Category Archives: Musings

In Defense of The Dark

Photo by Anjana Mebane-Cruz 12/21/24

I am so sick of analogies of darkness being equated with evil/the bad/deprivation. I’m too tired to shriek, so here goes.

We and everything in the natural world were created in darkness. We cry when we’re spasmed out of that nurturing and soothing place into the bright light of turmoil. We adults forget that we need the darkness to shade our eyes, to rest and sleep, to be creative. We value the lotus, but scorn the mud. Yet it is that darkness that not only creates the flower, but continues to feed it and to hold it up to receive the sun. Without that mud, it shrivels and dies, and no amount of light will save it.

Although it exists, most seldom know the healthful balance between Dark and Light, not as opposing forces, but mutually sustaining. We draw sustenance and wealth from the dark, rich Earth, and She is nurtured by rays of Sun, and quenched by the loving Waters. In balance, all is fruitful and giving, and through them, we exist.

Fearing the dark has never made any sense to me. Anything that can happen under cover of darkness can happen in a well lighted space, and the light at the end of the tunnel is likely to be a train you won’t survive. I crave the quietness that comes with sunset- I love how everything in the natural world pauses at twilight before the night singers begin their chirps and croaks, how the ones who hunt at night have silent feathers to blend in with the hush of night. I love the time when loved ones share a meal and stories or simply sit or lie together. That our ancient selves know that work and stress should stop at night, despite our 24-7 societies now. That our bodies fail without the dark and the peaceful quiet that it brings. We ruin it with our lights, and noise, and activities, our bombs flashing, and led lights, but our bodies hold fast to their origins and fail to thrive amidst such things, our health and quality of life diminished and shortened with each additional assault.

I say these things in part because of colour prejudices I’ve heard my entire life, amped up every few years, and accompanied by vile and violent acts against other humans. I’m writing because every time someone equates darkness with evil/ignorance, they are subtly or not so subtly reifying tropes of superiority, inequality, and ideas about worth, and value in our cultures.

I say it for the more trivial reason that our “NY style wardrobes”have an abundance of dark clothing for which we are gently teased when in semi or tropical climes. I honestly find an abundance of bright colours jarring, albeit sometimes beautiful. There are colours I don’t want on my bed and bright patterns that would keep me up at night, without a doubt. In nature, bright colours delight me, but the manufactured versions seem out of place and never have the vibrancy of living things. How could they?

Where I come from, colours have energy and spiritual associations. White is the colour of Death- the loss of our rainbows and life, the ash and bones left in the end. It’s the North, where the Ancestors dwell- not to be feared, but certainly the end story for mortals. Black is Creation and the Source of all Life. It is Earth, the Womb, and Mother. Red is Life, the blood in our veins. Yellow is the Sun, our Father, and lover of Earth. Blue is the Water that sparks Life for all. Green is Sustenance and the Beauty of nature. All necessary elements and aspects of our full cycle, in balance. All are of The Good.

To malign any is to put your ignorance and imbalances on full display. It is a form of violence carried throughout societies for generations. It is a harsh denial of our real place and path in partnership with Earth and all within. It’s also grammatically unnecessary. If you want to say “bad” say bad. “Bad” and “ignorant” have dozens of synonyms you can use. Question your symbology, open or Google a thesaurus, and leave the Dark to her peace.

Having My Say: intro to Political Realities 100

Here’s the thing, people: I am three days younger than snow, and I understand how this system works. I’ve studied it from multiple angles, in and out of college and graduate school, and I am quite clear about it and where I am within it. In my entire life, I’ve had the pleasure only once of voting for a candidate I wholeheartedly supported. The rest has been voting in the best interests of me, my class, and my people. I don’t have to love the candidates, but I vote for the one most likey to support an agenda that doesn’t set us back in terms of environment wellbeing, race, class, gender, and community well being/prosperity. If they actually move us forward, praise be!
Should it be that way? NO! But I don’t live in a world of “shoulds” and dreams. I live in a proto-capitalist society that is veering from an intended-to-have-been democratic republic towards a theocratically tinged, racist, misogynist oligarchy. So hell yeah, I’m going to vote against that, despite any qualms I have about the candidate or party for which I’ll vote, because as much as I dislike neoliberalism and all that goes with it, it still beats the hell out of any possibility of being completely disenfranchised and having my rights as a woman descended from enslaved Africans and other people of Captive Nations revoked or seeing my children and loved ones threatened.

