NO LIFE BUT THIS: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.


It is biographical fiction based on the life of Emily Warren Roebling considered to be the first female field engineer and highly instrumental in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.


http://atbosh.com/authors/diane-vogel-ferri/

Monday, March 4, 2024

Maybe A Prayer

 Maybe a Prayer


Maybe a prayer is just 

looking up once in a while 

and seeing the trees like 

it’s the first time, and

noticing a bird sitting there 

doing nothing but waiting.


And maybe a prayer 

is having a dream

about your childhood home,

and instead of waking up 

crying for what is gone, 

you smile in the dark.


A prayer might be only taking 

what you need and leaving 

the rest for God to handle, 

surrendering your heart 

with all of your heart,

releasing your soul.


A prayer could be happening 

when you are in the presence 

of the people you brought into 

this world, and then the smaller 

people they brought with them,

and knowing you had something 

to do with all of that beauty.


Diane Vogel Ferri

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Unexpected Kindness

 Unexpected Kindness January 19, 2024

by Diane Vogel Ferri


What do you do with an artist’s creations when she has left her studio forever, when her life’s work is done? What if the artist was prolific and spent decades accumulating hundreds of oils, watercolors, and pastels in her studio? When the artist is your mother you yearn for her to live on through the beauty she created by sharing it with the world, not hiding it away in storage. My mother was not a famous artist. She won local awards and sold a number of paintings, but art was her passion, not her way of earning a living. When she died my brother, sister, and I chose our favorites and then I distributed many of the others to family and friends who had been supportive while my mom was declining. It’s a joy to walk into a neighbor’s house and see her work displayed there. Her children’s and grandchildren’s walls are filled, and yet there was much more sitting in a basement room of my house, stacked on shelves, left unseen. 

I often think about what will be left behind after I am gone. What will my children do with it all? Our society has encouraged and allowed us to accumulate much more than we need. Years go by without a thought to things stored in the back of closets and attic spaces. So, after eight years I decided to attempt to share the rest of my mom’s work. I’ll admit that I wasn’t sure anyone would want it because it was what had been left over after many others had been chosen. Some of it was experimental, many portraits, many nudes, some with unidentifiable subjects. But I was wrong.

One day I simply took pictures of all of them and posted them on Facebook, saying they were free to a good home. I was overwhelmed immediately with positive responses and requests. 


These are amazing. I would display all of them if I could.

I love this so much I would pay for it.

Are these seriously free?

What a talent.

You are incredibly generous.

Whatever is left I would love to put them up in my home.

I will tell everyone about your mom.

It’s so beautiful. She sounds like an amazing woman and definitely an amazing artist.

I’m happy to share her story with everyone that sees this work.

I am an artist so I see the person behind the art. 

I will send you a picture of it hanging in my house.

Please write about her and I will put it behind the painting.

I promise to cherish and love it forever.


The nude painting makes me think that the intention behind it was— beauty is really in the eye of the beholder. The woman is not particularly attractive by society’s standards but the look on her face says she is content and confident, which in turn, makes her beautiful.


I’m not sure what this one is but it will always be open to interpretation. 

 

Only one man commented that I must have hated my mother for giving her art away, that she was spinning in her grave, but after my response to him he deleted his callous comment. All of the kindness and recognition of my mother’s life’s work diminished his cruelty to meaninglessness. 


But most touching was the response from the young woman who now lives in my parents’ beloved home of sixty years.  Me! I would love to have a painting by the original owner!


That house means more to me than any place on earth—the home of a happy childhood, a place I could walk into at any time and see two people overjoyed to see me, a house where I can see the details of every room in my mind’s eye.  Once, the new owner had invited me to see their improvements and I went—thinking I’d either be devastated or at peace. I chose to be at peace because a young family is growing up there and loving the house and big back yard just as we did.


