This site contains a variety of short and longer poems, along with some essays and travel narratives. Some were written for a specific occasion or about a specific person or place. Others were intended to be more general and to have a longer shelf life. I hope an entry here or there may resonate with your experiences. Enjoy!
Mothers are Tired
Mothers are tired
of outworn tropes proposing sheltered domesticity
or cutthroat economic jostling as our only options.
We would much rather be acknowledged and appreciated
for our often vibrant, adaptive balance,
as we pivot through multiple changes, continually adding value.
Mothers are tired
of having too many of our daughters derided,
too many of our sons killed or injured
in conflicts over illusory control.
We would much rather have all of our children valued,
each for their unique style, limitations, perspectives, and gifts.
Mothers are tired
of sappy greeting cards, purchased flowers,
restaurant meals or burnt toast on our “special day.”
We would much rather have spontaneous, inclusive, carefree
celebrations less linked to any calendar.
Mothers’ hands are tired of rocking cradles.
Mothers do not want to rule the world.
We would much rather partner with others to help heal our own
and our world’s brokenness.
We would much rather continue our strenuous, joyous lives,
punctuated with occasional bawdy songs,
with perhaps a few lascivious romps when we choose.
Bloom Where You Are (Trans)Planted
Easter morning, fog gradually dissipating.
Soil gradually drying after a
Cooler, wetter March than is
Typical for this part of the world,
I’m told.
My second gardening year here.
Multiple seasonal harvests are possible
When there’s enough moisture for irrigation.
Just ending, a Lent of voluntarily cutting back—
No meat, more vegetable protein,
More varied vegetables as well.
Soups and stews that matched the
Atypically chilly weather.
Now, a seasonal transition—more sun,
Fewer storms, more widely spaced.
Time to put in tomato seedlings, maybe.
Time to consider what other warm season veggies
Might put down roots in this nearly-new-to-me place.
After a cool season of media vitriol
And exaggerated claims of victimhood
And crisis, a relieved exhale at fuller reservoirs–
Short-term apocalypse averted.
Whether we are transnational or transgender,
Whether we’ve moved cross-country or across the street,
Be we behaviorally inclined toward transactional, transitional,
Or translational interactions, we each have seasons
Of feeling transplanted, not quite fitting.
Then we remember, sometimes belatedly, the redemptive
Character of this resurrectional season.
Benny the Auto Mechanic
Benny the auto mechanic is a major bulwark in my personal transportation system. A skilled, seasoned repairer of older (and newer) vehicles, Benny keeps my aging gas-powered sedan running smoothly and efficiently. After a 2021 move to California, I was fortunate to get our first annual “smog check” at the small nearby auto shop where Benny now works. I was even more fortunate when Benny returned to the shop after a while away. His coworkers put up a big banner, “Benny’s back.” Since his return, Benny has completed regular routine maintenance plus a couple of fairly major repair jobs on our car.
In the area where I now live, the transition to electric vehicles and other transportation options is accelerating. Still, it will be a while before our family finances and electric capacity will accommodate a next-generation car. My guess is that this is the case for many other families. In the meantime, we need the Bennys of the world to tend our aging personal transportation. Whatever the newest automotive trends turn out to be, we will always need their skill and their wisdom. We need, too, the reminder that manual work skillfully done is just as important as “knowledge work.” Often, it requires just as much knowledge, anyway.
Our family tradition includes maintaining cars, aided by skilled local mechanics, until they can’t be driven any more. My mother’s Plymouth Valiant became the stuff of legend. A 1963 or 1964 model, it was the little car I learned to drive on—manual transmission, three forward gears plus reverse, small enough to be easier than most to parallel park (a real boon during every teen’s nightmare back then: the road test to qualify for a driver’s license.)
The Valiant survived two early accidents, repaired by our local small town mechanics, back in the days when insurance claims were much less formal, repair delays much less severe. As it reached middle age, the Valiant served in turn as my sister’s, then my brothers’ “learner” car. At some point, our family drove it on a vacation to New Hampshire, returning with the proud bumper sticker, “This Car Climbed Mount Washington.” After that trip, my mom drove the car for nearly a dozen more years. As the original paint chipped or rusted in Maryland’s weather, she did a yeoman’s paint job with wall paint that nearly matched the car’s original color. Her brush strokes, she thought, just added a custom touch. Later, she decided that vinyl contact paper would better serve.
