ALL THOSE POSTCARDS….

…phone calls, door knocks, contributions to ActBlue. All that excitement and hope, especially from we women, again thrillingly imagining a woman in the White House at last. Surely it will happen this time, we said to each other as we sat each Tuesday and Thursday at tables in a local inn, addressing thousands of postcards to newly registered voters in swing states.

My favorite was this one: A president is a public servant. Donald Trump is running for election to enrich himself, avoid jail time and seek retribution on his enemies. Vote for Harris/Walz on November 5. They know their duty is to the American people and not themselves. Thanks for voting!

And now all those predictions will come to pass, after the cataclysm of November 5.

We’ll be led by a ship of fools--cruel, cunning, and inhumane fools, who, when and if they figure out how to actually govern and not just break things, will basically take from the poor to support the rich--I read recently that there is much talk of severely limiting Medicaid to help limit the budget destruction the Trump tax cuts will cause.

 I’m sure more cuts to programs that help our poorest citizens survive will come, thanks to the evil that Musk and Ramaswamy will be able to accomplish (see Project 2025). How the poor and even middle class will suffer--the people who voted for him. I suppose many may come to regret their votes, but I take no pleasure in their probable distress.

Right after the election, a friend wrote me this: Trump accomplished what even Hitler could not do. Take complete control of a government in a free and fair election. Our future depends on what adults he assembles around him. Many worries there.

Yes, and now as we are finding out who those adults are, fear is ascendant in many of our hearts.

These words of mine came up as a memory on Facebook shortly after the election, as I was making plans to fly to DC for the amazing and inspiring Women’s March after the 2017 inauguration:

My despair continues. I am searching for a way to channel it, to find actions that will make me feel I am doing something positive to combat the revulsion and profound anxiety that I feel in the face of this daily assault of unthinkable reality. Seeing that man in the high leather chair that belongs to a statesman, in a room he has no right to inhabit, makes me cry once again, drown in grief and horror and rage. But before action, I know I need time and space to mourn what feels now, lost forever. I've been a liberal democrat since high school in the late 50's--a passion for social justice, the women's movement, the call to reach out to the world from my place of white privilege, is in the marrow of my bones. Perhaps I will never get over it--grief is a trickster, it comes in waves and grabs us when we don't expect it; a condition I know all too well. It commands respect, demands we listen to it. I am trying. But meanwhile, I refuse to accept what is becoming the normalization of Trump's new position in the world. "Well, maybe it's not so bad." "We must all come together." I say no, not now, not yet, perhaps never. What is happening is not "normal," it is perverted, twisted, a blow to the spirit, the soul. Another America has risen from behind a fog to capture the flag of our country. It demands we see it, hear it. What it has to say will shape the future in ways we cannot imagine.

 How those words resonate now. What’s different though, is that we’ve had eight years of this dreadful man being in our face every day, normalized as a candidate, as a person- we’re too used to him and his horror show.

 As the Germans got used to Hitler. As they perhaps learned to keep their eyes closed as he created more and more atrocities against “the other.”

 It just sounds too familiar.

 I am thankful to my wonderful yoga teacher Sarah Getz, who taught me how to breathe, or I’d still be hyperventilating.

 Breathing deeply helps. Meditation helps. Long walks with my black lab help. Connecting with other like-minded friends helps. Distractions are necessary as are writing and reading- (I recommend “Lovely One” by Ketanji Brown Jackson, an inspiring memoir by our newest Supreme Court justice). Staying away from the news would help if I did it, but I read the NYT and all the other liberal press, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes voraciously. I just read that Gaetz withdrew, but it’s possible, yes probable, to get someone worse I suppose. And there are so many other purely dreadful, frightening candidates for posts in Trump’s wrecking-ball government-to-be.

 I had hoped to be writing this blog post about two wonderful, nourishing reunions I attended just before the election. The first was what I’d decided would be my “swan song” after thirty-four years of leading women’s writing retreats both in my home in Lakeville, and in Block Island and other beautiful places. Still struggling with my vestibular neuronitis and its dizzy attacks and energy-crushing debilitation, I was buoyed as always by the brilliant writing and sustaining energy of the women who came, some of whom had been with me for many of those years. Their gift of a photo album full of history and gratitude brought me to tears. Though I will dearly miss all the participants who came to my weekend, all-day groups, and ten-session series over the years, I knew deeply that it was time to move on from that work and attend more to my own life and writing.

 I unpacked my books and notebooks, loose comfortable clothing, leftover food, candles, and that precious photo album, only to pull out a bigger suitcase to hold the more dressed-up outfits I’d wear in Washington DC, where my sixtieth college reunion was to happen. I flew down the next day, and how good it was to be with my college classmates of so long ago. Over forty of us came, and in addition to dinners and breakfasts with friends as well as other planned festivities and “The Conversation” mostly about aging and all it means, I especially enjoyed the Friday forum, “Democracy on the Ballot,” featuring many excellent speakers, among them Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post, and our own Nancy Pelosi ’62, two years ahead of us. We left the forum and the whole reunion feeling optimistic about the outcome of the election. Nancy sounded so sure we would win, saying “Hakeem Jeffries will be the Speaker of the House.”

