I started the new year with the discovery of a Black Widow spider, settled in and making a living in the light next to my front door. I’ve been in SoCal for decades and I’ve never seen a Black Widow anywhere “in the wild” before, but now suddenly here was one dangling two feet from my face. Happy New Year to me.
Soon after that the air dried out and the winds blew and well, you all saw the news. My beloved, adopted city was burning out-of-control. Correction: As I type this, it is still burning in a lot of places, just not quite as out-of-control. Whatever you’ve seen on the news, trust me: it’s even worse than that. A few of my friends here have lost their homes and everything they own, but even more startling is: Everyone I know knows someone (or multiple someones) who lost their homes. It is a colossal disaster. Trying to explain the scale of it to friends back east, I did some quick math – the Palisades fire alone has burned an area over three times bigger than my entire hometown… and it is still burning. You don’t get that kind of scale from the news.
And then there was Monday. I’ve watched every Presidential Inauguration since Jimmy Carter’s in 1977. I was too young to vote then (heck, I was still too young to vote in 1980 when Reagan replaced Carter) but, even though I was kid, my parents made a point of explaining to me the importance and the unique majesty of the proceedings and I was immediately hooked on it all. So, today’s inauguration & speech was my 13th time watching the Peaceful Transfer of Power, the speeches that follow and the actions that immediately follow the speeches. What I witnessed along with everyone else was unlike anything I ever saw or heard before, or expected to see or hear, in America, in my lifetime. And with the air all around me still smelling like an electrical fire (as it has for the past two weeks,) it occurred to me that the official policy of the United States, as of today, is now: “Climate Change is a hoax.” …tell that to the fires. The fires that used to happen between August and October, but now happen anytime between June and January.
I’ve been posting to this blog for nearly 18 years. I’ve focused on my creative work, and creative struggles and the ups/downs that come with living the life I freely chose. I haven’t talked about politics or, more specifically, my politics, but at some point silence does become complicity. I think we, as a people, have turned a dark corner and I think it’ll be a long, hard time ahead before we start moving toward the light again. My heart is absolutely broken. Something profound ended on this latest Inauguration day and something… else… has begun. I would be lying if I said I knew what was going to happen next. I don’t, but I do know this: It won’t be good and afterward, nothing will ever be the same again. ….including us.
PLANET O'CONNOR 