The Thing about Squirrels

          I added a new birdfeeder to the “back four”  today. It is a hanging tray, or a plastic screen framed with cedar and suspended from three slender black chains. It has a plastic dish to use as a bird bath, but I know the squirrels (Marauding  Munchers, etc. hereafter). The bastards will eat molded plastic. Like dessert. Anyhoo… taking the new feeder out of the plastic wrap was a magic moment. The smell of cedar is so nice - like bedding for guinea pigs or hamsters! It took a bit of ingenuity to hang the feeder from a fork-bottomed pipe that used to be topped by  a bird house. I bent a heavy wire plant stake, the one we used to try to support sunflowers with (obsolete because the Nut Mob always ate the flower head off right before the seeds were ripe). The result is a slightly bouncy tray hanging far enough from the fence and the tree branches to thwart  the Twitch Tails.

          I sat quietly to observe from my couch on our screened porch, but  I began to feel the coolness of the air and went inside to brew a pot of coffee. When I looked up, I had missed the first bird to visit the new feeder. I had hoped a chickadee or cardinal would inaugurate the tray, but a sparrow got there first. Damn. On my third sip of coffee, the first of the Snack Snaggers was standing by the pole on his fat hind end, his little paws hanging adorably from his furry elbows. His darling little nose was sniffing the air as he examined the pole, the feeder, the wire, the tree. I was not fooled. Soon two of his Socialist comrades (Share the wealth!) were standing tall by his side. They seemed to be outsmarted. Before they could confur, Officer Catface walked through the area on patrol. Everybody else disappeared. I used the break to run upstairs and put on warmer clothes.

          When I returned,  (three minutes later? No more than five!) Team Gray Pelt was munching away on some bird feed. Nuts aplenty, I tell you. Quite smug, they are, and I am still watching to see what nefarious acrobatics their evil geniuses have devised.  I think they might be holding each other up – three squirrels tall. They are thieves with fleas and nasty nibbling teeth. If chased up a tree, one will turn around and hang down the trunk from his back feet. He will proceed to chatter hellish threats and brutal evaluations of human beings right in your face. Stinking  squirrels. That is the thing about squirrels. They are evil vermin disguised as warm and fuzzy tree friends. Be wise; be wary. They outnumber us, and they are fast. Hide the nuts.   

“Oh, It’s Fall."

It is an upside down day.

In the front of the house, it’s cold. In back it’s warm.

My brain is sputtering, but my body feels fine.

Somewhere, the ragweed must be blooming like a fiend.

This is the change of seasons. Bittersweet. Beautiful but itchy. Hot and cold at the same time.  I feel  like I should be able to enjoy it, but I am too confused. Should I sit outside in the sun, or put on my winter jammies and curl up in bed? I will probably end up sitting in the sun in my winter jammies.

It is just that kind of day.

But it might be genetic changes in my body. I did a little googling and scientists have found that certain genes that fight infections activate for winter. They aren’t clear on why this happens – temperature or weather or light? They just know that our inflammation response kicks into overdrive and certain immune response diseases increase because we tip over to fight flu and malaria and such.

Very cool. But if my genes are changing, I am too. That’s why I’m all haywire with hayfever and “hey, what the hell should I wear today?!”

That’s my theory.   

However, we also have a major eclipse of a super moon. The gravity is changing and doom-sayers are jumpy. Maybe that is why the dog walks backward while peeing, and Philadelphia is kicking ass in the first half.

It is a very weird kind of day.

If you see me in a winter parka and flip-flops, walking backwards and crying, “Oh God! The Eagles are winning! The world is coming to an end,”  don’t worry. I’ll be better in a few weeks. Probably.

"Now What?"

           Trying to find a new career at the age of 56 after being a teacher for 25 years is like entering a world without gravity, signposts, or self-esteem. There are no jobs that do not require experience. Having people skills out the wazoo really counts for nothing. The rules of engagement in a war to measure up are floating in a cloud that sometimes descends as hail. I balance a line between hopefulness and despair - on good days.
           I still do not regret leaving education. I was good at it; it was rewarding. I told myself I was tired of grading, and that was partly true. The rest of the truth is that I want something new. This is my mid-life crisis.
           Friends and family are so reassuring. I believe them! I will be hired for something. I haven't applied for dish washing jobs yet. In my search for that elusive job at a desk, shuffling paper and speaking nicely to everyone, I have mapped out a plan. First, I am taking on-line courses in Excel. Second, I am ready to accept part-time jobs through a temp agency. Lo, the mighty-sure-of-herself has fallen.
         Another source of reassurance has more of an edge. People are volunteering to pray for me. The idea that I need divine intervention is not very complimentary. I believe it is filled with good intention, but it wakens the superstitious, no, the spiritually aware corner of my mind. Prayers, reiki, contact with a Higher Power of my understanding - all are coming into play. Astrology has forced itself into the forefront in spite of the fact that I respect it least. It is so much more direct, but it has become very repetitive. Epic changes in alignments are bringing seismic changes to the fore. We must all return to a fundamental part of our psyches to find the original purpose of our lives. Well, I am all about that at the moment.
         I have always believed I would make a good writer. My mother told me that. My Writing Group has affirmed it. I have done some research and listened to some experts who all say this means writing every day. Hence the resurrection of this blog. I am taking practical steps.
         Last night I dreamt that my fingers were setting air on fire. That has spiritual connotations on many levels for me. I want to set my world on fire with the touch of my fingertips on the keyboard of my laptop. You can help with prayers or words of encouragement, but viewing my blog a lot will be more practical help. I will take my luck wherever I can find it today.     

