, going for a walk across the road from my place, on the neighbor's hay field. My house is sort of visible through the trees.

All best wishes for the season to everyone, but please stay patient and believe that we will need to wear masks for many more months. More than a few people I know well have had to deal with the virus. I just found out yesterday that, sadly, my niece, in Los Angeles, is one of them.  I'm so sorry for the hardships this pandemic brings to people across the world. America has not done as well as it could have. Different leadership will have a big impact, and thank goodness, as I have said before, for the hard work of so many health provider teams everywhere. I hope they are getting their vaccine pronto.    

I also hope you enjoyed my poetic effort, with more emphasis on the effort part than on the poetic. Once I got started, I couldn't let it go. 

I'm not going to do a post next Sunday -- will take a week off, especially since no one will have time for it. But I'll be back in the new year! Again, all best wishes.

a statement of fact

post #521        

             All I want today is to speak up for truth.    

            Truth is what keeps us upright. It nourishes us even when it's painful.

            A serious sadness comes from hearing truth abused, again and again.

            It leads to severe harm from the shredding of trust, the next basic part of our being.

            Working together to overcome the pandemic would at least give us something to practice                 in common -- rebuilding together, after truth has been so maligned and trust so                            shattered.             

            You may know where I am headed. 

             

            We have had four years where truth has been severely abused, over and over. 

                     Our nation is in shock.      So many have died.     So many are deceived.  

                     Over 100 legislators and attorney generals have forgotten how to count!

                     What were they thinking?!   Are they ready to discard democracy?

                    Instead, what is left behind are potential threats of violence, and fear, the kind that insinuates itself throughout our daily lives. The world's health suffers from neglect, especially in our United States.  We should have been ahead of the game instead of so behind.

                   The pandemic doesn't care about any of this. 

              

        Look at all the blossoms opening at the same time! Working together! Doing their best! Looking after each other! Trusting where they are. Just showing up (along Sideway Road!)  Celebrating their moment in the sun!  Offering the simple truth of who they are!

 
          Basically, I'm pretty trusting, I have been a truth nut since I was very young, and all the time I try to figure things out. These days I am stumped by how could so many have been conned by our president who is more mean than presidential, more a bully than anything else, and who has been badly damaged along his own life's path.  

        I'm going to publish this now even if I end up deleting it in the morning.  I'm not trying to criticize anyone, but I'd love to see more of us actually thinking this through and examining the pieces.  It's always interesting and important to increase one's understanding of the one precious life we have been given.

 

 

 

missing family

post #520

        I'm a pretty tough cookie, but sometimes it's the pits to not be able to touch -- or be in daily touch with -- my family.  Because of the capricious and nasty virus, not touching is definitely the healthy and necessary thing to do.  However, some days the feeling is weirder than others. SO my advice to someone else would be to own the weirdness, and DO something that "speaks to your condition."  So I'm switching gears for this weekly blog post of mine to (drum roll...  ) FAMILY.  I have spent time with them today by seeking them out within the maze of thousands of photos on my laptop.  I'll be sharing about 18 photos, without giving many names or positions on the family tree. I'm going for the random wonder of who we end up with. (Not everyone is represented here. Therefore I hereby give myself permission to do this again in a second post in the future!)

 

what was on the screen

 

 

 

 and where the face actually was, in my office room! (notice blue curtain...)

 

 

                                       practicing outside distancing last spring ......

Thanks go today to my tolerant family. I feel much better..... I can't wait to surprise you and others again in the future......

Some same 'ol stuff and a first time something

 post #519

                Busy day. I heard that Joe Biden sprained his ankle today while playing with his dog.  I'm so sorry it happened. Who has time for that?  ( oh well, maybe Trump does since he hasn't been not doing much that's presidential lately. His service to this country continues to be peculiar. His legions of Republican enablers are also tragically hard to figure out .)                  note added on Monday: it seems Biden has hurt his foot in the very same way I did a year and a half ago!

