Twenty years ago, I’d have taken to the streets in protest, but today, given the firehose of outrages, I wouldn’t know what to write on my cardboard sign. Outrageous headlines sizzle across my laptop screen like multi-headed dragons. So, I look for diversions. I try and keep moving. I go to the gym, walk, dance ballet, work in the yard, shop for groceries, come home and cook.

My friend, Susan, recently re-introduced me to my sketch pad, a fabulous diversion. Susan is a real, for-hire, portrait artist who paints in oils. She kindly invited me to make art with her—twice at Jordan Lake Dam, and most recently in her studio.

She set me up in a comfy chair on the second floor of her old farmhouse with its cherished northern light—light that doesn’t change value as the sun tracks across the sky.

We draw actual objects as opposed to doodling out of our heads, so I brought a wooden elephant from home. Across the room, Susan immersed herself in the plump essence of a baby bok choy. For a blessed hour, I focused soley on dark and light values, doing my best to coax an inanimate being to life.

Bob and I came of age in an era of moral clarity in which good people protested against racism, sexism, and war. Fast forward to now, and we are mired in the same tar pit of might-makes-right, but we lack the exhilarating ferver—the focus—we had fifty, or even twenty years ago.

In my defense, I say, “I don’t know which dragon head to go after,” and “It’s all so fuzzy, this shit storm of outrages,” and “What good would it do?” and, “If I think about it too hard, I’ll lose my mind. How will that help anyone?” and “Best I keep my head above water, best I focus on the people close to me.”

I often think about the good Germans, about how they turned blind eyes to Hitler’s rise in power. See How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days. I used to think a Nazi holocaust could never happen here in the United States.

But now, with talk of imprisoning migrants at Guantanamo, I’m not so sure. And so, like German citizens of the ’30s, I see what’s happening and avert my eyes, focused instead on making soup and drawing elephants.

As we inch closer to Inauguration Day, I’ve been trying to imagine the best possible outcome, keeping myself informed without burying myself in bad news. I was hoping that a focus on the joys within my safe, community bubble would minimize the horror building in my chest.

But, there comes a point.

When the President-elect expressed his desire to aquire Greenland without ruling out military force, I could no longer contain myself. I was shocked that the presumptive Commander in Chief, the man with his finger on the nuclear button, has such ambitions.

Nearly three years ago, I watched in horror as Putin invaded Ukraine, not for one minute imagining that The United States might one day follow in Russia’s footsteps. I want to believe that my conservative friends, neighbors, and family members are as horrified as I am. I doubt they would have voted to invade a sovereign nation.

I don’t know what I can do to stop my country from becoming a mighty bludgeon, but I don’t want any part of it. I am not in lockstep with the brutish aims of a pathetic megalomaniac. For what it’s worth, my silence is broken.

They say one of them died of a heart attack after tazing his privates while reaching for plunder. That he posed with four of his guns before coming down to the capitol and that he was a generally nice guy, R.I.P.

They say the cops were complicit, or under-prepared, or lacked backup because “you know what happened the last time the National Guard came to manage a mostly-peaceful, D.C. protest.” They say the crowd was incited by their commander-in-chief saying, “After this, we’re going to walk down and I’ll be there with you. We’re going to walk down,” or that the Viking-helmeted LARP larkers and the booted commandos with their zip ties were from the other side, sent in to make us look bad.

They say they won’t stand by and let socialists rip the heart out of our country, that they don’t want a godless, amoral, dictatorial, oppressed, and socialist nation, and that they’ll never give up. They say it’s time for the Second Revolution.

They say we can’t trust the other side, that we must work together, that the vaccines are on their way, and that we’ll never let them stick us in the arm. That climate change is a hoax, that the planet is burning, that they are coming for your baby, and that these people cannot be reasoned with.

They say it’s too late, that it’s never too late, that we should write our representatives, hunker down, get a gun, start a garden, go out and get herd immunity, invest in Zoom, pull our money from the stock market, stop eating beef, stop eating soy, stop the steal, stop fighting and unite.

