Author Archive
I just can’t get over the injustice of sending Kilmar Abrego Garcia to suffer in a notorious prison in ElSalvador and choosing to leave him there in spite of the admission that it was a clerical error that condemned him to that horror in the first place. How casually the Prresident changed his tune and yielded to Elsalvador’s President when he refused to return him. Sort of like, Oh, I just realized I was wrong; It wasn’t really an administrative error after all. So, okay, no matter what the courts say, I’ll yield.ilmar Hmm, Is that the response of a strong man? Seems to me like giving in to the playground bully.
By the way, I had a happy entry planned for today in response to a story that made me smile this morning. I’ll plan to pick up on it tomorrow. https://www.reddit.com/r/nyc/comments/1jy3u0x/rolling_with_their_babies_for_fathers_in_search/?rdt=47375
What I really want to do right now is rant about the injustice and cruelty, and maybe even stupidity of the rampant urge to kick immigrants out of the country, even in some cases retroactively removing their earned rights to be here. I have to admit that some evil part of me hopes the best and brightest will end up in welcoming countries where their talents will be employed for development and strength that might have been ours.
But I’ll pass up that desire and focus instead on the much more optimistic teams, trees, vibes, and dreams I mentioned in a previous blog. This time just on the trees part. I’ll start with the memory of a drive home from a week on the shores of Lake Superior a few years back. The nice thing about being in the passenger seat is the freedom to let my mind and emotions wander. And that’s what happened as we passed through a beautiful canopy of trees reaching across the road like a tunnel of life. It struck me – even moved me – when I realized that the trees and I were literally exchanging Oxygen and CO2. We were breathing life into each other. It was life changing for me as I realized the very real connection between me and the natural world. – Gratitude, even.
And then I read Peter Wohlieben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel and How they Communicate. I admit much of the content was beyond my ability to remember, but I do recall the life-giving sharing of active roots strengthening neighbors in trouble. Teams, you might say.
And I thought of nurturance and growth strengthening underground where we don’t see it unless we open ourselves to feel it.
And that’s what I’m trying to say here. However chaotic and fearful things might seem right now, there is, I’m sure, goodness and growth beneath it all.
I hope I’ll find better ways to say it in future entries.
I know, I promised something more serious, but today (like so many days) got away from me. I thought, though, that, you might enjoy my response to our writers prompt for today — REGRET. It’s only four days from the anniversary of my falling-asleep-at-the-wheel adventure in 2015. (If you’d like more detail, there’s lots of it under “crash” on my web site: http://www.forgivenessoptions.com.)
I should have stopped at Doug’s to snooze
But that’s not the choice I chose to choose.
And that’s how I ended here at the Waters
Not a bad ending, considering the starters.
Mona, 4/11/2025
I just finished listening to a fabulous lecture by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I don’t have time now to write a lot, but, aside from the fact that it brought tears to my eyes for the days of confidence in our democratic system, it reminded me of what I had hoped to write today.
“Action happens,” she said, “from the ground up.”
And when she talked about the stress of not knowing where it will end, it reminded me why I like documentaries about the historical periods I’ve stressed my way through. I relive the tension of the time, but knowing how it ended.
I hope to be back soon to write about teams, trees, vibes, and dreams.
Who knew I’d have such a handy new example of onomatopoeia before the day was done. So here’s what happened. Sometime after 8:00 p.m. yesterday evening I was happily dressed for bed, warm and cozy in my white plush bathrobe, my bed pulled back and ready, as I was enjoying my daily phone conversation with Harriet in Maine. In case you wonder who that is, she was with me in 1951 typing on the SS Volendam as reported in the previous entry posted in the wee hours of this morning — my college roommate.
As we proceeded with our reports of daily activities I was distracted by an occasional chirp. She could hear it too. Chirp, chirp. No, not a bird in the apartment – but a signal that the smoke alarm wanted a new battery. Not a good thing on a Friday night when the weekend was upon us and all who might help would have gone home. But I was lucky. A call to the Concierge put me through to a guy working in the special care area. “I’ll have to charge you,” he said. “I’m willing to pay,” I replied, “if you’ll just charge the smoke alarm and stop the chirp– anything, anything!” Fortunately he was tall enough to reach the high ceiling with the help of my step stool. He changed the battery and started to leave when I heard it – chirp, chirp. He went back and touched some magical spot. The chirping stopped.
The next two hours were peaceful and I called to assure Harriet that all was well. – until I began to hear it – chirp, chirp. No, I wasn’t hallucinating. But all I got when I called the Concierge number was an offer to leave a message. Now my nervous system was going ping, ping as I scrambled through my travel stuff looking in vain for ear plugs. There could be no sleeping with that chirp, chirp, so I real quick threw on some clothes, grabbed a warm blanket, let my door bang quietly closed, clicked the lock fob in the door, and headed for the sofa recently placed in a corner of the atrium.
Not good for my back, and too much light slapped at my eyes, so I tried a darker area of wall seats in the café. No room for my left arm, and besides, some resident I didn’t recognize came by and chatted a bit. I don’t think either of us understood what the other was saying, but he commented to one of the special care nurses as she passed by on her way home, “I’m just chatting with my friend.”
One last thing to try – a deep squishy pink puffy lounge chair in the darkened community room that was really quite out of place with the other furnishings, but maybe I could sink into those cushions and get comfy somehow. First, though, one last try. I instructed my Siri, a nice guy in my phone who sometimes says things like, “You’re welcome,” to call the Concierge. My hero answered, Kelsey the head nurse, apparently on night duty. “I’ll meet you in the apartment,” she said, and she did, as my lock fob was producing an opening ping.
