Clarity

 To all those silent since October 7, 2023:

If you think I will ever forget, you are wrong.

I may walk past you on the street 10 years from now and the first thing I will think is "You were SILENT."

I may walk past the doors of a place/community that at one point I loved and was central to my core and my life, 10 years from now, and think "You were SILENT and/or worse."

You may approach me in a crowd 10 years from now and wonder, "What's her problem?"

But you need never, ever wonder, 10 years from now, if you are SILENT now, and/or worse, and have been since October 7, 2023.

Because if you approach me 10 years from now--or now--and I am silent or worse, it's because you were silent or worse after October 7th.

And I'm clear on who you are and where we stand.

The Sound of Silence

As a child, this song soaked so deeply into my DNA, through my little am/fm radio.  It’s part of the soundtrack my generation was infused with, saturating my cells, and fusing with my soul.

It came to me this February morning in 2025, this day when I’m all too grown up.  The sound of silence.  And all these layers of the lyrics, terrible layers, layers I never completely and clearly understood, experienced, felt and knew like I do now, hit me.  And all I can do is cry.  Because since October 7th, and the world’s reaction to it, I understand the terribleness of the sound of silence, the sounds of silence, the sound of chanting, the sound of invisibility.  “People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never share, no one dared, disturb the sound of silence.”

And I know I’ll never be the same.  I’m not the child who first heard this beautiful, haunting, poetic song.  I felt and understood how deep it is but I didn’t know.  All the layers, all the truths, some of which are terrible, you have to know for those chords to be fully audible.  And now I do know and I mean really know, which you can’t get from history, even very well communicated and expressed history, you can only *know* when it happens in your time.

And even before October 7th, I was starting to really know.  Then October 7th came, and everything I had started to learn before it crystalized, and became exquisitely clear.  So crystal clear.  And people, communities, and places I thought were mine and were safe and were home and knew me, are not, were not, and did not, and probably never were and never did.  And the chanting got louder and deafening, but so too did the silence.  And then the silence grew and grew, even after the loudest chanting, at least temporarily, had subsided.  The silence just keeps growing, and getting more and more deafening.  It reached a crescendo in the last couple of weeks.  And this morning, this beloved song from my childhood came to my mind from my soul and heart.  The lyrics, the music, all so intimately familiar, hit me like a crushing tidal wave in terrible new ways and intensity, and held me under.  There is no air in this totally enveloping, powerful wave.  I cry yet make no sound, into the terrible, terrible silence.

Click here to listen to the song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel

Chimney Rock

This is my country. These are rocks I climbed on in wonder and awe as a child, in Catoctin Mountain Park, in my home state of Maryland. This is Chimney Rock. This is part of my physical country that is in my DNA and my heart and my imagination and soul. This is the physical country I love.

This country also has more to it than a breathtaking, awesome physical landscape. We also have an awesome constitution. The word constitution literally means what we are constituted of--what we are made of, what comprises us. Our land is constituted of great beauty. Our society is constituted of laws, and a separation of powers, and a free press, which are designed to make us a healthy, functional, strong, free country that is a democracy framed in a constitutional republic.

Just as we have to protect the precious and priceless nature in our country from those who would violate, pillage and plunder it, so too must we protect our constitution, our constitutional republic, our democracy, our FREE COUNTRY from those who, as we speak, are violating it.

I don't know why, this time around, there is no Women's March in the streets. The first time, we were out there, filling the streets from sea to shining sea, a beautiful, diverse quilt of Americans blanketing our country and standing up for it. I don't know why this time we all instead seem to be going about our days in stunned, horrified and helpless silence. We may be talking among ourselves, but why are we not CALLING Congress (202-224-3121)? Why are we not out in the streets, shouting and holding up signs? And why are our elected representatives not resisting all the fast and furious moves by 47 and his cabal taking us to fascism? Why are we just allowing these robber barons, these treasonous traitors, these fascists, these oligarchs, to roll over us?

RESIST. Resist, with all your might. Because even though my beloved Chimney Rock will still be there, whether we are a constitutional republic or a fascist oligarchy, it is vital to ensure that future generations of American children will be FREE to go there, carefree, and climb the rocks, and gaze out over the beautiful Catoctin Mountain vista, and only feel the beauty, wonder and awe. Children, and none of us, should have to feel the fear, danger and dread of living under fascism. They should breathe deep and free, in a free country. And it is up to us. Right now.

It's up to us now.

Well, friends, it's here.  Inauguration Day.  I could be dramatic and, tragically, possibly accurate and say:  "The end of America", but I won't because you know what?  Whether it is or is not is going to be up to us.  It always has been, just like the message in one of my favorite movies of all time, "The Wizard of Oz", in which Dorothy learns that is isn't up to Glenda the Good Witch of the North to save her, it is she herself who has always had the power to go home.  Bernie Sanders (who I am currently upset with but who I spent most of my life holding up as one of my few, true heroes in this world, and who I must admit I still love, despite my current upsetness with him on one thing--the man is usually spot on, and he sure was when he said the following) once, or more than once, said:  "democracy is you, and you, and you."

Surprisingly to me, I find myself fighting back tears suddenly, upon writing that last sentence.  Guys (and gals--I wish one could just say "guys" anymore without being deemed to be sexist, but if even Jeff Probst won't do it, I guess I can't either... but moving on...), we're in trouble.  Our country is in peril.  Yet what I'm realizing is that, actually, it always has been--democracy and the rule of law always are.

