Re-emerging, turning 70, and channeling my badass self!

 

  I stopped blogging after my post on May 27^th, two days after George Floyd’s death.  I just could not find a way to share my voice, to  continue to keep a window open into my life here in Patten, Maine.  

- The country has erupted in outrage at the death of George Floyd, and the floodgates from systemic, long term racial inequality have burst open - and it might just be that white allies will at last stand up and be meaningful participants in change.  Eight minutes forty-six seconds that touched the world, sparked that latent, unattended place inside us that wanted to pretend that color of your skin does not matter. 

- 170,000 dead, 5.4 million cases of covid-19. 100,000 dead in the US from corona-virus.   

- The administration is closing down the census early,  there is rampant cries about what  is happening to the data,  who is getting counted, where is under-counting occurring is a very real question.

- The postal service is under attack,  mailboxes locked or carried away, million dollar sorting machines destroyed, all to serve this dispicable person in the presidential office or to make money for the minions by trying to destroy the confidence in the postal service.

- Russia is still interfering with our elections.

Meanwhile, while spending my summer on my screen porch I watched and listened and read as a long overdue tipping point regarding white privilege spilled over.  I did leave the porch to attend a Black Lives Matter rally in Houlton, Maine, it doesn’t mean other people’s lives don’t matter for fuck sake, it means it is way beyond time to acknowledge that this country,  our institutional and structural rules and regulations and our culture is based on whiteness and that black people are seen as other and less than. AND it is time for this to STOP.  

 I couldn't leave my porch,  I was not fit in some ways to leave my porch.  I had to look closely at my world.  Something deep, deep inside me and many others were touched as we witnessed what it means to view black people as dispensable, we were witness to a  knee held on a black man's neck for eight minutes and thirty six seconds by a white police officer who stared callously into the camera.  I knew, you knew he was just giving that young woman, a young black woman,  who had the courage to tape it all the finger (and so much more).   He dared anyone to stop him, and he is now sitting in jail.  The world is on fire from the effects of racism, from the corona-virus, from the destruction of power-hungry men, with an economic system that grows only by making people (mostly black and brown people) dispensable. 

I have spent this summer on my porch,  a porch that I have dreamed of having for over three decades. 

I love my porch.  I love that I can fully, freely enjoy the view, the breeze, the in between life that I feel when sitting and being on my porch.  It supports me and provides safety for me in so many ways.  

 

I have made changes to the porch this summer.  Candy McKellar (artist extraordinaire) came and with our masks on we 50/50 painted lupines on the entrance to the front porch.  I have more comfortable chairs.  There is social distancing. 

I have tended to kitchen garden boxes, the perennials, and my big pots of herbs.  I still have several house plants that have now lived for more than one year.    

 I have had big disappointments,  I watched from afar as my grandson was not able to have a graduation ceremony from his high school in May my trip had long been cancelled.  When they delayed his graduation ceremonies to August I had bought my ticket and was planning to have time with my family and to be a part of his big day - I did not happen.   I watched his graduation on my computer from home.

There is so much more that I could say about this summer, and I will in future posts.  But why now, why today have I found a way to start to blog?  

If you haven't noticed my blog looks different,  I worked with my friend Ryan Anderson and I have a new look.  I am just learning my way along, so I hope that there will be a few more things that I might be able to do with the blog!  We'll see.   Getting this new look was something that I wanted before I resumed blogging again....so here it is - I would really appreciate any feedback.  I write my blog for me and for you, my reader....let me know what you think.

I have in some limited ways kept track of how long it had been since I blogged,  I had several almost starts that did not materialize.  So as my birthday started to get closer and closer I knew that sometime around my birthday was a good time to start blogging again.  

This Thursday, August 20th is my birthday.  I will be 70, yes I will be 70 years old.  Amazing.  Almost unbelievable.   Today is the first day of my Birthday week.  So here I am getting ready for the first night of the Democratic Convention and I am blogging away.

I have lots of stories to tell.  For now I am just glad to be able to let me fingers fly across the keyboard.  I am glad to know that I have something I want to say.   I have lots of passion - that young woman who is wearing her, " if I can't dance, I don't want to be a part of your revolution"  young lesbian activist has moved into this almost old woman who is still a proud lesbian activist.  An activist who understands the intersectionality far better than 40 years ago.  I may be on my porch but I am a citizen of the world.  

Looking forward to sharing, to provoking, and to enjoying the ways that I can continue to blog as I lean into my 71st year!