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Sunday

January 29, 2017 at 9:08 am by Claudia

I’ve never been more proud to be a card-carrying member of the ACLU.

And that’s all I’ll say about that; at least for today.

It looks like the sun might show itself today. I’m hoping so. The hardest parts of the winter for me are the gray days with a gray landscape and dirty snow, to boot. When you couple those, and we’ve had a lot of them lately, with the news spewing (and there’s no other word is there?) out of Washington, you see a Claudia who is having a hard time of it.

And I know I’m not the only one, not by a mile.

What’s keeping me sane? In no particular order: reading, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the New York Times crossword puzzle, the Dick Van Dyke show, my husband, having a sense of humor, cleaning, taking photographs, drinking Peet’s coffee, tending to my houseplants, sunsets, and crying when I need to. I’d add work in there, but at the moment, I’m unemployed.

We now subscribe digitally to the New York Times, with an actual print delivery of the paper on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We also subscribe digitally to the Washington Post. I’m doing my best to give financial support to Planned Parenthood (I made a donation in Mike Pence’s name), the ACLU, John Lewis’s re-election campaign, and the various animal rights groups I support. I think we’ll also start to donate to environmental groups; we just have to narrow our choices down to a few.

These donations are important to us. We need to put our money where our mouths are. They’re modest, but they will surely help those organizations. And that’s a good thing.

Today, I’m going to go to a bookstore. I need that.

I think it’s time to buy a copy of the Constitution and keep it right by my side. (And maybe a novel or two, as well!)

Happy Sunday.

Reminded

January 28, 2017 at 10:42 am by Claudia

My apologies for a later-in-the-morning post today. I just this moment left that chair after reading straight through from 7 a.m. until 10 a.m. in order to finish one of the most extraordinary books I’ve ever read, All The Light We Cannot See. I am shaken by its beauty, by the profound truths revealed on its pages, by the stunning way in which the author weaves together the lives of the main characters, all with the most beautiful use of language I have been privileged to witness in a long time.

I’m late getting to this book and I know a lot of you have read it already. Since it takes place during WWII, in France and Germany and Poland and Russia, a time when an insane dictator managed to brainwash millions, when his intolerance manifested itself in the death of millions – you can only imagine how much it resonated with me, on so many levels. Everything I read lately seems to be a reminder of what intolerance, egomania, paranoia and fear can bring about if not stopped in its tracks. I, like most everyone read 1984 years and years ago. I eventually acted in a ground-breaking multimedia production of that story at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia and at The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Because of that, I know it like the back of my hand. It has been in my mind constantly, as I see George Orwell’s visions come to life. Even down to the use of ‘doublespeak.’

But, back to the book. If you haven’t read it, please consider doing so. For above all, it is a story about the goodness that lies in each of us, about redemption, about beauty, about light, about life, about love and devotion. And that, more than anything, is what I want to remember right now. It’s what will win in the end.

Oh my goodness, what a story! What an extraordinary writer Anthony Doerr is.

Books are saving my sanity right now. Are they doing the same for you? I am a fighter and am doing all I can. But there has to be a time during the day when I can lose myself in the words on the page of a compelling story. Where I allow myself to escape to somewhere else. Where I can feel refreshed, renewed and reenergized. And, in the case of this book, reminded.

This is what I believe we stand for:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name,
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

Those elected representatives who do not speak out against this executive order on refugees will be nothing less than collaborators.

Resist.

Happy Saturday.

Don Blogs: In the Pink

January 27, 2017 at 10:12 am by Claudia

I didn’t really decide I was going until a few days before. By then, seats on charter buses were sold out and while I entertained the idea of driving down, the notion seemed pretty daunting. DC looks confusing on a map and I’d heard many times before (from people driving down to Florida from New York mostly) that if your travel plans take you anywhere near that area, you have to go round the loops and jams and snarls that are the DC maze. It always sounded as if you would be driving around the Bermuda Triangle and could be sucked into a vortex and never be heard from again. So I kept trying to get a seat on a bus.

I did.

As we waited to board the big orange bus in the predawn darkness, I quickly saw that I was the only male in line. I suddenly felt like I was crashing a female sorority pajama party. “Phi Beta Pink Hats” or something. Soon, a few other men sleepily arrived and took their place in line and I felt better. The big break came when I went onboard and grabbed a seat at the back of the bus (by the potty) that had no seat in front of it, so my legs could stretch freely into the aisle. This was like getting a Penthouse Suite for a guy 6′4″, and I rejoiced.

When we arrived in DC five hours later, it looked rainy and gray, but the lukewarm coffee in my thermos was bracing. We all staggered off to join a very long line that snaked into the far distance and were told it led to a Metro entrance where you could buy a ticket for the long ride down to where the action was.

I found myself standing behind three folks around my age who were savvy and connected and in about 5 minutes we were sharing an Uber ride. As we drove off like celebrities, leaving everyone else in line, I began getting the Grand Tour. I began to feel that life was an unending avenue of green lights and welcome signs.

Then we got out of the car and found ourselves in a sea of humanity without a compass or a captain. A vast and seemingly endless ocean of pink hats and protest signs all roiling and bobbing and flowing along toward some rumored and distant shore.

I had wound up in the Bermuda Triangle after all.

I decided to leave my Uber shipmates and strike off alone to find my new friends and comrades in the Resistance who had arrived earlier on other buses from the north.

Yeah, sure. Good idea. In short order, I was missing my Uber pals and felt a little like a kid who got separated from his parents at Disney World. Another Old Man and the Sea.

But I was finding my sea legs and back to feeling in top form. I started to feel very uplifted. I mean, “Look at this!”, I thought. I’d never seen so many people at one time in my life. And they mostly seemed happy and human and very purposeful. I suddenly felt a part of it all. A chant began to roll like a wave toward us. It may have started a mile down the line. “Tell me what democracy looks like!” “This is what democracy looks like!” Call and response. Call and response. And it really was the truth. This is what democracy looks like.

The sense of being part of a great swelling movement has stayed with me. The feeling of gratitude for living in my country has been revived in new and stirring ways.

Thanks for letting me share a little of this experience with you. It’s always so great to know you’re here.

Regardless of your personal beliefs, be they for or against, celebrating or protesting, I was standing in this reality: We live in a country where half a million people can meet up and raise their voices and not be shot or rounded up by a despot or fascist. And we do live in a country like that.

For now.

Happy Friday.

Don

Sunday

Reminded

Don Blogs: In the Pink

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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