And another Sunday arrives, freezing cold. Like below zero cold. Like, what the fuck is happening with the weather cold? I am not sure how anyone can continue to pretend that the world's climate- our world, the place where we live and walk and go to the mountains and beaches and skip and have general fun when we can- is in crisis mode.
Is it denialism, fear, subservience to the powers that be, some odd form of Stockholm Syndrome?
I like this planet. I think it's rather beautiful. I like winter to be cold but not crazy. I like snow capped mountains, clear skies, animals running free. All that. I'm what you might call a nature boy.
I also like summer to not be one long session of sweating, watching the world wither. Smelling smoke in the air, sometimes from fires that are gigantic, so massive that even though they are thousands of miles away, the smoke makes its way to my neighborhood.
So why isn't Climate front and center in the upcoming election?
Whomever wins, this is important.
It is not a hoax. And saying it is doesn't make it so. I can go outside. I can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. And every one of my five senses tells me, on a daily basis, something is wrong.
What is it going to take? An army of Lorax, leaping out of the all too many tree stumps out there, driven mad with frustration, running through the street, screaming "I am the Lorax, fuckers!" while gleefully decapitating everyone that come across?
I'm cranky today. I think I have a cold coming on.
Be that as it may, I want you all to consider our little planet. I want you to cherish it.
Because I'm selfish. I love my planet. I want to to be around for as long as possible. Yes, millions of years from now, it will be engulfed by the Sun. So what? Just because we are all set to expire one day doesn't mean we sit around smacking ourselves in the head with a hammer.
Okay. Rant over. For now. Watch some football. Grab a cup of coffee with someone you enjoy, or alone. Read a book, a graphic novel, the tea leaves. Do something for yourself.
And enjoy.
Here's a song. It's Jack White doing a cover of Mother Nature's Son by The Beatles.
Dreams were rabbits last night, leaping about. I'd focus on one, and poof, it would be gone. Some of them woke me up. Some were interrupted by Padfoot who must have been having the same kind of dreams, because he got up several times over the night, for no apparent reason. Lisa was tossing and turning as well, but her sleep has been like that since the whole thing began. It felt like all these things from deep inside my mind were fighting for the spotlight. So much happening, everywhere, all at once. And with all this time to introspect, it seems natural that old wounds, situations that never quite resolved, dreams deferred, and so on, have begun to rise to the surface. Which I think is good. It is so easy to ignore ourselves. Well, it used to be easy to do that. Before we all got grounded for an unspecified time by a virus. Most of the old diversions just don't seem to cut the mustard any more. TV is too full of press conferences with a president void of compassion and intelligence. My phone has too many updates from too many news sites about too many people dying far too often. Zooming as much as I have been makes me never want to facetime when I don't have to. So I am left with: long walks in the wee small hours, where we connect with nature and each other. Reading books, which open my mind and pry loose thought and memory. Writing that script, or scripts. Working on puzzles and playing actual board games. Meditating. All those things I've meant to do but haven't are now being done.
And I like it. I like being in touch with myself and my feelings. Having dreams that feel like they having meaning. Writing a blog every damn day. Long daily walks with my wife. These are things I should be doing anyway. And now I am. Not that I'm not still making mistakes, often. And boy, we can argue about pretty much anything these days. Having only one person to interact with makes them your all-in-one human, to vent at, pontificate to, and of course point out the slightest inconsistencies. It's like everything, good and bad, has been put under a microscope. Still, we are closer.
Watched more of Our Planet on Netflix last night. It's one of those nature shows, narrated by David Attenborough, with some of the most beautiful cinematography ever shot. Something about nature is so comforting right now. At least for me, which I'm sure you've picked up on if you read this blog. But this show, along with showing the wonders of nature, the majesty of the world, also shows how much of this amazing world is in danger of changing for the worse, and how in fact a lot of it has changed, in our lifetimes. And that resonates right now. We are in a global pandemic, caused by who knows what but no doubt has something to do with human beings doing things they shouldn't out of basic greed and sloth and the rest of the deadly sins. And it's madness. We live on this miracle of a planet, full of life and possibility, and magic. We need to take better care of it, and ourselves. If you decide to watch this show, and you should, be careful when you get to episode two. There is this segment about walruses who, with no more sea ice to live on, are now all crammed onto this rocky island. Thousands and thousands of them, all laying on top of each other. They fight, the look miserable, and eventually, a bunch of them die. It was brutal. Almost as depressing as watching Trump speak. Almost. But even in dire circumstances, nature is beautiful.