I had not driven by the house for quite a while but I told her I would drop the painting off. Unbelievably, the street is completely unchanged since my childhood. The yard my parents cleared and the house they built is unchanged from the outside as well. The garage door opened and the owner’s mother came out. We chatted for a bit and she asked me in but I declined. I was standing in the garage struggling to keep my composure because strangely there was a little red hatchback car sitting there that looked like the car my father had for many years. The same color, same style, same size, although a much newer version. It just threw me, it was so unexpected. As I drove away I sobbed because grief never goes away. It’s the consequence of great love. 


Over the next few days many young women, showed up to collect their art and were appreciative and kind. One came in and stared in awe at the art on my walls. What was especially unexpected was how many people acknowledged the artist, not just the art. The experience was uplifting in an age when unexpected kindness can be hard to find.  It made me feel my mom so close by, so present. And she is, every time I look at the art on my walls. 

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

The Crooked House

A new essay published by the lovely Braided Way--about a dark time in my life and the grace that followed.


https://braidedway.org/the-crooked-house/ 

Saturday, March 26, 2022

My new poetry book has been published!!

 

Thank you to Jason Ryberg at Spartan Press for producing such a beautiful book.

It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and your local bookstore and also from me, of course.

The cover artwork is by Martha Vogel.



PRAISE FOR EVERYTHING IS RISING


Everything is Rising by Diane Vogel Ferri, is an autobiographical exploration revealing many truths of life. These poems are songs of pain, love, and recovery that portray what women have faced during their lifetime. Diane explored the many definitions of beauty, love, and relationships, uncovering life’s complexity. She presented the reader in Everything is Rising with a perspective born of endurance and buoyed by hope that’s destined to inspire.” 


Steve Thomas

Author of Strength of Flowers


 

"Poetry and fiction are first cousins. When I read good poetry, it's like meeting kin after a long separation; bonds forged in youth reveal themselves to be as warm and strong as ever. Diane Vogel Ferri's poetry is a family reunion of the heart."


Daniel Bell

Author of Adrift and Dead in River Valley



“Diane Vogel Ferri’s beautifully crafted poems balance age with youth, regret with hope, clarity with confusion and power with powerlessness. Her poems look forward and upward at a time when so many are stalled in their isolated present. Best of all, Diane’s shares her vision through poems that can look directly into the face of what troubles us, without losing sight of goodness and beauty.”


Gail Bellamy, author of Cleveland Christmas Memories and Cleveland Food Memories



"The poems in "Everything is Rising" are vivid in imagery and deep in emotion and nostalgia.  Diane takes you to places that you may not want to go, but you are a better person by having been there.


Barbara Marie Minney, author of If There's No Heaven.


“Memory is the mother of all wisdom” according to Aeschylus. Such sagacity stirs in Everything Is Rising. Using what the poet calls “the fossil of my voice,” she distills the past’s influence, waking us to a world where “blood tastes like creation.” Let these pages carry you with a pulse that “has never beat gently” and on “into morning light.”


Laura Grace Weldon

2019 Ohio Poet of the Year





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Tuesday, January 4, 2022

My Favorite Books of 2021- for what it's worth

 My Favorite Books of 2021

(in a general order)


Fiction:

  1. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr -  My all-time favorite book (so far) might be Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See and this one is nothing like it. I am blown away by an author who can weave a story over centuries and somehow knit them together at the end. 
  2. A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet - A brilliant allegory of climate change that depicts the differing attitude between generations. Please do not take it literally!!!
  3. American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins - While reading this you live the terror of escaping violence to come to America. If the first chapter doesn’t leave you breathless, I don’t know what will.
  4. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles - I love stories set in the 1950s. This one takes you on a cross-country escapade with a great cast of characters.
  5. Life Sciences by Joy Sorman - A teenager is afflicted with mysterious pain and spends years trying to find medical help, and the devastating affect on her life.
  6. The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. Twin sisters in the south - one lives out her life as an African American, the other leaves to pass as white. Fascinating.
  7. Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter (fellow Clevelander)- Girl’s lives are determined by the map of freckles and marks on their body. I found this book completely original and beautifully written.
  8. Bewilderment by Richard Powers. The author of another of my very favorite books, The Overstory, gives a touching and timely story of a father and son. 


