How about a return to our original instructions?

I am once again enjoying a delightfully pleasant late summer / early autumn day. After much internal debate this week, I’m prepared to add to the pleasures of the season by finally letting go of the idea of ever again getting all caught up. There are just too many things that require attention, even with the kids all raised, and too many variables to track, and too many new disruptions to whatever used to pass as normal.

September lilac bloom

Photo by J. Harrington

Here’s an example: a few days ago I noticed a cluster of blossoms on the lilac bush behind the house. Lilacs are supposed to bloom in May, not September. At least that’s the way it was the whole time I was in grammar school, many years ago. Since I’ve been posting daily to this blog for several years, a search turned up mention of September blooms on lilacs in 2017, 2019, 2020 and now this  year. Yet another example of the old normals no longer holding.

Now, unaccustomed as I am to playing devil’s advocate, I might point out that the “old normals” probably account for much of what’s brought US, and the rest of the world, to our current condition, with many, to most, to all lives being disrupted by one or more of the following

• a global pandemic, foretold on the pages of Foreign Affairs in 2005 by Michael Osterholm 
• multiple crises triggered by climate breakdown events, anticipated since the 19th century
• a “sixth extinction” recently flagged by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

An extractive, capitalistic, global economy based on perpetual growth is the ideology underlining most of our current global problems. They’re exacerbated by unacceptable levels of greed and/or ignorance. As an alternative to living in a perpetual state of one or more crises, perhaps more of US should take a look at the Bioneers’ approach and/or read Original Instructions to look for a place or places to start positive changes in our systems and our lives.

Remember, being bent over with a head in the sand puts you in a near perfect position to kiss your arse goodbye.

Instructions on Not Giving Up

Ada Limón - 1976-

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

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