Wow. I am getting a bit preachy. Sorry. I don't want to do that. Just like this planet, and would love it if we could not be so foolish. Myself included.
Ok. Got a full day of teaching to do, plus writing, walking, eating, and whatever else.
Here's a song. For those of you who are having trouble linking to the song, it's The Minders doing Hooray for Tuesdays.
Dreamt of going to school. Elementary School. I went to Strawberry Park Elementary in San Jose, California, long ago and about twenty minutes from the sea. In the dream, it was that school, but looked more Ivy League, less weird 1970s style. When I got to the school, there was confusion as to which classroom I was to go to. One was overcrowded, even though the room was very big. I went to that class first. The teacher was nice but struggling to keep control. He told me he thought I was supposed to go to the classroom next door. So I went there. That room was a little bigger than a broom closet, and was empty.
For some reason, that woke me up. Lisa was asleep. Padfoot was asleep. Just me and the room and that dim light from the windows and electronics that fills a room in the middle of the night.
So. I am still wrapping my head around the fact that there is a virus that has spread across the entire planet, infecting over half a million people and killing so many. Even now, it doesn't seem real. It all feels like a dream. Sometimes, when I am having a particularly bad dream, I will realize that it is indeed a dream, and I will wake myself up. No such luck with this one so far. And the peak has happened yet. I mean, how are we supposed to wrap our heads around estimates like 100,000 to 2000,000 dead just here in America? Large numbers are hard enough to contemplate in happy times.
I think our brains are all processing and changing, adapting to this new reality. How it will change is anybody's guess. Cuomo the other day said some will become better people, some worse. That's probably true. I'm fairly certain our appreciation of the little things by and large will increase dramatically. Also, I think the way we treat each other and the planet will change. The need for universal health care is pretty apparent, and gets more so each day. So does the wonder of nature, which is moving along with no care, shaking off a bit of our mess and showing her glory more and more. Every day, the sky is cleaner, and it seems like there are more birds in our neighborhood. Maybe we just hear them more because the traffic is so much lighter. I don't know. But I like a cleaner planet.
Yesterday, for the first time since this all kicked in, I did a good bit a yard work, mowing both our lawn and the neighbors. Took a few hours, but felt great. Working on the new script, it was nice to have something like that to do, so that my subconscious could kick around ideas without me telling it what to do. And, of course, ideas came. For me, writing is best when I let my subconscious come up with the fun stuff. It's like that idea bubble they make you do in writing classes, or at least the classes I took. You get a blank piece of paper, write down and idea, and then make a bubble around it, and then just let your mind go where it wants, and write down other ideas that somehow relate to the first idea. Free association. Improv. Being in the moment. It is something artists always strive to do, find a way to follow structure and at the same time be in the moment.
I think that's what we are all trying to do now. I come across friends doing their best to deny the moment. To fill their day yelling at the tv, or posting every couple of minutes about how it's a Deep State conspiracy. Or how good their ratings are. There are even some who are still trying to tell toilet paper hoarding jokes. Not too many, though. That, I think, has finally jumped the shark. And while all those things are of course valid things to do, sometimes I get the vibe that some of those folks are not being true to themselves.
No doubt, I am not true to myself all the time either.
No movie to promote today. We watched an Amazon original called The Pale Horse, one of their new Agatha Christie adaptations, and it was great, but I fell asleep early on. Maybe the lawn mowing tired me out. Maybe the whole global pandemic did. Hard to say. I did do a zoom meeting with a bunch of local writers, and that was amazing. We all vented about things, or talked about what we are working on, or what we want to do, and decided that the meeting itself was a great idea and plan to do one each week. For me, writing isn't a problem, even now. What I want to write about has changed, but the act of writing itself helps me. Hence, this blog.
Ok. Time to wrap this one up, then it's off to go shopping for a few essentials. And later today, I do my first bit of teaching/rehearsals. Should be interesting. Will I have a class full and wild, or an empty broom closet?
