THE WEEK OF

Norma Tucker 

 

 

 

 The week began with the celebration of two holidays on the same day, Sunday, June 19, 2022 – Fathers’ Day and Juneteenth. The first a longtime tradition and the second in its second year of recognition, here in the United States of America. Then began the events of the working week, events that day to day discredits the word, “united.” There is nothing united when a former president, his family and aides are investigated for tricking a significant percentage of the populace to believe he won an election that he numerically, lost. These believers include many of our nation’s lawmakers 

 

There is nothing united about a country whose Supreme Court nullifies the 108 years of a New York state law restricting who can carry a concealed gun. A law supported by eight out of ten New Yorkers. 

 

There is nothing united about a country whose Supreme Court nullifies a long-standing law that provides women the right to abortion. According to THE WASHINGTON POST’s June 24, 2022 online article, fifty-eight percent of the populace support the right to abortion while only twenty-eight percent were not supportive.  

 

As each of these events occurred on different days of the same week, as each was duly reported I, along with the majorities in the state of New York and across the 50 states felt a myriad of emotions of despair. And with each event, my despair deepened. I sought solace. 

 

 I turned to a poem. A poem that magically or intentionally appeared on my Facebook page. A poem by Mary Oliver, titled:

 

“MYSTERIES, YES”

 

I quote below the last lines of the second stanza: 

 

“How people come from delight or the

Scars of damage.

To the comfort of a poem.”

 

I return to reading this poem several times a day. I found no other comfort. Maybe next week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

WHAT I SEE OR NOT

Norma Tucker

 

I sit at my desk before the sliding glass doors that lead to my balcony garden. The oak tree facing me, the one I’ve watched grow from sapling to full grown, years of changing its color in the autumn from summer green to vivid gold. This year I see only limp green and whimpers of dulled color. No fallings of dried leaves from its limbs to be raked into mounds or to succumb to a leaf blower. 

 

It is past mid-October 2021. A time when the season changes dramatically from summer pastels to vibrant reds and gold, and tinted brown. We anticipate the harvest and holidays. Our palate adapts as summer vegetation changes from stalks to root. This year is different. 

 

The seasons of the past year have given us little time to muse. One season to the next – each defined by hibernation, vaccinated, or not, and the politics of what keeps us from dying. This year we are continually tested as individuals and as a society struggling to achieve something we call normalcy. Humanity is struggling. I am struggling. The natural world is struggling. Fires suck the moisture of forests in the West, record breaking heat in the East. Increasing grief from more destructive violent tornados, volcanos, hurricanes, and wars continuing and ending. What is on the horizon? We cannot fathom, nor trust in the past.

 

My horizon beyond this single tree at this time of year is a hill resplendent - large, lush, colorful trees, an artist’s dream. They remain a reluctant green this autumn, not the glory of yesteryear’s reds, orange and yellow with glints of glaring brightness as the sun ducks in and out of clouds. I ask myself, is it too early, too warm, too wet? Will the next few weeks see the colors change, the influx of fallen leaves left to nourish the earth beneath?

 

Will the winds of late October stir these dry leaves on Halloween – a night of gusts and sweet goodies, ghosts, and giggles. Will by then my horizon change?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                         A RECORD OF TEN (10) GOOD THINGS THIS MORNING 

                                PLUS ONE(1)

                        FEBRUARY 23, 2021@10:30AM

 

1.     The sun is shining. Temperatures are moving upward from the recent days of freezing rain and snow.

 

2.     We are not in Texas today, a place of political rancor and natural disaster (or maybe unnatural).

 

3.     The U.S. Senate Committee on Rules (I think it’s Rules) is meeting to delve into the events of January 6, 2021, to discuss and question the happenings of that day at the United States Capitol. The good thing of today - it began on a bipartisan basis as stated by the lead Senator, Amy Klobuchar.

 

4.     My sister received her second Covid vaccine yesterday. She safely drove down the daunting icy hill that protects her home in her four-wheel drive vintage Jeep wagon and then geared up the ice when she came home with the biotics floating and merging inside her.

 

5.     I’m going to my hairdresser this afternoon.

 

6.     I finished watching THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT on Netflix and am now ready for Fran Liebowitz.

