My Beach Umbrella
flutters in the breeze
happy as you please
shades me from the sun
making life more fun
Flowers in my Garden
in the sun they flourish
and my soul they nourish
Sunset
Colors of a sunset will sink into the ocean
Music of a quartet that fills me with emotion
That’s all she wrote.
This is a good time to read this poem. It speaks to what is going on in America and other parts of the world, but he wrote it for America. He wrote it for himself. And for you. And for me.
Let America Be America Again
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There’s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this “homeland of the free.”)
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one’s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I’m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That’s made America the land it has become.
O, I’m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I’m the one who left dark Ireland’s shore,
And Poland’s plain, and England’s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa’s strand I came
To build a “homeland of the free.”
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we’ve dreamed
And all the songs we’ve sung
And all the hopes we’ve held
And all the flags we’ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that’s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!
Some days my mind is so wound up in the tangles of troubles we are experiencing in our world today that I can’t concentrate. I feel off balance. Sad. Disturbed. Worried. Full of fear. What’s going to become of us?
We are all looking for positive ways to get through this scary and confusing time of a pandemic and all that comes from it. We continue to struggle with racial tensions, our individual responsibility for them, how to ameliorate them, in addition to how do we care for people in nursing homes, prisons, how do we educate our children, which monuments should we keep and which should we replace. Oh, and there’s also that thing about putting food on the table when you don’t have a job anymore.
I hear people asking a lot of questions. People pointing fingers. I’ve done some of that myself. I’ve also been pointing my finger at myself.
One of the big questions in my mind is why are people so adamant about individual rights at a time like this when a small personal sacrifice of wearing a mask can help? Why is that so hard?
In time of crisis it is necessary to work together and whatever the inconveniences, we need to support each other, instead of demanding individual freedoms. We must come together even more than we do in war. We must demonstrate solidarity. Let’s ask a lot of ourselves. Let’s dig down to find our individual greatness, strength, and respect for ourselves and others in order to beat this virus. Do it for the common good. Wear a mask and keep the required physical distance. And in the meantime, if you have the means, give to your local food bank or some other organization that helps people in your neighborhood who need it.
I am looking inside myself to find some ways to change my own behavior in order to allow for others to enjoy the freedoms I enjoy. I am working to educate myself about what it’s like to be a person of color, those who live without the privilege I have.
Reading books, articles, listening to podcasts, and joining in dialogue with others is helpful, but it is also very difficult because it’s work. It’s very painful personal work. I feel like mud is what runs (slogs) through my veins instead of blood. I feel it as a stomach ache. And I’m person who is known for how I laugh, and now I just feel ugly and depressed.
Sometimes I need a break from it. I crave a good escape novel or movie. A meal with friends and NOT talk about what’s going on. So I treat myself to a break. I walk on the beach with Greg and our dog. I paint. I listen to the birds. We watch the sunrise, the sunset. I take a nap. All good ways to restore and refresh.
What are you doing to make necessary changes so that we can live and love in health and harmony in our world? What are you doing to get through this turmoil?
I’m sincerely looking for answers.
The 60s and 70s were a tumultuous couple of decades in the United States of America. In a naive way, I thought the Civil Rights Movement in the US would change things. As I see it now, much of what I imagined was pure fantasy. The social unrest was just that. Unrest. It went on for awhile. People marched. People prayed. People participated in sit-ins. Some things changed. Schools stopped being segregated. The refrain “I’m Black and I’m Proud!” could be heard everywhere. I think it was James Brown who was responsible for that powerful cry.
Some attitudes didn’t change though. It seems they have lain dormant until here we go again.
Same problems. Different days.
I don’t want to be naive anymore. I don’t want the status quo either. Coupled with all the political divide, the racist attitudes, the anger and frustration that is playing itself out again, the global pandemic, and endless wars, we have a lot of problems. Sometimes as individuals, we may feel helpless, but there are many things we can do to ameliorate our problems.
I’m going to go with what I can do.
Just me.
You can do what you can do.
Just you.
Together we can do this. I don’t know about you, but allowing for helplessness isn’t going to get me anywhere.
In the middle of all this, I wrote and illustrated a children’s book. It was a dream of mine and I made it happen. It was one of the most thrilling days of my life when the book became available for purchase. The exhilaration was short-lived because one of my former colleagues who bought the book wrote me that it contained two typos.
As a former English teacher this is not acceptable, but unless I’m willing to part with more money–lots of it–$300.00 worth–it will remain a flawed book. I already spent close to one thousand buckeroos to make my dream come true. Now, I have learned more lessons in life. At least two. One: do a better job of editing the publisher’s copy. Two: learn to live with egg on my face.
I keep thinking of that adapted line from Proverbs in the Bible, “Pride goeth before the fall.”
Now, to put everything into perspective I have to take a deep breath and embrace the fact that this tiny problem of mine is not worth worrying or fretting about. I am a human being who has learned a lesson. One of many of life’s lessons. And as a woman who wants to remain a life-long learner this is a gift. Not my favorite gift, of course, but a gift nonetheless.
