Red dahlias of hope

A couple of late summers ago, Jeter and I were on our usual walk around the Normanskill Farm. We had wandered down the yellow brick road and the trail near the creek, made our way up the gravel road and looped around to where the path divided the bountiful community garden from the kill. The colors of fall were present with zinnias and sunflowers waving their heads and squash and tomatoes in every shade of orange imaginable. Climbing the fence were small headed dahlias in the richest of red, some with bright saffron colored centers.

It was breathtaking.

As I paused to admire the dahlias, I realized there was a man working in the garden and I asked him about the dahlias. Were they his? We had a nice talk about his garden plot and the flowers and he answered my questions about how he grew the gorgeous red dahlias – yes, he dug the tubers up each year and replanted them and no, he didn’t find them to be too difficult to cultivate. We concluded our conversation with his offer to leave some tubers hanging from the fence in a bag for me when he did his fall cleanup. Sure enough, a couple of weeks later, there they were. I retrieved the bag, which was generously filled, and placed the future flowers in the basement to overwinter.

That was two years ago. His flowers have been mine for two summers so far. The first year, I plopped them into a couple of pots on my deck and while the greenery was gorgeous, the blossoms were minimal. This past spring, I cleared a spot in the parking strip between my house and the neighbor’s and planted the tubers directly into the earth where they’ve thrived. Even now, midway through October, the dahlias are unfurling with enough enthusiasm that I’ve got a constant bouquet in my dining room or bathroom or bedroom to admire.

I love them.

I’ve been feeling a lot of stress, maybe even anxiety, recently. It seems like There’s so much violence and hate in the world and I’m carrying the weight of it in a way that is crushing. I don’t understand how we as a country are providing weapons to Israel and giving their fucked up leadership license to slaughter people in the countries surrounding the piece of land which they themselves were given as a home following WWII. How can their actions not be perceived as perpetrating a holocaust?

An inventory of the dead in Gaza (published a month ago) ran 649 pages long, 14 pages of which were children who did not live to see their first birthdays.

The Netanyahu military is being allowed to burn civilians in hospital tents.

The number of children being brought into hospital trauma centers critically injured by gunshot wounds, often a single one to the head, is astounding.

I try to escape these horrors, which I feel I have no power to affect, by directing my attention to the circumstances closer at hand, the upcoming elections. Ironically, I have no real power to make an impact on that situation either. The Electoral College prevents my vote from truly counting.

There are moments when I can not believe that we are living under the threat of DJT being elected to a second term, that we are residing in a place where perhaps, the majority of the voting population is willing to vote for the ultimate shyster, DJT.

We inhabit a country with so much money, in so few hands, that it leaves every facet of our society suspect when it comes to integrity. Everyone has a price and with the current “regulations” involving campaign financing, Elon Musk is betting $75 million will buy him a president.

Wish he spent the money on a soul instead.

We occupy a country in which people respond to natural disasters by price gouging when it comes to expenses necessary to evacuate and reach relative safety. Gasoline, accommodations, airline tickets and car rentals all increase in price exponentially. It’s truly disgusting. Why doesn’t our government protect its residents from predatory pricing?

I’ve been weepy lately, on the verge of tears over the social media videos featuring hard up dogs and cats endlessly appearing on my devices. I’ve had to Snooze all of the Labrador Retriever and animal rescue sites in my feeds because I can’t take the anguish of yet another living thing being challenged beyond its means for survival.

Generally, they’ve been pushed to their limits by those called “humans.”

The man down at the community garden had no obligation to share the beauty of his dahlias with me. He could have simply answered my questions about how he tends them and returned to his garden tasks. But, that’s not what he did. He engaged with me, asked if my dog and I frequent that path and, if so, would I like to have some of his flowers. He then dug up the tubers, placed them in the bag he remembered to bring and hung them on the fence for me to find.

These are the kind of interactions I’m trying to hold on to during times that feel full of universal pain and rage.

Use your voice and demand that the U.S. stop providing arms to destroy the world instead of arms to hold it together. Tell your elected representatives that campaign financing must be addressed and corrected. Remind politicians that their job is to provide support and security to their constituents – common sense gun law reform, price protections and post disaster assistance would be excellent starting points. Vote.

And share your flowers.