 

7.     I have no clothes or sheets or towels or anything that needs to be washed today.

 

8.     I finally figured out how to fashionably wear my wide cropped jeans in the winter with knee highs and boots that rise above the ankle to the calf.

 

9.     I am wearing earrings – large hoops I purchased in a shop close to the waters surrounding Amelia Island. They don’t look as cheap as they were. I wonder why I haven’t worn them before during this Covid eon.

 

10.  It’s really not an eon or whatever an eon is. It’s been a year of doubt, misery, loss - and gain. The loss of lifestyle, livelihoods, lives. The gain of a new, rational President, vaccine preventives, new and good literature, four distinct seasons, of an uptick in politeness, clearer skies and a broader understanding of less carbon, and those virtual stirring moments of musical creativity.

 

Plus 1   --- I wish it was enough.

 

Norma S. Tucker

 POLITICS AND PANDEMIC

The following entries were written during a period of intense political furor. 

WHAT WORDS 1/6/2021

 

They found each other in the Court Chamber, at the attorney table facing the Bench. The Bench where they formerly sat at opposite ends. All the doors were locked, and the building shut down. In their gossamer forms they eluded these barriers. They looked forward to being together again. She, new to this afterlife; he waited for her. In life, they argued founding principles, each finding legitimacy for their opposing legal decisions. They found commonality within their love of arts and family. Became “besties.”

 

Would she describe what was happening as a tohubohu, the Hebrew word for a state of chaos. She would bow her head and think long before speaking even a single word. He, patient to respond in Latin, rebellium. 

 

They had seen the crowds, seemingly out of control. But were they? They soon realized these individuals, and there were thousands, were on a mission to destroy the democratic principles they so fervently professed and protected.

 

This day, born symbolic, with rules and pomp, allows for each state to cast its electoral vote for the next President of the United States. For this maddening crowd, it was not their man. Theirs is a White Master. Theirs is a man born in richness, living lavishly, a man with whom they have nothing in common other than believing he cares about them. He does not.

 

What say Antonin and Ruth, their spirits from urn or grave, what are they saying to each other? Two, who in their lives of justice disagreed, and fought hard with words for their opposing perceived truths and laughed and wept together at the Opera.

 

 

 

For the Record    11/3/2020                                            

Below are morning musings - mine and fellow Tuesday morning writer friend, Terry Walker-- of this momentous, tenuous day.  

1. My morning of Tuesday, November 3, 2020 -    

    This day in American history will not be forgotten or faded as some former presidential elections lose the perceived drama of their times.  No, this is different. this is not a "so be it." This drama is tragic. I was distressed at Bush vs Gore. But there was Laura. She saw him through alcoholism. Maybe , I thought, she will steady him through his second stretch. This time there is no steadiness, no one, only enablers. This emperor has clothes. Red tie, blue suit, white shirt. A crown of tufted gold. 

So does the emperor's wife. Military khaki-green to make a speech in the White House Rose Garden, a garden devoid of color. Her designer's choice to create the image of strength. The night was hot, in the high 80's. She buttoned to the collar, wrist, belted tight at the waist. What is the message? The emperor's wife is trying to tell us something. Her words as bland as khaki. 

What will this day mean at 12:01AM on Wednesday, November 4, 2020? I am breathless while I rinse dishes for the dishwasher, one of the lucky ones to have a dishwasher and foods to dirty those dishes.

I write all this in subdued fury and fear as I prepare for the meeting of my Tuesday Writing Group - on ZOOM. What are the others writing about this morning, I wonder, as I make-up my clean bed after yesterday stripping and washing all the bedclothes for the two times a year of strip and scald. 

The mundane of dishes and bed linens, putting on some lipstick for the few hours I am home, alone, without a mask A mask - to me a sign of liberty and patriotism, to others of bondage and defiance. Later today, November 3, 2020, I will have my hair cut and colored. What will steady me for tomorrow? 

2. by Terry Walker of Tuesday, November 3 - fellow writer

Election Day November 3, 2020
 
    I have risen this morning with a prayer on my lips and hope in my heart that our nation will elect leaders who will assist us to resolve our most pressing problems. I worry, what kind of world are we leaving for our children, grandchildren, and future generations? It is hard work to seek resolution of deeply ingrained conflicts such as racism, gender equality, science, and disparity of wealth. The eyes of the world are on us. May we all rise to a new beginning tomorrow.

