Solstice Resolution

One yellow figure, there among

the piles of yesterday’s ambition,

counting, reconstructing plans

stacked so long ago.

The piles are high but sorted

into like things, femurs here

and there the scapula, here the teeth,

the bones of a fabulous creature.

The yard is on the flats beside

the still-fast-running river,

half a mile of sticks and stones

left piled there in the fall.

Cold and windy, shrouded with fog,

and still the figure moves

and plans to build and sees the future,

there among the parts. 

Can I call that future’s bluff?

There beside the river,

Mind stiff with the cold 

and frosted memory.

I can hardly do any less. 

Talkin' about a Revolution, Oh-ohohoh ohoh. . .

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned.

William Butler Yeats

US citizens are not used to thinking about conflict. There has been no terror in the streets here for generations, nothing to cut our eyeteeth on that would let us predict such a future. Perhaps that is our real arrogance, that it can't happen to us. And yet, our Center has been openly and in-our-faces ripped apart, and the blood-dimmed tide is clearly loosened. Small worried echoes of martial law, containment centers, curfews are growing in volume; voices of disbelief and confusion. No one knows what this means yet. Few have attempted to analyze or describe how a country of 328 million souls could fall apart. Fascism on this scale has never been tried before, and the number of variables is enormous. 

You could start with the kind of questions we use when looking at a smaller state's turmoil in revolution: How much power resides with the Feds? How much with the states or regions? Where is the military's allegiance? What about militias? What regional alliances might come into play? Where are the "hot" spots and why? Could roads be closed? Airports? Could armed guards be in city streets? Which cities? Could there be food shortages? 

It is overwhelming to think about and just so not in our character. While there have always been survivalists, individuals and small groups who want to be ready for the apocalypse (of whatever kind), this core group has now snowballed into the "preppers." As a rapidly expanding market, US manufacturers have jumped right on that bandwagon, and the number of sales of generators has spiked across the world and is expected to be worth more that $27 billion by 2023. Climate change, political upheaval, hurricanes and holocausts - people are running scared.

Brexit in the UK, closed universities in Poland, Nazi sympathizers in Hungary, marshal law in Ukraine, and the uncivil spectacle of unmitigated greed and privilege that defines Washington today; it is very hard to hold on to hope.  I am carefully watching what happens to the Yellow Vests in Paris.

Sentenced to Structure

OMG it is pain in the ass to get old – or if not there, elsewhere! One joint or another: head, shoulders, knees, and toes takes on a whole new meaning. 

I have been ignoring a slightly shorter right than left leg my whole life. Since I had to buy new shoes in August, it seemed to be time to finally deal with it, considering my advanced age, and so I put a single Dr. Scholl’s in that new shoe and in two days I thought my pelvis was like to break in half. I had expected some, um, difficulties and had some yoga stretches at the ready, but it was Aleve at night for a couple of weeks till it settled down. 

In September I found that the backs of both knees were swelling at night and causing me increasingly sharp wake-ups and aches of a magnitude that got me out of bed, walking in circles until the intensity lessened. In the day I began to have muscle twinges down the backs of my calves, and I thought and thought about what could be causing it all, and I thought it must be the damn new shoes.  

Having limped through years of slowing falling arches before stabilizing in comfortable shoes some years ago, I had very carefully ordered that new pair – exactly the same as I had been wearing for an age. Really – reordered the same ones!  Who expected change? But change it did, and I realized that what I needed was a little lift in the heel. Never mind that the previous shoes did not, whatever!  I sorted through the massive stash of wedges, cushions, and arch support aids I had accumulated over those falling years and found some decent heel inserts that ended just north of my arches, changing the angle of my dangle. Blessed relief immediately - I had done the right thing! I cavorted and twirled on my painfree pins in celebration. 

Within a week I began to have shooting pains down the outsides of my calves and sometimes under my kneecap. What the hell? These got worse until I had to take pain meds to stay mostly asleep at night, with intermittent sharply drawn breath and tears till I was falling asleep at my desk in the day. The heel supports had just a bit of arch in them, and damned if that little-bittie was not shifting weight to the outside of my feet; hence the NEW pains. 

I bought smaller heel pads and again life is fabulous. 

But now it is November and the snows have begun; meaning in Minnesotan that it is time for my boots. Sigh. Here we go again. . .