Non-Fiction

  1. No Time Like the Future by Michael J. Fox. I read tons of memoirs and this is one of the best ever. He is funny, charming, honest and a great writer to boot. You’ll love him even more.
  2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama - Do I need say more? If he didn’t want to lead the free world he could have just been an author.
  3. Untamed by Glennon Doyle - If you don’t relate to something in this book you can’t possibly be a woman. I wish every young woman could read it before she starts out in life.
  4. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson - Incredibly researched book about how caste systems, especially America, have shaped history. I thought I knew a lot, but this still opened my eyes. 
  5. Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker - The havoc and tragedy a family goes through while living with multiple siblings with mental illness.
  6. The Anthropocene Review by John Green. Essays that tell of how humans have shaped this planet. Fascinating.
  7. In the Dream House by Carmen Machado - Not for the faint of heart but if you like spectacular and original writing give it a try.

















Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Kirkus Review of No Life But This: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/diane-vogel-ferri/no-life-but-this/


NO LIFE BUT THIS

A NOVEL OF EMILY WARREN ROEBLING

BY DIANE VOGEL FERRI ‧ RELEASE DATE: DEC. 10, 2020


Poet Ferri offers a historical novel about the life of real-life Victorian engineer and women’s rights activist Emily Warren Roebling.

After the sudden death of chief engineer John A. Roebling in the summer of 1869, the ambitious construction of the Brooklyn Bridge fell to his son, Washington. However, only a year later, the younger man would be incapacitated by caisson disease, leaving him physically unable to oversee the project in person. As a result, Washington’s wife, Emily, rose to fame as a devoted defender of the bridge and a skilled engineer in her own right, acting as liaison for her husband and handling daily supervision of the project. In this decade-spanning novel the author delves into a tumultuous period of American history as well as the mind and heart of her narrator. Ferri focuses on Emily’s internal life as she navigates the expectations placed on her as a wife and mother as well as intense public scrutiny over the bridge. She also bears witness to the inequities of women throughout American society, observing abuses as well as the disproportionate favor that’s placed on those in positions of privilege. Throughout the novel, Emily is beset by bitter discontentment over legal and social constraints, but she persistently reinvents herself and becomes a vocal advocate for women’s rights. Some sections involving invented characters or events can feel saccharine or overly convenient, but Ferri’s prose does a marvelous job of highlighting her protagonist’s exceptional mind and the restrictions she faced. Emily is shown to be loving, compassionate, insensitive, and bullish, by turns, resulting in a well-rounded and empathetic portrait of a woman whose ambition was greater than any single life could hold.

A sensitive and comprehensive exploration of an exceptional historical figure.


Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-62613-300-6

Page Count: 415

Publisher: ATBOSH Media Ltd.

Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2021

Review Program: KIRKUS INDIE

Categories: HISTORICAL FICTION | LITERARY FICTION

Article about No Life But This: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling


https://www.cleveland.com/community/2021/02/solon-authors-biographical-novel-highlights-feminist-ahead-of-her-time.html

Friday, January 29, 2021

So I Write

 So I Write


I’ve always loved this quote by Stephen King: If God gives you something to do, why in the world wouldn’t you do it? So I write. 


Does Stephen King think we need yet another book in the world? I guess he does because he’s still cranking out dozens of them.  Does anyone need a book, poem or work of art from me? I don’t think so, but I do have a strong sense that God gave me these things to do. So I write. I love the writing and hate what comes afterwards—the months of sending out queries, the rejections, being ignored, feeling like I had wasted my time—every writer knows this feeling—except Stephen King, of course. 


