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[Oh, Lesley Anne Numbers... if I could wallpaper my entire house with your stunning prints, I would... 💚]
So, it is indeed Feel Good Friday. It is also Juneteenth, a historical milestone which commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. in 1965, which I knew about, but not as well as I should have. As is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week. Enjoy!
~ Stonehenge livestream of summer solstice tomorrow (Saturday, June 20)
~ The Supreme Court is rockin' it this week. 6-3, 5-4... both decisions have come out in favor of human rights. The Notorious RBG (Ruth Bader Ginsberg) will always be my first love ("smells like justice and bubble gum... but mostly bubble gum") but I might have a bit of a crush on Chief Justice John Roberts now as well... ;-)
Supreme Court Delivers Major Victory To LGBTQ Employees: In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. The ruling was 6-3, with Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's first appointee to the court, writing the majority opinion. The opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four liberal justices.
Supreme Court blocks Trump from ending DACA in big win for Dreamers: Chief Justice John Roberts was the swing vote in the 5-4 decision, dealing a big legal defeat to President Trump on the issue of immigration.
~ Celebrating Life's Milestone Moments While Trying To Stay Safe: Drive-by birthday parties. Passover Seder on Zoom. Even weddings livestreamed on YouTube.
~ Social Distance: A Randy Rainbow Song Parody
~ 28 Books That Talk About Race: With heart and unflinching honesty, these titles celebrate the power of diversity, freedom, and truth.
SONG: Don't Let The Sunshine Fool Ya by Guy Clark
BOOK: I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
POEM: Emancipation by Priscilla Jane Thompson
‘Tis a time for much rejoicing;
Let each heart be lured away;
Let each tongue, its thanks be voicing
For Emancipation Day.
Day of victory, day of glory,
For thee, many a field was gory!
Many a time in days now ended,
Hath our fathers’ courage failed,
Patiently their tears they blended;
Ne’er they to their, Maker, railed,
Well we know their groans, He numbered,
When dominions fell, asundered.
As of old the Red Sea parted,
And oppressed passed safely through,
Back from the North, the bold South, started,
And a fissure wide she drew;
Drew a cleft of Liberty,
Through it, marched our people free.
And, in memory, ever grateful,
Of the day they reached the shore,
Meet we now, with hearts e’er faithful,
Joyous that the storm is o’er.
Storm of Torture! May grim Past,
Hurl thee down his torrents fast.
Bring your harpers, bring your sages,
Bid each one the story tell;
Waft it on to future ages,
Bid descendants learn it well.
Kept it bright in minds now tender,
Teach the young their thanks to render.
Come with hearts all firm united,
In the union of a race;
With your loyalty well plighted,
Look your brother in the face,
Stand by him, forsake him never,
God is with us now, forever.
QUOTE: “This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again.” ~ James Baldwin
[thanks again to Lesley Anne Numbers for this brilliant graphic!]
About six months ago (maybe more, maybe less), I ran across a saying that became my mantra:
Whatever you
Are not changing,
You are choosing.
Read that again.
It helped me transform some bad habits into positive motion, and I stayed on track for a good while. Then... coronavirus (dum dum dum dum!). I continued my focus for another two months, but have recently found myself straying from the path, even falling into wallow and roly-poly modes, two of my biggest downfalls. Woe is me. What's the point? Where's my purpose? I wrote to a friend the other day:
"It's raining again here. How appropriate. Almost two weeks of daily downpours. You are the unfortunate recipient of my fatigue: coronavirus isolation; marital relations; social injustice; missing live music, browsing the library shelves, hugging my grandbaby, going to Publix instead of having strangers do my shopping, sitting in a booth at my favorite Thai restaurant to enjoy veggie Panang curry. Do you yell at the TV when people shake hands? ("no, you can't do that now!"). On the few occasions I am in the car, and see people driving while wearing masks, I wonder if I've just been dropped into a nightmare/science fiction scenario, and pinch myself to wake."