The day finally came, though, when the salt and slush of successive Maryland winters proved too much for the little car. Mom took it to her local shop, Just Rite Motors, after she noticed yet another rust spot, this time a see-through area in the floor of the trunk.
“Can you do one more weld for me?“ she inquired.
After a brief inspection, the mechanic reluctantly responded: “Sorry, ma’am, but there’s no longer anything to weld to.” The Valiant, its faded bumper sticker still intact, was sadly dispatched to the car graveyard.
My first car in adulthood proved incompatible with city living. Though I had access to good mechanics, courtesy of a friend’s father, living in Baltimore apartments required expensive and/or inconvenient parking options. After a frustrating year of rising pre-dawn to move the car from one side of the street to the other to accommodate city alternate-day parking restrictions, I sold my little Chevy II. For the next year or so, I relied on local public transportation, friends, walking, or an occasional train or long-distance bus. Then my husband and I moved to Vermont. We bought a true fixer-upper of a house at the edge of Montpelier, the state’s small town capital city. We found we needed a reliable vehicle with enough storage capacity for frequent trips to the local hardware store, the lumber yard, the town dump.
We acquired “Fred,” a brand new cherry red Datsun pickup truck. Fred served us well through much home repair work, three moves, a long road trip, and then the arrival of children. With a second child imminent, we realized we’d require a bigger vehicle as a backup “family car,” but we were unwilling to relinquish Fred. He’d become almost a member of the family, with his own personality. Once they were vocal, our kids would argue over who got to ride on local errands in Fred.
By a dozen years and over 100 thousand miles after purchase, Fred, too, had rusted pretty badly. The passenger side door would no longer open from inside—whoever sat in the passenger seat had to wait for the driver to walk around the truck to let him/her out. The original clutch had been replaced, twice. When the third started to slip, we acknowledged it was finally time to let Fred go. It took a while for our kids to forgive us.
It’s getting more and more practical to manufacture cars and trucks that are less reliant on fossil fuels and friendlier for the environment. Eventually their prices will come down. Someday I hope to own (or lease) an all-electric vehicle of some kind. In the meantime, I’m so very grateful for auto mechanics like Benny and the crucial, important work they do to keep our existing pre-electric vehicles functioning as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
Women’s Day Winter Harvest
It’s been a while since I previously updated this blog. It’s been a busy, wet, cool season for me here in San Diego. For the first time since renting a community garden plot last spring, I’ve had chances to try my hand at cool season gardening. The cool, wetter than usual weather produced lettuce, carrots, chard, parsley, and kale—enough for salads that were a welcome addition to rainy day soups made with some homegrown leeks.
What people tell me is an unusual-for-here series of chilly, rainy days provided the impetus to go through my store of fabric scraps and to come up with a set that may provide some comfort and warmth for an area refugee family.
What’s taken up the bulk of my time the past couple of months has been adapting and updating some prior blog posts into a self-published book of essays with a long title “Somewhat Centrist, Slightly Sexist Seasonal Rants: Musings from the Alto Section.” The book, now in its final proofing process, is due out later this month. It chronicles parts of my particular woman’s history and relates my individual views of some current issues.
Today, March 8, is celebrated in many countries as “International Women’s Day.” Multiple relevant events in the San Diego area are listed for today or later during this Women’s History Month. Some highlight this year’s theme, “Embrace Equity.” Despite generations of effort, women do not yet enjoy pay equity in most environments. Sadly, in many places we seem to be going backward on one of the most important equity issues of all, the capacity to manage our own reproductive health, to control our own bodies.
Happy International Women’s Day to all as we continue the ongoing struggle for equity!
On Sending (and Receiving) Holiday Cards and Letters
In the small Maryland town where I grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s, sending and receiving postal holiday cards was an important part of holiday tradition. Dad and Mom participated by taking an annual posed picture of us kids and then making numerous copies in Dad’s basic home photo lab, stinking up our house for days. They’d either include a holiday greeting in the photo itself or add a brief caption to each copy.
Then they’d stuff envelopes, write out addresses, and affix stamps by hand to send to family, neighbors, friends, and business contacts. Our parents’ lives back then were too busy for lengthy missives. However, we sometimes received cards with long enclosed letters from friends and family far away. In our house, one entire hallway was devoted to an arrangement of the most colorful cards, dozens and dozens of them, usually patterned into the shape of a stylized tree. After I started a family of my own, I continued the holiday card tradition.
