Where we are now
And what to do in the meantime
“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” - Howard Zinn.
In This Issue
The end times, Howard Zinn, Jessmyn Ward, and hope
This shareable link to help you and loved ones cast and protect your vote
Invitation to follow the real me on Instagram
End Times
Yesterday, during my morning walk with Rina, I took this picture of the sun. I wasn’t the only one. I saw three other walkers, phones lifted towards the sky. This is not how we think of the morning sun, a red-ringed eye in a green-grey sky. This is how the sky has looked all week. The fires are turning the sun into an eye that looks, as my friend pointed out, like the coronavirus. As with the pandemic, we don’t know when the sky will return to normal. Or if it will. Still, we are out there, taking pictures, chronicling in our own way, where we are now.
The fires, the sun, the pandemic, the hurricanes, human hatred, fear, and cruelty all seem to be swirling together in a perfect storm of destruction. Yet we are still here. None of us knows where this is going. In the absence of this knowledge, we go on walking our dogs and taking our pictures. We go back to our houses. We write. We work. We talk. We go silent. We cook. We clean. We cheer each other up. We try to help with what we can. We do whatever it is we do because it is really bad right now but it is not yet the end and we, or at least I, expect this all to somehow get better. Sometimes I wonder if I will be scrubbing out a toilet or making out a grocery list when the world ends. More likely, I’ll be reading a book and just as I turn the page, the lights will go out.
Not long after we moved here eighteen years ago, a man came to fix our ancient heater. By way of small talk, I asked him a bit about himself and San Diego and, of course, the weather which, he told me, he could take or leave.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, without even looking up from his work. “None of it matters. The end times are going to come before that makes any difference at all.” I laughed, thinking he was joking. He wasn’t. Without looking up from his task, he went on for a good 15 minutes about how he knew it was the end-times -- the politics, the climate, the nastiness of the world. None of it bothered him, he said, because it was all going to end, if not this week, then soon.
Meanwhile, he kept fixing our heater. He needed something to do while he was waiting around, I guess. He was right though, even if we expect the worst, we still have to get through this day and probably a lot more days.
Lately, I’ve been remembering that line from the movie “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” when Patel, the concierge of the Marigold reassures a skeptical customer.
“In India we have a saying. Everything will be all right in the end. So, if it is not all right. It is not yet the end.”
Then I found myself thinking of Howard Zinn who wrote The People’s History of the United States, a book that chronicles history of our country from the days of Columbus to the presidency of George Bush’s war on terror from the perspective of those who were not in power. I read this book fifteen or twenty years after its publication and long after I’d been exposed to the usual versions of American history in high school and college. It was like lifting up a heavy, ornate, carpet and finding the colony of rat droppings it had been hiding underneath. Yet the book was written by a man who believes utterly in people and in the good that humans can accomplish while they are alive and that is why it actually strengthened my faith that things in our country would be “all right in the end.” This quote is scribbled on a piece of paper tacked to my bulletin board:
“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” - Howard Zinn
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Small Acts
If you are looking for small acts of defiance against all that is bad around us, here are some ideas. Please share your own ideas, large or small — ways to keep sane, ways to help, ways to just keep keeping on. You never know what will speak to one of us in just the right way, at just the right time.
Getting out the vote. Some of us are writing postcards, texting, calling to make sure everyone has a voice in our next election. You can also share this edition of Spark to help your loved ones cast and protect their votes.
The Fires. Firefighters from all over the country have come west to help fight the fires that are eating up California, Oregon and sending smoke into Washington state. For weeks they have been working shift after shift with no end in sight. The links below offer some ways to help support these firefighters along with victims of the fires.
Short Read
Jessmyn Ward’s essay, Witness and Respair, broke my heart, then lifted it up as she recounted first her grief over losing her 33-year-old husband to Covid-19 and then felt her grief and heart open to the millions of protestors who gave her hope.
“They witness our fight too, the quick jerk of our feet, see our hearts lurch to beat again in our art and music and work and joy. How revelatory that others witness our battles and stand up. They go out in the middle of a pandemic and they march.
I sob, and the rivers of people run in the streets.” - Jessmyn Ward.
Long Reads
This week’s long reads recommendations come from Sparker Sandra de Helen, a playwright, poet, and novelist from southern California. Learn about her here and listen to her read a few of her poems here, and take a minute to roam her website to discover more about her work. She writes:
“Every year I set a reading challenge for myself based on Book Riot’s Reading Challenge. This year my goal is 50 books. I read a mix of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, plays, graphic novels and memoirs, etc. When lockdown happened, I found myself barely able to read more than a few pages a day. Now, after 178 days in home isolation, suddenly I’m reading voraciously. I have eleven books in my to be read pile! I just finished “White Fragility” by Robin DiAngelo, am reading “Blanche on the Lam” by Barbara Neely (again), and “Undertow” by Jazzy Mitchell (still in ARC form). Next up is “So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo. My favorite book I read so far this year is only seventy pages: “A River Runs Under It” by Andrea Carlisle. A beautiful memoir, a tribute to Carlisle’s forty years living on the Willamette River in a houseboat, this book is light-hearted, loving, and poetic. The author uses a glossary of terms related to houseboat living in order to relate tales of life on her moorage. The book ends with a poem, Houseboat, which is reflective and thought-provoking. The included photographs illustrate the book and the life it depicts.” - Writer and Sparker Sandra de Helen
The Real Me on Instagram
The good news is that my Instagram imposter is no more. The fake account was removed. The bad news is that my own account was also removed. Will you help me rebuild? If you like and use Instagram, please follow me here and I will follow you back. Slowly, one photo at a time, we can stay connected.
Here is the new and real me on Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/egmarro_spark/
Ice Cream Update
I followed through and took another stab at the fig ice cream, this time making it a rich — really rich — concoction that was heavy on figs and goat cheese. It was delicious. I served it over grilled peaches with blueberries and a mint leaf. I stuck a waffle butter cookie from Trader Joe’s on top at a jaunty angle and brought it out to my husband and friends who were enjoying a socially distanced visit with us outside. We ate it all. I meant to take pictures to share but only have the peaches, halfway through the grilling process. But trust me, it was really really good so if you are curious, let me know. I’ll share the recipe.
That’s it for this week. Next week we’ll bring you an interview with author P.J. Colando who will share with us a bit about her newest novel, “The Jailbird’s Jackpot.” In the meantime, check out the books our community is reading on the Spark Community Recommendations page at bookshop.org where every sale supports local bookstores and helps Sparkers to raise money for literacy projects.
What are you reading? Write or comment below to tell us what you’ve read, what you are reading now, and what you hope to be reading soon. I’ll share your selections here and on our page at bookshop.org.
Stay safe. Stay well. After all, it is not yet the end.
Betsy
P.S. Your moment of Zen…Howard Zinn’s words on hope, action and a way to live now
So many hopeful thoughts and ideas. I have to stay positive among all the madness. It is my nature. Small acts - we are starting a Food Drive in my condo building for SD Food Bank. Thanks for your work.