Something like sixteen or seventeen years ago, my friends, Medora Heilbron and Meryl Marshall-Daniels, began having weekly phone calls to shore each other up as we were all in transition points in our careers.
That wonderful custom has continued to this day. Almost every week, except when one of us is traveling, we have had calls, sharing the highs and lows, the concerns, the fears, the triumphs of our personal and professional lives.
Today, we had one of those calls. When it was my turn to comment on my state of affairs, I burst out with, “I am verklempt!”
Yesterday evening, an email that should have come in on a project I am up for did not come as promised and, for reasons that are hard to explain, released what Winston Churchill called, “the black dog.” Discouragement and depression. I woke at three in the morning and read for three hours before falling back into a fitful sleep.
It has been amazing to me the number of times in the last couple of years that I have awakened with a sense of happiness. Today, it was all I could do to speak my usual morning affirmations.
After our phone call, always good for the spirits, I made a decision to do NOTHING today but work on my physic wounds and get back my equilibrium. Three loads of laundry and tearing recipes out of the newest issue of “Food & Wine” was as ambitious as I got.
The day matched my mood; grey, hostile, chill and rainy. Marcel, the dog I am caring for, and I curled up on the couch. He napped, I read.
Now that the day has slipped into evening, I have to say “the black dog” and I seem to be getting distance from each other. Largely because of the wonderful support group that is our weekly call. Together we have laughed and cried.
It wasn’t until late in the afternoon when my spirits were beginning to lift that I even looked at the news of the day. The sound of uplifting jazz plays in the background. Happier than I have been all day, I am sipping a martini and typing. Getting back to the happy Mat.
What did make me happy today was that Alabama’s Chief Justice, Roy Moore, was suspended for the rest of his term over his urging state officials to refuse to grant marriage licenses to same sex couples. Interestingly, this is not the first time he has been kicked out of being Chief Justice. Last time was his refusal to take down a statue of the Ten Commandments.
And I was both sad and happy that Rosetta, the first spacecraft to orbit a comet, did a belly flop onto the comet’s surface and went silent, leaving behind reams of data for scientists to parse. He/it/she was a plucky fellow. What do you call a spacecraft anyway?
Elon Musk wants to send people to Mars. He is thinking of a million or so colonists over the next fifty to a hundred years. He has envisioned a rocket to take them there. And they should be prepared to die, he said. It made me think of the first colonists who came from Europe to the Americas. They had a hard time too.
The thought excites me. More than likely, I will be gone by the time there is a first rocket to go but if I were here, I would volunteer. Wow, what an adventure…
The New World captured the imagination of the Old World and millions upon millions poured into North and South America, looking for better lives, something different.
My father’s family came from Germany. My mother’s from Sweden. We are a nation of immigrants and we always seem to forget that. I am not sure how we manage to forget that but we do.
Growing up Catholic in Minnesota was nothing like growing up Catholic somewhere else as I have learned in conversations with friends over the years. My good friend Bill told me once that he wouldn’t have been allowed to know me where he grew up in rural Missouri.
So I look forward to a time when we go out and populate the planets and then the stars. I think it’s in our blood to do that.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter From Claverack 05 24 2017 Where is Robin Hood when you need him?
May 25, 2017This morning one of my guests on the radio show was Tadd Mann, who is an astrologer and, in these parts, is THE astrologer.
He has been a guest at the cottage several times, including the last beautiful night of last year; the next day the damp and dark fell upon us but that night was a moment out of eternity.
He told me that among his skills are those of feng shui, the Chinese art of placement, and that he had just returned from advising some people on the best places to build on their new property.
His belief is that the cottage is so coddled in peace because of its feng shui; whether consciously or not the house was built in the perfect spot on the land, the creek flows correctly, all is good by the rules of the art.
Every time I walk in the door, I feel the pressure in my body fall. And I need the cottage’s coddling sorely these days.
It feels like I am living in the time of King Richard, off to the Crusades, and Prince John is the keeper of the kingdom. Prince John, with the Sheriff of Nottingham, is raping the land [and the maidens] while the King is away.
Trump is Prince John and someone is the Sheriff [there are many candidates for that role in this administration].
It feels we are living through an interregnum. The real king will return someday.
And I am feeling much of this because Trump’s budget has been revealed and it seemed to be a steal from the poor and give to the rich kind of budget. It is an outrageous plan for America and avoids so much we need to be worried about and hurts, deeply, many of the people who voted for him.
It is outrageous.
The policies being put forward by this administration are mind boggling. Seriously mind boggling.
Everything needs to be fixed and it doesn’t need to be destroyed. The ACA was flawed. So, fix it. Medicare was flawed and people worked to fix it. There isn’t anything that can’t be improved and throwing something away isn’t always the best way of fixing.
The CBO analysis of the Republican AHCA has come out, revealed to be more harmful than the first version.
May the Senate stand strong. On Health Care. On this cockamamie budget.
If you have been reading me, you know I take breaks from all of this because I can’t take it. Last week one day, I went through the wormhole and surfaced hours later, dazed, and feeling like I needed a good, long, hot shower with copious amounts of soap.
The New York Post, the mouthpiece for Rupert Murdoch, is reporting that our Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, did not reveal meetings with Russians in forms he filled out. Nor did Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, reveal meetings with Russians he had had when he applied for security clearance.
Sessions says he didn’t think he needed to because he met them as part of his Senatorial responsibilities. Gosh.
The liberal press will be all over this. What I find interesting is that the Post is all over this. The New York Post. The effing NY Post, the most conservative paper in New York, generally the excuser of all Republican foibles. Is this the work of James and Lachlan, not fans of Trump? Or is it that Rupert smells blood in the water and wants to be on the right side of the story?
All of this, and I mean all of this, is so extraordinary it boggles the mind. Apparently my word for the day.
Which is why I am so glad I can return to my cottage, feng shui perfect, listen to jazz, have a martini or two, and center myself in the earth and realize that there are some things I can do and many things I cannot.
It is my obligation to be aware and to comment.
And it is my obligation to myself to center myself in the universe to survive all this, all of which feels like some dystopian novel I am living through and it is not a novel: it is reality.
So, go be good to yourselves and don’t forget we need to get beyond the interregnum. The King will return.
Tags:AHCA, Astrology, CBO, Donald Trump, Feng Shui, James Murdoch, King Richard, Lachlan Murdoch, NY Post, Prince John, Rupert Murdoch, Sheriff of Nottingham, Tadd Mann, Trump's Budget, Winston Churchill
Posted in 2016 Election, Columbia County, Comey, Education, Elections, Entertainment, Greene County New York, Hudson New York, Hygge, Income Inequality, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Matthew Tombers, Media, Political, Political Commentary, Politics, Social Commnentary, Television, Trump, Uncategorized, World War II | Leave a Comment »