By now, the postal holiday card and letter are fast becoming outmoded. Email can be a lot quicker and just as informative. All the same, I’m loathe to give up the older tradition. Stationery and gift shops still stock boxes of holiday cards. The U.S. Postal Service still collects and distributes mail.
Those of us who write holiday letters in whatever medium tend to brag a bit. We also tend to play down any difficult parts of the year just ended. I find pleasure in sitting down to compose a physical page (never more, rarely less) of highlights of the year just ending. It’s heavy on the celebrations and on the achievements of the younger generations.
This year I got a late start sending out holiday cards and letters because of holiday travel, visiting family members on the other coast whose pictures I hoped to include. Now I’m back home. Relevant trip pictures have been transferred from cell phone to computer. I’ve started my annual ritual of card and letter composition and distribution.
Tools for preparing and mailing holiday cards and letters have gotten somewhat more convenient since my parents’ days. My desktop printer will crank out appropriate adhesive mailing labels in sheets of thirty labels each. The printer can also produce multiple copies of letter text and interspersed images in either black and while or color. My word processing software, with some wrangling, will position pictures where I want them in the overall design. Most envelopes have peel off adhesive strips so they no longer require licking. Most stamps are also self-adhesive.
The process of writing out each card and sticking labels on an appropriate envelope helps me bring to mind each recipient in turn. I remember how they are special to me. I briefly reweave some of the tapestry of our friendships. It’s disappointing when a card gets returned with “no forwarding address”—I’ve lost track of yet another tie to my past. Even worse are the cards returned with regretful notes letting me know the intended recipient has died. Each year, the prior year’s card mailing list gets winnowed by at least a few names. As best I can, I focus on the good of the lives that have ended. In this era when age segregation has increased, I try to include younger friends and to broaden the age range of new friends beyond just my own cohort. Otherwise, my holiday card list would gradually dwindle to nothingness.
Our current house has little hall space. The number of postal cards we receive has diminished. The ones we still get will fit easily on our mantelpiece and along the top shelf of the smallest bookcase. I cherish them, fewer though they may be. In these shortest days of the year, they remind me both of the longer span of lives well lived and of the beauty of lives newly started. They reconnect us, something most of us can use after much pandemic-related isolation.
Happy holidays to you and yours! A belated Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy (Solar) New Year! Happy Upcoming (Lunar) Year of the Rabbit! Whatever your media of choice, may you continue to send and receive holiday greetings!
Hallelujah Choruses
Handel’s oratorio “The Messiah,” and, in particular, its “Hallelujah Chorus,” figures largely in our family’s lore. Over the years, I’ve participated in several Handel Choirs, mostly as an alto. A vocal score of Messiah’s choruses has somehow made it through our various moves and sits, slightly musty, on a shelf in my office. Once covid concerns wane sufficiently, I hope to participate in future Messiah singalongs.
I’m not sure when I first heard this uplifting music. Because both my mother and her mother were practicing musicians, it was probably early in my life. The first time I remember being fully aware of the majesty of the piece was the Christmas season I was ten years old.
Our immediate family’s trajectory had been fairly typical of post-World War II small town America. My father came home from the Navy in early 1946, after serving the final years of that war on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific. He and my mom, who’d married during one of his home leaves in 1944, set up housekeeping in a one-bedroom cottage built by Mom’s parents next door to their own house. Mom’s parents wanted to keep their youngest close by, especially after their only other daughter and their one grandchild so far had moved cross-country to Seattle.
About a year later, I put in my appearance, followed in 1951 by a sister, then in 1953 by surprise twins—my youngest siblings, brothers to carry on the family name. Although Dad and some carpenter friends had added a second bedroom when my sister was born, it was tucked into an increasingly steep hillside. The slope precluded further expansion. Our small cottage was bursting at the seams. Dad and Mom paid a minimal monthly rent to my grandparents, more as a sop to Dad’s pride than anything approaching market rate.
Partly buoyed by this informal subsidy, by 1957 Dad and Mom had scrimped and saved enough to purchase a five acre piece of property in a wealthier part of town. Dad by then had become a small-scale residential construction contractor. He had the contacts and skills to be able to build his and Mom’s dream house on the newly purchased land at minimal cost. They would start construction in March, 1958, once the ground thawed.
