It's Definitely November

 It’s definitely November – the only leaves still clinging to the trees are the beech leaves, orange and brown. Even the larches have dropped their golden needles, and the garden’s few remaining green things are Egyptian onions, basically. I didn’t entirely get the whole thing weeded out before the ground started getting frost in it, but the garlic’s planted, the parsnips are (so far) safe from chipmunks and mice, and whatever’s left is either a perennial, or will turn to mucky compost that disappears under the snow over the winter.

The tall edge markers are up now so the inevitable snowplow won’t plow into my garden beds and blueberries; the wart furniture is tucked away, and the woodstove is in frequent use again. Owls are hooting to each other at night; birds are clamoring for sunflower seed and suet cake hand-outs. Biscuit refuses to go out, except during our excellent Indian Summer days – gone now – and Rasta spends most nights in the cellar, mousing. He’s very successful, usually catches one, carries them upstairs, drops them, loses them, then spends the rest of the night chasing them and trying to catch them again. I’ve found carcasses on the dining room floor, another in the hall closet, at least one mouldered away under the living room couch, and who knows how many are dehydrating under various radiators; I live in fear of stepping on a fresh one as I come downstairs each morning.

Biscuit waiting for treats

The Christmas cacti bloomed on Hallowe’en, as they are wont to do at my house. My blood pressure improved tremendously after the election.  And yet it’s been another very long month – my eyes are much better, but only ready for short drives, so a dear friend and the Husband have been ferrying me to work and back, and the most recent horror-show the pharmaceutical that poisoned me back in September has caused is pancreatitis – which turns out to be painful, nauseating, exhausting, and diet-restricting until the inflammation abates and I can again eat more than simple, easily-digested foods. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that this is the last of the surprises that pharmaceutical has hidden in store for me!

The highpoint of the last two months was, surprisingly, the MRI – I LOVED it. Seriously.  I went to the appointment with great trepidation, having heard how horrible the test is from everyone I know who has had one; but the moment the lab techs, who were very entertaining, started to strap me in, my brain said, “This is like going back to the Mother Ship,” and I relaxed and happily found I was perfectly comfortable, and the whole experience was  weirdly comforting. I had to ask them to turn the music off because it was interfering with my ability to listen to the songs the machine was singing to me. I loved the machines’ songs, and its vibrations, and its subtle shifting, and was very sad when the scans were finished. In fact, I spent the next few nights when I went to bed trying to arrange the pillow and covers in a way that felt like I was still in the machine, and trying to replay in my head the music it sang to me.

And now we’re all dealing with Covid holidays – and I hope we’re all going to be sensible and not do something foolish and dangerous just because the calendar says it’s time for a celebration. It may make you sad, but it won’t kill us to stay home and not have the big family and friends celebrations this year, but it might kill us if we foolishly do have them. And if it does kill us, it will do so miserably and painfully, so please, please reconsider whatever you’re planning and go for simple and not shared.

While we’re all struggling with those decisions and the reality of what this virus means, the Antichrist is actively trying to kill off as many of us as possible, destroy democracy, and ruin the environment as completely as possible in, among other horrors, the time remaining to him before they drag him out of the White House. And the once-loyal but now gutless and twisted opposition is cheering him on. The only bright spot in all this is that mostly he’s spreading contagion amongst his own kind and his most foolish followers, and one has to wonder if that’s not an ironic ending to his four years of destruction and madness. May he rot in jail in his coming life.

Maybe that wish makes me a horrid person, but --- ugh. I don’t have it in me to wish him well, nor any of the toadies who did his bidding or inspired his evilness or didn’t speak out and do something about it when they could have. I can wish that they somehow come to redemption, but that’s as far as I can go. In the meantime, if you see me doing small dances of joy, you can guess that I’m reveling that someone has been served up an overflowing dish of what they’ve been so avidly sowing.

We have a hard job ahead of us. It’s going to take a long time to reverse or change the horrors that have been perpetrated on us and among us, and we need to stay on top of it and insist that those in power do so. And we need to somehow find a way to forgive the people we love who chose to be blind to what was happening, or who reveled in and supported the excitement of the damage and terror and inhumanity that’s been done. We need to push and push and push until care and respect for all human beings, care and healing of our environment, and basic human needs are met, and kindness and consideration become norms. It’s not going to be easy. We’re all now warriors, confronting the forces of evil that the Antichrist let loose.

Gird your loins – this is one we can’t afford to lose.

Rasta Helping Me Write

 

 For the blog, 22 November 20

Crow photo Clare McCarthy; other photos Deb Marshall