So much has been said about what happened at our Capitol a few days ago, that I’m not sure I can add anything. Like others, a stew of emotions has been gnawing at my gut, mind and heart since the seditious action: anger, sadness, disbelief, fear, disgust, embarrassment. Now our soon-to-be President inherits a shit show, just like the last Democrat, President Obama, who inherited a big, damn mess.

Besides the blatant racism, neo-nazi-ism, white supremist bullshit hate that this crowd displayed in living color — and the murder of a police officer — an overwhelming sense of pure MEANESS overtook our capitol city. But let’s not stop there: the pandemic of mean is everywhere in our country now. Yeah, we have had this type of bullshit in our country always with various surges in our mixed history of democracy. And what is a sporadic pandemic of mean for whites has been a constant if you are black or brown or any color that doesn’t look white at first glance.

If this was a Cheech and Chong movie all we’d have to do is spike the water supplies of the entire country with cannabis and we’d all love one another again. But besides spiking the water, can mean, racist, spiteful, creepy, crazy people ever stop being mean, racist, spiteful, and creepy?

You may have read some of the stories in various media outlets about former white supremacists — now “reformed” — who tell of their recruitment into these clannish cults. Some were abused, forgotten, unraised poor children; some were born and raised into it by KKK-type nut jobs, and others simply have something very wrong with the workings of their brains (I hesitate to say they actually have minds). But the scary part is how people who aren’t in any of these identifiable groups — who I won’t give the dignity to name — also got sucked in. I see a lot of isolated people, loners, losers, the lost, mentally ill, ignorant on one side, and greedy, lousy, no-good bastards on the other side, aka, Republican legislators who never spoke up against the orange blog.

I’m trying hard not to get pulled into this tornado, wrung out, and dropped in another place where I don’t want to be.

Meanwhile, back with Mama Bear, who we worry about in her Dementia Storyland, is back in the hospital today. These personal times of crisis over-ride all else, for now. It’s a lasagna of worry, with layers of worry ingredients. I can’t give any advice about finding your peace place so you don’t have a nervous breakdown, or just yell at your loved ones or whatever you’re stress produces, because I don’t know your story or what you need. Sometimes things just suck. That’s all.

For me, today, it’s watching the power of a storm surge on the coast remind me how insignificant I am as a speck in the universe. The waves toss giant logs upon its foamy surf as though just twigs, then inundate a river confluence, pushing its flow backwards, turning sweet water to salty. Strange reminders of creatures once vibrant, now lost, wash up on the shore in the storms, yesterday the skull of a large whale. Still its bone mass shows a life once powerful, once part of the in and out of the breath of the sea and the planet and the universe.

While specks, we also have power in our worlds and some of that power, life, light and love remain when we’re gone. Blow your speck a different way for a moment or a day or longer. Or just do whatever it is that gives you the “Take me away, Calgon” moment we need to take a breath, regroup. And if all else fails, drink, eat or smoke your favorite, and legal, adult relaxation helper.

That’s it, I’m done for today. Over and out, Scouts.

Lady Proverbs, somewhere on the Oregon Coast … Sunday, January 10, 2021