Sidetracked Charley

Inspired by the Women's Marches around the world, and sickened by the inaugural I watched in horror as each day in the last week brought our country and our ideals down further. In someways I was going tharned like the rabbits in Watership Down; frozen in the middle of the road staring at the headlights approaching. But I kept on keeping on devoting a small portion of each morning on the computer to research on issues before congress and firing off emails to my representatives. Even making a few calls. I hate calling. Email, personal messaging, chat are invented for me personally. Or at least I believe. But I made calls. Love it when I can leave a message, short and sweet on one issue, and then disconnect. But I was at a loss for words when I got a person when I called my congressman's office. After a pause I recited my script and she chuckled. Silence from me. Then she hastened to add that of course the congressman would vote that way on that issue. But she would make no...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of our despair. . . . Opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. And so it is now going from the grace and hope of the Obama family in the white house, to the swearing in of the evil troll. All on Friday seemed so utterly hopeless. I could not watch any part of the telecast let alone his evil words of carnage stolen in part from The Bee Movie. So appropriate as he jokes he steals all we have gained in our society.  It was a day of tears.  But then Saturday as the Women's March on Washington grew and grew on live streaming a glimmer of hope. Reports came in about the size and number of sister marches not just across the country and around the world. Some 470 in total with numbers be...

National Day of Resistance on the day before the Trump Inaugural. And the 21st is the Women's March on DC and about 300 other sites around the world. Imagine that.  And yet divisions run so deep even in the midst of what appears to be a united front against the Republican agenda and the illegitimate president elect.  Now suddenly we have to show our bonafides to those who have been on the battle lines longer. Johnny and Joan come lately's are being called Lexus Liberals by some. Let me make a couple things clear: 1) I don't own a Lexus. A 1989 GMC 4 x 4 occupies my driveway, 2) I have fought for one cause or the other since I was in college and demonstrated for the Free Speech movement and after that the Civil rights and ERA and end the war in Vietnam and end the draft, 3)Equal rights for women is my heart cause but I have also researched and written about water issues and the stripping our schools of the arts. And in the midst of all that I have fought a brain i...

I am still a cat owner but now he is bored. I am spending too much time at the computer desk doing research and writing letters to my congressmen and interfacing with my resistance group. I manufactured a kitty whip, and moved Thicke a box over to beside my computer chair. But other things in my life are not as easily handled. I have an art business and the calls for entries are going out now. I also am a member of an art organization whose goal is to further arts in our community, and one of a steering committee for an art guild. Since the crash of 2008 art income does not make ends meet. So there is Social Security, rental income, pet sitting business, and a part time home care job. Almost all of those things stand to be adversely effected by the new congress and the new administration. On national and state level. As a member of the local Chamber of Commerce I just got a letter about more lobbying which needs to be done. The first 100 days will be the hardest they say. Thicke...

Storm Coming I live in a Blue state. But in a very rural area (Red), visited by many people from Texas (Red and Fundie). And I am an artist and an introvert who lives rural. Especially in the winter the majority of my interaction with others is on the internet where I get to largely pick and choose who I interact with. But there is a storm coming. If the weather bureau got it right this time. I picked up a house bound friend and we ventured to the local market filled with visitors and shopped for some comfort food and snowed in with no power supplies. The safety pins on my lapel were getting some angry looks. Some of them were still wearing Trump campaign buttons. We escaped to the soup aisle with the tiny section of organic soups. To shop organic we have to go over the mountain, but a storm was coming. So we contented ourselves with organic baby spinach and a few organic soups, fire starters, some bottled water just in case. I admit I am not fond of this chain store which bo...

Unclear I slept well last night. No dreams I could remember. No waking up in the middle of the night with hamster wheel thinking. Undefined fears. Sometimes it is the exceptions which make you realize what you have been dealing with. I have changed my morning schedule to allow time to check legislation and write my congressional representatives. Computer time is more directed to research and posts to a group of like interests. I have been out with my camera less. A painting I have begun stands neglected in the studio. I am more easily frustrated.  And I have so many questions I cannot get answered. I am manic at times trying to google answers to questions google has not considered. I would rather not answer the telephone. I have five buds on my butterfly amaryllis and I have not photographed the first one beginning to open. Just remembered it as I typed this blog. I think one of the things I want to really hold on to is my creative expression. And maybe those t...