                                                                HER 

                                                    September 2020 by Norma S. Tucker

Have they no shame?

A paragon has left us.

Give the people 

the time to mourn

HER.

Couldn’t they wait till HER encased body 

took leave of the elegance of the Court 

where she served with rigor  

for the people? 

The first HER to lie in state.

Senators sworn to uphold 

rights and privileges, use their power, 

their arrogance, to intimidate 

to name HER replacement.

Posthaste.

 

Senators whose oratory once spoke of process

now agree only

to wiles and oneness

What’s it really about? I’ll tell you.

Abortion rights!

Two women senators disagree with the lot. 

Is it to follow recent precedent of the nominee

to the Court, the one never heard,  

their hard-won rights in danger by those 

of wiles and oneness? How tenuous is our lives!

I’d like to admire a woman judge, mother of seven 

in this contest. We women can do it all 

with access and resources

not with parochial views, decisions 

bent to church, not state.

Give us room. Not just the delivery room. 

Now!

Let us have the room

to mourn HER,

HER last wish.

 

THAT RAG

That rag is still hanging on the tree, the tree directly in front of my seventh floor balcony, now a bit bare with the last of summer plantings. I wonder if those pink geranium buds will actually bloom this late autumn of inconsistent weather patterns. They seem to want to burst open. This year the trees have not exploded into glorious autumn colors. More spotty and muted, I suppose due to the intense summer heat and drought.

About the rag. Once upon a time it must have been white. It looks grayish, hanging there like an old well-used dishtowel. I think there are brownish stripes on one end.  Or are those the shadows of the scraggly tree twigs and limbs? Maybe it was a T-shirt like the one I recently tore up to dust the shelves in my closet. That T-shirt had a history. Goes back to the late 80”s when I bought it with matching pants for my mother to wear to Physical Therapy sessions after knee surgery. I thought about all that, as I took to the scissors. I liked that outfit and took it home with me after she died several years later. 

Probably that rag stuck on a limb slightly lower than the top rail of my balcony has a history too, once part of a life story. After all, rags were once something else before the shredding. History and emotions aside, the hanging rag is unsightly. My begonias while in bloom in their rail boxes hid the view of the rag from my direct vision. But the begonias died, and I had to remove them to prepare for winter? And the sparse leaves left on the tree will continue to fall and leave the rag in full view?

I’ve reported “it,” the rag, to the maintenance department of my co-op building. The answer I received indicates the solution is pending. The tree was a baby when I first moved to this co-op almost thirty years ago. Imagine thirty years in the same place. My longest home in a long life. The view was totally different in those years past. I could see the driveway, as the cars of family and friends drove to visit, giving me a few more minutes to prepare whatever I was preparing. I miss that view, but this one now can be glorious (without the rag). And I still see the driveway in the winter, after the leaves have all fallen.  

I noticed the rag in the spring before budding, did nothing about it hoping the winds would blow it away. As the buds turned to luscious green leaves, I no longer saw it, or even thought about it. Until now.

I don’t think the tree is climbable. Its trunk and boughs are thin. And the rag is really high up. I don’t know what kind of tree it is – the leaves are oak-like. Yes, they are oak. I looked it up on-line, (LEAF KEY FOR COMMON BROADLEAF TREES IN MARYLAND). I didn’t know there were so many local oak varieties: scarlet oak, southern red oak and northern too. Pin oak, black, and white oak. I think mine are northern red oak – or maybe, black.

I’m not sure a ladder will do it either. Maybe a pole – a very long pole – or a trained squirrel.

******

Post Notes:

I haven’t seen a squirrel so far this autumn. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen an acorn on my neighborhood walks. In my scanty online research, an article in SOUTHERN LIVING, not dated, read, “No squirrels, no acorns.” It seems to me that the title of that article should be turned around. “No acorns, no squirrels.” No training.

 Over coffee at a bagel shop with two long-time friends, one suggested a fishing rod with a large hook at the end of the line.  To launch it from my balcony close to the limb where the rag hangs caught in the twigs. I’ll mention it to another friend, who recently took fly-fishing lessons, before I refer to maintenance.