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In honor of Juneteenth

Juneteenth is a date that should be in every American child’s history book, but it certainly was not in mine. Here’s a brief statement from the History web site:

Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops’ arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday.

That was a start, and maybe, over 150 years later, we’ll finally start seeing more needed change.

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I can’t breathe

I’m having trouble breathing today. Words are zipping around inside my head, screaming to get out, while emotions batter against my heart.

What are the depths of hatred and fear that compel a policeman to forget (ignore?) his sworn duty to protect, instead suffocating a man to death while being filmed, while people are begging him to stop, while the man is saying he cannot breathe?

I can’t breathe.

Do you know what it feels like to have nothing left to lose? Absolutely nothing left? I don’t know what this is like. Throughout my life I’ve had the good fortune to have what I needed, even in lean times. There was never a sense of hopelessness, of having not one single thing left to lose.

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Going postal in London

EVIIR full — If you have a letter to mail in the U.K., you’ll find one of these red pillar boxes on most any street.

Part one: there’s a lot of red stuff
Like the red double-decker bus and the iconic red telephone box, a red mailbox is ubiquitous in Great Britain. Americans call it a mailbox, while in the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, and former nations of the British Empire, it’s more often called a post box or a letter box. This story is about British post boxes and the huge rabbit hole I fell down once I began to pay attention to them.

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Huzzah for Gaia!

Lichen Garden — A miniature lichen garden at the foot of a tree in the garrigue near my house.

Mother Earth, who has been beleaguered by all manner of human assault for far too long, is staging a tiny comeback. While much of the world shelters in place, the cities have cleaner air, animals feel safer to explore this home we all share, and the skies are not full of noise and contrails. Huzzah for Gaia on this Earth Day 2020!

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This ain’t no April Fool’s Day joke

Late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon asked people to share their experiences with cabin fever, and here are a few responses.

As the saying goes, March came in like a lion, and it left like a … lion. Lots of wind, cooler temperatures, a little rain. In between, we had some lovely lamb-like days that had colorful spring wildflowers popping out all over, giving all of us a cheerful sense of hope and life and renewal.

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Coronapéro: partying during quarantine

Apéro — A group of my friends got together via Zoom for a virtual cocktail party, to see each others’ faces and hear our voices, to share our stories, and to spend a few minutes feeling a little less isolated.

Last night several friends and I used Zoom to gather for apéritifs—called apéro here in France. We’ve only been on lockdown for less than a week, and we already feel isolated, especially those of us who live alone. The Zoom party turned out to be a fine way to connect with our friends, hear each others’ stories, ask questions, and drink a toast to each other. < Clink! >

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