Whenever something I’ve written is published I think of my grandmother. She raised six children, lost much during the depression, and became a widow in her sixties. I remember her dwelling alone in a small apartment above a hardware store across the Ohio River from a steel mill. She wrote novels and some poems. I relate to the need to create and accomplish something once your children are raised and you finally have the time. She dreamed of being published but her dream was never fulfilled and so sometimes I feel like I’m living her dream or at least doing it in her honor.


Long after she was gone all of her handwritten manuscripts were found in a relative’s basement. She was so short on money that the words were crammed on every page from top to bottom, front and back, to save paper. I set about sifting through the thousands of pages, some out of order or missing, and put together six complete novels and some pieces of others. They were full of good people struggling through life, just as she had. There were also letters from “vanity presses” expecting large amounts of money in exchange for publishing her work, which was an impossibility for her. I put them in 3-ring binders, and after re-reading them, I presented them to my mom. So much for the dilemma of what to do with them—until my mom died and I was left to clean out her home of sixty years. 


At that point I laid them out at a family reunion and offered them to my cousins. They took them all but it made me think about all the unread copies of my three novels and three poetry books (so far) that are languishing in my house. What to do with them? Will one of my children have to throw them out at some point or should I make a bonfire in the backyard and do that now? Because, you see, even though my books are published they are not in demand. Yes, I feel the sense of accomplishment and I am proud of all of them, but all I ever wanted was for them to be read—maybe by more than my family and friends, too. 


I’m facing the same dilemma with my mother’s art. She was prolific and spent over forty years creating beautiful and unique works. She entered many shows and won awards but she never made much effort to sell her work. Everyone in the family chose pieces when she died and many are being displayed, but, you guessed it, the rest are all stored in my house and in my sibling’s houses and none of us know what to do with them. Some of the work was experimental, class work, or unfinished, but can I just throw them in the trash? Not yet. But neither do I want my own children to have to do it. (I like to paint also, but I hesitate to put another piece of unwanted art out into the world at this point.)


I acknowledge that I have a deep need for self-expression—sometimes I envy people who do not—so I know I will continue to create. As infuriating as the internet and social media can be, the upside is that there are multiple ways to publish and share all types of creative work. This is something my grandmother could have never imagined. 


During this terrible year of a world-wide pandemic those in the arts have had to be especially creative to get their gifts out into the world. It seems like everyone is vying for attention for what they do to stay relevant and unforgotten. I am thankful for all that is available to me. Writers can self-publish now without stigma and, if they’re good at promotion, they can do quite well. Personally, I stink at self-promotion, but I will do the best I can for this new book and if God gives me another one—-I’ll probably have to write that one, too. Oh well.


Monday, January 18, 2021

No Life But This: A Novel of Emily Warren Roebling

No Life But This is based on the life of Emily Warren Roebling, considered the first woman field engineer and highly instrumental in the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. It is the perfect time to bring this remarkable woman's story to light in an era when women continue to fight for equality and to be included in STEM careers. 

 

Monday, January 11, 2021

The Musings of an Author in Search of a Publisher

 April 24, 2020

Talking to myself about publishing my third novel, which is biographical fiction:


As of this date I have been rejected and/or ignored by 124 agents and/or publishers. They have each been well-researched ahead of time to assure that historical fiction was of interest to them. I have received a number of positive responses and comments, and asked to send more chapters, or the whole manuscript quite a few times, but no one, ultimately, accepted my book. (Meanwhile someone else has published a book about my main character after her story has been ignored for 100 years. Grrrrr. )

At the point when I began sending it out to very small publishers I realized they could not do much more for my book than I could do myself. They would only put it on their website and on Amazon.

I spent 6 months researching and writing the book, had it professionally edited, and have spent over a year submitting it. It is such a worthwhile and timely story, and biographical fiction has been popular for several years. 