Bench in Winter MAD. I am just MAD. Mother, forever the Kansas City Cub reporter even if she never wrote another article, would correct me. She would say, "No, dear, your are angry." Me, ever the smart ass as she would say, replied, "I am so angry I am mad." After the ACA procedural vote I am livid. And I hate white men. "Now, dear," Mother would say, "Isn't hate the wrong word?" Loathe. I loathe white men. Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell were in my nightmares last night. The better part was when I had them on the rack. Must have been a good dream because I slept in. There is an old Lone Ranger joke which has him and Tonto surrounded by hostile Indians and the Lone Ranger asks, "How are we going to get out of this one, Tonto?" "We, White Man?" Tonto replies. Part of me really wants to be Tonto this morning. I want to grab my guns, pile into pickup with the fur kids and head for the hills. Dad, the one white...

I had no sooner finished the previous blog when I found myself asking who was I just the day before. Or the minute before I read the article which made such a difference in how I saw my future. The glib answer is, "The same me." But I know that isn't so. If it was then the article would not have had such an impact. I knew we were facing dark days. I knew it was very important to resist the direction this clown and his party were taking our country. I knew I had zero in common with any of them. But I also knew I had friends who I cut off because after the election they became someone I did not recognize. It was as if the election of Donald Trump had given them permission to use his words and his mocking tone, and his rude and crude behavior. It was almost as if pussy grabbing was contagious or at least I was afraid it was contagious. Yesterday, I was totally fine with the loss of those few friends almost as if I believed it was a temporary quarantine. I would c...

Sunset in Black Lake I read an article this morning written by Sarah Kendzior for a Dutch publication and posted by my Canadian friend. We're Heading into dark Times as chilling. She called on readers to write down who we are, what we have experienced, and what we had endured before illegitimate president D. Trump takes office because an authoritarian state can change who we are. I have decided to accept my assignment. This is just day one. I like who I am. I am a photographer and I see it as a calling. I am ready to record the beauty and awe others are too busy to notice. I have always been a recorder. When we traveled in my childhood I kept the records of miles and cities we passed through; took pictures with my little Brownie camera, drew sketches in a sequence of notebooks. We traveled. My relatives did not. They were the solid mid-westerners in Kansas City, Missouri. We were the nomads who settled on New Mexico. My Aunt Louise didn't even believe New Mexico was pa...

Thicke in Attendance I don't usually write blogs about my pets. Yes, Thicke, is the darling of my Facebook Timeline.  And in the past so have been The Darkness, Wee Willow, and Scrappy.  I have always believed my purr kids were special especially as subjects for my photographs. I am after all a crazy cat lady even if at this point in time that includes just one cat: Bad Boy Alan Thicke. We have had several days of bad weather which has included extremely high winds and Thicke has been house bound by his own determination. He does not like wind. Suddenly even the array of Amazon Prime boxes has not been enough to keep him amused. Thicke in a Box   He has followed me around the house and thrown himself into my activities like putting away the Christmas decorations. The outcome has not always been helpful if photogenic.  Thicke packing up decorations Yesterday I was trying to paint in the studio. He loves the studio. In it he has the chair featur...

Be Still I want there to be stillness Be calm even if there is no peace. Breathe silently Slowly in and out. Stop the wind Cease the shouting. Do not scream Or shout. Be still. J. Binford-Bell January 2017 I feel as if I have made a cosmic shift. I felt the same 16 years ago. Only then I was hit on the head. This time I feel as if I have been punched in the belly. Really hard. I am having trouble catching my breath. Post traumatic stress disorder my psychologist said then. CBT said my neurologist. Acceptance kept me in balance even when everything in my life was changing. Even friends because I was no longer who I used to be. I tried to act as if I was when I went out among strangers who knew me before. At home I noticed I no longer liked Stephen King. I could only watch action films at home so I could escape to the kitchen when it got too fast. I was far more comfortable with the small screen of my computer as opposed to the panoramic screens of t...

Through a Fog All life is about loss. It is what life is. You cannot move forward without leaving something behind. And not all things we leave behind are abandoned with joy. And even then we must grieve that loss.  We, as a culture, turn things into celebrations be it graduating from college or getting married. A friend who was living in Japan gave me a wedding Kimono upon my marriage to my last husband. It was red and white. Red for the celebration of my new family and white for the grieving of the family I was leaving. I was a modern woman and my parents were dead, his mother didn't even attend so I didn't get the significance then.  It is only now I see all new steps as a leaving behind of something else. We cannot always be dragging behind the weight of our pasts. I hate being told to hurry up or to get over it. Move on. Moving forward is not as easy as slamming a door shut. You must say goodbye. You must grieve. Or at sometime in the future the past will extract...