            I didn't get out for a walk, BUT I did do something new -- painted the front of the front door!  It's the FIRST door I have ever painted. The door is no longer dirty white! It's blue!   I took a photo of this little miracle, and put the geraniums onto the photo since it may be their LAST night. I've had them for two years and there's not a good place for them in the house.  I've wanted to paint that door for at least five years.

           We are expecting 12 or so hours of rain before the next night when it will turn to snow.  In Kentucky, we usually get snow later. Hmmm, I don't know yet if from home learners get to have Zoom snow days!? 

        Yes, time for some photos:

The door color isn't really how it looks, but, hey, seeing is believing....that something happened!

a closer view of the two year geraniums -- thanks thanks thanks

     Another project made great headway today.  My friend Carolyn in town made a random comment a couple of months ago about needing another project while spending so much time at home. I replied in a joking manner that I had a task I would love to have her do, if she really wanted it. She said it sounded great, and today she reached the almost done stage -- working an hour or so most days she has typed out the 93 page journal from the notebook Frank and I kept every day -- while we traveled from California, going west, because our first stop was to visit his brother, who was in the Peace Corps in Western Samoa in the Pacific.  We were there for Christmas. We went on to Fiji, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, India, and all the way around back to the USA. Six months. This was in 1970-71, when there were cheap airplane tickets available as long as we continued more or less in the same direction. We went where we knew someone or where someone back home knew someone. We each carried a back pack, stayed in youth hostels or cheap hotels when not in someone's home, and we kept track of every thing we spent -- averaging ten dollars a day.  To pull that off actually takes a lot of work, but that trip was the privilege of a lifetime.

        Carolyn also loves traveling and has done quite a bit of it after growing up on a farm in Kansas.  I think she has enjoyed our adventures, and I can't thank her enough. She and I are going to figure out a sheltered way soon to go over the pages and decipher words or even clarify here and there. I never expected anyone to be able help me with this, and I knew I'd never manage to do it. I wanted to be able to share the adventure without having it be hard to read.

        Here's a photo of the modest looking notebook (our constant companion.) I've not been to Africa or South America; a thin line around a globe shows how much we haven't seen, but it was a precious adventure all the same. I'd always wanted to know what was on the other side of the world.

 

Frank did much of the detail recording, and I could add, or visa versa.

    

         

             

     

            Then there's these two photos of T., posing as a hairbroom in the first one, and showing her hair from the back in the second.  I have a better photo of her sitting down, but it's a vertical shot, and I STILL have not figured out how to make the transfer of a vertical to the current posts with the newly revised secret rules.  The sun was making her hair sparkle, but I couldn't get that to show either.  But we had fun trying -- though I was constrained to my chair in the corner....The attempt to convince me I'm elderly -- and therefore virus vulnerable -- continues. 

             I hope everyone is safe, healthy, and ready for what the next two months will bring us. I wish the wall that Trump is determined to complete was instead a structure that was being taken down, as a symbol of how much more important it is instead to break through our current partisan divide. It's going to take a long time to come to our national senses.  I'm sad that we couldn't make the trip now that we made 50 years ago, plus the world has real problems to solve, like the air, the water, and the access to food for all.  We don't need to spend time on egotistic walls and unrelenting tantrums.  We need to return, at the least, to being able to hug each other.  I'm grateful for friends, family and others who are keeping their eyes and hearts focused on a future filled with healing for each of us.  Ann

Hope helps, and witnessing this electorial insanity in the time of a pandemic needs all the hope we can give it.

post #518 

                This week is pretty full, just thinking about Thanksgiving -- and about whether this year's is a one time only happening.  I can tell myself that I hope that's true because it is possible to imagine that a vaccine will provide some cover by a year from now. I also know that improved national leadership will make a huge difference.  January 20 can't come soon enough. 

