June 2023
Monthly Archive
Jun 26, 2023
Last night I blogged the journal entry I’d written about George the cat. It wasn’t as long or thoughtful as I might have wanted, but it’s what came out when I set pen to page. I’ve been journaling and blogging long enough–my entire adult life for the former, and nearly 20 years for the latter–that my thinking automatically falls into a short-essay format: whatever I can fit into four handwritten journal pages.
What I’ve found over the years–what the page has taught me as I’ve scribbled my way across its surface–is that thinking expands incrementally and at its own pace, like a flower gradually but inevitably blooming. You might start by noting the weather–today is overcast and humid, with a threat of afternoon thunderstorms–but after the first paragraph or page of surface observation, your thinking deepens to explore the Real Topic at Hand.
Journaling is like having a conversation with yourself, so it’s not surprising, I suppose, that small talk proceeds deeper topics. As much as I’d like my mind-horse to explore deep topics at length, all these years of journaling have trained my mind to run a course that’s roughly four pages long. My brain greets the fourth page the same way a veteran racehorse leans into the backstretch. Now is the time to muster a reserve of energy for the final push.
Although “Write a Book” continues to be the biggest, most intimidating item on my intellectual bucket list, I can no more imagine writing a sustained, full-length narrative than I can imagine running a marathon. All I’ve practiced these many years is short form.
Jun 25, 2023
Posted by Lorianne under
The menagerie | Tags:
George the Cat |
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Today J and I drove to Connecticut for a WNBA game–our third of the season–and yesterday afternoon, we euthanized George the Cat.
This particular combination of Yesterday and Today isn’t accidental. Nearly a month ago, we decided it might be time to say goodbye to George, who was losing weight and having chronic diarrhea. For several weeks, he’d shown some improvement, eating voraciously and even gaining some weight. But this past week, George’s appetite waned and he started losing weight again. Midday yesterday, George went through the motions of eating the food I put out for him without actually consuming much of anything, as if he knew he should want to eat but had forgotten how.
When we adopted George as an adult cat in 2016, he and his “sister” Gracie had been rescued from a hoarder, so neither of them was accustomed to human contact. For the past seven years, both George and Gracie lived as “spirit cats” who had free rein of the house but refused to be touched, much less taken for regular vet care. Although George’s recent symptoms were consistent with the intestinal lymphoma we’ve treated in other cats, he wouldn’t cooperate with the daily medication and monthly checkups that such a diagnosis would necessitate.
George, in other words, would die on his own terms, just as he’d lived.
Sometimes a euthanasia decision is forced by an emergency: something dire happens, so you drop everything and rush to the vet. For the past month, J and I have lived with this question of when. What if George takes a sudden turn while one or both of us is gone or otherwise occupied? At any given moment, how easily can we drop what we’re doing to take George for one last vet trip?
More common, though, are the euthanasia decisions that happen gradually–even as a pet still has occasional Good Moments, you can see the overall downward trend. Although part of you wishes the pet would take the decision out of your hands by peacefully passing in their sleep, this rarely happens. Instead, it’s up to you to schedule a nudge.
So yesterday afternoon, knowing we’d be away for much of the day today, we took George to Angell for an emergency euthanasia between the dogs’ exercise and dinner, when we could focus on his final moments without worry for our other pets. It might seem crass to plan a death around other obligations, but here we are.
Jun 20, 2023
Yesterday was Juneteenth, and the occasion reminded me of an American Studies class I took years ago in grad school. The class focused on literary depictions of the American Civil War, and it consisted of both English and History grad students who looked at historic events through two distinct disciplines.
Our professor required us to join and read posts from a listserv of Civil War enthusiasts, this being the era before social media. Having grown up in the North, I’d never heard Southerners talk about the Civil War. To me, the Civil War was an event chronicled in history books: a conflict where Northerners were the good guys and the South was defeated.
Many members of the listserv, however, traced a direct genealogy to Confederate soldiers, and they were proud that their forebears had fought to defend home and family during the “War of Northern Aggression.” It was clear that the Civil War was not a historical event for these men; instead, it was an ongoing grievance that was never settled.
At the end of the semester, my classmates and I had to present our final research papers to the entire class. In my project, I compared the Civil War poems of John Greenleaf Whittier and Walt Whitman, arguing that Whittier’s sentimental moralism made him popular with his 19th century contemporaries, but Whitman’s depiction of manly comradeship made his poems more palatable to modern readers.
While researching the project, I found a library copy of Whittier’s work that hadn’t been checked out in decades: so long, in fact, it wasn’t listed in the library database. When an elderly librarian keyed the book into a computer so I could check it out, his eyes grew misty. “When I was a schoolboy, we had to memorize Whittier’s poems, but today, nobody reads him.” My, how times have changed.
I’m not a historian, but one thing I learned in that long-ago American Studies class was the way our collective understanding and interpretation of historical events changes over time. When presenting his final project, one of my classmates walked to the chalkboard, wrote the sentence “Lincoln freed the slaves,” and paused, waiting for our response.
My classmates smiled and nodded knowingly. Is “Lincoln freed the slaves” a true statement? Yes, no, and both? Many of us had been taught some version of that statement, alongside myths about Washington cutting down a cherry tree and the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving.