As of yet, I see no genuine and long lasting plans for a real revolution, or for what happens afterwards. If half of the current citizens don’t know how their system works and why it was set up as it was, do you really think you can garner a large enough base to have a people’s government that wouldn’t be prone to fascism? That other greedy and interested groups/countries would just sit and watch? Most Americans don’t know what socialism is, but they’re a’gin it, and we remain the only “First World” country with corporate healthcare that bankrupts families on a daily basis. So understanding communalism or other non-Eurocentric forms of government and types of societies isn’t even possible.

Bottom line: I do know much, and I know enough to know that people who speak and act against people who look like me should not be given power over me. My mother “didn’t raise no fools” and I am sick to death of people who “don’t have the sense that they were born with” writing about the short comings of the most viable candidates. Do some of you really think that redistricting, setting back voter’s rights, defunding and otherwise sabotaging our postal and educational systems is accidental and that they would do all of this if your vote didn’t matter? That union busting isn’t an act of war against the working class?

It’s a flawed system, but X marks the spot, baby: you are here and unless you’re independently wealthy (own corporations, resources, means of production, etc.) your ass is a worker- white collared, blue collared, or without a shirt- and you need to understand that you have more in common with the single mothers, Black, Latino, Appalachian, sex-workers, migrant workers in the fields than you do with people who make what you do in multiple years, every single second. You need to understand that you’re not going to become one of them, question the sick desire to accumulate more than is needed in ten thousand lifetimes, and grasp the reality that voting in the interests of a class to which you might aspire is voting against yourself and helps keep you where you are or worse.

So that’s it. Few people will read this and fewer will pay heed. There’s nothing I can do about that beyond having had my say and hoping that they didn’t drop you on your heads and there’s still some good sense in those big heads your necks support.

I wish us all peace, a safe place to live, enough to eat, good health, and the joy and solidarity of community and love. And I hope that you can separate ego and illusion in order to serve yourself, the actual Constitution and its Amendments (14th is important!) and do what’s in service to the generations of us all.

“Goodnight and good luck.”

Gastropoda Gold

How did I not know that people are using snail mucin on their skin?
I have SO many questions, from extraction methods to who on this garden grub green earth thought of this? Seriously, I want to know who looked at a cute little snail, plodding along, minding its business, and said, “OMG, would you look at that glowing complexion! I say there, Snail, your complexion is flawless, what’s your secret?”

I might imagine some famished ancestor noticing a bird chowing down on a snail and saying, “Move over, Bub!”and grabbing anything that didn’t kill the animal. Hunger can make otherwise unappealing comestibles seem doable. Go forward a millennia, add butter and garlic, and you’ve got a desirable protein, not merely something pragmatic.

So maybe someone noticed that cooks who prepared escargot had particularly lovely hands that looked youthful. In busy kitchens among cooks whose hands are subject to abrasions, nicks, and burns: that would be noticeable. But I’m just creating a scene born of my need to know how such an inconceivable item is now promoted as the beauty product of the year.

Having lived in a shell-less cave, I’ve been snail mucinless this entire lifetime and I am hurt to realized that not only have I been deprived, but people who I thought of as friends were withholding vital information that could have preserved my youthful glow. Instead, I’m another victim of physics- a shriveled hag, encased in a wrinkly skin bag. And why? Not because it is a side effect of the natural passage of time, but because no one cared enough to tell me that inside that shell-house that they carry on their backs, snails have wee, tiny labs where they’re turning what we previously thought of as their yukky secretions, into pure gold, extracted from desperate consumers under the spell of the multi-billion dollar marketing of an aesthetic illusion.

I can only hope that the snails have lawyered up and are being rewarded. That unlike others, they won’t become victims of their innate talents, exploited and discarded by another heartless human industry.

Perhaps slime really is ultimately the perfect product and metaphor for our age.

Update: “Stressed snails produce slime, however sometimes machines are designed to be kind of like a spa for snails, using a secret spray to pleasure them which also triggers them to secrete more slime. Then they are left in a dark room on top of mesh so that as they scoot around the slime drips through the mesh and can be collected in a tray below them.”

Thanks to Flaky Biscuits Press for the above information.
I’m glad to learn that they’re not killed for it, and if they’re being pleasured in the process, so much the better. I don’t want any stress or depression slime on my wrinkles😉 (Not sure that ejaculation slime is any less dubious, but it’s better, LOL.)