For our final Christmas at the cottage, we’d shoehorned into one corner of the living room a small fir tree with presents underneath. While we went next door for breakfast at Granny and Pop-Pop’s, Santa (so the younger children believed) would leave an even bigger pile of gifts to be opened after our return.
On prior Christmas mornings, we’d been awakened by Dad’s best stentorian bellow: “Rise and shine, morning’s a’wasting!” he’d yell.
This year was different. From somewhere near the stairwell leading from the living room to our basement-level kitchen, there was music. Every bit as loud as Dad, it had a decidedly different pitch and rhythm: “Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!” As we stumbled out of our bunk beds and wiped the sleepy sand from our eyes, we wondered what was producing the music. It didn’t take us very long to locate the new walnut stereo cabinet with the record jacket to “The Messiah” placed carefully on top. Dad grinned at us, triumphant.
My father and my maternal grandmother had a respectful but sometimes strained relationship. Granny could be fussy about protocol and social niceties. Early in Dad’s and Mom’s married lives, before the arrival of children, Dad had gone out of his way one Christmas season to impress Granny. At considerable expense, he’d purchased three tickets to an evening performance of all three parts of Handel’s Messiah in downtown Baltimore. He’d arranged transportation to and from the concert hall and had put on his one good suit to escort the ladies to this holiday tradition.
As retold at subsequent holiday gatherings, Dad was so tired after a busy day of physical work that he nodded off early in part one. When the “Hallelujah Chorus” began (at the end of part two), Dad startled awake. Most in the audience were getting up, a tradition started supposedly when, at the premier London performance in 1743, King George II had stood for the “king of kings.” Other audience members had followed suit. Standing for the Hallelujah Chorus became customary whenever and wherever the oratorio was performed. Dad wrongly assumed it was the end of the performance. He went to get Granny’s and Mom’s coats, much to Granny’s chagrin.
Perhaps the 1957 hallelujahs were his way of celebrating the prospect of having a little more distance from his fussy mother-in-law. Perhaps he was just overjoyed at the prospect of a big-enough house.
After my dad’s multiple careers were over, he developed dementia. For much of his decline, he was lovingly tended by my mom, assisted by a fairly robust social safety net that included veterans’ benefits and a drop-in adult day care center. During his final few months, once the burden of his care threatened to debilitate my mother as well, he was confined to a nursing home. When my sister phoned to let me know that his body had finally died, she had the “Hallelujah Chorus” playing in the background. Somehow, it was a fitting testimony to Dad’s release from suffering.
The past couple of years have not been especially easy. Many of us have lost loved ones. The covid pandemic, in the U.S. and elsewhere, has brought into starker relief our disparities of wealth and of access to needed services. Rather than Handel, some of us may be more attuned to the darker lyrics of a recent “Hallelujah” version by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. Cohen continued revising the lyrics almost up until his death in 2016. After several despondent verses, he nonetheless asserts:
I’ll stand right here before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah…
I like to think that both “Hallelujahs” are relevant. We have suffered. We will suffer again. We have known joy. We will know joy again. Hallelujah!
Lessons from a Self-Healing Mat
Becoming a serious craftsperson is likely beyond me. Most of my creations have a few blemishes in their stitching. My hems have a tendency to come unraveled at inopportune times. The face masks I made at the height of the pandemic were not uniform in either size or shape. Still, I’ve gotten a good bit of satisfaction from sewing and quilting during the enforced semi-isolation brought on by covid and lingering a bit as we try to determine how best to live pandemic-susceptible lives. As our human numbers increase, as travel resumes, as more people live near preserves of “wild” land, our chances of having another pandemic are increasing. News outlets caution about “tridemics” this winter. Seasonal flu, covid, and a related respiratory virus know as RSV have begun to increase as colder weather sets in. Bummer!
Soon after covid lockdowns began easing in late 2020, I joined a small coterie of beginning quilters at a local shop near where I then lived in North Carolina. We masked and distanced and did our best to maintain good ventilation in our airy classroom. Before our first lesson, I went to the shop and bought some basic quilting supplies recommended in our course outline. First off, a “rotary cutter” (a very sharp, circular razor blade mounted in a retractable sleeve). I also got some clearly marked rulers in several sizes, plus an 18×24 inch “self-healing mat” on which I would use the cutter to fashion well-ruled squares, rectangles, and triangles of the fabrics I selected.
