It is spring time and my yard is bursting with life. The birds flock to the feeders that hang from a tree. They entertain me with their frolicking. My roses are budding and my amaryllis bulbs are showing off with blooms of red, white and pink. The hibiscus flowers smile as though they understand how much joy they bring me. My backyard is a refuge that fools me into believing that this is just another blossoming of a season in the long history of my life. Somehow I momentarily forget what is really happening and the worries that haunt me both day and night.
I spend a great deal of time retreating to the quiet beauty of my little Shangri-La. It is a way of maintaining a semblance of sanity in the world that seems to have gone mad. There are times when I feel that there really is a rabbit hole that leads to Alice’s Wonderland. I think that I have fallen through and now I must find a way to escape from the mania, chaos and confusion of what feels like a bad dream.
I have never been a fan of Alice and her adventures. Her world was too upside-down for me. It was populated with characters that I did not like. While I understood it as satire, I never felt comfortable taking my imagination to a place that was so contrary to the personality that defines me. Somehow I found the cast of selfish creatures a bit too bizarre and mismatched with my own quiet and more logical demeanor. The population of fools and dictators annoyed me.
Finding myself feeling as though I am now living in that upside down world is a source of great anxiety. I literally want to escape immediately but each new day tells me that I will have to learn to cope until our “mad king” who is ensconced in the White House one day goes away. My challenge is to survive and hopefully to find the kindred spirits who will help me to secure a better and more moral future than what we are all experiencing in this moment.
The truth is that I understood the evil fomenting in our country. I was very aware of the lies and deceit being used to fool so many good people into believing that a seventy eight year old man spouting nonsense and vitriol was a savior. It frustrated me that I was unable to convince so many people that I love and admire that they were being fooled by a con artist. I hoped that cooler heads would prevail but I suppose that a master salesman understands how to sell lies to gain profit and power.
I wonder how it is possible that we are allowing one man to take two hundred forty nine years of progress toward a more perfect democracy apart in a matter of days and weeks. I cannot understand the silence and even the cheerful support of so many. I wonder what has happened to our morals and our courage. Why are we playing along in a game that we know is absurd? How can any of us possibly believe that the man pushing all of the buttons and destroying our shining city on the hill is anything other than a spoiled fiendish snake oil salesmen.
I have been told by good people that he was sent by God to protect us. I believe in God but I think that we have the free will to make choices and in this case far too many were fooled into believing that our president actually prays and considers the morality of his decisions. How could a man so vile be an agent of God? The hypocrisy of his beliefs and statements reveal the lie that he wants to protect anyone but himself.
So I try to warn as many people as possible that we are going to have to work together to secure our nation for our children and grandchildren. I will protest again just as I did during the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. I will continue to write my blogs. I will wake up each morning hoping to see more signs that the foulness of the changes we have endured will end. I will pray for signs of life in our freedoms and in our bravery. I will hope that a movement as beautiful as my backyard will burst forth to save our nation and the world.
I long to find my way out of the underworld that has become my country. I know there is a way out but it will mean reaching the common sense of more people than the choir that now follows me. I suppose that we will all suffer until we find our way out of Trump’s wonderland of freaks and monsters.
Until then I will go the the sanctuary of nature in my backyard to keep my sanity and boost my resolve. We have a difficult road ahead but our cause is beautiful.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 