Let's Hear it for Lawyers, Spoons, and a Little Guitar Music

It snowed this morning . . .

So This is Helping. . .

Ok a couple of weeks went by where I couldn’t find much of anything that was helping. Slim pickings indeed. Real lamenty-psalmy days. But there was David Lebryk, he’s the guy who said ‘no’ to Musk when he wanted in the country’s checkbook. Was ‘retired’ the same day and Musk and his Nazi hackers got in anyway, but still, yay David. And John Vorhees and Brian McGill. They are the security detail that crossed their arms in front of the doors to the top secret stuff. Musk’s goons got in anyway, but still they said no. And of course, Bishop Budde. Rock on with the mercy, Mariann. Point is, except for a few brave people who stood tall, I was scrounging around looking for signs of light in the bleak landscape and not finding much.

Which is infuriating. I’m so angry at those that should have come out of the gate prepared for this shitshow and instead are fumbling around, looking and speaking like blooming idiots. Chuck Schumer with those glasses on his nose and that monotone, oh my god. We are so overmatched. And electing the center of center, Ken Martin, to lead the DFL who can’t even admit that Democrats need a complete overhaul, I can’t even . . . From whence does our help come? The maker of heaven and earth. Not those clowns.

But then, but then, somewhere around Wednesday, we started cooking with gas, as they say. Started with the courts. Finally, the lawsuits. Stopping this and that, like Neo blocking Agent Smith.

It’s the courts, not the politicians, who hold out the greatest hope. So, shout out to lawyers. Stop with the lawyer jokes. Buy your favorite lawyer a latte. Help send someone to law school. Send a text of support to a judge you may know. And pray for them. I know one you can pray for right now.

Her name is Katherine. I’ve known her since she was 11, and her parents traveled to the US from San Salvador because it wasn’t safe for them there anymore. Her mom became a business owner who now employs around twelve people. Katherine became a single mom who, with the help of her family, passed the bar last year and is now living her dream of being an immigration lawyer. She and her family are now US citizens, and I got to be in the room last year when that happened. She’s going to fight like hell. And the $ that some of you are paying for this substack? This month it’s going to her firm.

So I was thrilled to see the lawyers and the lawsuits kick into action. Too late, unfortunately, for the food perishing in warehouses all over the world while people starve. Too late for those in clinical health trials. Too late for the spies whose covers are blown. Too late for the fragile diplomacy that has taken years to build, now shattered, so now China and Russia are looking like better allies for places with ports and minerals and terrorists and traffickers. Too late for our bank routing info, social security numbers, maybe our health information, now on the market to the highest corporate bidder or foreign adversary, or even our own government to mess with if we are not sufficiently loyal to the MAGA agenda. But maybe it’s not totally too late to make things worse. Sigh.

But you know what else helped?

The spoons! Did you hear about the spoons?

You know Musk’s email ‘fork in the road’, threatening government employees to pledge loyalty to Trump or take early retirement? Worker’s response was to respond with spoons! In their signatures, icons, emojis, whatever, floods of spoons on zoom calls, spoons everywhere. So funny.

And also, the gatherings. I know that I’ve expressed fatigue at marches and such, but I will confess how good it made me feel to hear Rachel Maddow in this episode spend 5 minutes just listing all the gatherings and protests in one day all across the country. I confess to pausing my breakfast to shed a tear. It felt damn good.

And it seems now there is some momentum. It’s easier every day, when I look, to see resistance, hopefulness. Much of it’s coming spontaneously, from ordinary people.

Such as, I heard that some cable show staged a news ride-a-long with an ICE raid where they were going to round up and deport a bunch of people, and they pulled into some parking lot of an apartment building, and some women came out with a cup of coffee and just started yelling at the ICE people. Some f-bombs and ‘get out of our neighborhood’. I didn’t see the video but I kind of like it better that way, in my imagination, just some lady with her morning coffee, saw this going down and stepped outside to interfere. Could be me, could be you. Just, no. We say no.

So This is Helping . . .

Some new music. I was in Montana, it was a few hours before my mothers funeral-no-actually-it’s-a-cocktail-party thing when her cousin Stuart Weber appeared with the most gracious offer of playing a song for the program. He did, it was perfect. I was reminded of his gentle nature, and of his beautiful guitar music. My mother’s claim to fame is that she gave him his first guitar, which had survived a flood, and on that beat up old thing he discovered a talent that leads most people to describe him as virtuoso. So I’ve been listening to him on spotify, and recommend him to you. Something nice and gentle, to slow the heart rate in these anxious times.

Here is a beautiful piece, with cello.

And here is Blackbird, a song close to my heart, as I sang it to my infant son, over and over, as we flew him home from his native country India to his new life with us.

So This is Helping . . .

The weekend spent with family, putting on my mother’s cocktail party was so many things – all good, so good, so so so good. I have so many essays swirling around in my head, of joy, of healing, of friendship and family. So many things to say, it’s just too soon to say them. For now what I will say is that God is good. Things broken can be repaired. My cup runneth over.

So This is Helping . . .

I’ve learned not to underestimate the power of a good cat video to improve my mood. This one is mesmerizing. The one with the black head doesn’t even try.

So This is Helping . . .

I’m going to be heading into the darkness.

How’s that for ominous? Next week some friends and I will travel north of the arctic circle. This winter is the peak of an 11 year cycle to see the Northern Lights, and so here we go. The vacation will help, a nice break playing cards and having cocktails and laughing (my friends are fun) and reading books and sleeping in. But I’ve been thinking about the metaphor of it all . . . traveling into the days of darkness, hoping to see streaks of colored lights. God is not subtle.

Be well dear ones. Look for the light.