My graduate classmates and I had read and discussed the Emancipation Proclamation, debating whether Lincoln had legal authority over states that had seceded from the Union. If Lincoln wanted to “free the slaves,” why did Emancipation apply only to enslaved people in rebel states, not the entire Union?
Even though the Confederate ancestors of those Civil War listserv members would have vehemently denied that Lincoln was the boss of them, the Emancipation Proclamation freed at least some slaves. The reality that Juneteenth celebrates, however, is more complicated than any one-sentence summary. In graduate school, I realized how my high school history classes had simplified the past; today, some states are trying to sanitize it even further, removing references to racism, white supremacy, or other uncomfortable realities.
History, like reality itself, isn’t simple, comforting, or easily understood. As Walt Whitman might have said, the past is contradictory because it is large and contains multitudes.
Jun 12, 2023
J and I had planned for months to attend this year’s Boston Pride for the People parade in downtown Boston: our first in-person Pride parade since 2019. But since both of us are still congested from the cold I caught last week, we decided to stream the parade online instead of cramming ourselves onto public transportation.
Watching a parade on TV is not the same as being there, but the telecast reminded us of the festivity of past Pride events, filled with smiles, rainbows, music, and dancing. One of the things I find remarkable about Pride is the sheer joy of it. Pride is born from oppression and pain. Generations of LGBTQ+ folks have been shamed, stigmatized, and worse for simply being who they are. There are many ways to respond to such trauma: you can hide, internalizing the abuse heaped upon you, or you can lash out, becoming bitter and resentful of a world that hated you first.
Or, you can Choose Love. When I see rainbow flags and floats and cheering crowds of people and even pets bedecked in bright, vibrant colors, I see folks making a conscious choice to meet hate with love. Pride is a celebration that says no matter how hard the hate, love is louder. You can rain on someone’s parade if you choose, but rainbows are born of rain.
Across the country, LGBTQ+ rights are under attack. Here in Massachusetts, both politicians and citizens alike are damn proud of holding the line, insisting that all people have the right to be who they are and love whomever they choose. This insistence on human dignity and individual liberty shouldn’t be radical, but here we are.
Jun 8, 2023
Today I started reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead. I’ve been wanting to read the book since it was published last year, but since it is loosely based on Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, I wanted to re-read that novel first.
Most of the reviews of Demon Copperhead insist you don’t have to have read Dickens’ novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s coming-of-age story of an impoverished Appalachian boy. But since I had read David Copperfield in high school, I wanted to refresh my admittedly fuzzy memories of the story.
All I’d remembered about David Copperfield was the character of David himself, the slimy villainy of Uriah Heep, and the financial disasters of Mr. Micawber. I’d forgotten all the other characters as well as the particulars of David’s rise from poverty to respectability.
It took me three months (!!!) to listen to an audio version of David Copperfield. Dickens’ novel was originally published in serial format, so listening to the story in small bits here and there felt fitting. Since the novel recounts David’s childhood and coming-of-age, there isn’t a single narrative arc: instead, each chapter describes an episode in the boy’s maturation. This makes the book perfect for slow, occasional reading.
Since Dickens’ David Copperfield is fresh in my mind, I’m enjoying the allusions Kingsolver weaves into Demon Copperhead. Since I know how Copperfield’s story ends, I can imagine where Copperhead’s story will eventually go…but Kingsolver’s retelling of a story from Victorian England to modern Appalachia provides enough novelty to make every episode fresh. I’m looking forward to turning every new page.
Jun 7, 2023
Yesterday the sky was milky white with haze from Canadian wildfires. It was, presumably, a partly cloudy day, as shadows appeared and disappeared, but all day long I never saw the sky, just a smudgy glow where the sun was supposed to be.
On the ground, yesterday’s sunlight shone with an orange tint. Today, the light was still brassy, but we could see patches of blue where overnight rains had started to wash the smoke from the sky.
These past few days, I’ve been sick with a summer cold: the first illness I’ve had since May, 2019. In typical fashion, this cold started in my throat, spread to my sinuses, then settled in my lungs.
Yesterday, the combination of cold, allergies, asthma, and smoky air made my chest ache. Today, my sinuses are still congested, but my lungs have started to clear. Nevertheless, when I played outside with one of our dogs today, I carried an inhaler in my pocket, just in case.
Jun 1, 2023
Today is the first day of LGBTQ+ Pride month, so this evening J and I donned rainbow shirts and hats to attend the annual Pride flag raising at Newton City Hall, where a rainbow flag will fly for the month of June.
J and I are straight and cisgender, so Pride is not “our” holiday. But we both believe it’s important for everyone to show up (and show support) for LGBTQ+ folks. Every year, J and I cheer for the Boston Marathon runners who pass through our neighborhood, even though we ourselves are not runners, and being LGBTQ+ in a sometimes hateful world is just as grueling as running 26.2 miles.
I see June as being an excuse for everyone–gay or straight, trans or cisgender–to remember the basic human truth that everyone deserves the right to be who they are and love whomever they choose.
Hoarded Ordinaries 