My life is very good. I am blessed with health and love and I live in a beautiful place surrounded with nature’s incredible gifts. I get by with lots of help from my friends too.
I have joined a group of women who are going to meet and discuss the racial divide in the world, and what our roles and responsibilities might be. They will differ I’m sure, but we are going to study white privilege, look inside at our own biases, and study topics like “school to prison.” We will learn how we can use our voices, join with others to do small and big things to help make things equitable.
As American women, we have the privilege to speak up, to act, in ways that all women in the world cannot. We must do it for our sisters. And our brothers too, because we will all be better off with a just and equal society.
Will my voice be heard? Will your voice be heard? I hope so.
The Tarahumara, (“where the night is the day of the moon”) as the Spanish named them, or Rarámuri, (‘the light-footed one’) as they call themselves, are an indigenous tribe who live in Las Barrancas del Cobre (The Copper Canyon) in southwest Chihuahua State in northern Mexico. The Spanish invaders came in the 16th century. That part of their story is a sadly similar history as many other places in the world.
A couple years ago, Greg and I did the El Chepe Train trip into the Copper Canyon and visited many places where we saw these people selling their basketry, weaving, and other hand crafted items. They have their own language and when we visited this All Girls Boarding School in Cerocahui, we learned that these students were being taught Spanish by the nuns who run the school. They are also learning about Christianity. I don’t know how their families feel about that, but many of the girls who live in this boarding school come from families that can no longer provide for their children.
Some of them are orphans. It costs 50 pesos a month for each student. They eat mostly rice, beans, vegetables, and fruits. The nun told me that the girls learn to cook and clean, do traditional crafts, as well as to read, write, and speak Spanish. They have a small store where they sell the items they make, much like their mother’s make and sell in tourist spots in and around the canyon.
As a former teacher, I was intrigued with the classroom doors (we didn’t go inside the rooms).
It reminds me of 1st grade decor that I’ve seen in the United States.
Here is the bulletin board as you enter the school:
Check out the section that is about the exportation of petroleum and Winnie the Poo in the right lower corner.
Like children everywhere, they take time to play.
And typical of little girls, they like to make their hair pretty.
The Tarahumara are famous for their ability to run long distances, either barefoot or in their traditional sandals.
There is a beautiful old church across the street from the school.
As an observer for only a brief time, I thought the girls seemed content. The nun we spoke with was very sweet with the girls, though she was rather no-nonsense when I asked her what she thought their lives would be like once they were old enough to leave the school. She said they could only do what they could do for them while they were there. She wished them well when they left, placing her faith in God, and she focused on the ones who remained. Her English was excellent, by the way. In case you are wondering, we did donate to the school. It seemed like a no-brainer.Ju
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As tourists we saw many Tarahumara people on our trip, mostly women and children, as they rely on tourism to sell their hand-made items.
I will leave you with a photo I took at the station when we were waiting for the tram that went back to the Adventure Park of the Copper Canyon in Divisadero after our zip line adventure.
The beaches have been closed for quite awhile, but we have been going down to the beach for a few minutes almost every day to throw a stick in the ocean for Isabela and look at the waves. There has been abysmal surf, which is a good thing, seeing that is nobody is allowed to surf right now because of the pandemic.
Today we were greeted with a beach littered with tiny baby lobsters. Most of them were still alive. The tide brought them in and left them stranded.
He’s no bigger than the palm of my hand. But when I put him in my hand, his tiny front pincers got me and I squealed and dropped him. I was more startled than anything, but it didn’t feel that good either.
In the 9+ years we’ve lived here we have not witnessed this, so it was interesting. We started tossing them back into the water, which in some cases was fruitless. The waves just brought them right back and deposited them out of reach of the next incoming wave.
Greg said we should have a bucket and then we could gather them and put them in a tide pool or some deeper water. Bingo! I was wearing my cap.
We walked over to the palapa on the end of the beach and then Greg walked onto the rocks where it looked better for getting them back in. There were others stranded in the rocks already too.
That accomplished, we continued on our walk to the next little beach.
At the next stop we found the same thing on the beach. We collected another hatful and released them too.
Mostly our knowledge of lobsters is minimal. We knew that lobsters live in and around rocky places in the ocean and they make a tasty meal.
Once home I decided to investigate the reproduction of the lobster. The internet is a good place to go of course.
“How lobsters reproduce is an arduous journey that takes as long as 20 months from mating to hatching. During much of that time a female lobster carries her eggs around on her underside, protecting and nourishing them.
When a female is ready to molt and mate, she selects the bachelor she wants to mate with, usually the largest guy around, by releasing a pheromone – a chemical linked to sexual attraction – in front of his den.
The fact that she releases it in her urine sounds gross, but apparently it works for lobsters. He responds by leaving his den for a brief bout of confrontation that somehow turns to compliance. As described by Dr. Jellie Atema of the Marine Biological Laboratory, she signals her readiness to mate by raising her claws and placing them on his head.” https://poseidonsweb.com/lobsters-reproduce/
According to the website, I learned that the female only mates after she has molted. The male takes her into his den and protects her as she molts, and once that has happened she receives the sperm from the male. Accepting the sperm doesn’t mean she has eggs yet though.