 Well, we know how that went. At least, small comfort, it’s close in the House. Maybe a few of those spineless Republicans will grow one and stand up for sanity.

 Maybe.

 I imagine many of you are as tired of reading all the doom articles about the election and its devastating consequences as I am.

 So, I’ll end. Enough. But let me offer some words I received the other day, by an exceptional teacher of the Buddhist dharma (teaching of the Buddha), Jack Kornfield:

When times are uncertain, difficult, fearful, full of change,
they become the perfect place to deepen the practice of awakening.

After viewing the elections…. whatever your point of view,
Take time to quiet the mind and tend to the heart.
Then go out and look at the sky.

Remember vastness, there are seasons to all things,
gain and loss, praise and blame, expansion, and contraction.
Learn from the trees.
Practice equanimity and steadiness.

Remember the timeless Dharma amidst it all.
Think of the best of human goodness.
Let yourself become a beacon of integrity, with your thoughts, words, and deeds.
Integrity in speech and action, virtue and non-harming bring blessings.

Remember the Noble truths, no matter the politics or the season:
Greed, hatred, and ignorance cause suffering. Let them go.
Love, generosity and wisdom bring the end of suffering. Foster them.

Remember the Buddha’s counsel,
“Hatred never ends by hatred but by love alone is healed.
This is the ancient and eternal law.”

The human heart has freedom in itself to choose love, dignity, and respect.
In every circumstance, embody respect and cultivate compassion for all.

Let yourself become a beacon of Dharma.
Amidst the changes, shine with courage and trust.
Love people and

This is your world. Plant seeds of goodness
and water them everywhere.

Then blessings will grow for yourself and for all. 

Balance. Remembering impermanence, hard as it is. Not going down rabbit holes of despair,  but trying to see all this in a bigger context, as Jack suggests. 

I need words like his, to take them in.

With love, and hope for peace in our hearts, and someday, in the world,

Sharon

SAFARI

You haven’t heard from me in a while. 

There’s a reason. 

The karmic gods decided I needed a really colossal lesson in letting go. 

I got it. Oh, did I ever. My long dreamt-of Kenyan safari, to celebrate our sixtieth wedding anniversary, was about to begin on September 3, when we would fly to Switzerland to spend time with our son and his wife, then go on to Nairobi a few days later. We were packed (mostly) and ready to go. But this horrid disease I’d had for nearly two months seemed to be getting worse rather than better; our son cautioned me--“Mom, do you really want to spend this expensive safari in hotel rooms feeling lousy?” 

He had a point. And I had a really bad day shortly before we were to leave. So, we made the tough and oh-so-disappointing decision, getting notes from our doctor so we would not lose our money. And we could postpone it to a time when I was okay. 

So, you may wonder, what is this disease? 

It’s called “vestibular neuronitis.” And as the time-worn cliché states, “I wouldn’t

wish this on my worst enemy.” 

It started with a bad case of vertigo in mid-July. My primary care doctor gave me a script for a drug called Meclizine, which is similar to Dramamine. It works somewhat for the dizziness but makes me tired. At another visit, her nurse practitioner suggested I get PT, and wanted me to go for a cardiac consultation. A cardiac consultation? “There’s nothing wrong with my heart,” I told her. Which was just what the cardiologist told me when I finally went a week ago. In fact, she said I had the heart of an athlete. 

The PT taught me the Epley maneuver -hanging your head off a pillow, turning it from side to side quickly, 30 seconds a side, then quickly sitting up. That’s a cure for BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo). It worked, then it didn’t. In a few weeks I was back to attacks of dizziness-no longer vertigo-often accompanied by severe malaise-exhaustion, nausea, headache, and just feeling lousy all over.  

That’s the state I was in when we decided to cancel/postpone the safari. And, despite my initial ambivalence, it was the right choice, as I continued to have these episodes. I checked where we’d be on the days I had them and realized my son was absolutely correct, that there was a large possibility I would have missed some of the game drives, Maasai Mara, the Great Rift Valley.

Some tears were shed.

My PT recommended that I see an ENT--made sense. Of course, it took a long time to get one. After I finally did, I arrived at the office promptly at 9:30 only to be told they had no record of my appointment. I told the gatekeeper she was mistaken -she told me I was. I furiously told her she had to find time for me this day as I’d been waiting too long and needed some answers. So, I got squeezed in at noon.  