The mat has served me well through several small quilts and hundreds of fabric face masks. As I started my most recent project, though, I noticed that the rotary cutter didn’t seem to be as efficient as I’d remembered. Carefully, I swapped out the existing blade for a new one. When my fabric cuts still weren’t coming through as cleanly as I wanted, I took a closer look at the mat. In several places, there were telltale threads sticking out of noticeable cuts in the mat. Other places, less severe, still had visible small gashes. My self-healing mat had reached a partial breakdown in its ability to self-heal.
Now in my mid-70’s, I’ve noticed similar signs in myself. My digestive system no longer tolerates spicy, greasy, or sauce-rich foods as well as it once did. My circulatory system complains more quickly and more frequently on steep uphill slopes. My respiratory system is more sensitive to dust and smoke.
Eventually, both the mat and I will need to be replaced. However, there are a few tips that may help both the mat and me. First, go easiest on the places that are most damaged, or avoid them entirely. For me, cutting way back on milk and cheese would never have been a first choice, but it seems to be appropriate for my aging digestive system. Second, revel in the capacities that still exist. There are places on my mat that have been little used so far that still yield excellent results. My limbs will still take me places unassisted. Hurrah! Third, accept that everything, mat and myself included, will eventually wear out. Obsessing about when or how that might happen does little to help me live productively day to day.
For now, I can still function at a reasonable level most of the time. I need to be a little more careful. I need to take life somewhat more slowly. If I am injured or sick, I need to allow a bit longer to heal. I’m glad my mat has reminded me.
Liquid Amber
Back where I lived before,
They were called sweetgum trees,
Though what was sweet about them
Was beyond me. The huge one at our
Neighbor’s dropped prickly seed balls
Over three backyards, not to mention
The desiccated leaves and stray twigs.
The balls took forever to decay, in
The meantime punishing bare feet
And serving to twist ankles when
Those with shoes on stepped on the
Outliers on area sidewalks and pavement.
One year someone figured out that
You could spray gum balls with silver
Paint and tuck them into holiday wreaths.
A large expense of time and money for
A rather shabby looking result, I thought.
It took a while before I got the spelling
Correct in this locale–a single word,
With two ‘a’s in the second half.
In the right light, though, when nothing
Else in this near-desert landscape is
Colorful, the leaves can live up to their name.
Posted in Everyday Wonders, Uncategorized
Tagged autumn colors, fall colors, gum balls, liquid amber, liquidambar, sweetgum
On Being Granted Three Witches…
It’s a little past Hallowe’en. Images of “wicked witches” are fading from our consciousness for another year. Our recent understanding of witches has undergone something of a change, abetted by a modern Wiccan movement. Performances such as “Wicked,” a musical retelling of the Wizard of Oz story from the point of view of two witches, have also reminded us of the “good witch.” It’s been my good fortune to have become acquainted with three very good witches, three benign elders, since I moved to southern California in 2021.
The first good witch I encountered was Anne, a spritely octogenarian with a halo of blue-white curls. When I first met her, Anne was presiding over a large table of other elders at a summer neighborhood gathering of a “village,” a mutual help group for over-50’s who want to continue to live in their own homes for as long as possible, rather than moving to assisted living facilities. Anne was one of the original members of our local group a dozen years ago. Listening to some of Anne’s stories, I learned that she had spent time in China, a favorite travel destination earlier in my own life. I asked if I might meet with her one-on-one to trade stories and to learn more about her China experiences. She graciously acceded. As it turned out, Anne’s China stay had occurred mostly before I was born. She was a school girl in Shanghai and then in Chongqing from 1946 to 1948 while her naval officer father was an advisor to the Chinese military. Anne’s life experiences are quite different from mine—a Navy daughter, then a Navy wife to a commander who served during Vietnam, a conflict I had protested as a young woman. Anne raised a large family while moving from military post to post and adhering to her Roman Catholic faith. My guess is that her opinions on reproductive freedom are different from mine. However, she has never tried to proselytize or to foist her views on me. She has expressed that aspect of her faith mostly through work with charities and social service agencies in support of adoptive parents, support often badly needed.