Recently, I began researching self-publishers. Self-publishing is much more widely accepted than it was when I self-published my other two novels. It is a legitimate way for authors to be read, and even make money, especially on Amazon, whether paperback or ebook. It is cheap and relatively easy to self-publish on Amazon, although it is not globally distributed otherwise. Amazon has a number of ways to promote books, especially ebooks, that I could not do myself.  I stink at self-promotion, so this is a plus.

Am I ready? Getting this book out has been hanging over my head for over a year. I’m ready to move on to something else. Rejections, although expected, get old. I am not a trained fiction writer. I did not intend to ever write fiction again, but this story was too good to pass up. 

Questions: 

Am I okay with only my kind-hearted friends and acquaintances reading my book as with my other ones? (If not, I will obsessively ask myself what it was all for?) 

Did I love writing it? Yes. 

Am I proud of it? Yes. 

Do I want it to sit in a 3-ring binder on my shelf forever? No.  

What do I have to lose?


APRIL 25 - One day later

In counting the number of agents/publishers I had contacted I noticed the name of someone who had expressed interest but never got back to me ––Jared Bendis of Atbosh Media in Cleveland.  I thought, What the Heck, and emailed him one more time. He responded and asked for the synopsis. I felt a twinge of hope but he had responded twice before and let the communication die.  He emailed later and asked when we could chat! I sent my number and told my husband I didn’t think he’d call–––but he did that same evening.


We talked for a half hour and he explained his whole process, the contract agreement and what he could do with the book. He said he would send me the contract that night if I agreed. What? Of course!  Then the email didn’t come that night. ( But it did show up the next day. I’m pretty sure he’s a night person because it was sent in the wee hours of the morning. 


It’s been two weeks since then. We’ve exchanged a couple emails and he says he’s putting the mock-up together but he doesn’t commit to a timeline so I must be patient.  Lou took some outdoor photos of me for the head shot and it is on his website. I signed a contract so I know it will happen eventually.  I thought this time of quarantine would be perfect for working on marketing and getting the book out there etc. We’ll see. 


It seems like one more surreal and unbelievable occurrence right now, just like the rest of life. But I am thankful, relieved and proud. 


Friday, December 18, 2020

Under My Mask

 Under My Mask


there is no lipstick 

on my pale thinning lips

under my mask

no celebration of birthdays

or summer

we are bleached out

beached out like whales

who have lost their way

there is no deep breath

into my aging lungs

under my mask

no fireworks 

or tricks or treats

we are as weary 

as a mother of babes

and there is no rest for the weary

there is no singing

from my silent throat

under my mask

no community of praise

or writing on the calendar

for a future together

Thursday, November 5, 2020

Poem for November 3, 2020


If tomorrow comes

and we, who love the world,


whose vested interests are in the stranger,

in liberty and justice for all,


we stakeholders who yearn for decency, 

empathy, even propriety—


if tomorrow comes and we are soul-crushed

it won’t be because we are the losers,


it will be for another human who has lost a choice,

a job, a loved one, a physician, a civil right, a home,


it will be for the mother who fled from danger

and the imprisoned child who did no wrong,


it will be for the flooded homes and incinerated towns.

If we, the stakeholders in this game of chance


are given a harrowing verdict, we will carry on 

because God brought another baby here today, 


because people will still teach, heal, and donate,

people will still protest, hope, and pray, because 


time will pass and the world will keep turning 

and evolving, because restoration is possible,


and our love for humanity and creation

can never be voted out.

Friday, October 23, 2020

I Voted Today

 I voted today. I voted for common decency, respect for all human beings, and compassion for those less fortunate.  I voted for the principles we learned in kindergarten and the virtues we taught our children. I voted for the common good of all Americans—not just my best interests, not my 401K or my stock portfolio or my personal religious beliefs.  I voted for kindness and truth and love.


Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 

Sunday, September 20, 2020

For the Children



At some point in our lives we have probably all learned about forgiveness. The lesson is that the one who has hurt us may not deserve it, or be sorry, but forgiving them is something we do for ourselves. We understand that what we hold inside hurts us more than it hurts them. We forgive to let go of the power that pain has over us or how it consumes us.
 


The same principal applies now. I think we need to let go of the power the stress, anger, and frustration with our country and the pandemic has over us right now. We can’t let it ruin the good things or the relationships we have worked for with our families and friends. We all have reasons to be angry, but personally, I feel like it is consuming us on most days.


When I speak to friends and family we are having the same conversations over and over. We still can’t believe this is happening. We have no control over our lives and do not know when this will end. We don’t understand what happened to our country. We fear for the future of our children and grandchildren.


Here are some things that I feel outrage over almost every day: the mishandling of the coronavirus and what it has taken from all of us, conspiracy theories and lies, outright hatred between Americans, continuing systemic racism, the election vitriol, social media comments, climate change, the widening division of America. 


Sometimes we talk about nothing else. It’s all negative. It’s all frightening. The children are listening. This is their childhood, when they should feel safe and look forward to their future. I am angry and sad about what the year 2020 this has taken from them. Not just school, birthday parties, and playdates, but stress free adults in the background talking about whatever it is we used to talk about—sports, music, movies.  All they hear now is politics, masks, protests, people ranting.


How do we block it all out once in a while? How do we stop caring about what is happening in the world? How do we take a break from being informed and aware and give our hearts a rest?


Winter is coming and I think we should prepare. We should treasure being in our homes with those we love. We should focus on our health and safety and know that there are millions of humans who have lived through worse than this. I worked with children all of my life and I don’t entirely agree with the notion that children are resilient. In some ways this is true, but their psyches can also be damaged in childhood by seemingly small events or words or things they don’t have the capacity to understand. Children get their emotional cues from the adults around them and if we are constantly raging, eventually they will feel the same—they just won’t understand why.


Give the children a break. Give your heart a break. We cannot completely ignore the mess we are in now, of course. But we can try to contain its control over us and not let it ruin our otherwise beautiful lives. 

Friday, September 18, 2020

What If You Need Medical Attention Now?

This week my husband became very ill. Immediately, we were afraid of Covid-19, of course.  I was frantic with worry since I’d spent the previous day with my small granddaughters. I laid awake at night imagining everyone that could be adversely affected by our plight— like a row of dominos.

My husband was so sick that I needed to make arrangements for him. I went on the Cleveland Clinic website and found multiple options that were unclear and confusing. (Why isn’t there just one phone number to call?) Getting an appointment with your primary care physician appears to be almost impossible now.  Only virtual and phone visits are offered. 


I sent an email to his doctor, and later in the day a nurse called. My husband was answering her questions for 15-20 minutes. Mind you, he had fever, chills, headache, dizziness, lack of appetite, and fatigue, and that didn’t appear to be enough to warrant a Covid-19 test.  If he was offered a test it would take 5-7 business days for a result. 


What could happen in 5-7 business days? He could deteriorate and need hospitalization, he could have something else being untreated, I could be careless and spread it to someone else since surely I had been exposed (I had kissed him goodbye that morning), we would not be able to inform people we’d been near if they were exposed and they could possibly spread it as well. See the problems here?  It also makes sense to me that if someone appears to have Covid-19 that the people they live with should be able to be tested as well. That’s definitely not going to happen.


Meanwhile, his company let him know they were under contract with a laboratory that could do the test the next day.  I drove him 30 minutes to the laboratory the next morning. After a lot of paperwork, waiting, and questions, they gave him the nasal swab. The results would be 5-7 days as well. We left, but while on the highway they called and said they’d just noticed where he worked and that he could get the saliva test and receive results in 1-2 days. We drove back and were then informed that neither the company or our insurance would cover the $225 test. We looked at each other and agreed it would be worth it to find out sooner. I said, “How lucky we are that we can afford it—unlike most people in this country.”