They say step away, boil some water, light a candle, drink some tea, go for a walk, call a friend, eat chocolate, practice gratitude, get some sleep, and remember to breathe.

After breakfast, I open my laptop and read the headlines. The Democrats have finally initiated impeachment hearings. There’s been another shooting. A sixteen-year-old girl has sailed from Sweden to address the United Nations in New York. “How dare you!” she says, eyes blazing. Revolution, fires, famine, and floods — the world is spinning out of control.

Later, on my way home from town, I notice two trucks on the lawn across the street from Horton Middle School. A long, shiny pole lies in the brittle grass, and a Confederate Battle Flag spills carelessly over a tailgate. Inside the school, black, white, and brown kids tap their knees against their desks, waiting for the bell to ring. We know some of those kids. Their parents are not happy about the message being sent by the flag across the street.

The school is named after George Moses Horton, a slave owned by William Horton. Back then, people named their slaves after themselves. George Moses taught himself to read. He became a free man after the Confederates lost the Civil War and was the first black poet published in the southern United States.

My mother traces her heritage to an Englishman named Barnabas Horton, who arrived on the shores of Long Island in 1640. I wonder if William was also related to Barnabas.

I learn that there is a second flag, and, a couple of days later, I drive beneath it. It flicks a shadow across the hood of my car.

In August, my next door neighbor witnessed a Ku Klux Klan rally in Hillsborough, thirty-five miles away. Turns out they were armed, too. Here it comes, I think.

A bronze confederate soldier still stands twenty-seven feet high atop a granite pedestal in front of the Chatham County Courthouse in the middle of town. But not for long. The County Commissioners voted last spring to remove it by November. Since then, the monument has become a focal point for conflict. It stands stiff-boned, surrounded by crowd control barriers. The inscription reads: “To the Confederate Soldiers of Chatham County — Our Confederate Heroes.”

Pittsboro, population 4,000, is small enough that we smile and hold the doors open for each other at the Post Office. We still take our feet off the accelerator to let side street traffic fold into line at rush hour while the courthouse tower clock chimes the time.

Turns out the flag erectors, the guys with the giant poles and crumpled flags aren’t from around here and that they plan on cementing in more flag poles around the county. They are with an outfit called Virginia Flaggers.

After the first two flags went up, there was a small protest/anti-protest demonstration at the courthouse. The police arrested three protesters. One video shows two officers leading a shambling, bearded man through the sparse crowd. I almost felt sorry for the guy.

History is not written by losers, but the losers never forget. I understand how it might feel to grow up here on land my granddaddy farmed. To witness the onslaught, a wave of northerners, siphoning land, and sucking away my sense of dignity, in a world gone to shit. And how it might feel to watch a handful of liberal county commissioners remove a tribute to my ancestors that has been standing for over 100 years. I get it. I’d be upset, too.

Or, maybe I’d be ready to move on. Maybe, even if I was born and raised Southern, I might not align myself with rebel forces, six generations back, fighting to secede just as I don’t align myself with my German ancestors, three generations back, who wiped out six million Jews.

I go to dinner with a friend who is not sure what’s going to happen next. Yes, she is an American citizen, but she doesn’t look like the white people putting up these flags, and she knows that makes her a target. A few tables over, we hear the high notes of outrage coming from a similar conversation. Two men I know reasonably well, both have been to our house, are trying to decide what to do. They don’t want to stir things up any further but feel they can’t take this latest assault lying down.

Zoom out. The tweeter in residence is not handling impeachment proceedings gracefully. As part of one weekend twitter binge, he tweeted, “a warning from a pastor about ‘a Civil War like fracture in this Nation’ should he be removed from office.” Those of us who aren’t looking for another Civil War were not amused.

At this point, I don’t care if the statue stays or goes. I drive past the flags on my way to and fro without glancing up. I long for harmony. I’m sick of polarization. How do we give the old guard a sense of dignity without making the rest of us feel unwelcome, or worse, threatened?

