Sister Marches

Portal de Playa del Carmen

            The day after Donald Trump took his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" to the best of his ability, I found myself in the company of roughly 100 others, marching up Avenida Quinta from the Portal in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We ranged in age from around 10 to around 80, mostly women, but also some men, mostly from the United States but some Canadians and a few Mexicans, as well. One guy was an Italian who lived in NYC; one woman remembered being in China at the time of Tiananmen Square and wearing a mourning band on her arm throughout her visit there.

            This Sister March in Playa del Carmen was an impulse by a young American woman temporarily working in Playa and living there with her family. She and her Mexican-born husband wanted to give their kids an opportunity to live abroad in their father's country before high school and the complexities involved in teen-age life kicked in. She found and contacted the Sister March website, and in short order, listed the march for the rest of us to find.

            We joined the gathering for different reasons, but all shared the organizer's stated purpose: "Our intent [she wrote] is to gather together and enjoy the company of one another as we stroll and contemplate either in silence or in constructive dialogue the challenges we all face as part of the human rights advocacy community." It wasn't an anti-Trump march as such, but it did protest and resist certain of the new administration's avowed goals.

            On 21 January,  which now seems so long ago though it's been less than two weeks, there were already concerns that the new administration might try to roll back rights that many of us feel are fundamental to our values as Americans, such as an unfettered right to vote, along with rights considered under international law as fundamental. We might be forgiven this concern, since it was based on statements made during the campaign by the now president.

Sister March bracelets: Playa del Carmen

            The executive actions taken since the inauguration have not poured calming oils on waters stirred to the boiling point by the campaign--it might rather be said that flows of burning oil have been spilled across as much of the American landscape as could be managed in a short period.

            The response of thousands of citizens who have put aside their differences to resist these actions is laudable and hopeful. While allegations continue from die-hard supporters of the new administration that the Women's and Sister Marches are just "whining" because our candidate didn't win,  there are signs that some who originally believed in the president are reconsidering their faith.

 

            The film of the throngs at the Women’s' March, at the Right to Life March (a march is a march, and there were women who participated in both of these events), at airports and wherever they've gathered in the public square are impressive in their celebration of and commitment to their beliefs.  It is critically important both that they stay that way and that they continue.

            We need to resist at every turn the illegitimate efforts of those in the new administration who would shape national interest to personal interest regardless of  the consequences.

             But we need to have a care, as well.  There's a well-worn and rather heavy handed tactic much favored by repressive authority: goading peaceful demonstration into open conflict. This is usually managed by embedding provocateurs into crowds to manufacture violence. It can result in painful injuries--the thugs hired or encouraged to do this aren't selected for their discursive persuasion, but for their inclination to create mayhem.  They may also enjoy administering pain. To counteract it, one cannot fight back, and others in the crowd must witness and gather evidence. If possible, as many bodies as are available can "swarm" the aggressor without inflicting blows to prevent further harm being visited on the target. Disarming an attacker works, too, if it can be done without getting drawn into a brawl. It's critically important not to be tempted into further violence.

Los Angeles Sister March

            Not easy, but the up side of this kind of disruption is that it is heavy-handed, and if demonstrators don't rise to the bait, it can easily be shown for what it is: provocation (whether spontaneous or paid/incited).

            I'm not saying anyone is planning such attempts. I suggest only that we march on--with eyes peeled, cameras ready and great care, even as we engage in constructive dialogue and pay close attention one to another.

Lantern on the Stern

My ideal for a work site

            I am so pleased to report that the never-ending novel has resumed its endless course. My stranded protagonist has progressed from a street corner near the Giralda Tower in Seville (see post of 1 July 2016) to the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. He, in a group that includes both a family member and childhood friends, is enjoying a thus far uneventful sail in one of the two last ships in the Nicolás de Ovando expedition to Española in 1502. (Well, not entirely uneventful, since the records show that there were three stragglers, and one was lost off the Canaries. But my characters may not know about that, as vessels on the Atlantic crossing often lost sight of each other in the course of the 7 to 8 week journey.)

            I think he's going to get through some seven years in a couple of chapters during the next couple of weeks! If I don't get bogged down again researching facts that I probably don't need to worry about and  just stick to the bloody story. But tales seem to have their own ideas of where they want to go--or maybe mining them just opens previously undiscovered veins in the imagination's tunnels.

            Going back over the previous chapters, I was struck by a whole section where the protagonist goes off on a tangent on his way home from the occupation of Granada. I certainly didn't intend for the Jewish expulsion from Spain to take up a chapter or two; the idea was to note the historic event as a backdrop to the protagonist catching a wagon to the coast so he could find a ship home. But the realities of the expulsion had a logic of their own, so there wouldn't have been space on a ship available going to an Atlantic port from the Mediterranean, and my guy isn't likely to just sit around taverns waiting until those under the expulsion order are all carried away and the ships returned

            A caveat here: it's entirely possible that these scenes may disappear if I ever finish and get to rework and polish this tome, but at the time, they insisted on being written so for the moment, they're part of the story.