A day and a half later we learned that his test was negative. While I was relieved and grateful, he was still very sick and had spent four days not being treated for anything. I had spent a lot of time trying to navigate all the different options and talking to family members about the situation. People were calling, giving advice and showing concern. Why? Because this pandemic has consumed our lives—all of our lives. Even if we have not had a loved one sick or die from it, we live with the stress and fear everyday. 


So now my husband has spent four days not being treated for anything and he’s still very ill. I spent another frustrating hour on the phone trying to get help from a doctor or get lab tests ordered. After 15 minutes of questions I was mysteriously cut off from the appointment person on the other end of the phone. I had to start all over with an email that may or may not be seen by the end of the day. A nurse called and I went over all his symptoms again. She had to get the doctor to order lab tests so she had to call back. She did and also arranged a Zoom meeting with a physician (not his). Later, I took him to get lab tests that took 30 minutes of waiting even with an appointment. 


He received another call before the Zoom meeting to repeat all the information once again. The nurse wanted him to take his temperature and blood pressure (we have a BP machine). When he got on the virtual meeting with a doctor they chatted for two minutes and the connection went dead. She called back and it was another 15 minutes until she said there was really nothing she could do for him—he could go to an urgent care. Really?  What would they do? My husband said it had all been a waste of time and she laughed. 


I used to feel sad about all of this, but now I just feel angry. A government exists to protect and guide its citizens in times of crisis and the current administration has failed us in every way. Eliminating a pandemic team in 2018 was only the first mistake. When a new one was formed under the vice president their only tact seemed to be to push off the responsibility on the state governors. What do governors know about pandemics and viruses? Nothing. It’s laughable to think that a virus can distinguish state borders and somehow each governor will do the right thing.  Experts were our only hope and they continue to be disparaged and ignored.


We all know the “hoax,” the “downplaying,” the political division. We’ve all heard about former White House officials who’ve said the president doesn’t care about the 200K Americans dead. I blame him for this disaster. It has affected every part of our lives and there is no end in sight. Even one of the best hospital systems in America can’t get it together, in my opinion. You cannot even see a doctor when you are sick now. The nurse told me he should be “seen” by a doctor, but that meant over a computer screen. I guess they have to save themselves. Many reports say people are not even trying to get medical help because they don't want to deal with all of this or enter a facility.


Then my husband found out that the saliva test was not accepted by his place of business. So were we scammed out of $225?  When the nasal test comes back it will go to his doctor, which will send it to his company before he can go back to work. He already missed two weeks of work because someone he worked with had symptoms and exposed co-workers anyway. I, too, had to stay home for two weeks that time, of course. 


Well, that’s just one tiny story in a million of much bigger tragedies and losses. Just remember that because of this out-of-control virus you may not even get medical attention when you need it—so take care of yourself.   



Thursday, September 3, 2020

Of an Aesthete


Of an Aesthete

For love of the Cleveland Museum of Art


What the museum is not—

crowding, touching, breathing sometimes,


just free easy looking,

distancing and whispering.


But my back won’t concur 

and there is nowhere to sit now,


no place to contemplate

the overwhelming proof


of God on every wall, every

gallery a devotional to creation.


The Christ Child sleeps alone in heavenly peace

on a bed of marble, obeying the rules,


his illustrated life surrounds him,

from angelic innocence to piercing agony.


What would we know otherwise

if not this promise of preservation


in this stone pantheon, light swelling

through the open-sky atrium, so near, so eternal.

 

Thursday, August 6, 2020

Are You A Victim?

The constant belief in or search for conspiracy theories is a victim mentality. If there are forces or organizations whose sole purpose is to deceive you, cheat you, or keep essential information from you, then you are entitled to be enraged all of the time. You are entitled to take less personal responsibility for your circumstances in favor of blaming others for depriving you of something you need. 