Half a Day in the Life

Thrilled to have been able to write several pages of the book this morning for the first time in a couple of months, so I was absolutely thrilled. Until said pages completely disappeared from Word, my computer, and the known universe, including copies I’d sent to my writing group.
Just spent almost two hours using every suggested recovery process, por nada.
Finally found an in-between first and last draft, so I saved, saved as, copied, uploaded, downloaded and printed it to everywhere, including sending copies to all my emails.
Immediately after that, the original that I’d emailed showed up.
And this is why writers (in movies) go postal. In real life we bitch about it, get headaches, have insomnia, IBS, and a variety of anxiety related twitches, but ultimately get back to the work at hand.

So cheers, my dear Word Wranglers! May your vocabulary be mighty, the words flow, your pages stay safe, and your critics give praise.

Cultural Linguistics vs “Love” (but not really.)

Ok, I’m breaking my recent vow to post no more than 7 things per day on that other site (not counting meme dumps) because despite the many responses to this ^ (above) random post that I noticed on someone’s page, to my horror, not one response I read questioned how “love” was being defined! I’ve often heard people with all good intentions say things like “We all just want to be loved” and it hits my buttons and raises red flags each time, because what we mean by “love” varies by temperament, gender, culture, age, and time. It’s not a simple given that we all want it or if we do, what that would look like and be for us as individuals or a corporate group.

Love isn’t merely “attraction” or “shared interests” or “class” as many seem to have been taught. It also doesn’t exist without “respect,” a word many submitted, but didn’t think to clarify.
To me, this was yet another example of how people not only misunderstand each other and skim the surface of “meaning,” but also an example of cultural socialization that doesn’t serve our relationships, or help us to understand the systems in which we reside.
Interestingly, it’s another one of those things I always tried to explore in my classes, and it was generally the first time students had ever considered not only the legal, familial, religious, and professional significances of marriage, but the aesthetic and sexual connections to how we understand “love” and “marriage.”

Wittgenstein said “Love is not an emotion. Love is put to the test.” It certainly evokes great amounts of emotion, but it is in fact, a set of relationships and interactions, both personal and communal. And its presentation and reception reflects and confronts the standards, both implicit and explicit, of the particular culture/society. And so do the terms we employ, which means that if we’re not in agreement about how we’re using these terms and we’re relying solely on our own feelings, or political/familial/religious traditions, or other individual contexts, we’re not only in different conversations, we’re weakening relational bonds.

Everyone “misspeaks” at times (notice the original post’s mistake) but if we have an extended relationship with that person we may know their intent or linguistic patterns well enough to fill in the missing or correct word. In those cases we may show grace and it may even become the source of an on-going joke between friends with shared histories.

But what about when you don’t know the speaker? What if they’re in a position of authority/power? Context matters, words matter. I’m not the Grand Poobah of Love, nor do I claim more than personal expertise on that particular subject, (although the song running through my head right now is the first line in the 1962 Exciters song, Tell Him.) I do however, have a good understanding of what words do and how they work in language, as well as the effect of words and word choices on our audience, intended and not.

And I wonder about the intentions of such queries when they go beyond personal amusement. Like it or not, we’re all engaged in a social experiment and research on the social media in our lives. The fact that in theory we can “reach” millions of people around the world in an instant places an increased responsibility to know more and accept “difference” without imposing our parochial views and opinions. It requires us to understand that if we’re going to communicate effectively and negotiate the myriad relationships we might develop through education, business, travel, hobbies, etc. we must first sit down and hash out our a priori beliefs and understandings within the contextual framework we share. It means that the words we use can be fraught with meaning and we must know that as we enter unfamiliar spaces or renegotiate older relationships.

The requirement has always been there, but we have generally ignored it in judging people within our societies, particularly those perceived to be of lower status.

And that’s maybe what “love” might have to do with it, but maybe it’s just the easiest way to establish any relationship and to build communities that serve the greatest number within that society.

Re: Toxic Positivity/Shallow Words

Not every bad experience enlightens or strengthens us. Some are just bad, plain and simple, and we reduce our humanity and disrespect ourselves when we whitewash our own lived experiences and realities. You don’t lessen anyone’s fear or pain by glossing over it, not even your own.

It’s hard to watch people you care about (or anyone!) suffer and it’s hard to live with your own discomfort. Maybe it’s natural to want to “cheer them up” or try to “fix” things. And maybe sometimes that’s appropriate and works, depending on the nature of their suffering.

But all too often it’s a gloss and a way of avoiding your own feelings of guilt, helplessness, and yes, fear of “contamination”-that their bad luck will rub off on us somehow. (Hey, I didn’t make our species, I just participate and observe.🤷🏽‍♀️)

A friend of mine said it this way: “In the face of enormity, people feel like they have to say something meaningful, but they’ve never had any deep feelings or thoughts, so it sounds trite.”