            Rereading them as we embark on a new year, is a return to the start of the year just ended because the context of when they were written is inescapable. It was early 2016 and the European refugee crisis was at its publicized height. As spring gave way to summer, a huge sign hung on a downtown building in Madrid welcoming refugees, even as Hungary and other eastern European nations were closing borders. Britain was debating Brexit, in part because of whipped up emotions about foreigners (dangerous terrorists, taking jobs from Brits, destroying culture... the charges are familiar because they were repeated in the U.S.  Presidential campaign).

In Parque del Buen Retiro

            In Madrid during June, in the Parque del Buen Retiro, there was a powerful exhibition of photographs depicting the plight of Syrian refugees mounted in the open air along a walkway. Few seemed to take notice of it. Another photo exhibit hung in Madrid's Matadero complex--a  slaughterhouse repurposed into a cultural center--starkly illustrated the dangers of the Mediterranean raft people trying to get to Greek or Turkish territory. The numbers represented by mountains of orange life vests stacked on the beaches where boats came ashore are staggering.

            Back home last August, at a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, I watched while the audience empathized with displaced early 20th century Russian Jews as they trudged their weary way into exile at the end of the play.  I wondered how many saw the reflection of today's Syrians, Iraqis, Sudanese and Somalis--sadly, not an exhaustive list--in those bowed figures. Since then, the presidential election and the apparent resurrection of the right, with the concurrent trends of isolationism and nationalism, have pushed the refugees, as such, from the headlines.

            But they still exist. They still try to survive and find a safe place to settle, to go about the ordinary business of living a life. As did the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, and the Muslims, expelled from Spain in 1502. Today, people flee from war, and sometimes from tyranny, and sometimes from fear. They aren't expelled, not from their homes, not from their homelands, native or adopted. Are they?

            Samuel Taylor Coleridge once observed: " "If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind." Spain suffered from its expulsions, though it took time for the full impact to take hold. Lands that welcomed the expelled benefited from their knowledge and experience. It's a sobering lesson. I hope we might have learned from it. I hope we will hang the lantern forward, where it can illuminates the channel markers and shoals ahead.

On Drainage

            The water began to spread up from the sump well in my laundry room. It overflowed quietly, serenely, inexorably. I tried to shovel it up with a snow shovel (surprisingly effective, by the way, if the flooding is finite) into buckets I carried up to throw into the raging storm beating against the Maine coast.

            Then I discovered water seeping through the walls in the library. This was not a simple overtaxing of my drains at the height of a storm. These waters would not recede.

Rising waters reflect ceiling light

            At one point, after all the books and papers stored on low shelves had been piled a foot above the floor on whatever there was they could be stacked on, after any critical  power strips had been raised to a safe height, after boxes had been removed from the basement entirely... at that point, I stood on the cellar steps, staring at the reflection of a ceiling light in the still clarity of an inch of water and I thought: "What have I done to bring this on? Why is this happening to me?" I railed at whatever powers that there may be: "I try to be a good person! I try to respect the earth and her waters! I don't deserve this!"

            And there we have it, children. I succumbed to that oh so human impulse to turn what was happening into a story about me. There  I stood on my cellar steps in the center of the universe, with all creation swirling around me, and I raged at fortune's cruelty to me.

            Now, as it happens, I did, in fact, have a part to play in this tale.

            Some years before, the drainage system had been fully explained to me; I knew where the overflow pipe drained. I also knew, in a vague sort of way, that roots could get into it. And as the years passed, I blithely forgot about the overflow pipe. Its outlet was buried unnoticed, and a young willow nearby grew to a grand height, its roots fed even in drought with the help of my drainage pipes.

Willow roots pulled from drain pipe

            None of which means there was some cosmic or divine gathering of energy in response to some action or inaction on behalf of or to the detriment of humankind or, more generally, the planet. Shit happens, especially when you're not paying attention.

            The damaged drain pipes are being dug up and replaced. This all happened as 2016 turned into 2017--a purely arbitrary division of time established for practical and ritual reasons almost 500 years ago for most of the Western world with adoption of the Gregorian calendar. It fell close on the winter solstice, which is governed by the movements of the earth and the sun, and existed long before humankind began to stalk across the planet.

            There are ever so many stories I can make up using these elements and more.  But it would be unwise in the extreme to forget that the facts are straightforward and not open to debate or interpretation.

            It seems to me that this basic rule is often ignored, and doing so is profoundly dangerous. Here are some facts, for instance, about the election: Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million plus votes more than did Donald Trump; if you add the votes cast for other presidential candidates, some 10.6 million more votes than Trump's roughly 63 million were cast for someone other than him. There is NO evidence that the vote tallies were fraudulent or that there was voter fraud.

            The president-elect has said that he has a mandate and is acting as if he has a mandate. He does not. Moreover, even those who voted for him do not necessarily agree with his policies (or what we know about them).

            So we need to pay attention. Trump voters need to hold him to account for his promises and let him know when he undertakes to act contrary to their interests, as in trying to roll back measures to slow climate change. Or, significantly, when he tries to further pit Americans against one another rather than encouraging unity. Trump opponents need to organize and focus in order to turn opposition into votes in 2018.

            As to this drainage project the president-elect has offered of the D.C. swamp? Just keep in mind that if we don't pay attention, there are thirsty roots liable to get into that drainage and not only stop the outflow, they might even flood the foundations!