I want to think this tension is new, but it isn’t — it’s just come to our town where I can’t ignore it. We had trouble like this in the ’60s and ’70s: assassinations, cops shooting kids, hippies against rednecks, peaceniks against patriots. Things were quiet for a time, and then the school shooting at Columbine sparked a dribble, and then a flood of gun violence.

I want to blame the highchair king and his incendiary tweets. I find it ridiculously sad that we aren’t even fighting over food. It seems a meaningless tussle when the victims appear well-nourished. But their discontent is palpable, an undercurrent of hopelessness strong enough to pull shooters into the abyss.

I think of the one-legged woman begging for cash the other day, stopping me as I made my way across the grocery store parking lot. How her partner leaned forward, nodding as she told her story, and how both of them relaxed after I sighed and reached for my wallet. I think of the millions of ruined soldiers and mental health refugees sleeping in doorway nests and culvert boxes and wonder how many of them sleep in our town.

I don’t think we are beyond fixing, nor do I believe we need an outside war to bring us together. I want what I’ve always wanted, what everyone ultimately wants: a sense of belonging, peace, and unity.

Leaves continue falling, green fading to yellow, and all turning brown over time. It’s been hot. Torpid. Frisky mornings slowing to long, motionless afternoons. The voices in the woods pulse, “We . . we . . we . . we . . we . .”

On September 11, I logged into Facebook and found myself scrolling past a minefield of 9/11-themed posts. I bristled each time I saw “never forget,” that war cry without an exit plan. I hated that this national tragedy had come to be an excuse for revenge, and was frightened by how nationalism has hijacked patriotism.

I imagine you could fashion a rosary of human tragedies and pray to each and every one: white for hissing holocaust gas, gangrene green for Civil War, red for World War II kamikaze headbands, and black for the smoke pouring off the World Trade Centers.

~*~

My aunt could see the Manhattan death plumes from New Jersey that day in 2001. She stared out her window through the trees, pacing, and taking short sips of air. She thought about her sons at work in the city, willing her beige wall phone to ring, longing to hear, “Mom? We’re both okay.”

She paced with a legion of other families while mayhem reigned at ground zero: rescue teams beyond exhaustion, stunned survivors, agitated newscasters. So many choking on the news, unable to swallow, only the dead at rest.

Bob’s co-worker at the Kaho’olawe Island Reserve Commission called before dawn; her voice pitched half an octave high. “Turn on your TV!” I climbed out of bed and was walking the floor in our little stick house, eyes squinting. What? Of course, we didn’t have a television. We had shed the TV on our way to Belize five years earlier.

We packed a light bag and drove down the volcano, hoping the inter-island puddle jumpers planned on flying anyway so that Bob could attend a native plant conference on Molokai. I brought my fencing tool, thinking that if we found ourselves in an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, I might want to cut through some barbed wire.

“Even if we had a TV,” Bob said, “I don’t think I would have turned it on.” I agreed. Neither of us cared to have another catastrophe etched into our retinas. We already had unshakable images of the exploding Challenger and John F. Kennedy’s last moments.

The airports, all the airports, were closed and the skies were blessedly silent for days. Not even the volcano tour helicopters broke the calm. My father told me later on the phone, “I held my breath for a couple of days, hoping they’d do the right thing.”

A sense of peace becalmed the Pacific, petty squabbles abandoned, stranded tourists embraced. We felt lucky to be alive, all of us grieving for the people digging through the rubble 4,900 miles east. For two days, the entire nation was grounded and unified.

And then the skies roared back to life.

A year later Congress gave the president authorization to use military force against Iraq and within five months peace was destroyed by the ink of an angry pen. Our disappointment was so profound that we quit our jobs and moved to a tiny island off the coast of Nicaragua, a place without an airstrip, roads, motorized vehicles, or even a proper dock. We met the big cargo ship at the reef when it arrived with diesel fuel, and watched the crew pitch 55-gallon drums overboard for us to lash to our boat. I remember hearing the drone of a propeller plane only once and rushing out from under the coconut palms to stare.