Some pains and losses are never fully healed. Yes, life goes on and there may even be joy and laughter, and a scar might cover and protect the wound, but it’s there. You don’t “get over” the loss of a child or beloved spouse. You certainly don’t simply “heal” from acts of genocide, enslavement, and other mass cruelties. It’ll be 2024, and we continue to search for relatives who were taken and disappeared. It may have an end, but not through denial or superficialities of land acknowledgment without lands or wealth returned. I still want my 40 acres and the mule.

Sometimes silence is best, especially when accompanied by an open heart willing to sit in empathetic compassion. Sometimes only right action will do.

Maybe not immediately, but before long, you can ask the hurt/bereaved what’s best for them and they’ll generally tell you once they know. Sometimes what was lost cannot be replaced, but it’s for the bereaved to say, not you to project or decide. This can be a very difficult concept for many to grasp, especially if you’ve never experienced it or have even indirectly benefited.

But humanity is a shared condition and empathy is real, if you’re willing to understand others as equal to you and deserving of exactly the level of respect and care you believe is right for you and those for whom you care.
Allow for human complexities and always err on the side of kindness. Life can be very simple and very good in that way.

A Sweetly Southern Saturday

Following a lovely breakfast with the family, I decided to take a drive to our adorable little downtown, despite the already intensifying heat. At my favorite bakery, the clerk was assisting the last of the people who’d been ahead of me. A 60ish, affluent looking couple, the man was paying their tab and turned to ask his wife if she had exact change, but she didn’t. She suggested that they leave an item and my purse already opened, I quickly asked if I could throw in the change.

While he was thanking me and laughingly saying no, with eyes rolled towards heaven, his wife dryly explained that it was his way to get her to pay. “He’s always trying to get me to pay for something!” And he laughed and added that since he was paying the bulk, she should “throw in the thirteen cents.”and we all laughed in the way of couples who had long running inside jokes and familiar ways of teasing each other. It was something that Ray and I did often and I knew that these people had loved each other a long and comfortable time.

As I left, I nodded to a woman on the bench outside and decided I’d take a walk around the area and get to know some of the side streets. Making my way towards the river, I saw that the venerable fish market I’d first visited with a friend during my first walk around town was closed for the weekend, so I continued walking in a large loop to eventually head back to my car.

Less than a mile later, pain began whispering to me and although still morning, it was fast approaching 90° and humid. Our quaint downtown has convenient small benches interspersed around the shopping area and while I didn’t sit, I did stop to rest a minute, leaning on my cane and straightening and stretching my back. It’s been a while since I’ve walked for any length of time, and my body was reminding me that elliptical machines and home workouts were not the same as walking these mean streets.

Looking towards the curb, I noticed a woman on the other side of the street who’d started, but then decided not to try to make the soon to be changing light, but to wait the extra time for the next one.

Walking towards the curb, I knew that it would take several minutes before the light changed in my favor, so I stepped back into the shade to wait the three or more minutes it would take with the heavy weekend traffic. As the light changed, the woman stepped into the street and I hastened toward the crossing. As we passed each other in the street, the woman looked me in the eye and said in the dramatic tones of a movie athletic coach, “You’ve got time-you can do it!!!” and we both laughed loudly as we quickly scooted in opposite directions.

And that’s the sweetness of being back in the South and in a still small city. I live in a town where people speak and sometimes pass the time of day with strangers. Where cars stop to let pedestrians cross, or a car pulling in or out of a parking spot. Where neighbors will water your plants if they haven’t seen you outside. It’s far from ideal, with racist leaflets appearing in some neighborhoods, farms and wetlands being lost to overdevelopment, and a lack of appreciation for local culture. The schools aren’t good, wages are low, costs rising, and hospitals are understaffed.

The problems are real. But this is also a town worth saving, with its quirky Christmas traditions, its breathtakingly beautiful trees and skies, and the lovely people who randomly speak and lift a stranger’s spirits. It’s a place where, not two hours after telling my disco-ball-glittery-sneaker-wearing granddaughter that she would have loved Disco, that I can see these beauties in a local shop window:

Quirky, quaint, backwards and progressive- yup, that’s my town. And yes, I think this just might turn in to being a home.

Send Help Now!

Ok, I know y’all might be tired of my ish, (I know I certainly am in a way) but some of my besties need to come fetch me, right now!

