“Funny, we see what we want to see to confirm our biases. I saw a man in a barn coat, long hair flying, struggling to carry a hay bale down route 100 in Talcville. Trying to get to his livestock, his neighbor’s livestock, with a dedication that can’t hardly be understood by anyone not doing it. A stretch of lonesome highway, for sure. Fighting to get simple things done, and the basic rights to be fed & cared for, nailed down for another day. If we could add an amendment to the Constitution, I’d say that all men are created equal who haul wood and split it by hand. The others have ideas they think are smart, but I wouldn’t want to just rely on that. This one old man touched a sad melancholy, as did the shit-show of ignorance on Facebook today, causing huge portions of my heart to wander off, along the bends of Ripton’s gorges. I could have pulled over at Robert Frost’s place, and crunched out a long path to clarity, but instead, I drove on, trying to outrace it. Determined to stay strong and outrun the bullies on wheels, the trucks on my bumper, the cafes I can no longer go into. I think of all my friends smiling under their polite face coverings, buying vegetables and greeting cards, while rape victims such as myself remain unable to shop. In the filtered light of a sudden mountain storm, amidst the striking beauty of snow, some are lost, some are still healing. But kudos to those who no longer struggle, or fight against their own bindings. To those not privy to the demise of injured veterans, or single women pushed beyond their capacity to cope, by COVID. To those with support who continue to thrive in warm houses, while others curled into the fetal position are unable to rise to stoke the fire. This reality, I suppose, is life, embracing blind spots, as well as celebration. The man with the hay bale, and not enough warm clothes. The pharmaceutically injured, devoid of any predictable routine. The brightly lit Christmas lights of a village manger, briefly glimpsed by a speeding car. The soft imprint of grace, left by the twilight, onto each and every inhabitant of the hill towns, be they burning brush and lumber in a bonfire, or trash in a barrel or drinking heavily to numb the pain of existence. It’s the open field where we meet beyond ideas of who is right and who is wrong. Where right and left stop manufacturing false divisions. Where humanity and faith aren’t just funny lofty words, but urgent, much needed remedies to decades of political corruption.”