We lived in Nicaragua just long enough to notice a cultural shift upon re-entry. The first time a grocery store clerk said, “Have a safe day,” instead of “Have a great day,” I thought I’d misheard. The second time I chuckled, wondering, Safe from what? I began rolling my eyes at every well-meaning, “Be safe!” “Stay safe!” “Drive safe!” and “Safe travels!” I wasn’t a fan of this new fear-based vocabulary.

Then I started seeing “Never Forget” bumper stickers. More salt in the wound. For all of us who had fervently hoped for peace, “Never forget,” sounded exactly like, “Never forgive.” I began to lose heart. The United States had hijacked an unforgettable tragedy and was using it as an excuse to perpetuate death and destruction.

Had my cousins died that day, I would mourn them as I grieved for all the other lives. And I would resent, even more, the overlay of nationalism and military might that seeks to blur our grief into hate and revenge. What could have been a pulling together became an excuse to kill. Two thousand nine hundred ninety-six souls sacrificed so we could take more lives. Their heartbeats immortalized in the beat of our war drums.

I’d like a pony this year, and world peace for Bob, please. Again, I know. It seems silly to ask for the same things every year, but old habits are hard to break.

Both Bob and I were very well behaved this year. We didn’t fight much, we kept the house clean, and we played nice with our neighbors. We both concentrated on giving more than we took, and I feel we did a pretty good job of supporting our family and friends. We managed to stay true to our values by not buying too many frivolous things, by growing some of our own food, and by eating in most every night.

I understand why you haven’t been able to give me a pony. I imagine you get quite a few pony requests, and there are only so many to go around. But I won’t lie and say I want something else, because I know how important it is to be clear about my desires.

As for world peace, I am not having as easy a time understanding why you can’t make this happen. I truly believe this is within your power, and with all due respect, it seems like a no-brainer. I can only imagine how wonderful life on earth would be if humans stopped fighting. For one thing, hunger would be a thing of the past the instant we stopped plowing resources into war toys.

Seems to me that if everyone decided to share and treat each other fairly, (isn’t that what world peace would look like?), people would stop wanting other stuff to distract them from the daily news. Your job would probably get a lot easier. If you put an end to war, I’d be so happy, chances are I’d stop wishing for a pony.

But maybe, because it’s a habit now, I’d keep sending you the annual letter, only instead of asking for stuff, I’d be thanking you for such a great life. Okay, I know you have another seven billion letters to read, so I’m going to wrap this up. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again next year!

Love, Cookie

Shooting from the hip, the big fish fired off a travel ban. When a federal judge reversed the order it must have dawned on him that he was swimming in a big pond now, magnitudes bigger than his real estate, global-golf-course pond. I eased back into headline scanning mode, relieved to see checks and balances at work.

And then this week, Syria happened. I plunged back in, unable to resist this headline:

When China’s Dinner Partner Went to War – Evan Osnos 4/7/17
The first face-to-face encounter between the American President and his Chinese counterpart was expected to follow a predictable arc—the plutocrat and the Communist, the blowhard and the sphinx, the weary protectionist and the reluctant globalist. But, just after eight o’clock on Thursday, as the two leaders were polishing off their New York strip and Dover sole, Trump informed Xi that he’d launched cruise missiles against Syrian armed forces.
…
In the medium and long term, China now has a larger concern: if the emerging Trump doctrine permits him to attack at will—even between the appetizer and dessert—putting some pressure on North Korea might be Beijing’s more desirable option. But it must now also prepare for four years of an American President whose strategy and doctrine can change from one week to the next. In the field of national security, unpredictability is usually the favored tactic of small powers, not large ones.

As noted by Steve Coll in another irresistible story “Trump’s Confusing Strike on Syria”

In the modern Presidency, firing off missiles has become a rite of passage.  …
Last Thursday, his seventy-seventh day in office, President Donald Trump pressed the cruise-missile button, sending fifty-nine Tomahawks to strike an airbase in Syria.  …
The President’s decision was familiar for being both spontaneous and confusing. As has happened before, he was apparently inspired to act by what he saw on TV.