One thing I can say for the 45 administration and everything that has unfolded during and since:  it has been a front row seat in class, as well as an in living color experience, to learn all about the fact that our constitution, our rule of law, our separation of powers, and our democracy are at once very strong yet very fragile.  All of those things are only as strong and in force as WE, the people, those of us who happen to be here alive at the time, collectively decide they are.  It's up to us to interpret and enforce all of those.  And it is up to the 4th estate, the free press, to be courageous and integrity-laden and report on what's going on, even if it places them in the crosshairs of a vengeful, sociopathic fascist.  If we have a strong, courageous free press, and if we, the people, decide to RESIST tyranny and to uphold our constitution, we just might make it through the next four years (and then we can set about the task of really healing what is broken, such as--and thank you, President Biden, for mentioning this in your awesome farewell speech--passing a constitutional amendment to reverse the Supreme Court's America-ending ruling that a POTUS is above the law.  But right now, we just have to make it through the next four years, which is a HUGE "just".  We have to RESIST.  We have to stand up and speak up for each other, for our neighbors who may be among the scapegoats, and some of us must be aware that WE may be among the scapegoats, so honestly be ready to decide what you are going to do if faced with that reality.  When others are threatened I hope I will be like Miep Gies who, during WWII and the Holocaust, hid the Frank family and others in her hidden annex.  I have actually visited there.  I have ascended the very narrow, quintessentially Dutch stairs.  I saw the faded pictures of movie stars Anne had stuck on the wall.  And even though the Nazis found Anne, her family, and the others hidden in the annex in the end, Miep did everything she possibly could to save them, at great personal peril.  If I can be like her through the next four years, I will know I am living up to my own ideals.

Things are about to get really scary and really ugly.  All we can do is stay true to our ideals.  Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."  Be respectful, reverent, loving and kind, this is what I pray to be and do every day.  45/7 has already signaled in his horrific speech last night on the eve of his inauguration that he plans to be as divisive, xenophobia-inciting, hate-mongering and terrible as ever, so we have to counteract that!  LOVE is more powerful than hate.  Say it, show it, live it.  Stand up for our constitution and rule of law and, perhaps most of all, stand up for each other.  Don't fall for the divisiveness.  I gotta quote Bernie Sanders again, but I'll just paraphrase instead of digging up an exact quote, as he says this again and again and again, and I know it by heart--literally, it's in my heart, and we all need to put it there and let it fuel our actions for the next four years and beyond:  no matter if you are black, white, or whatever skin color, and no matter whatever ethnic background you hail from and call your own, no matter if you are female, male, non-binary, straight, gay, bi, old, young, middle-aged, rich, poor, middle-class, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, athiest, Hindu or whatever religion or no religion:  when we stick together, when we stand together, there is nothing we can't accomplish.

We can stand up to this incoming sociopathic, vengeful, hateful, treasonous traitor of a fascist who also happens to be a Russian asset.  We can stand up to the oligarchy that he and his puppet master, Putin, are clearly--out in the open!--trying to usher in by making the richest person on earth (Musk) his shadow President (so much for "draining the swamp" and getting rid of the "elites"--I would say that the richest person on earth is as "elite" as they come).  It will be the farthest thing from easy.  But if we are courageous, if we resist, if we speak out, and if we stick and stand TOGETHER, I believe we have a chance of surviving the next four years and saving our country.  It's our turn now.  There's no Glenda the Good Witch of the North to save us.  But we have the power.

"Democracy is you, and you, and you."

Time Change

 They tell me the time change is tonight, but I fear it is actually on Tuesday, when we may be falling back to 1933.

What took everyone so long to say the F word about 45?

I have been shouting from the cyber-rooftop (a.k.a. Facebook, mostly) since 2016 (possibly 2015) that Trump is a fascist.  Actually, initially, I shouted that he was a "wannabe fascist".  He graduated to actual fascist with his family separation policy, in which he KIDNAPPED babies and children from who they belong with, put them in cages in concentration camps with nothing but a "Mylar blanket", neglected them and traumatized them for life, and orphaned many of them as he didn't record who they belong with.

I've been shouting DANGER, DANGER, FASCIST, FASCIST for 9 or 10 years.  It's amazing to me that suddenly now, just days before this treasonous traitor of a sociopathic fascist could actually assume power again and will, if that happens, take our country into fascism, people who were very high up in his administration are speaking out and the news media is actually covering it.  While I'm saying hallelujah to that, I'm also saying WHAT THE BLEEP TOOK YOU SO LONG?!  So long to say it, in some cases, and also so long for the news media to pick up on it and actually USE THE WORD and talk about it.  The F word.  FASCIST.  FASCISM.

We have ONE chance to stop 45 the fascist from becoming 47 the fascist and, this time, with the guard rails of our amazingly strong constitutional republic so weakened by his first term and all that his COMPLICIT party has done since, from taking America into fascism.

For anyone thinking of not voting for any reason, I must quote Cher's character in the movie "Moonstruck":  SNAP OUT OF IT!

VOTE!

SNAP OUT OF IT and VOTE!

Short and Sweet

The only walls and bans that all of 45's xenophobic othering attempts to appeal to his equally xenophobic base are going to get him this time around are a big, beautiful wall of voters who are going to ban him from ever entering the White House again!