If you’re looking for a laugh or a light post, this isn’t the place to find that. If you’re trying to avoid politics, you might want to skip this post. But I’m tired of watching what I say. The time for that is past. The reality is that it’s impossible to tear my mind away from the news, even when I try not to follow it. Even when I try to create, the darkness creeps in. So, this post may be disjointed, and it may be somewhat incoherent. But it feels like it reflects my reality right now, and even though I am hesitant to press publish…well, if you’re reading this, I guess I just went ahead and did it.

This morning I read Brad Montague’s post entitled “Empathy is Dangerous“. I thought it must be sarcastic, and I guess, in a sense, it was. But it was also deeply disturbing. Apparently, the latest trend is to suggest that there is danger in being empathetic. That empathy is being weaponized. What?!? When I looked into this a bit further, I saw quite a few 3-4 year old articles supporting the view that empathy is problematic. That it’s somehow dangerous to try to relate to how others experience the world. I really can’t wrap my head around this.

This reminded me of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” One of the verses goes like this:
“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!”

Apparently some things haven’t changed much since this song was published in 1949.

In my Facebook feed today, there was a picture of Ruby Bridges. You know the name, right? She’s the woman who as a child was the first black to integrate a southern all-white school. She’s only 70 years old. How can that be? It feels like that should be ancient history. Clearly, oh so clearly, it isn’t.

I’m participating in a Facebook group poetry challenge this month. The theme is space and today’s prompt invited us to tell about “a thing or things you have, or know of, that used to be in a different space/place.” For some reason, I thought about a place where I once saw a fox, and wrote this poem:

A Waiting Space

Each time I pass
the bend in the road
where once I saw a fox
and the fox saw me,
I slow down to look

I’ve never seen it there again
but I’m now tuned
to its frequency
so if I keep looking
perhaps someday I will

©Molly Hogan, draft

A friend commented “This is what hope looks like.”

If you think of it in a different way, I suspect this is what despair looks like as well–the continual search for something that is no longer there.

These days, I’m looking at a dark space in our country’s history, where things have changed rapidly in a terrifying fashion. Or perhaps they haven’t changed so much as have been made more visible. I’m not sure which is more disturbing. The mandates and orders coming from the current government are ill-conceived and often illegal and unconstitutional. There is no empathy there. There is hatred. And so much greed.

I keep looking into the abyss of a space that once was, or at least seemed to be, a place where there was at lease some respect for the rule of law, for our constitution and for its careful balance of power.

I keep looking, but I’m not feeling hopeful.

This morning it struck me that I’m always hurrying. At least during the work week. This, no doubt, is not news to those around me. In fact, I can anticipate almost hearing the sound of my husband’s eyebrows shooting upward in shock when he reads this. Then, I expect to hear something along the lines of, “Wait! You’re kidding right? You really just realized this?!” (In fact, if you live within bordering towns, you might also hear him when he says this.)

At any rate, many years ago I started getting up very early before work so that I didn’t have to rush. It was quiet. I could write. I could get myself oriented to the coming day. I loved it!

But somehow this morning, it struck me that I’ve somehow managed to fill that part of my day up. It’s like a tetris screen full of blocks with no space for anything else to drop in.

I get up at 4:45 am, start the coffee and do the morning chores (feed the cats, stoke the wood stove, etc). Within 10-15 minutes of rolling out of bed, I’m sitting at my desk. I always start my day by writing in my notebook for 20-30 minutes or so. I’m often noodling around with writing challenges or prompts, too. Then, I try to read and comment on others’ writing. I respond to comments on my blog. I check my e-mails. Then there are a few beloved word games (Wordle, Connections and Spelling Bee) that suck up a few minutes. (I count that as time dedicated to slowing down mental decay.) I shower and get dressed. Then, while I’m eating breakfast, I read a chapter of whatever book I’ve designated as a morning book. (Right now it’s Margaret Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year which is fabulous!) Finally, I’m out the door by about 6:15 or 6:30 am, typically filling the bird feeders on my way to the car, and zipping off to work.

I cherish my morning time, and love all that I do during that time, but it really has become one big long rush. I’m stunned that I honestly hadn’t realized that until today.

So now I’m left with a lot questions: Is there any point in getting up at 4:45 am if it just means I’ll be rushing around for the next 11-12 hours? Do I want to change things? If so, what am I willing to change? I know I can’t get up any earlier, so how can I regain that feeling of morning spaciousness? That freedom of uncluttered time? What can shift or move?

I have a few thoughts, but for now, I’m still processing my realization and pondering…