Overview

This morning I received a whats app from my sister.  Someone narrates that Netanyahu has to go - enough of his narcissism, his insatiable greed, his lies, his corruption, his manipulations, his put down of the 'radical left', his betrayals, his control over the henchmen he has appointed ...........

Everything could be, and is, synonymous with our orange monster and his henchmen, with Kim Jong-un, with Lukashenko, Putin, Erdogan, Modi, and on, and on ...... ad nauseum.

As I said in my entry entitled Acquiescence,  everything and everyone is interconnected, and that is one of our lessons to be realised in this pandemic.  

I know I have struggled mightily lately to keep afloat with all that surrounds us, compounded by the fires and the noxious air.

Yes, everything is interconnected - and all over the world we see male leaders united in their quest for power and absolute control, for avarice, for utter contempt of the planet and its inhabitants.  It is not just our orange monster - 

We are in the midst of a major paradigm shift - a desperate struggle between power over vs. power within, dominion.

So we are witness to a planetary movement  - protests, strikes.  People are uniting to denounce racism, corruption, greed - people are rising up to demand justice - the right to health care, to education, to unpolluted food and water, the right to breathe, the right to live!

These desperate leaders bring out their military might to crush opposition, but I can see and feel and know it will not be crushed.  We are in the midst of an enormous transition.  We feel now as if we are moving blindfolded, in the dark. We do not see signs, there are no roadmaps, we don't know where we are going, we are lost in the wilderness. But there is a massive change fomenting.  And we are all part of it. Each of us has a role to play, the farmers, the labourers,  the fishermen, the teachers, the doctors, the nurses, the parents, the artists, the actors, the poets - and each of us is working to change to the best of our own abilities. And it is not easy, and we get depressed and feel hopeless and scared.  We feel abandoned and alone.  We are in unknown territory.  We lose faith and will.

BUT we cannot lose that glimmer of light, of hope.  There will be a change, and if not in our lifetimes, in those of our children and grandchildren.  

Things will not be same as before, 'as soon as there is a vaccine."   That is an illusion propagated by the monsters who think the millions they are pouring into looking for a cure will 'fix' everything and the world will continue as greedily and thoughtlessly as before. 

I don't believe there will be a quick fix  the novel coronavirus. I don't believe there will be a quick fix with a different government.  This undercurrent of change will go on - and eventually there will be some light.

I do believe there is an overview of all that is happening now. Hopefully lessons will be learned, and things will be different.

Our new normal

 

This is our new normal - three years in a row (or more).  Three years of enormous, deadly, catastrophical, unprecedented fires brought upon by climate change and our way of life - moving into wilderness areas, urban spread.

Our new normal happens earlier each year, and lasts longer.   

This year we have learned some new terms - mitigation, herd immunity, flattening the curve, - some new ways of being - isolated, socially distanced, masked

My vocabulary has catastrophically decreased

Unbelievable

horrendous

and a very appropriate word in Hebrew "hazui"  which means hallucinatory

This is for the most part, all I have to say.

Of course to top it all we are in the midst of a pandemic

Condensed version of the first couple of days of this week

 It has been very hot - unusual for August.  Hot and humid.  MOST unusual.

I watered my little bit of earth Saturday evening.  Early Sunday morning I was awakened by what I took for deer outside my window making rather a racket.  Then I heard rain - RAIN in mid August.  Thunder, lightning, absolutely unheard of.  But indeed, this happened.

The stifling heat has continued. I do what I learned to do in Israel, when we didn't have airconditioners. Pull down shades and make everything dark as possible.  Open up the house when the sun goes down.  And the sun goes down in a  breathtaking fashion.

Yesterday I took my car to the car wash.  This morning I awoke to the stifling heat with streaming eyes and the smell of .... smoke, ash.  I decided to go for a walk at the Berkeley Marina where at least there may be somewhat of a cool breeze.  My clean car was covered in ash. I made a futile attempt to wipe it off  While doing so the driver in a car coming down Stockton stopped next to me.  An Indian gentleman said "ash because of the fires. Bad air because of the fires."  He is right - I nodded sympathetically and we wished each other well.

I arrived at the Marina and parked my car.  A woman was just getting into her car in front of me.

"Lord," she said. "It is hot - go by the bayside. Also, you can't see nothing - the air is so bad." I nodded sympathetically, and she continued.  "My son is near Japan on the Ronald Reagan," the man in the White House doesn't know what he's doing. A ripple from Japan comes across the pond toward us. 

What he doin? Building walls - taking breasting babies from their mothers. It aint right. Sending those border police to cities, helicopters on us?  It aint right. And now the Post Office - and all them black people being killed by the cops, and everyone sick and dying. It aint right."

What his daughter and Melania doin"? What they know?"

I kept nodding in acquiescence - but each time I opened my mouth (under my mask) to say something, she carried on.  Her mask was under her chin, as she had finished her walk - perhaps it was easier for her to speak.  Also, I agreed with every single thing she said.  

She got ready to get in her car. As she opened the door I said "we have to vote."

"Right she said," turning on the car, 'and we got to keep on laughin.'

"Take care," I waved as she left.

It is wednesday - the week is far from over.

 

Malaise

I am not sure whether anyone is reading my posts.  If there is someone out there in the ether, you may have noticed that recently there have been no new entries.  I feel that I am experiencing somewhat of a covid-induced malaise.  It is not a true depression, but I am definitely not gliding along on a pink cloud of joy and happiness.

Objectively there isn't much to feel optimistic about.  This pandemic continues unabated, and I think the reality of what is happening cannot be absorbed all at one time. But every few days a little more sinks in. I speak to family and friends in Israel.  I was supposed to go there in April - when we realised that was not going to happen I thought I would visit around Rosh Hashanah.  That is obviously not going to happen - and maybe not next April either - who knows when.  

A cousin in South Africa had a knee replacement and I had entertained thoughts of going there to help. I am comforted that she does have support of family and friends - but the fact is she is far away.

Our world has changed, and is changing, and we do not have any roadmaps, either on a personal or a global level.  My dreams show me how I am floundering - an ongoing theme of having to go somewhere that is familiar, but now nothing looks the same and I just can't find my way. None of the roads I knew are quite the same as I had remembered, and they don't arrive at wherever it is I want to go.

I have had night time hallucinations of someone standing at the foot of my bed looking like a cross between a masked alien and an insect.  I also dreamed of a big dog swallowing my mask. I heard the dog gulp it down and called the vet who said it will cost me $5,000 to operate.  I was quite desperate as I did not have the money, or if I did spend it,  I would have nothing left.

Unmistakably themes of anxiety!

And I feel increasingly anxious as the orange monster sends out storm troops to cities, threatens to postpone elections, on and on.  Democracy hangs in the balance. Climate change (which doesn't exist) is threatening our very existence.  

OK - I get it.  Of course I am experiencing a malaise, to be out singing and dancing from the rooftops would be delusional.  To top it all, I think I should be expressing non stop gratitude for my situation, which is, in fact, not so bad.  After all, I do have a home, I can pay my rent, I do have friends and family, I am back in art class, I do have food -  yes, I am grateful, but not ecstatic!

Sorry.