It took him no time to hand me the diagnosis--he looked in my ears and throat, asked me to move my eyes around--asked me my symptoms. Told me there’s really no treatment, and it takes longer to heal in older people. “Read about it,” he said dismissively, getting up to leave.

I’m still no better. Maybe even worse, on the bad days. I’m worried and scared, and that makes the symptoms more intense. At this point, I cannot get in with any doctor, though I’m on a waiting list for an audiogram which the ENT office says I need, and I plan to make an appointment with the wonderful neurologist my husband has seen at UConn. 

Oh, and did I mention that we are still in the throes of construction? (https://www.sharoncharde.com/blog/first-floor-bedroom) It got off to a very bad start with a maddening delay given to us courtesy of the excavator who was working for a “bigwig client” according to the concrete guys who finally showed up. So now we are in the final stages, with maybe a few weeks to go, but meanwhile we are still sleeping in the room that needs to have twin beds soon enough for my husband’s nephew who is visiting mid-October with his family. The builders are truly gifted and wonderful--you should see my new closet--but we are more than ready to make the move. Meanwhile I am ordering heating register covers, bedside lamps, setting up consultations for the shades we need now that we’re on the first floor, and pricing the afore-mentioned twin beds. Imagining how long it will take to make the move downstairs--and get used to this huge change.

Also, I have a Mohs surgery for a squamous cell cancer on my face Wednesday. Thankfully, it’s a small lesion, but will take four hours in addition to an hour and a half trip each way trip to UConn in Farmington. 

My husband went to the funeral of an old friend yesterday (alone, because I never know how I’m going to feel); another friend has a melanoma which has metastasized. People are dying in Gaza every day-now a middle east war looks possible if not probable. More people will be killed. No one is talking about Sudan and the suffering there. The former president, in his immense cruelty, has found new whipping boys in Ohio, and a whole town is suffering due to his malevolence and narcissistic selfishness. I feel anxiety about the upcoming election every single day. 

So, dear friends, it’s not lost on me that this affliction of mine, this loss of balance, may have multiple causes. A friend who does energy healing whooshed her hands over my head a few weeks ago. “Too much stuff crashing around in that head of yours, Sharon,” she said, with a penetrating gaze. 

Don’t I know it. 

I have a workshop to teach on aging at Wisdom House in a few weeks (https://www.wisdomhouse.org/program-calendar/isnt-it-strange), a four-day writing retreat in RI later in October, and my 60th college reunion right after that. I thought I’d be okay, my old energetic self, for these events but now I’m not so sure. I plan to power through, however, whatever it takes. And I will. 

In yesterday’s mail, there was a small package addressed to me. I was puzzled at the return address, didn’t think I had any outstanding orders. Curious, I tore it open and pulled out the tee shirt I’m wearing in this picture, a gift from my daughter-in-law.

If only she knew how perfect a gift it was for right now.  

Thank you, Hedi, for making me laugh, and to remember that there is only one sensible way to live one’s life--one day at a time. 

Even if there’s a lot going on at the moment.

KAMALA

       I am so happy! It’s been a rare emotion these past dark weeks and month and even years--as I read somewhere recently, the Harris-Walz campaign could be called “MALA” (Make America Laugh Again). How apt. Charles Blow had a great column in the NYT today (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/opinion/kamala-harris-walz-democrats.html?smid=em-share) on the campaign’s “politics of joy.” I and so many of my friends are laughing and smiling again, excited and enthusiastic as we could not be for the Biden campaign.

I love Joe, and so thankful for the great job he’s done as president, but so grateful he’s made room for the next generation, as so many of us had hoped.  

So, I thought I’d repost this old piece, written in joy when Kamala was chosen as Joe’s VP. When I looked it up to see if it had currency for the present moment--the whole piece seems like a “deja-vu” experience, in light of the current amazing emotional turnaround everyone I know has been feeling. And especially because of the Dobbs decision and Project 2025 (every page a horror), which display perfectly how the Republicans want to take us women back to the time in which I grew up.

What relief! 

I believe she picked the ideal running mate and will win the election. We have to work hard, contribute what we can, to make that happen, and as Joe said in his poignant speech, to save democracy.

Here’s the post from four years ago:

   I’ve felt so depleted for the last few weeks that I’ve not been able to summon the energy to write a new blog post. I had wanted to write about John Lewis and his challenge to all of us to build what he called the “Beloved Community,” to get into “good trouble,” and the need for us to stand up for what we really believe. How important it is to tell the truth.  Bush and Clinton, as well as the others who spoke at his funeral were so eloquent and inspiring, and I cried to hear and see Obama, to know so deeply what I’ve been missing. I wanted to hang on to that feeling of inspiration and yes, love. And to share it. But then the funeral was over, and we were back to gratuitous bullying, idiotic tweets, deadlocked Congress, Qanon-believing potential Congress people.