Victim mentality is what Fox News thrives on. It's what keeps viewers coming back to hear more outrage and blame. The network frequently reports inaccurate information, let's it spread, and then occasionally apologizes for the falsehoods. But too late, it's all over social media. They got what they wanted---ratings. 

If Alex Jones convinces you that twenty children were not brutally murdered at Sandy Hook by an assault rifle then you do not have to feel guilty about not wanting them banned. You don't have to imagine that you put the right to own a weapon (that is good for nothing but murder) above the lives of innocent children.  

If someone can convince you that hydroxychloroquine is a cure for Covid-19 and it is being withheld from us then you do not have to comply with CDC standards for safety. You can do what you want because you have no responsibility for the fact that millions of Americans are sick. (If you believe that to begin with.)

Believing in conspiracies also dismisses you from believing the media or scholars on the subject. You can just say something is a hoax without any concrete information to back that up. You are free to believe anything you want.  You can also be comforted that you are not, in any way, to blame for anything. It's the government, it's the mainstream media, it's experts who have spent their lives studying the issue who somehow are out to get you.

So ask yourself why so-called experts are out to get you. Why have so many organizations and individuals spent years plotting just to deceive you. What is the pay-off for them? Do you actually think so many people have devoted their lives to something just to trick you?

A couple years ago a friend told me that Obama was going to take her guns away. This was after Obama was no longer president. I mentioned that he never said that and it never happened. She said, "but he was going to." She was still outraged about something that was misinformation to begin with, and something that never could happen. What a waste of emotional energy. 

I often watch network news. I have never detected an effort by them to convince me of something. I understand that they choose what to air, but the facts are presented with little commentary. They are accused of being strictly liberal but they interview many conservatives and do not argue their points or rant or call them names as I've heard on Fox News. In no way are they forcing you to believe something or make an effort to scare you. 

Believing in conspiracies is living in fear and this is what I told my friend when she insisted that "they" were coming to get us. I don't believe in living in fear. This friend lives in a safe area and her life has never been threatened in any way so where is she getting this fear from?

(I do realize that many Americans living in poor areas have reason to be fearful but it is not because the government is coming to "get them" or take what they have, it is because of gun violence and crime and I do not minimize that type of fear.) 

Absorbing scare tactics that you hear but have no actual experience with is just living in fear. It's paranoia, it's a way out of blaming yourself for anything. It's being a victim.

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Do You Really Care About Others?

The same principle can be applied to all of our current issues: Do you care about other human beings?  If you answered yes then you must be able to distinguish the importance of people over inanimate objects like monuments, Chief Wahoo, the Redskins name, or Confederate flags.

Those things hurt other people but it does not hurt you in any way if they vanish.

If tradition is more important than the way those things negatively impact other Americans then you actually don’t care about those people.  You only care about your sentimentality and "the way things have always been," which doesn't make them right.

If you call yourself a Christian then you are to follow Jesus’s example of unconditional love for others. If he could die for others then you can give up mere symbols for others.  

The Protestant church does not believe in the worship of or need for symbols.. They are seen as being akin to idols. As a Protestant, my church has no statues or symbols of Jesus and yet I do not forget Him.

I do not need a monument of Hitler to remember the horrors of WWII. I can read about it in a book or remember my father's service to his country. Nothing can erase the past. 

Native Americans and Black Americans have been the most mistreated people living in this country since Europeans arrived—and are the poorest as well. How about we give them a break?   Really, it won’t change your life in any way.

This can apply to other traditions like saluting, the National Anthem, the American flag, putting you hand over your heart—-they are just symbols---nothing more. 

Wearing masks is in a different category but the principle is the same: Do you care about other people more than your convenience? Either you do or you don’t.

Now you can call me a snowflake, but if this offends you than you are a snowflake, too, since the term refers to someone's oversensitivity to another persons needs or viewpoint. It’s not an insult to me.  It means I care.