Notes on the Cusp

Dahlias or Berets

Grandfather mountain, Elk. 72”x 96”. 2023

I guess it was subliminal. Made this painting a little over a year ago. Really had no idea that this image would ring so prophetic.

Kauai Jungle Fowl 60”x60” 2023draper

At seventy, soon to be seventy one, I identify with both of these creatures. Instead of tumbling off a cliff or being forced to fly with too-tired wings I see myself flopping into a world of uncertain choices. Fantasy me seeks a future of panama hats, raised beds, dahlias and hollyhocks. Realist me sees a life of flak jackets and berets, squirming through the stinking vile muck of hastily dug trenches. Viva la resistance. We cry in the universal language of freedom.

One thing I’ve learned in these three-score-tens is that when someone threatens you best believe it. Why would someone pitch out idle threats if they had no reason to fulfill? I grew up in post-war America. Those lessons learned on the beaches of France and in tropical jungles were fresh on everyone’s mind. Our country fought against small-minded demagogues and narcissistic megalomaniacs. The outcome was brutal. Young bodies littered the killing fields. Their blood left to feed grass and trees on foreign soil.

It’ll never happen here. This is America. We thought we would never see friends and family locked up in political prisons, sent to camps, expelled or slaughtered. If it is said, it must be so. It has been said.

Fascists aren’t necessarily smart but they are most certainly mean. Their vision falls myopic. Short arms rake in the lauds and coins of the immediate. They come and go. They shout. They wave. They sway to a playlist distilled from the juice of the hearts of their prey. It makes no sense.

Making sense is the last thing a dictator-to-be wants to do. If he spouts the impossible and the public applauds then they become complicit in his schemes and dreams. When the tyranny begins and the public says, No, I didn’t agree to that. He says, but you did. You clapped and cheered and gave me the permission. Don’t you worry. It’s for the best

Shadow with Butterwort and staff

I’ve always been liberal. Never voted for a Republican running for national office. Maybe I’ve read too much. Listened to too many folk songs. Gone to too many art shows. Had too many coffee shop conversations or too many late-night draughts in dimly-lit bars. I can’t imagine being anything other than what I am. Now I face a future of cowering in dark corners. Cupping my old ears to hear a quiet strategy of the next moves. Living in the shadows. Passing poor pamphlets back and forth til their tattered edges blacken with despair.

Sand shadow with Liatris

I’ve got tons of conservative friends. Or at least I did. I never gave it a moment’s thought. Friends I like and love. Never questioned why but assumed that their opinions were developed with as much attention as mine. I still feel that way. It takes two wings for fly. Balance achieved through polite banter offers opportunity to find compromise. From that we move forward. I’ve had many a late-night debate with conservative friends. No one won. No one lost. And we parted as friends.

Shadow at Joshua Tree

Shadow with ferns

We are on the cusp. I wait cash in hand. Will I buy a trowel and order those dahlia bulbs? Will I build my raised beds? Will I get that new Panama I’ve longed for? Or will I stitch a beret? Or dig the bins at the thrift store for the flak jacket?

Live and let live. That slogan once embroidered on the underside of our eyelids. In the folds of our belly. On the soles of our feet. It’s a free county. What was once a slogan is soon an eulogy. It’s a free country. At least it once was.

Shadow with Mayflower

Shadow with Rosegentian

I’ll see you in the shadows. Regardless of the outcome.