            Hey, everyone, don't you think it's kind of hopeless to have so many people dying and so much golf being played and so much suffering by essential workers being unrecognized for the absolutely difficult work they are doing?  Admitting the problem and working together to solve it seems a lot more hopeful to me. 

 

            I've chosen just a few photos for today's post which speak to hope for me. I know there are more, but, as I said, it's a busy week. You all stay safe, and love your neighbor --- safely.  

 

 

the almost end, again, of the lavender blossoms, yesterday

a discovery of how a sycamore leaf could use an empty hook in my gallery area! for weeks!

three nearby friends --- two sisters and a cousin  ---- which is which --- all figuring out their lives

                  MaKayla is holding a quilt with a story.  A dear friend of mine, Gerda Wodlinger, whom I met during our two Coast Guard years in Kodiak, Alaska, had become a nurse as a teenager by escaping by train to work in England during World War II.  She was German and Jewish, and the only one in her family to survive.  Near the end of the war she went back to Germany to help with the resettlement.  She took with her this quilt where each block was knit by someone she had worked with while in London.  Gerda passed this quilt on to me, and I have now passed it on to MaKayla. It has always given me perspective about what hardship means and how important it is to hold on to hope. 

                The title of this photo --which I took in West Virginia from a moving train -- is SIDE-TRACKED.  It could also be called THE TRACK NOT TAKEN.  Somehow it speaks to me about always wondering about what the choices mean that we make in life.  Of course it could also mean that it's fun to look out the window on a train to see what you can see!

            Here's hoping  --  I'm saying it one last time -- we don't have to be subjected to this desperate and dangerous election behavior much longer. It makes everyone look very bad, especially the timid Republicans who can't speak up about who has fairly won this amazingly complicated but well executed election. Thanks for reading this blog, staying on track, Ann

A second celebration of hopeful moments over the years, via some favorite photos

post #517

        While the wait goes on -- for an official acknowledgement of the normal transition process between American political administrations --  nature decided to try to blow us away!  And, here in Eastern Kentucky, this very afternoon was spent without electricity!! I guess we will learn the extent of what happened and where tomorrow. For once I have a very dramatic explanation for the belated time of posting this weekly blog.....  After all, I want this is all about hope since we know there will continue to be moments of hope in our lives. At the moment that reality can sometimes feel elusive.

 

I have to start with these lovely hay rows. Every year. The small cemetery on the hill. The beauty of the land near where I am lucky enough to live.

      

a visit from our friend George Ella Lyon -- and time together with a book

This photo happened -- it wasn't very posed -- during a gathering of writers at the Hindman, KY Settlement School. These two writers are good friends and great writers, and they each have a recent book.  Talk about hope for the world!  I mentioned George Ella's two weeks ago, and I really think it's terrific, Voices of Justice. Gurney Norman's is Allegiance. I have heard it is remarkable.

 

                          visits with good neighbors, good friends

        Next is a photo by Rebecca of her wonderful student Honami, from Japan, who came out to R's house to see if the sukiyaki we make in Kentucky has almost the same taste as hers does back home.  Note: Japanese families are well known to be extremely polite. We might never know what she really thought, but I think she actually enjoyed a Japanese meal while "away from home."  We enjoyed being with her very much. (photo by Rebecca O. Wright)

I love this after dinner moment with Peg, who now runs a Bed and Breakfast in southeastern Kentucky, very near Cumberland Falls. She and I knew each other in Connecticut 100 years ago... There are stories.... She also knows Gurney. (see above)

I don't know whether these three are related or just mellow full time, as mourning doves often are. The birds in our neck of Appalachian Kentucky are endlessly fascinating to me. 

        This is going to be enough for tonight. Kind of random, kind of amazing. I feel this science t-shirt says it all. I continue to have some problems with the revised blog info getting the photos I want to go where I want them to, and so forth.  Pulling the weekly post together works better now than it did this summer, but this blog is supposed to be all fun for me, and certainly not more frustration than fun.