Baltimore Burning

          Last night I prepared for today’s class by looking for a video about Malcolm X. I like to give my college students some background on the authors we read. “Learning to Read” is a chapter from his autobiography. In it Malcolm X tells about teaching himself in prison by copying the dictionary, word for word. His true education began when he could read about ancient cultures and the history of black people in Egypt and Africa. It was a huge surprise to him that blacks had a culture in Africa since it had never been mentioned to him before.  

          I thought that was rather ironic, since I had learned nothing about Malcolm X in my high school, not even in my college in the 70’s. All I had known was that he was involved with the Black Panthers somehow. I can’t remember where I got that idea.

          I found many videos about Malcolm X on Youtube. Some were of speeches, some of interviews.  The third one I viewed was a debate between Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. It was riveting. It showed these two highly educated, eloquent black men trying to find a way to help black people overcome the brutality of the segregated South in 1963. 

          Malcolm X talked about the need for change. He saw that while white men in white sheets used to chase black men with bloodhounds; they had now taken off the sheets, put on police uniforms and used police dogs. All the things he had heard about change in America still hadn’t happened, not in 10 years or 100 years. Malcolm X believed that only an “action program” would help. That and a conversation with each other wherein blacks and whites could talk openly without hurting each others’ feelings.  

          Martin Luther King, Jr. said that only nonviolent resistance could make a change. He pointed out that  violence would never work because black people would never win; violence only ended by killing more black people. The statement he made that really surprised me was this: “I don’t think there is any real organization to these riots. I think they grow out of the conditions I have mentioned all along and as long as these intolerable conditions are there … every city will sit on a powder keg, and can explode over the slightest incident.”

Then I turned on MSNBC and Baltimore was burning.

          We talked about Malcom X and Martin Luther King,Jr. and the riots in Baltimore today. The things most of us agreed on were that both men were right. Violence could not win, but non-violence has not worked entirely either. There were those who said that things would never change, and those who thought that if there could be a middle way to force change without violence, there might be some hope. The people in my classes gave me hope because they were talking about something that they cared about deeply, and they talked without hurting each others’ feelings.

          I haven’t watched the news yet today. I am still haunted by what I saw last night. A woman threw her arms into the air and asked why the police and politicians weren’t there to help save her neighborhood. She was there because she had come to get her son and take him home and away from the violence.  And I saw a minister standing in front of a community center his congregation had been building for eight years – completely burned down behind him. He was asked what he thought of the rioters and he said, “violence is the voice of the unheard.” And I saw the line of police with helmets and shields slowly moving ahead to make the rioters leave the area. I heard that 6 police officers were in the hospital with serious injuries – others were hurt but not severely.

           And it has been 50 years since Malcolm X was assassinated, but last night Baltimore was burning.  

Generation Hope.

        I recently had a pretty intense conversation with my son. We talked about his generation, the internet, culture, ideas instead of laundry and car payments.

A Gift.

         Let me just get this out of the way. My son is amazingly smart, sensitive, and informed. I am so proud of him for just being him that I will never be able to express it. I think I might get him to understand a quarter of that on good days. But hearing his brain in action isn’t all of the gift.

         He pushed me to see my own cynicism, hopelessness and outright fear about the world he is inheriting. I was so tempted to tell him he was young and he would change, that I am older and wiser. I didn’t allow myself to say it because I was divinely inspired to stop speaking. I couldn’t stop tears from forming in my eyes, however.

         I felt like crying for him, myself, and this world. I missed my own idealism. I wanted to stop time for him and protect him from the horror that really is out there. At the same time, I felt an overwhelming hopefulness: he and his generation might break through. It could happen. They might someday change the world. And, I recognize now, I felt shame for my generation which has failed so utterly. Thank the Mother, we have a decade or two left at an age when we can be courageous to the point of recklessness. If I can continue to shed all these fears I have of the future, the ones that our media and our government have etched so deeply into my mind, I might recover the strength I see in my son’s eyes.

Resolutions.

         The next time someone says that these kids don’t have a clue and we are doomed when they take over, I resolve to tell them to take off their ego-blinders and talk to a member of Generation Hope. Right away. I’ll introduce them to the nearest one I can find – goth, gangster, former cheerleader, nerd, gamer. I know there are great people in every one of those crowds.

         When I go into my classes on Tuesday, I will start an intelligent conversation, shut up, and listen.

        And just one more… I will stop watching the nightly news – unless I am strong enough to listen to the noise and the agenda behind the images and messages. I might even dip into the world of Reddit to see the news my boy is so positive about.

         

He might be onto something.