Well, you just can’t make this stuff up. Especially the part about eating dinner with the Chinese president, getting up to push the button on Syria, then sitting back down for dessert. It was a classic “Show Monkey” move if I ever heard of one whether he meant it that way or not. Quite likely, the timing was accidental (maybe he had the TV on in the corner of the room.) Probably he’d never heard of Kill Chicken, Show Monkey. Even more delicious, the air strike didn’t sit well with Syria’s ally, Russia.

The other day I was walking with a friend and we were talking each other’s ears off when a moment of silence between us revealed an unnaturally quiet world. No birds, crickets, planes, traffic, or frogs. Total silence.

“Wow,” I said.
“I wonder if something has happened?”
“I know, right?! Well, I guess we don’t have to worry until we see the mushroom cloud.”

I suppose I shouldn’t make fun of a dire situation. I guess I should be afraid. But I don’t know how to fear something I have no control over. There’s no point in obsessing over stuff I can’t do anything about. So, for now at least, I’m reading the news, morbidly fascinated and keeping my eye on the horizon.

Bob is pretty good about staying on top of the news via the Internets but me, not so much. Despite adding news feeds from the New York Times and the BBC to my browser home page and listening to NPR during my dashes around town in Christine, I’m woefully uninformed. When I ask him what’s new in the news, he usually says “The world situation is desperate as usual” and we shake our heads.

Yesterday Bob uncharacteristically asked if I’d seen the story about the commercial airline flight that was shot out of the sky over the Ukraine so I took notice. Within a few minutes of browsing I learned about the 298 dead passengers and how surely this was not an accident and probably not done with a shoulder gun at 33,000 feet.

There was speculation that Russia had supplied the surface-to-air missiles and that perhaps Malaysian flight 17 had been mistaken for a military plane. Regardless of whether it was a mistake or not, there was no mistaking the horror and the outrage.

World leaders immediately began issuing bold statements. Most notably, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called for an international inquiry into the crash, saying “We ask all respective governments to support the Ukrainian government to bring to justice all these bastards who committed this international crime.”

This morning there was more. There is still limited access to the site, and there are rumors of plundering and suspicion of rebel tinkering with the evidence while civilian bodies lay bloating in the sun. Having been on several international flights just last month it was easy to imagine what it would be like to get shot out of the sky. And yet luckily, the worst that had happened to us was the disappearance of Bob’s suitcase and two hours spent sitting in a motionless plane in Milan waiting for clearance to fly over France because of an air traffic controller’s strike.

Add the Malaysia Airlines flight 17 story to the recent news about rockets raining down on Israeli cities and new violence and instability in Iraq and it would seem that all hell is breaking loose. I looked up from my computer and no matter how I tried I couldn’t think of something witty to say. There is no bright side to people killing each other over resources just as they have done since the dawn of time.

And so, what else is there to say? These global tragedies are so much bigger than me that I feel helpless. I feel terrible that history is determined to repeat itself and that there is so much suffering in the world. I can’t imagine why anyone manages to be optimistic about the future of the human species and I can only take small comfort in the knowledge that, for the moment, I am far from harm.

I woke to the sound of war drums from a lovely dream about Jesse the Wonder Horse and a precocious young foal. Their relationship was exactly what you would expect between an elder and a youngster. The two were tethered by one long rope to a tall and sheltering tree.

In my dream, I had nothing better to do than watch the dynamics between these two animals. A fluffy colt with bright eyes and irresistible energy who kept getting tangled up in the rope. And my beloved Jesse, steady and patient, unwinding the tangle, rope in his teeth, setting his charge free to romp to the end of his rope again. Later, I told my story to someone else in my dream, gushing about how the high-hipped foal had captured my heart. “I am just so taken by him! He’s beautiful!”

I lay in bed, savoring the rich images, the reassuring feeling that I didn’t need to intervene, that all was well with the world, that I could relax and let nature take its course.

Like I always do, I began tying my dream into the details of my waking life. The equine scenario quickly led me to our situation at home at Casa Kumasi, where Bob and I share the house with several precocious youngsters. Bright, talented and 30-some years our juniors. Some of whom are at the end of their rope in terms of trying to accomplish work in Kumasi, with their struggles to sort out their careers and now with the newest development in American politics, the impending war with Syria.