I came home yesterday, exhausted and hurting. I’ve not been sleeping well and the radio frequency ablation I had for my back has worn off. I was returning from a two hour drive to and from my dentist, and not happy with the prognosis. Hurting, grumpy, and resenting entropy and the capitalist system that profits from it, I wanted very much to walk into my house, freshen up, and get in bed.

But as I approached the door, to my surprise, there was very large box blocking the entry. I wasn’t expecting anything, so I thought it might have been delivered to the wrong house and my annoyance grew at the prospect of either finding the owner or arranging a return. Either way, I was going to have to haul it into the house, so I put my purse inside, metaphysically girded my loins and went back to take a look. It was indeed addressed to me, so I proceeded to tote it in. With Mothers Day approaching, I wondered if it could be a surprise present from family or friends.

Upon inspection I saw it was from Goodwill in Washington State, so now I was confused and curious, thinking that one of my gardening buds must have seen something I’d like or needed. I know no one in Washington, so my mind filled in the blanks.

I’m befuddled, but as it’s more awkward than heavy, I bring it in to an area where I can cut it open, sat down with my trusty razor to find what appeared to be a suitcase- an old, weird suitcase.

I was intrigued, but also nervous, quickly running through possible murderous enemies from my past who might have access to products used in chemical warfare and a hatred long term and deep enough to have found my address, and packaged it. Happily, I could think of no enemies, and certainly none with backgrounds in chemistry, espionage, or murder. At this point I will admit to having read too many mysteries and watched too many procedurals in my lifetime, as well as possessing a ridiculous imagination that often causes me to laugh at its determinedly intricate plots. I do crack myself up most days.

Reassured, my curiosity got the better of me and with a bit of difficulty, I opened the case to find: an autoharp!!!!!!!!

At first totally bemused and bewildered-wondering who would have sent this strange instrument- I then remembered that middle of the night some weeks ago when I found myself pricing autoharps online. I’d been thinking about things I enjoyed before my marriage that I might want to try again, and yes, it seemed like a great idea to buy an instrument I haven’t played in more than a generation and with which I was never especially proficient, so that when my friends and I all gather in Charlottesville or one of their farms, we can porch-sit and sing, and I’ll have a portable instrument! 😳

I want to disavow any knowledge of the aspect of self that visualized that scene, but I can’t. I recognize the desire to be with my dearest friends and recreate a version of our Christmas sing alongs, the always hilarious versions of Broadway shows that helped us blow off steam during graduate school, or the many songs we’d spontaneously sing, often to highlight parts of a conversation. The autoharp was under $100, so if it’s in good shape, that’s a bargain, but do I actually see myself playing it regularly? Who knows.

I don’t know who I’m becoming as a recent widow in a new state. Almost every part of my body hurts, I’ve come to pretty much hate the species of which I am part as the world is increasingly frightening and made unlivable via human greed and stupidity. Yet, apparently some part of me thinks an autoharp will help, and you know what? That’s fine. I don’t smoke, rarely drink, and have no friends anywhere nearby. My husband is dead and my body aches: if an autoharp affords any comfort or allows me to concentrate on music, this is a good thing. This was my first middle of the night purchase, and I intend for it to be the last, but now I do have a portable instrument, so there’s that. Move over, Dolly Parton!

But gentle readers, aside from a couple of folk era tunes I might remember, autoharp doesn’t really lend itself to the songs we generally sing, although it could be a creative addition to South Pacific. I can honestly connect to my mother’s “country girl” roots and her familiarity with the autoharp and Southern Appalachian music through the workers and their kids who came down to Fayetteville for work when she was young. She respected Pete Seeger and other folkies who’d supported her idol, Paul Robeson, and had none of the disdain for white folk music that was prevalent in our communities. She knew the history and connections between spirituals, blues, indigenous African and American music, folk, and rock. “All music is made by folks, all music is folk music” she would say. We watched Tennessee Earnie Ford and Patsy Cline as well as Nat King Cole on our console tv. My sentimental father sang plaintive Hank Williams songs as well as playing Fats Waller’s stride piano tunes. Steeped in the jazz of Sidney Bechet, Ella and Louie, we also listened to ancient 75s and 33s of Caruso and Martinelli, and Mahalia, and we all knew the words to every song in My Fair Lady. Music was music, and if we, or they liked it, my parents had it in the house.

So while there’s room in my psyche and life for an autoharp (I really wonder why I didn’t get the cello!?!) most importantly, and my reason for concern about that late night vision and the source of my plea for help is simple, silly, but to my randomly ridiculous mind, quite crucial:

I DON’T HAVE A PORCH!!!

Seriously: come get yo’ sista, now!