It has been unremittingly; resolutely grey for the last two days, creating another set of grey days in a summer of grey days. It is so chill; I have actually turned up the heat in my bedroom to warm the room where I am writing. I’m wearing a sweatshirt and it is about to be July! After the long, hard winter it is as if the world is not willing to give us summer. It has been grey and wet more than it has not.
I am at my desk at the cottage, looking out at the verdant green that are my God’s two acres. I just wish it wasn’t this chilly.
Down in New York, it is Pride Weekend and the parade is being rained upon. I’m not there but texts from friends have informed me of the weather conditions. It’s a joyous weekend for gays in this country. The Supreme Court has ruled that marriage is a constitutional right for all.
As I have said, I didn’t think this would happen in my lifetime but it has. And I’m grateful for all the people for whom this will mean so much. I never really understood what it meant to be married until two men that I knew, Gary and Angel, got wed and I understood, for the first time, on a visceral level, what it meant to celebrate your relationship in front of other people. Their love, as I said at the time, was incandescent.
On this grey afternoon, I am thinking about marriage and I am thinking about race relations. The murder of the Charleston Nine has caused a reaction in the South I didn’t expect. Alabama has taken down the Confederate Flag and uprooted the flagpole. Time to move on.
The South, which is becoming a haven for so many international businesses, cannot afford to focus on the past but must look to the future. Which is why, in Alabama, they took down the flag of the rebellious South, even though that was the place Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederacy.
All the Republican candidates have, I think, denounced the Supreme Court’s decision about marriage. Jeb Bush has been moderate in his comments, as has Marco Rubio. Huckabee has been vitriolic. As have most of them.
Sorry, friends, I think the field of Republican candidates, are an embarrassment. I was raised Republican. Who are these boobs? Narrow minded souls who might win the nomination but I doubt could win the election. And for that, I’m relieved, as I think it would be a catastrophe for the country to have all three parts of the government controlled by Republicans. They’re not intelligent enough.
I am on my soapbox as I am so disturbed by this field of Republican candidates.
Outside, the rain has relented. It will return during the night, I’m sure. Flash flood warnings are in place until 9:00 AM tomorrow morning.
In the background, jazz is playing and I am feeling warm now that I have turned on the heat. Thank goodness. I have been chilled all day.
The world is wobbling on. Greece is a mess and I think we have a not pretty outcome happening there. Hopefully, world markets have factored in the Greek drama so that no matter what happens it won’t shock the markets the way it would have a few years ago.
In Tunisia, a shooter killed something like 39 tourists. He was targeting them. There was an attack in France on an American owned plant that left one person beheaded. A Saudi born suicide bomber killed dozens at a Mosque in Kuwait. Sitting here, surrounded by my trees and the quiet of my world, it is so hard to understand the need to kill. But it is a need for those who do. The Tunisian terrorist was 23 and was dead before he left the beach but behind him were the dead.
Why this hate? Why?
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From New York via Martha’s Vineyard 06 13 2016 Numb but furious. Where have all the flowers gone?
June 14, 2016Yesterday, as I suspect most people did, I woke to the horror of the Orlando massacre. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I kept wondering if I was actually reading what I was reading.
Of course I was.
Not long ago I emailed a friend, now living in Florida, that I felt furious and, at the same time, numbed. I am angry and do not know a single thing I can do that will actually help affect any kind of real change. A New Yorker, both my Senators support more stringent laws regarding guns. It will do no good to write them. Obama sits on my side of the issue.
And any letter I write to a Republican, I fear, will lend no weight. I have tried. Somehow I end up on their mailing lists, thanking me for being a supporter. When Bush was President, I wrote a letter demanding he not invade Iraq. For years, I received Christmas cards and photos of W. and Laura, thanking me for my loyalty to them.
Same with my local Congressman…
They are not listening.
It is twilight here on Martha’s Vineyard. A few boats skiff across the harbor. From where I sit, I can see the Edgartown lighthouse. I am sipping a glass of wine, lost in the quiet and the beauty, furious and numb.
As I was not needed at Edgartown Books, I headed out in my car today, turning left at the end of the driveway and letting fate take me where it will. For awhile, as I drove, I listened to NPR programs doing an exegesis of yesterday’s tragedy, the worst mass shooting in the country.
As he holed up with terrified people, Omar Mateen, the shooter, called 911 to let them know he was doing this because he was pledging allegiance to IS, calling the Boston bombers from its Marathon his “brothers.”
As I listened, the portrait of Omar Mateen was beginning to reveal itself to those who were attempting to figure out what had happened. He was American born, apparently radicalized via the Internet, probably bi-polar, an abusive husband, worked for a security firm, had been interviewed at least twice by the FBI because of statements he made or actions performed.
He bought his guns legally. He bought his guns legally, after all that. He killed 49 people and died himself. 53 others are wounded.
He was offended by seeing two men kiss. But his parents didn’t think he was unhinged.
Trump tweeted in peacock pride about being right about Muslims except Omar Mateen was born in America of Afghan parents. He was a US citizen by birth, no act would keep him out. He didn’t come here perverted. He was born here and was perverted by God knows exactly what…
He attacked a gay nightclub, Pulse. It is Gay Pride Month. It is also Immigration Month. It was Latin night at Pulse. Kill two birds with one stone? Hate amplified?
As I drove the island today, I felt lonely, in the way I felt lonely when I was young and watched as Viet Nam unfolded before me and about which I felt powerless until I played hooky from school and joined a march against the war.
We have no marches these days. We don’t gather together to scream against the violence. Perhaps that is why I felt lonely today; I have comrades but we do not come together, we do not march together, we do not sing songs of protest together against the outrageousness of the time in which we live.
Sitting here, watching the pink tinged sky while a small boat motors across the harbor, I am still numb and I am still furious. What do I do with this?
And in the back of my head, all day has been the thought: where have all the flowers gone?
Tags:Boston Marathon Bombing, Donald Trump, Edgartown, Gay, Gay Pride, Hudson, Immigration Month, Iraq, IS, Martha's Vineyard, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Obama, Omar Mateen, Pulse, The Donald, Where have all the flowers gone?
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