Also very tall, she released and lowered the chirping alarm and declared it needed to be replaced. “I’ll take it with me,” she said, “and Nate will replace it on Monday.” “Just so it stops chirping,” I pleaded. “It won’t stop chirping,” she grinned, “but you won’t hear it.”
“Now I can sleep,” I thought. “A cup of unsweetened warm chocolate almond milk with a fistful of raw cashews will help.” Maybe the big mistake was slipping a bit of bourbon into the cup. Whatever, my ears armed themselves with invisible guards just in case the chirp should start up again. It didn’t, but I did get a lot done, along with the preceding blog entry, when I finally gave up on the hope for sleep and did a bunch of stuff at the computer.
And there you have it – what my daughter would call a “first world problem.” One way to avoid eyes snapping open with concern for so many suffering real problems. Next time someone asks me to think of something I’m grateful for, I’ll remember the removal of the “chirp, chirp.”
And there you have it. A nice, meaningless entry with no important message to convey.
The following is a result of the assignment for today’s (Friday, April 4, 2025) gathering of our writers group here at the Waters of Excelsior. If you remember the meaning of “onomatopoeia” just enjoy patting yourself on the back. If you don’t remember, then you’re in my boat. I needed a reminder. Anyway, here’s the definition: Onomatopoeia refers to words that imitate or represent sounds, like “hiss,” “buzz,” or “bang.”
And here, for your reading and listening pleasure, is what I wrote to include illustrations of onomatopoeia.
“June, 1951
The SS Vollendam crunches a few times against the dock in Rotterdam as ropes bump and release it closer to its resting spot, finally tethering it, slowing the slosh, slosh of the water’s agitation. The somewhat rattly pinging of the large company clock calls out the arrival hour, adding to the cacophony of motors revving up to large containers slapping the deck as they fall into place. Screeching winches hoist them onto heavily breathing trucks groaning a low, rumbling drone as they cut through the air on their way on access roads pausing in peace for a moment. A horn toots, anticipating their explosive gassy pop as they exit the pier. Voices clash into each other as workers shout commands. Somewhere the almost musical ping, ping, ping of a European emergency siren swoops the air, unlike the soprano rise and fall of an American get-out-of-the-way warning sound. Out of sight the harbor pilot skims through the breaking waves, its guidance job done.
Inside the bowels of the ship, we volunteers rush to complete documents that must be presented to shore authorities before gates will clang open revealing the disembarkation route down the slightly swaying squeaking gangplank. The click, clack, of fingers slapping the mounted keys on the contemporary Underwood tap back and forth between the zap of the carriage and the rip, swoosh of removal of the completed page.
And then it’s done. The push of Mona’s heart banging her ribs from inside celebrates the processing arrival in Europe to begin the frighteningly exciting eleven week journey to Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, England, Holland, and Belgium.”
I’m exhausted. If only I could get my empathy under control! I’m sure you don’t expect such personal stuff in a blog, but here goes anyway, I get to sleep a nice solid three hours (two REM cycles worth) before waking up. Then it starts. The students who thought they were exercising a free world right when they became involved in protests — now captured, removed to remote sites, separated from families and friends and their graduate programs. Tortured body positions of Venezuelans transported to El Salvadoran prisons, books banned, colleges and universities yielding to political pressures, history rewritten or simply blacked out.
Putting it all together, the purpose of my life and career seems to have become a target. Appreciation for knowledge, science, the value of all human life, the health of our earth and all the people in it, a world of peace for children/people of all colors, the value of the individual …
Oh, for goodness sake, Mona! Be real. Those are just goals – fictional finalisms to use Adler’s term. Of course you know the world isn’t like that! Yes, I do. But in the middle of the night I realize that not only are efforts to support them fading, there are truly pressures being applied to denigrate them. And there are personal examples aplenty to keep my emotional and intellectual intelligence on edge.
So, what do I do about it? First of all, I know that sanity requires finding areas where one has control. And lying in bed with negative brain worms crawling around my brain doesn’t help, so my go-to aid is getting out of bed, preparing a comforting cup of warm sugar-free chocolate almond milk and a handful of raw cashews. I’d say that works about 60% of the time. There are other options too that sometimes work: Tylenol PM, Melatonin, acetaminophen. But bottom line is choosing to focus on that over which I have some control.
And that takes me to my prediction for future entries here: my manuscript, tentatively titled How Could These Lovely People Have Let it Happen?: a Psychologist’s Intimate Journal. I’ll be letting you know what I need from you …
And now I have to walk for half an hour before dinner and get ready for a writers group that meets tomorrow.
Thanks for listening/reading
Just to be safe I checked the definitions of the words I’m about to use. I challenge you to find definitions that contradict what I say here.
And why should we care? Because we live in a society where we want the comfort of clear dichotomies: divisions or contrasts between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different. In other words, we like to think in terms of opposites like male-female, good-bad, honest-dishonest, you name it.
Politicians propose laws that require oppositeness, literally enforcing differences that don’t exist in nature. In other words, there are areas where we must distort the truth in order to live legally. Or maybe even to live at all.
So what, really does opposite mean?
Adjective: diametrically different; of a contrary kind; completely different.
Noun: a person or thing that is totally different from or the reverse of someone or something else.
Right now I’m thinking of the political inaccuracy of pretending there are only two sexes: male and female. It’s just not true. Like everything else you can think of, the characteristics exist on a continuum. So, I repeat, in order to live legally one has to behave like a round peg trying to fit into a square hole. If we lived without such control – i.e. were truly free – differences could be dealt with in healthy ways with full understanding.
Oh but, you’re going to argue, at least black and white are opposites. Look it up. They aren’t.
What you see as a pigment with a black color or a light with a white color actually contains various light or dark colors. Nothing can be pure white or pure black, except unfiltered sunlight or the depths of a black hole.
What a free world it would be if we lived with reality instead of imposed dichotomies.
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