     I finally began a post calling my feeling by its name--- “Depleted,” ---finished yesterday. Here’s how it began:

     When my labs were puppies, I would buy them adorable stuffed toys—monkeys, squirrels, pheasants, even fish. The toys always had squeakers inside, and the first thing the pups would do (when I wasn’t looking) was to try to tear the toy apart, rip out its stuffing to get to the squeaker they, for some reason, seemed to prize. I would carefully put the squeaker and stuffing back into the squirrel or monkey and get out the ancient sewing kit my mother made for me when I got married. Needle threaded, I would sew the rent fabric back up as tight as I could.

     Of course, the pup would do it all over again.

      I wrote that I felt my stuffing was being torn out—by the pandemic and its stripping of options from our lives, by the fascist monster in the White House and

his minions, their cruel travesties against the American people and the stream of lies that pour forth from their mouths daily, by the swelling underbelly of racism in this country that is now becoming mainstream. Then came storm Isaias, which hit my state especially hard and knocked out power and internet for more than a week.

     It all seemed like too much.  I feared for my squeaker—the stuffing rippers were almost there.

     Then came Biden’s announcement of his VP.

     I had been hoping he would choose her. I love Susan Rice, but she had too much exploitable baggage. All the rest of them were great too but each had issues that could easily be abused by the Trump campaign and Trump himself, Abuser-In–Chief.

     Kamala. A woman! A woman of color! Of course, we’d known about the woman part, but to actually have it confirmed, to see them together, to hear her fabulous speech, feel her vitality, her energy, beauty, and skill with words—her woman-ness--it filled me up again.

     I grew up in the forties and fifties, in a traditional family, a very Catholic and conservative one. Women were chattel, owned by men, children were seen and not heard, girls were “less-than.” We knew boys had and would grow up to have more power than we did—all we had to do was look at the world, ruled by men—priests and bishops, doctors and lawyers, bus drivers and store clerks, presidents of colleges, principals of schools full of female teachers, Congress, judges, and of course, the president, vice-president, and entire cabinet. After college, I taught in an inner-city girls’ Catholic high school of 6,000—6 orders of nuns, 11 female lay teachers, and who was the principal? Father Friel. Same in my grammar school, Father Colton, although my high school and college were led by woman—in the case of college, a very strong and brilliant woman, Sister Margaret. But they were the exception.

     In my world, fathers ruled our households while most of our mothers scrubbed and cleaned, vacuumed, did all the childcare, and prepared meals that were seated only when the man of the house arrived home. Women could hope for marriage as a future, borrowing power from a man’s prestige and standing, especially if they were pretty. Nurse, nun, or teacher were the available options for women’s work, if in fact husbands even allowed the wife to work outside the home.

     The texts and poems we read in school were all written by white men. We call them dead white males now, and laugh, but it was my reality then.

      It was a grim world for girls in many ways, but we knew no other, as there were no female role models in positions of power.

     I was aware even then, I did not want a future like my mother’s life, though I married young to a man I loved. We had been equals in every way when we met and dated, but the labels of husband and wife, as well as the birth of two sons in quick succession and his nascent medical career thrust us into similar traditional roles. I did teach until I was let go for being pregnant (in a Catholic school!) but then opted to stay home with my boys, not wanting the influence of a caretaker to replace my own.

     So there I was, in my mother’s life--- sort of, anyway. The difference was of course that my husband was not the autocrat my father had been, though his studies left little time for sharing housework, cooking and child-care.

     I railed against it all, in love with my two boys and my husband, yes, but yearning to see women in positions of power and to feel some of my own. Then came the women’s movement of the seventies---I was a charter subscriber to MS. Magazine, and avidly embraced the tenets it espoused. Finally, shreds of hope.

     But as we all know, change has been much too slow. I’ve devoted my entire professional career to creating women’s community, supporting women’s voices and belief in women’s strength and power, trying to achieve it in my own life as well as in those of other women. And I’m proud of all whose lives I have touched and those who have touched mine.

     So. All this backstory underlies my pure joy in Kamala’s elevation to the VP-elect. To see a woman my son’s age, full of brilliance, vitality, authenticity, and beauty, that radiant smile, partner with a man I respect to seek the two highest offices in the land, gives me such hope. The thought that they might be able to unseat the illegitimate monster who soils the Oval office with his presence is enthralling and energizing.

     A woman in the White House! Yes!

     Those of you who have read I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent know I speak of hope as dangerous, and it is. Wishing or dreaming or praying does not make a thing happen, expectation is risky and foolish---but I’m going to indulge for a bit, let myself be inspired by this glorious possibility.

     For now, my squeaker is safe, in this nest of fresh new stuffing.

                                                      ************

Thanks to all who wrote with concern about my vertigo. For now, it is gone, thanks to something called the Epley maneuver. And interestingly enough, the day I started the maneuver was the day after Joe left the campaign. Coincidence?