Looking on the bright side may not be my natural forté, but too bad, because when push comes to existential shove…despair can be fatal. So, for anyone planning to stick around, the direction is forward. Though as the lesbian wine maven at my local market just told me this morning, not straight forward.
It is difficult not to feel the full impact of political decisions on one’s very being. Vicki, the wine maven, and I were speaking across the correct social distance because we were determined not to run afoul of coronavirus…an epidemic that much of the world has at least somewhat confined. And which rages more or less out of control in this country where leadership has collapsed, temporarily one hopes.
And in California there is a reason why I am seeing the other side of my San Francisco street through a glass darkly…and that has to do with the seasonal, smoky Armageddon that results from a changing climate. I would say “collapsing climate” or something like “death-spin climate,” but that would represent hubris. Climates don’t collapse or spin toward death, but people do. The climate, it seems, is remarkably impartial. It may be laughing a sort of hard laughter, however…more an elemental response, the collective guffaw that could only come from all assembled members of the periodic table. Sodium and cesium being particularly raucous.
Where was I? Optimism. It must be mustered, however musty.
Let me count the ways. First, there are tomatoes. Growing them in San Francisco amidst fog and wind can only be counted an agricultural triumph. I am that triumphant urban farmer. Then there are the chilis, Serrano and jalapeno. The plants are going outside, having been liberated from their greenhouse homes, and are kicking out peppers like there is no tomorrow. And for all I know, there isn’t. The Serrano chilis, by the way, can induce a rather startling shock to the system. In fact, it is certain that they either bring a person in or out of cardiac arrest. Very hard to say which.
And then there’s the lettuce, redoubtable crop, currently on hold in the greenhouse due to the lack of long-range agricultural planning. The fault is mine. You have to keep lettuce seed sprouting somewhere at all times, it seems. Did I mention spinach? Same sort of thing, although the problem of spinach is that it takes an enormous crop to supply two servings. Terribly healthy, course, but a sometime thing.
Which about wraps it up, in the optimism department. Unless you hold out hope for the Democratic Party, which, I confess, I do. What else is there?
Except for Netflix and its spiritual cousins. Because I don’t watch television and have only acquired the regular habit in these last few pandemic months, an occasional viewing has a remarkable impact. As everyone knows but me, TV has become a big-budget affair, casts and scripts and productions taking certain series into a realm once occupied by movies. Again, I didn’t really know this until I started watching this summer. Breaking Bad having addicted me completely. The story follows a man who is in mortal combat, heads in a desperate and entirely understandable direction…and confronts his liberated shadow. It is violent. And this was one of the many attributes that has long kept me away from it. However, the violence is not gratuitous. And frequently the emotional violence is just as affecting.
The challenge is finding something that Jane and I can enjoy together. We have both the need for escapism…and a certain difficulty in finding it. It sounds easy enough to find something distractingly lighthearted, especially for a person who was not an avid television viewer. But in reality it’s tough. Still, we are working on this. And to forgive the obvious pun, stay tuned.