Time to recalibrate. Much to be grateful for. So many blessings. Started last night with a Dar Williams livestreaming concert, celebrating Patty's (her manager's) birthday, in which Dar played "deep cuts". Wow, what a setlist! I was invited, and eventually migrated over, to the Old School Dar-Listers watch party, connecting with dear friends I've had for decades, forever-bonded over our favorite singer-songwriter. I am committed to carrying that spark of joy back into my daily life, and adding in more yoga, more stretching, meditation, more phone calls with long-distance friends and family, walking, even leisurely (gone by the wayside because of my sciatica), natural VitaminD, whether at the condo pool (socially-distanced, of course) or the grassy area in front of our building, kinder words, deeper understanding, open heart/closed mouth, more radical self-care, increased vulnerability, letting go of past hurts.
Forlorn/lonely... begone!
[updated at 5:30 p.m.: I uploaded this post a bit after noon today, and since then, after doing much thinking, as well as having a productive conversation with a friend, I realize that so much of my angst comes from *struggling* with the times we're in. I am attempting to push back against an immutable situation, a *global* pandemic... clinging to my old life, fighting "the new normal", when what I really need to do is to find acceptance (I swear I had it at one point!). I keep talking about "the other side" of this, when there is still so much uncertainty, and no one knows where we will land, and what it will look like. I seriously need to stop drawing a line in the sand, visualizing there and here, Point A to Point B... and rather look at it as a journey, circuitous at best, winding along with perhaps no immediate plan in place, other than to connect the dots One Day at a Time, making the smartest decisions possible ("do the next right thing", as Glennon would say), and maintaining a Buddhist attitude of acknowledging there is pain and suffering yet striving toward non-attachment to the outcome. I feel better already... :-) ]
P.S. Another joy-sparker tomorrow night: Jason Isbell, Brandi Carlile, Eric Church, Kacey Musgraves, and Bill Murray will remember the life and music of John Prine during an all-star online special on Thursday. Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine streams June 11th at 7:30 p.m. ET via Prine’s YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.
SONG: I Know Alone by HAIM (lyrics in the link; thanks to my son Rob for the heads-up to this song... 💓 )
BOOK: On Being Human: A Memoir of Waking Up, Living Real, and Listening Hard by Jennifer Pastiloff
POEM: Quarantine Day 35 by Jaime R. Wood
The online coronavirus survey asks
if you’ve experienced hair loss
and you laugh because just yesterday
you took brand new clippers to your scalp
and sheared off enough hair to help someone
with cancer feel human again.
Your friend told you over Zoom happy hour
to hug yourself to trick your body
into feeling less lonely, so you wrap your arms,
right to left and left to right,
across your chest until your hands reach
your shoulder blades and you can feel
your heart beating inside you
as if it belongs to someone else,
but you know that hasn’t been true for a long time.
You stay up all night watching hospital dramas
because you want to know who will live
and who will die.
And one morning you wake to find out via email
that one of your students died in her sleep.
All day you tell people again and again,
“She had kids. She had kids.” Plural.
But it turns out she only had one
five-year-old daughter. Singular.
But what does it matter?
Every child is a universe.
And one morning one small girl in Portland, Oregon
woke up without her one very important mother.
Sometimes my hands shake with all they cannot hold,
and I don’t know how to measure what it means
for time to pass. Which simile will do?
Like a heartbeat?
Like a million fine hairs falling from a head?
Like a mother who slept through the night
and then stopped, her universe carrying the weight
of her through all the days of her life?
[Jaime R. Wood: “The ongoing event that we’re all experiencing right now is social isolation in an attempt to protect ourselves and our loved ones from COVID-19, and some people, like me, live alone, and so the isolation is profound. Last week, I learned that one of my students died in her sleep, and of all the things I knew about her, the thing I kept thinking about was the fact that she was a single mother and that her kids were young. I knew that, but I couldn’t remember how many kids she had until someone told me that she only had one, and at that point, it didn’t really matter to me. The loss is great, no matter how you calculate it. The loss of this one woman, and my feelings about it, can be multiplied many times over and applied to each of us. We wake up and fall asleep to loss, and there aren’t adequate words to measure it all.”]