         May everyone stay healthy and wear a mask when out in the world, for others, and may damaged Donald Trump be blessed with a sliver of insight, just what's needed to give it up about our elections being rigged. Enough already of damaging the very foundation of our nation.  

        Again I send thanks for all the grueling, caring work being done on behalf of those suffering from Covid 19. I'm glad the rest of us can at least help a little by wearing a mask and not being part of big groups. A lot of us doing what we can will make all the difference.

Outbreaks of Happiness

post #516

            Words seem necessary, but this long, long week speaks for itself. Well, first, for weeks, we saw the long, long lines that people tolerated, everywhere, wearing masks, sometimes waiting for hours and hours, to VOTE YES to have each one's VOICE be a part of our constitution's presidential every-four-years schedule. We had mostly good weather, except for a couple of hurricanes or simple heavy rains, and also fires. All that with the virus, ready as always to take you down. 

        Physically I couldn't have easily done what those voices did, though I like to think I would have tried. Luckily, in Kentucky, where I live, early voting by mail could be done by request for reasons of age or concern for the virus, so that is what I did.

        Now we are processing the outcome. For those of us who can not understand the Trump appeal, we were astounded at how strong our sense of relief has been. That's why so many hit the streets Saturday afternoon and evening to dance and shout. It was a joy that just had to be shared.                                    

       I do want to share also that this week I heard from my Japanese friend Mariko, who married a Frenchman and lives in France, and her cousins, who live in California and New Hampshire.  I also heard from Reidunn, who lives in Oslo, Norway, and from close friends in England, Bill and June. Knowing my feelings EACH ONE expressed happiness that the mean guy had not been re-elected. They were thrilled that Americans were not continuing to go down the road of being cruel, cut off from the world, and [governed] by chaos. Another Norwegian friend, Kjersti, now living in Canada, called last week distraught about Trump's behavior and calling the damage he continually causes incomprehensible.
       I hope to have future conversations, with whoever wants to really talk and listen. We need to figure out how to work through with friends and neighbors where the disconnects occur.   

      OOPS, I've talked way too much. My bad. I planned to show some photos from my life as an American choosing to live in rural Eastern Kentucky. My America. We are all part of the work that a vibrant democracy requires.  As my friend, Melva, suggests, we should construct a political party that is called "Common Sense."

 

 This set of photos is going to take at least two weeks to show. They are mostly in order of date, but somewhat grouped if connected by topic.  I call this first photo "story line." Cathy K. worked at the sewing factory that used to be in Olive Hill; they made jeans.  It's one of my early photos from when I started making photo note cards.

 

a worm eating warbler who must have been sitting on eggs she didn't want to leave

mother LISTENING intently to daughter

looking for mom on those same steps

a mom competing with the rash of younger family members using months for their ages.....

This is the consequence of mountaintop removal mining, near Hazard, Kentucky, the photo made while I was in a small plane. The health of our earth is at stake. Believe it.

on our land, lady-slippers, no longer in that same place, the land is changing

        I want also to touch on families, everywhere, and the security they can provide, and the importance they play in lives lived. I don't know if turkeys love each other, but they sure do hang out together.  This first gathering took place essentially in the yard outside my house!

 

turkey families on an outing

We call this gathering Cousin Camp.... There are stories.....

                I think I will save the other photos for next week - This has been a long week and it's not over yet. I know I have shown most of these photos before, but they look different to me after the import of the last few weeks. I just am so grateful for where I live and for all who are in my life and for discovering I love to take photos.  I'm also grateful that so many fellow Americans got it together to go vote this year, enough of us to cause a change in the direction our country was headed.  I do believe that if we are patient, and if we listen to each other, we can go beyond how partisan we have become.  The first task may simply to be to examine what truth entails and why it is so important to our lives. Please, everyone, don't give up on the inclusive core of our American dream.   

              Special thanks to everyone who helps with the consequences of the virus -- Ann