The Heart. . .

—From EF—

What’s at the heart?

I took a photo of a big soft silvery bushy plant at our favorite coffee place, Hardcore Espresso. Molly has a wild collection of things growing in everything from old phone booths to half-bathtubs, a fertile profusion as wild and generous as her amazing heart. There is a big spiny thing at the center of this soft, furry silver mass, and I have not idea how it got there but there it is.

How did such a generous concept as our United States of America get such a harsh, spiny heart, and why do we only see it plainly now? Granted, our schools do not teach what happened to the people who were here before the celebrated ancestors arrived, or how very old the tolerance of an oligarchy is. Slaveholding is not a comfortable subject, especially when examining how the wealth of the South impacted our politics in Lincoln’s time. It’s said that poisonous guilt can enter the DNA and be passed down. Well, we have enough guilt and then some.

I couldn’t watch the Republican convention live, but I saw clips and thought, “Omigod, this is a drag show produced by World Wrestling Entertainment. I’ve understood that rage and power are central to MAGA, but I’d never before seen how they’d crossed the borderline into Burlesque. Now we appear to be in danger of handing the management of our lives into the hands of burlesque artists.

Conrad and I depend on our Social Security checks, and our miscellaneous medical emergencies have had their very costly bills paid by Medicare. Will we spend the rest of our elder years stripped of all resources by a new kind of governing? What can we lose? And if lost, how will we manage?

History has told, time and again, the tale of normal communities converted to sadistic mobs. I’ve gotten the finger for driving the speed limit, many times, and so has Conrad. Being visibly old is a badge of vulnerability and a magnet for anger. Being a woman is no longer worthy of respect or protection. Those blasts of anger are random and infrequent now. What about when they become the banner of belonging to the cult?

I look at my photo and love the contrast, but I must confess that I am afraid of being thrown face-down into that spiny heart.