QUOTE: "And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about." ~ Haruki Murakami
[Through a series of interesting circumstances yesterday, I was led to the amazing artwork of Lesley Anne Numbers (the above is just one example). Wow!]
Last Saturday night, after a heads-up from my daughter Sarah, I tuned into Banding Together: A Concert for the Colorado Music Relief Fund. From their website:
Live music is central to Colorado’s culture.
Our musicians, their crews, and our venues are iconic and beloved across the world. Music is a force in the experience economy; attracting tourists, new residents, and business leaders to the culture of Colorado in good times. In times of hardship music is our salve.
In this pandemic, everyone is hurting.
The economic and fiscal impacts on Colorado’s rich music industry resulting from COVID-19 are already significant. Music employs over 16,000 Coloradans and generates 1.5 billion dollars annually and the vast majority of that revenue relies on public gatherings. These activities are unlikely to return to ‘normal’ for the foreseeable future.
The music industry will not be back to work for perhaps a year or longer.
Whether it is navigating unemployment, small business loans, or other quickly disappearing relief funds, the music industry is not getting the lifeline it so desperately needs.
We need to raise funds and awareness in Colorado for this beleaguered industry and its workers that mean so much to our economy and our own health and well-being.
We’re going to use the power of music to do this.
Three hours of joy, beauty (Red Rocks!), and inspiration as so many artists (Dave Matthews, Brandi Carlile, The Avett Brothers, Michael Franti, to name just a few!) donated their time and energy to raise money for this worthwhile cause. We contributed a bit, and it lifted my spirits to do so. Click here to see/hear in its entirety for yourself... 💖
So, it is indeed Feel Good Friday. From the depths of despair at the beginning of the week, I am feeling a bit more hope: the other three officers were charged in the George Floyd situation, and Chauvin's charge was upgraded to second degree murder; there is an increase/emphasis on youth protest; demonstrations are more peaceful now, as many law enforcement officials changed their tactics to allow people to demonstrate while still maintaining peace.
As is tradition, five items below of beauty, interest, and humor to brighten your day/weekend/week. Enjoy!
~ First Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman: First ever National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, Amanda Gorman, performs her original poem, In This Place: An American Lyric, at the Library of Congress (thanks, ElyseB!)
~ Fewer Boats Means a Safer Spring for Miami's Marine Creatures: Over the past few weeks, amateur photographers have been capturing images and video of manatees, turtles, and sawfish in South Florida waterways and posting them on social media. Stay-at-home orders have meant fewer boats out on the water. And that's meant a safer spring vacation for Miami's aquatic creatures, many of which are coming back to shore.
~ Sesame Street Joins CNN to Host a Town Hall Saturday Addressing Racism
By Good News Network: Back in April, Sesame Street partnered with CNN to explain the ABC’s of coronavirus in a televised ‘town hall’ for parents and kids. Now, it’s time to help young families educate their children about racism. This Saturday, June 6, at 10 a.m. ET, CNN and Sesame Street are hosting a 60-minute special Coming Together: Standing Up to Racism. A CNN/Sesame Street Town Hall for Kids and Families.
SONG: Eachother by Grace Potter
BOOK: Music is Power: Popular Songs, Social Justice, and the Will to Change by Brad Schreiber
POEM: Pledge by Jehanne Dubrow
Now we are here at home, in the little nation
of our marriage, swearing allegiance to the table
we set for lunch or the windchime on the porch,
its easy dissonance. Even in our shared country,
the afternoon allots its golden lines
so that we’re seated, both in shadow, on opposite
ends of a couch and two gray dogs between us.
There are acres of opinions in this house.
I make two cups of tea, two bowls of soup,
divide an apple equally. If I were a patriot,
I would call the blanket we spread across our bed
the only flag—some nights we’ve burned it
with our anger at each other. Some nights
we’ve welcomed the weight, a woolen scratch
on both our skins. My love, I am pledging
to this republic, for however long we stand,
I’ll watch with you the rain’s arrival in our yard.
We’ll lift our faces, together, toward the glistening.
QUOTE: “Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. there is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” ~ Henry Miller