My next good witch encounter was with Carolyn. As I oriented myself to our new environment by walking around, I was pleased that our “planned community” of about 700 houses had pleasant walkways and little traffic. A couple of small shopping strips bracketed the complex. A nearby public recreation area had both indoor and outdoor athletic facilities. Near the top of the closest hill was a cluster of churches. One morning as I explored the grounds of the local Lutheran church, I noticed a fenced garden behind the main building, with numbered raised plots and a small sign identifying it as a “nature friendly garden.” No one was around. I opened the garden gate and walked through the area. At one end were a small red shed and a small greenhouse. A couple of wrought iron lawn chairs were pulled up in front of the shed. The place looked well tended. I gradually made it a regular part of my walking routine. Several walks later, I came across Carolyn, who was tending some of the many plots she cares for. She’d opened the padlocked shed and was ferrying garden tools and containers back and forth as needed. She finished what she was doing, then took a break to chat.
“This garden has been my sanity refuge during covid,” she told me. “Outdoors, so less virus-prone, and still able to provide a service to the community.” She explained that most of “her” beds contained vegetables planted for use at T.A.C.O. (Third Avenue Charitable Organization), a downtown San Diego drop-in center for the area’s homeless and lower income residents. On Thursdays, Carolyn ferried fresh produce from the T.A.C.O. beds to the center to be included in the following day’s lunch. She’d been doing this since well before the pandemic. Given the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on those already struggling, she felt it was more needed during covid than ever.
“It’s amazing what the cooks can do with whatever I bring,” she said. “Sometimes we have mostly zucchini, other times it’s tomatoes, or carrots, or broccoli, or cabbage. Some of the other gardeners contribute their extra veggies as well.” Carolyn isn’t shy about her age—mid-80’s. She complains that she’s slowing down, but she can still heft a flat of squash or spade a garden plot with more energy than most of us, whatever our ages.
Ellen introduced herself to me by phone before I met her in person. She’s the doyenne of volunteers at our local public branch library. One of the restrictions of pandemic lockdowns that hit me hardest was the closure of area libraries. As soon as infection numbers waned enough so that libraries reopened, I visited our nearest branch, checked out as many books as I could carry, made a small donation, and signed up as a “Friend of the Tierrasanta Library.” Several months later, Ellen phoned to ask if I might be available to help cashier for a two-hour shift at the used book sale she and others arranged in the library’s conference room during the first weekend of every month.
“Sure,” I said. “Do I need to bring anything?”
“Just yourself. You’ll be working with an experienced volunteer who can show you what to do.” Ellen, too, complains that she is slowing down. Well into her 80’s, she’s had one hip replaced and is due to get the second one done next year. At the end of a day’s work, she has a noticeable limp. She doesn’t let it deter her much.
For over thirty years, it turns out, Ellen has been raising money for the library and spreading the love of books throughout the community. Over the years, she has refined a system that supplies extra children’s books at no charge to a nearby military housing complex.
Not long after arriving in California, I passed the midway point between 70 and 80. I’m slowing down a bit. Aging has brought different challenges than earlier life stages. One of the hardest for me is balancing self care with care for the wider community. Initially constrained by covid and by my general lack of knowledge of how this part of the country works, I’ve been inspired by the lives of my three good witches. Anne, Carolyn, and Ellen are not native Californians, either. They’ve all passed the 80 year milestone. Their adaptability and continuing active participation shine forth. Somewhere near here there are adoptive families with better coping skills thanks to Anne; someday a needy person is getting a more nutritious lunch thanks to Carolyn; in some child’s room someone is reading thanks to Ellen.
My skills are not exactly the same as theirs. Still, I can write about them, mimic them as much as I can, encourage others to follow their examples.
. Who are the good witches in your life?
Seven Harmful/Helpful Political Habits: 2022 Version
In 2014, I began writing a mid-term election “habits” post, trying to point out where I’d fallen short of good citizenship and what I might do to improve. Mid-term cycles since have produced different crises and different configurations of bad habits. Here’s this year’s version—
Citizens in a democracy are members of multiple levels of government, however we choose to view ourselves. Because voting is one cornerstone of democratic government, protecting the right to vote and participating in honest and fair elections are responsibilities we all share. As the political culture of the United States becomes more contentious, overheated rhetoric from multiple parts of the political spectrum threatens to overwhelm our common heritage and our common sense. I’m doing my best to stay engaged and informed, to reform my bad habits. Recognize some?
1) Local politics does not matter.
