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Clearing the fog

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9/27/2020

Broken

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PictureHikers find refuge on the trails at West Sixth Farm outside Frankfort, Ky. Photo by Rick Showalter.
Immediately after my last posting, I wanted to write about the climate disasters we have been facing this summer. I intently followed the path of hurricane Sally, as you might imagine, curious and fearful about the sort of destruction my namesake might wreak. Meanwhile, once again safe from flooding and wind damage here in central Kentucky, we rather guiltily endured our own fallout from the historical wildfires raging out west: a few gray days as lingering smoke obscured the sun. In California, Oregon, and Washington, the damage to lives, livelihoods, homes, businesses, the economy, the environment, our national forests—to normalcy—is nearly incomprehensible to those of us who don’t live there. 

Around the nation, our continued denial of what is causing these natural phenomena—the unabated warming of our planet that is breaking up Antarctica’s glaciers and raising sea levels and altering rain patterns and resulting in five tropical storms scuttling around the Atlantic simultaneously—reeks of insanity. Yet, we persist in our inaction.

But before I was able to wrangle my thoughts and my fury and my shame on that topic, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. I was paralyzed, like so many others. We all knew she had battled heroically against numerous cancers, and we were aware she had been in and out of the hospital this year. We all held our collective breath. But suddenly our optimism that she would always be victorious, always vanquish the silent oppressor, had been punctured, and we deflated like tired balloons. Today, to be hopeful seems ridiculous. 

​And just as I was trying to come to grips with the certainty of her death and its repercussions, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron strode to the pulpit and delivered an unctuous sermon about why Breonna Taylor matters. Evidently she matters because her innocent neighbors had to endure bullets flying through their home when a no-knock warrant was served at Taylor’s adjacent apartment. Bullets fired by an out-of-control police officer. Law and order, you know. 

The bullets that landed in Breonna’s apartment, however, in Breonna, were righteous. Legal. All by the book. All to protect the neighbors’ safety. 

Like so many others, I find I can’t focus. I can’t do the research I need to write accurately about the things that matter to me. I’m over-stimulated. I’m angry. I’m scared to pay attention. I have to pay attention. I don’t know where to look.

Meanwhile the pandemic rages. Football teams and their fans gather along the playing fields. Children remain at home, wondering when they will return to the classrooms many of them loathed in the “good times.” Even my elderly dog is craving different people, different running grounds, different smells. She is so sick of us. And of our palpable worry.

I have nothing positive to offer. The days are shortening. Cooler weather is upon us. Solitary walks in the woods might help (while we still have them). Or hiding under a blanket with a hot toddy or a sip of bourbon. Meanwhile, I’m fretfully lying in wait for the next cataclysmic crack in our national psyche. We know it’s coming. It’s 2020 after all.


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5 Comments
Barbara Fallis
9/27/2020 11:33:38 pm

I was going to try to add one positive comment but then this happened...the GOP is selling Notorious ACB tee shirts. I keep thinking of that famous outburst "HAVE YOU NO SHAME?"

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Joseph Anthony
9/28/2020 11:05:12 am

I have an Eastern Kentucky friend who recently recalled my reaction to the 2016 election. "You took it bad," he said. "You took to your bed." I'm tempted to "take to my bed" again with the news, but none of us can do that. We have to fight and remember other times when people faced worse and kept going. It's hard to imagine worse sometimes but it's true. Thanks for not writing a cheerful blog. A cheerful blog in this time would be the prose equivalent of "taking to your bed."

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Nancy Barnett
9/28/2020 03:24:27 pm

No, they have no shame or compassion or decency or the will to accept any crisis unless it affects their wallet. Will 2020 ever quit doling out a constant dose of despair?

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Joe Ford
9/29/2020 10:52:16 pm

Nope. You may not.

You may not despair. That is not the role you have set out.

Though the focus of your blog is most often family and history, it does offer its moments of adoration for the great outdoors and the occasional foray into politics (though these days we rarely talk of civic matters--just frustration with the purposeful embrace of ignorance and the manufacture of hate and fear).

Your passion and conviction come through. That’s worth something to you, to be true to yourself, and it is worth something to your readers, to encounter truth. And perhaps they’ll pick up just a bit of hope to steel them for the coming days.

In our malaise, our melancholy, I read recently, what's disrupted is the structure of care and an expectation for the future – that our young people will live much as we did, that art matters, that God’s creation strikes us as beautiful, that we take joy in activity with others. Taken away, we are rudderless. It can only be repaired, he says, through renewed solidarity with each other.

Set aside the pandemic and natural disasters and RGB’s death for just a moment. We have, in just a few weeks, the chance to put out the most incompetent and evil president in our history. Liberals seem to be almost resigned to defeat these last few weeks. Don’t be. The chance is good. Be positive. Sprout some signs in your yard. Donate.

Sallie, be the hurricane.

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Bob Patrick
10/1/2020 10:03:41 am

Hard to remain optimistic in these times. In his book, Why We Are Polarized, which I recommend, Ezra Klein recommends taking more action local and set aside focusing on the national. Not sure I agree as so many issues require action at the federal level. We do have a slate of progressive candidates running for the Berea City Council. And hopefully some of them will win. My son, who lives south of Portland, said the smoke was so bad he could not go to work and that school was cancelled, as the teachers could not get to the schools to present online classes..

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    Between the debilitating effects of age and the 24-hour crush of mind-bending news, my brain is frequently in a fog. Nonetheless. I'll occasionally try to sweep aside the ashy gray matter and shed some light on what's going on at Murky Press. Perhaps together we can also gain a little insight into how we can better use words to organize and clarify the world around us.

    Cheers! 
    Sallie Showalter, Murky Press 

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