I decided to paint today and spend tomorrow running errands. It’s a hot but quiet Sunday morning. It looks like it may rain this week and cool things off. When you’re relieved that the high is supposed to be 93 you know you’re in the middle of a heat wave. It’s been brutal. Yesterday I actually went for a jog for the first time in weeks and it was 102. I figured it was ok since I’d been drinking so much water. Just swigging that stuff down these days.
I started working on Bazan Branch Library. It’s always nice to start a new painting. My easel is in my living room so I sit in front of my work the rest of the day and look at what I’ve done and what I want to do next. It’s hard too though because I want to fix things I don’t like and it kills me to sit here looking at it. I already want to make changes to Bazan.
This library is on the west side of San Antonio, on W. Commerce. It’s really nice inside. I’m always touched and impressed by how well librarians take care of the spaces they oversee and operate. It’s nice to walk into a space that’s been arranged with furniture and books so that you feel welcome. Displays with themes so you can get inspired and read all about it.
Last night I had fitful dreams about everything that’s been going on politically. It’s really hard for me to imagine that people are happy about Roe being overturned, but they are. I am trying to put myself in their shoes and see things from their point of view. If polls are correct, most Americans believe that abortion should be legal, so it’s also hard to deal with the fact that majority doesn’t rule in this case (or with guns or healthcare for that matter). Yesterday I saw a video of a painter I follow on Instagram painting a fetus and I immediately unfollowed him. I didn’t even look to see what his name was (except that he was male, ie, sans uterus). All this magical thinking about the unborn is a little nauseating.
I follow Dan Rather on Facebook and the other day he said sometimes it feels like we’re experiencing major setbacks just before a transformation. Not the words he used, but same gist: the darkest hour is before dawn. Then I started listening to The Times They Are A Changin’ by Fort Nowhere. There’s got to be a way to live in this world - society, civil war - and feel inspired and alive. There’s got to be. When so many of us believe in acceptance, tolerance, understanding, freedom, peace, forgiveness, and love. When so many of us want what’s best for ourselves and our loved ones. Can’t we find a tool for living together that’s not righteous indignation? Can’t we do something other that be violent victims?
Last night my dreams were about the lost hours of January 6 when there’s no call log or record of what Donald Trump was doing or who he was talking to. I can’t remember now if they ever tracked down those call logs or not, but that’s what I was stressed about in my dreams. Something’s missing. Something’s just not sitting right. I don’t want to live in despair. I don’t want to feel paranoid.
After I sat my first mediation course I was telling my therapist about a woman I’d met. This woman did not enjoy her experience at the course and was convinced - convinced - the AT’s (assistant teachers) were untrustworthy and possibly worshipping something unsavory in the pagoda. I couldn’t see her point of view and my therapist mentioned something that sticks with me to this day. She told me that when she has a client who is particularly paranoid she makes a mental note that they’re displaying a mild form of schizophrenia. Just as a person can experience days of despair and depression and not be depressed, ie not have a diagnosis, so too can people be paranoid and not be schizophrenic. But, it can be helpful to make a mental note of what you’re observing in case things take a turn for the worse in the future.
I remind myself of that when I think about the motivations of others. It seems like conservatives are on a war path to undermine all the social justice achievements we’ve made in this county over the past sixty years (except of course interracial marriage since Clarence Thomas’s wife is white). And they may be fired up to do so. But their negativity is no match for love. Love wins, remember?
That’s where I want to live. I want to look at the world from a positive perspective. I want to live in service of something benevolent and good. I believe in that and I’m hopeful of where we’re headed.