I can too easily focus on the “big” political races, glossing over the reality that the government level that impacts me most directly is local: voting rules and the placement of voting sites; budgets; tax rules and rates; school funding; zoning; the placement and maintenance of roads, parks, and greenways; economic development plans and procedures; environmental safeguards and incentives. In addition to “big” races, I also need to pay attention locally.
2) Politics is dirty. Most politicians are crooks. I don’t trust the system.
Our national, state and local political scandals can seem endless. Journalists make reputations by ferreting out officials’ misdeeds. “Dark money” (large, difficult to trace contributions) can distort our elections. I often hear unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud. It can be tempting to walk away from politics entirely, or to act out my frustrations with the system violently.
Active citizenship demands both enthusiasm and restraint. I can play a useful part through small monetary donations, thoughtful social media posts, in-kind donations, and/or labor in support of candidates and causes of my choice. I can vary the sources of my “partial” news (almost never impartial or complete) to try to understand multiple perspectives. Most important of all, even when possibilities seem less than ideal, I CAN VOTE. The right to vote can be eroded through outright coercion, but also through disuse.
3) Government can solve all our problems.
I can let my expectations of government get overblown. Sometimes I fantasize that my elected officials can just snap their fingers and quickly reduce negative impacts of pandemics, globalization, or automation; can minimize unemployment while controlling inflation; can eliminate child poverty; can mitigate climate change; can usher in world peace. In more realistic moments, I acknowledge that expecting governments to do too much or too quickly can be self-defeating. I can nudge my elected officials in what I consider to be worthwhile directions. I can get and stay informed. I can make a small difference; many small differences DO add up.
4) Government is the problem.
Sometimes I’ve lost my temper in conversations with “faceless bureaucrats” over regulations I thought were obsolete, needlessly harsh, or downright stupid. I can find parts of government maddeningly unresponsive, from the local to the federal level.
It’s far easier for me to remember government actions that inconvenience me or limit my perceived choices than to remember valuable government services, from filling potholes on damaged roads to providing police, fire and military protection, to dispensing veterans’ benefits, to underwriting healthcare subsidies for the elderly and the poor. Governing is complex. Getting it “right” takes both hard effort and principled compromise.
5) If we just elect the right candidates, all will go well.
Voting for a successful candidate is no guarantee that the policies he/she advocates will get implemented. Our political system was designed to have checks and balances. Since the U.S. first became a nation, our national population has increased nearly a hundred fold. Officials at many levels represent increasingly diverse populations—in their districts, their state, or our nation as a whole. However much they want to serve their constituents and our nation well, the job is extremely difficult. (Personal attacks only make a hard job harder.)
If I want the elected officials who represent me to reflect my views, voting is an important first step, but not the only one. I also need to remind successful candidates of my views on issues—coherently, respectfully, and repeatedly.
6) “Watershed” elections are crucial; some losses are irreversible.
Of course it can matter which political party controls government appointments and legislative committee assignments. Of course congressional and presidential elections matter. However, as I’ve lived through more and more election cycles, I’ve come to believe that hyperbole about potential shifts in policy as a result of a single election can be counterproductive. Many substantive changes take decades or even generations. Conversations and disagreements in our society about the rights, responsibilities, and roles of minorities and women have existed since our beginnings as a nation. They continue to this day.
I’m skeptical of overblown claims, both of potential disaster from a single election, and of single-election long-term gains. However, it is important to vote in EVERY election, not just the high profile ones. It is important to stay engaged, informed, and involved, regardless of who holds the presumed power at any given time.
7) Politics is serious business, so we all need to engage in it with utmost seriousness.
One casualty of recent enhanced nastiness in politics is the decline of the “smiling candidate.” Too often, our media feeds and social networks send us scowling images of “those others,” whoever various media algorithms have decided they might be. We need to remember that successful politicians of many different persuasions, from Ronald Reagan to Nelson Mandela, learned to take themselves lightly while taking their causes seriously. Even in these polarized times, it IS possible to be well-reasoned, polite, even humorous. A wise mentor once told me, “A smile is the shortest distance between two points of view.”
As this midterm election cycle looms, please continue to do the vital work of reforming whatever your bad political habits happen to be. Above all, PLEASE make it a habit to keep your voter registration current, and PLEASE vote—in every election!
Jinny's Occasional Poems 