Reason to believe?

One of our favorite country/folk songs is Reason To Believe, by Tim Hardin. These days there seems to be a lot of the kind of thinking and feeling captured in the song's lyrics going on in our political arenas. "...knowing that you lied, straight faced, while I cried...." Personally, we've reached a limit on our ability to do more than watch the madness, preferably from a distance. There's not much we can do about any of it and so, once again, we will post the following graphic, as transmitted to us by the Daughter Person:

what I can and cannot control

Tomorrow is the Georgia runoff for two US Senate seats. Wednesday is the counting of the Electoral College vote by Congress. Who can begin to guess what kinds of madness the Republicans will attempt to interject into those proceedings? It is absolutely clear to us however, that there's not a damn thing, other than cheer or curse, we can do about any of it. Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be partly cloudy (partly sunny?) so maybe we need to take some time and get outside.

We've been responsible and done our bit over the past several months and the last four years:

• We resisted
• We voted
• We contributed to political campaigns and environmental causes
• We've watched Republicans break laws and be stupid and evil
• We've watched Democrats claim "well, Republicans will be Republicans"
• We are not interested in making politics a full time occupation for no pay and few benefits

To paraphrase a W.C. Fields quote: "Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll" ... go exploring. Remember, about the only good reason to bang your head on a brick wall is that it feels damn good when you stop.

All Money Is A Matter of Belief

Carmen Giménez Smith

                    Adam Smith

 

Every poet glistens with the dew

of money, but surely only some of them

truly have it. Never enough, wanting to know

what enough felt like, I buy fake versions

of the things I want on credit, my shelves

laden with zirconia, Prada knockoffs, and

pirated Oscar screeners. I’m driven by envy,

and gluttony, the desire to consume better

than anyone else, but the pleasure is only half

of what it should be, and so on until my house

is filled with objects that belong to Chase

and AmEx. I’ve been relentless and I’ve been

lucky, but that’s never been enough.

I’d sell my soul, but there aren’t any takers. 

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Please be kind to each other while you can.

A period of readjustment?

As this is being written, we're debating with ourselves whether to set some personal goals for the year or play each day, month and season opportunistically. We already know we want to learn to cook beans this year, but which beans and what recipes and when to do so, not so much. We're in serious doubt if we can work up much enthusiasm for a three hour drive, one way, to do some Winter trout fishing, but you never know. Our artisan sourdough bread baking has plateaued, and we're not sure which way we want to head next.

artisan sourdough bread with kernza flour

Photo by J. Harrington

All in all, we're coming up short on enthusiasm and ambition. It could be the Winter Blues or the January blahs plus the typical post-holiday let-down. We're sure we will get the taxes materials organized this month, with a few places set as holders for the papers that won't arrive until late January or early February. We know we need to either sell some books or acquire more bookcases (or both). The place is beginning to resemble the old Norwegian bachelor's kitchen with stacks of books instead of stacks of newspapers with paths to other rooms between the stacks.

But first we need to see what this month actually brings as we proceed through the change from a criminal regime (pardon our pun) to a new administration with experience at governance. We suspect it will take some adjustment to reacquaint ourselves with government by "due process" instead of by Tweet and telephone threats. Perhaps we just settled the debate. The first quarter of the year our goal will be to get organized enough so that we can enjoy the other three quarters more than we have for several years, since about 2016.

Winter Love

By Linda Gregg

I would like to decorate this silence,   

but my house grows only cleaner

and more plain. The glass chimes I hung   

over the register ring a little

when the heat goes on.

I waited too long to drink my tea.   

It was not hot. It was only warm.

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Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.