She carries that sperm around in her sperm holding place and when she has eggs, she pushes “10,000 to 20,000 eggs out of her ovaries, passing them through the sperm receptacle for fertilization. They’re passed along her abdomen, where a sticky substance glues them to the bottom of her tail.” https://poseidonsweb.com/lobsters-reproduce/
She hangs on to these eggs for a long time (go to the website if you want to know more).
I suppose finding about 100 baby lobsters on the beach doesn’t account for much seeing that they can have up to 20,000 eggs.
But I got some kind of happiness attempting to get them back in the ocean. This day has started out well. Hope you’re having a good day too.
At the ripe old age of 73, I have made a life-long dream a reality. I’ve written and illustrated a children’s book. It’s for sale at Amazon and Barnes and Noble online. Because it is a print-on-demand it is going to take 2-3 weeks for the purchase to reach you, but if you are a prime member with Amazon, the shipping is free.
Thank you in advance for supporting this endeavor. I couldn’t be more excited.
When we walk in the hills we are awarded such natural wonders.
Going up into the Sierra de La Laguna mountains is always fun. You never know what you’re going to see.
It’s always fascinating how much pink there is in ocean as reflected from the sunrise clouds.
Hope you enjoyed the little escape into the sights of Baja California Sur.
Ocotillos produce clusters of bright red flowers at their stem tips, which explain the plant’s name. Ocotillo means “little torch” in Spanish. Plants bloom once in the spring from March through June depending on latitude then sporadically in response to rainfall during the summer. Hummingbirds pollinate the flowers.
These plants are quite strange looking with these flowers growing on the tips of what looks like sticks.
It is fascinating to learn about all the desert plants. I keep noticing more and more as we venture out, and it’s nice to be able to refer to our Baja California Plant Field Guide.
The ocotillo is a shrub that has no main trunk and it can grow to 20 feet. I don’t usually think of shrubs as being so tall.
Each flower usually has more than 10 stamens which probably makes the hummingbirds happy. At least satisfied.
I got this hummingbird image from Google images. https://www.britannica.com/plant/ocotillo
The flowers can be eaten raw or you can do like the indigenous people did and make a tea by soaking both the flowers and the seeds in water.
During a drought burros will break the spines of the branches with their hooves to get to the edible inner bark.
You can even grow a living fence if you plant branch cuttings that will take root once you stick them into the ground. The gray spines will deter visitors I would think.
When we woke up this morning we couldn’t see anything. Not the house next door or across the street. Not the ocean or the hills. Nothing. Just socked in. Spring here is like that a lot. It’s a lot like San Diego in that it is overcast till noon and then it clears up. Temps are in the high 60s and low 70s.
Today I told Greg I wanted to avoid lots of hills. It is impossible to avoid all of them, unless you walk on the beach. Beaches are closed. So we took the path of least hills and it was lovely.
Like I said, the beaches are closed. I took some photos of the lonely Playa Los Cerritos where ordinarily you find lots of surfing and hanging out going on. Our friend, Juan (Paisa) is the volunteer lifeguard and he gives surf lessons. He’s usually busy. All quiet now. He and his wife and son are such good people. Here they are during better times.
Couldn’t avoid a hill going home. I don’t know why I was feeling so anti-hill-climbing today, but that’s the way it goes.
Here’s more from up high overlooking the neighborhood.
Time to get home for breakfast. I don’t know about you, but I would love to eat a meal that someone else cooks. Here’s to a happy day today, as we learn more about how to navigate life during a pandemic. Stay safe. Be gentle with yourself.
I spread my wings to catch the updraft. Soaring higher at this vantage point I spy fish who seem to be waiting for me to pluck them from their watery world. I swoop lower now and with one smooth pass that tasty prize is mine. Throwing my head back I swallow.
This happy day brings a bounty of surprises.
What is it like to be me?
I feel the wind on my face as I float to my next stop. You probably feel a little jealous, don’t you? You wish you could fly; fly with the help of your wings and go up as high as the mountain on the horizon.
Like I do.
Never give up. It can all be yours if you practice the right moves. Open up. Feel the power of the cool breeze as it lifts you. The aerodynamics might seem tricky at first, but if I can do it, so can you.
I’m never lonely flying above the earth looking down at all the commotion that I cannot hear. It’s a little chilly up here sometimes, but that’s what feathers are for. I have a nice down coat to keep me warm as I fly higher, gliding on the ethers going above the clouds. Free. Alone. Thinking only of my heartbeat and the sound of my breath, I make my way to wherever I want to go.
Once more I spread my wings to catch the draft of air that helps me reach the highest tree on the mountain top.
From my perch the view is long and wide. In the life of my design there are no limits.
I feel your skepticism because you believe in limits. You are proud to be a realist. For you, things are the way they are.
Not for me though. For you see I am a modern day Don Quixote.
I am a dreamer.
And nothing gets in the way of a dreamer. Because for a dreamer there are no limits. Ever.
