HOPE?

Before the last presidential election Obama spoke here in my favorite park, on a brilliantly clear day. The air was filled with excitement and the energy of citizens united behind a man we all believed offered a clear way out of the quagmire and relentless bleakness of the Bush Administration. 

Three years later many of my more liberal compatriots are extremely disappointed in Obama and some have even abandoned all Hope in him. Others point out that he has always been a moderate and has not changed at all.

I have believed for a long time that the Presidency has become bloated and over-stuffed with significance that is belied by reality and the truth that the office is hindered by so many compromises and promises made during the campaign, so beholden to power and wealth...that real limits exist there. Add to this the fact that much of the American public is so spoiled and obsessed with getting their way that they cannot even stop to check out the facts and take the time needed to form considered opinions.

On top of all of this is the media monster that reflects a zillion eyes upon ourselves constantly and pumps up certain things to gin up interest or ratings or excitement. The President is evaluated by the minute and is damned if he does and certainly damned if he does not.

I also have been disappointed.

But I reflect back on my trip to Washington to an enormous anti-war/anti-Bush rally that was downplayed by the monstrous media but there - on the ground of the mall - was an amazing confluence of concern, patriotism, and wildness, Sean Penn and Tim Roberts speaking across a sea of faces.

I remind myself of the Bush Administration that operated like Mubarak’s Egypt or of other even more sinister cabals....pushing the ideological line over any other concerns, regardless of result, regardless of the damage.

Obama, for all his faults, remains a better choice.

THE NIGHT

I have started reading Elie Wiesel’s Night after so many years of avoiding it.

As a teenager in Sunday school I was shown many horrific films about the Holocaust. The scope and depth of its evil was and is always something unimaginable and incomprehensible. Years later I watched Shoah and then I think I could no longer bring myself to experience any documentary forms about this cosmic tragedy.

I became friends with someone several decades ago whose parents were both caught up in the rise of Nazism. Her mother was from a well-to-do family whose wealth was stolen from them before their eyes. Both she and my friend’s  father

managed to pay their way out of the ensuing nightmare, since this was in the early years. They refused to speak German henceforth. I knew them both slightly but never broached the subject. Over the years I would meet others with relatives 

caught up in the horror of the time. One listens.

The stories about children are the hardest to hear, not only because I am a father. They belie any understanding of humanity and lead one to question the very existence of our species. How are we capable of such atrocities? We know that such things continue into our own time. But not on such an organized, mechanical, programmed, logical framework, as was the Holocaust. A Republican friend of mine was shocked to hear from me recently that George W. Bush’s grandfather did business with the Nazis. So did IBM and other American interests. One can always plead ignorance or look the other way. America is in the process of morphing into a Capitalist Democracy, where millions may have their very livelihoods  sacrificed to maintain the survival of major corporations. Our leaders plead ignorance or look the other way.

At least they are not throwing babies into fires.

Complete Nothingness

One day the electric goes off and the next day a check comes quickly. One day the world is crisp and clear and cool and the next day the smog bites deep into the throat and the obnoxious driver in the other lane seems menacing and evil.

No one knows what’s really up. Please don’t try to tell me you know someone who does. Philosophize or dramatize or lionize all ya want, in the end it is moments that matter, present moments in the right now.

Why are we so tough on each other? So critical, so full of judgment and jury and meanness? Who the Hell knows? Not me.

And why do some embrace the Positive as if life was so simplistic. I know people who will not hear a word of negativity, they throw up a guard, resist....any of it.

The clouds of negativity are always there. Like neutrons or entropy or spilled soup. Hey, it’s OK. Bad things happen. But the little toys are there silent in the holy shadows, still with emptiness and the finite joy of complete nothingness.

ALL IS WELL

I am hugely affected by the weather. 

The Spring here in the middle of the world was largely rain interrupted by

a little less rain. 

Then suddenly an onslaught of hot, humid wretchedness where sweet, sweet Spring should be. My old air conditioner is hanging in there and my old car is hot as Hell as I shrivel under the cruel, harsh sun and the haze and the sweat.

Enter this weekend on tiptoes and dancing shoes and temperatures in the mid-seventies and low humidity and blue skies and crisp shadows and smiles on the faces of passerby’s and angels floating on the soft breezes that tickle the roses out front.

I move out onto the porch and sit with wine and a light meal and the New York Times and all is well in the universe.

Driving New

Driving.

Forty years of it for me.

Today I found myself once again in the passenger seat while my daughter drove us around on errands. She takes her test in two weeks. 

I was fairly calm today...actually enjoying not being the driver and not having to get my blood pressure elevated over potential problems coming from my left.

She did well. Again. It’s a relief.

Still, it’s driving. Cars. Today on the highway my “child” steering this machine through miles of madness and dimwits in oversized, overpriced, over-shiny vehicles talking on the phone while tailgating and speeding.

My girl taking the reigns. It’s scary as hell.

She does well. I pray she continues to do well and remain safe. 

Out there....

in the barbaric madness of the road.