1 O' Clock

 

I'd like to reclaim a daily practice of writing. For many years I'd written here, and then shortly after moving to Berlin, I stopped. If I'm being honest, even leading up to that period my resolve got sloppy. Life gets in the way. Sometimes it gets in the way of even those things we most enjoy. I realized recently that I've also stopped listened to music. Music and writing were two of my biggest joys. I guess living in a van for a couple of years in remote places makes listening to music a little more challenging. But even the desire to listen, now that we're house sitting for a friend's farm here in the Polish mountains, somehow dwindled and evaporated. It's odd. Even passions can disappear.

It was a long time ago that I last wrote here. Or, at least it seems that way. Lately I feel as though there are things I'd like to say but I'm not quite sure how to say them, or what they even are. Writing has a way of focusing the mind, uncovering what's simmering beneath the surface. But here, now, pressing words into existence key by key feels like trying to get a frozen motor to turn over. The key is in the ignition, turned to 1 O' clock, but the engine just groans. 

The world is in a sad state of affairs at the moment, particularly where I'm from, back in the United States. There's a piece of writing I saw the other day on social media that summed it up quite nicely:

"Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared."

That was written nearly 80 years ago, to the day, on January 13th, 1943, by a young author named Anne Frank. I never thought I'd see the things I'm seeing — the things we've been seeing on social media for the last few years; genocide, the wanton destruction of civilian populations in Gaza, men women and children blown to pieces, maimed and bleeding in the rubble; imperialist invasions into Latin America to steal the nation of Venezuela's supply of crude oil; ICE agents, deputized as the president's private police force, murdering US citizens in broad daylight on residential blocks. None of this is new, of course. I realize it even as I type it. This kind of behavior is the cornerstone of western democracy, and has been for a long time now. People of color know this. Women know this. Anyone who's ever been marginalized or oppressed or disadvantaged by a cruel and unjust system knows this. I just hadn't seen it so nakedly before. There's no longer any attempt to even conceal or deny it. The masks are off. Except for the ICE agents. They still wear them as they terrorize city streets, abduct mothers and children from elementary schools, deport legal US citizens to torture camps in El Salvador, kick, bludgeon and trample the elderly and infirm, illegally detain critics and dissenters bold enough to publicly challenge and denounce US policy.

There's much more that can be said about the US's transformation towards fascism, but I tire of the topic. It's everywhere you look. Sometimes it's important to pause for a moment and take a second to breathe. Speaking of breathing, the air here in southwestern Poland is notoriously poor. Some days when I step outside the air greets me with the quiet charm of a clenched fist around my throat. It has a dirty, sooty quality that curls the lips into a subtle snarl and wrinkles the ridge of the nose. Small particulate matter floats in the air, sometimes visibly, as an ominous smog. These particles vary from coarse to fine to ultra fine, the latter being able to penetrate not just the lungs but deep into the bloodstream where they can circulate throughout the rest of the body and pose serious health risks. This is the air we breathe. Not just in parts of Poland, but in many places in the world. Our seas and skies are polluted. Our soils, too. We've made a proper mess of things. Humans seem particularly vulnerable to those things which we either cannot see or imagine, or those things which move slowly, glacially, accretially. In the case of air pollution, it happens to be both. We are the frog being boiled, and the ones boiling the water. 

The wood stove which heats the home we're staying in demands that I continually feed it fresh cords of wood. Its appetite is insatiable. I need to occasionally monitor it and provide it with new wood every so often, resulting in an interrupted flow here this morning. Add that to an already icy and rusted writing capacity and I'm sure this won't make for a smooth read. 

My humblest apologies, dear reader.

Perhaps I should take that as a cue to wrap this up. There are other things to tend to here on the farm. Sure, the chickens have been fed, but they didn't seem interested in their food this morning. Their water was frozen and they were sneezing. I'd like to check on them. The cold does them no favors. Our wood supply is thinning so I'll have to make a short trip up the hill beside the house to collect more fodder for the oven. Last night when we arrived late after a long and arduous drive in the snow from the mountains of Slovakia, I dragged the wheelbarrow to the woodpile and its icy metal handles instantly froze to the warm pads of my fingertips, especially my thumbs. I wear the sort of fingerless gloves you'd see on a dapper homeless man, the kind you may remember adorning the handsome hands of The Wet Bandits in Home Alone. Needless to say, my fingertips are a bit raw and red this morning.

I have some other tasks to tend to as well. I'd like to read, perhaps record a podcast episode, practice Polish, and maybe even meditate. There's too little time in the day, even when time's all you have.