The spate of recent personal posts does not indicate that I am ignoring the larger world of politics. No, I'm just so depressed by that larger world--by the inability of leaders to usher in real change, by the greed and ineptitude of people at the highest levels of management in business, by media that seem to refuse to take their responsibilities truly seriously by focusing on the trivial, by an opposition party that seems to be increasingly hypocritical and hysterical and fails to offer any viable alternatives to what it criticizes, and so on--that I've been turning inward. Yes, I continue to watch the evening news, to read blogs and news sources online. But I just don't much feel like writing about these issues. Or at least not today.
The day began with rain and continues to be overcast. Arugula and leaf lettuce that I sowed a little over a week ago are sprouting in our Victory Garden. House finches have been feasting at the feeder I hung in the black locust tree a couple of weeks ago. The morning is hushed and leaden with humidity. Just a few minutes ago I took this picture of my herb garden at the front of the house. As the weather warms, the trellis will soon be covered with muscadine vines, and bee balm will be blooming on the other side. I hope that last-year's petunias by the front steps have re-seeded and that some will sprout. Those flowers bloomed profusely all through last summer's drought, with little or no watering.
Inside my house, I have surrounded us with items that remind me of friends. Today I'll post just a few photos: a ceramic pot given to me by my best friend and a hand-crafted horse this friend, Chris Parmentier, gave my son when he was a little boy;
a painting by my cousin Karen, with a sculpture in front that I made which I call "Unknown Bird," after a poem by W. S. Merwin;
close-up shot of an origami deer folded by one of my two children; a stack of poetry books on a study shelf; an old toy of my husband's in front of a set of books by Charles Dickens. When life gets crazy out there, one turns inward, to beloved objects that remind one of happier times. One turns to the hallways of memories, the corners of the heart. These photos suggest some of those corners in my own heart.
My post begins with a picture of my large, cluttered desk. The desk had once been the desk of my husband's grandfather who was a doctor in Houston, Texas. It's big enough to hold a small bookshelf. Notice the cut-out pictures of my own grandmother, Margaret Cole Dugat, a woman who had a profound influence on me. She began her adult life as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Texas. She was my seventh-grade English teacher. What I am is so much entertwined with who my grandmother was. Perhaps I will post later explaining some of that connection. I will end with this: my daughter also wants to be an English teacher, a high-school English teacher. How did she come to this decision, I wonder. How startling at times are the tentacles that bind each generation to another, the inexplicable connections that remain hidden until someone makes a decision that reflects influences one might not otherwise have realized.
2 comments:
"The problem is not so much that we have a hard time trusting the sources of truth, but that we are unwilling to give up those things we wish were true." Wolf Hardin
I realized when I first read this that my own wishing was a major source of my depression, Anita. It was as if I thought that if I repeated, "I wish it were, I wish it were" over and over, then somehow it'd (whatever I thought) suddenly BE true.
I appreciate your post; it is comforting to surround ourselves with reminders of love, even if we don't have the originators of that love with us.
Perhaps "disheartened" would have been a better word than "depressed" to describe my current feelings about politics and the world outside these walls.
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