Yesterday afternoon, three of us were in conversation on the upstairs deck and Jay burst into the doorway, practically swallowing his tongue in his haste to get the words out, incredulous over at video interview with various American Politicos on Democracy Now. Our response was appropriate outrage tempered by deja vu.

This morning Bob and I reviewed the deck scene, commenting on how unsurprising it is that we are on the verge of another unwarranted military action and how seemingly hopeless it is to oppose the tide of destruction. We’ve seen this so many times since we were in grade school, beginning with the Vietnam War.

And then I turned to my desk where my browser took me immediately to my brother Joe’s latest, an articulate piece opposing Obama’s rash decision to rush into yet another war-torn land to commit further damage, written with feedback from interviews with Venezuelans, Catholics and soldiers.

From the Chaplain’s Laptop: Children of Syria

Virtually every non-political organization in the Middle East is pleading against military intervention. The Orthodox Patriarch of Damascus, the Jesuits in Syria, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and Melkite Patriarch in Syria, the Copts (who are facing extermination in Egypt from US-supported regime change), and the Armenians are all saying to President Obama “do not send attack missiles into our country.” In a magazine interview, Trappist nuns in Aleppo describe the real situation in their country: “All has been destroyed: a nation destroyed, generations of young people exterminated, children growing up wielding weapons, women winding up alone and targeted by various types of violence. The people are straining their eyes and ears in front of the television: all they’re waiting for is a word from Obama! … Will they make us breathe the toxic gases of the depots they hit, tomorrow, so as to punish us for the gases we have already breathed in? …It has become too easy to pass lies off as noble gestures, to pass ruthless self-interest off as a search for justice, to pass the need to appear [strong] and to wield power off as a “moral responsibility not to look away…” 

Bob and I have known for a long time that the American economy is built around perpetual war and that we are all, willing or not, complicit. Roped together, if you will. Young and old, rich and poor, passionate and jaded.

I keep asking myself why, if we are supposedly sentient beings, do we continue destroying each other? Must history continue to repeat itself? It’s enough to make me crawl back into bed and continue dreaming about a benevolent old gelding caring for his rambunctious young charge.

This morning, eleven years ago, I sat in class when another teacher came into the room and without saying a word turned on the tv. It took me a few moments to even understand what the image of the burning picture meant. Then the second plane hit. As far as we were aware, we were under attack.

The nation came together in a way that only happens in times of great stress. The ugly side also crept through. We were justified in removing the Taliban from Afghanistan. We were not justified in persecuting our Arabian, Muslim, or “towel head” brothers and sisters. I will never forget the pain of that morning but I will never forget the pain inflicted by an illegal war in Iraq or the continuing racism that plagues our society.

Today is a day to remember, honor those who have died in the service to our country, and work towards the United States we know we can be.

My father, who turned 86 this year, spoke with me shortly after the September 11, 2001 tragedy, saying that he held his breath for a couple of days. The spirit of togetherness and humanity emanating from New York City gave him hope. In the city where he and his parents lived, where he worked and earned his Masters and PhD and where his family continues to live and work, compassion had blossomed.

This was a wake up call, he said and he hoped that the nation would use it to see what our country has become; an empire that has dominated the world with military force since World War II. A target for retaliation. A bully disguised as a cop. A fattened pig ripe for slaughter.

My father was disappointed when after the stillness of a few days, we all heard the unmistakable rattling of blood-thirsty sabers. Eighteen months later, with astounding disregard for the United Nations, George W. Bush launched a revengeful rampage resulting in the deaths of more than 100,000 civilians.

Do I morn the slain innocents who suffered a horrible death on September 11, 2001? Yes, I do. And I also morn the death of American innocence, compassion, and common sense which occurred soon after that fatal date.

The magnitude of destruction at incredible cost to American citizens has, in my opinion, placed this country firmly in the same camp as Hitler’s Third Reich. One day I’m afraid, readers of American history will look back on these years and ask themselves, how could the citizens have allowed their country to turn into a police state and a global killing machine?