January 6 - 26

and the expression of condensation

Tuesday the 6th, 5th anniversary of The Attempted Coup.

Today began with toast and black coffee. The weather report looked promising. We headed for the garden as soon as we could.

I snuck a peek at Reuters first. Oh yeah. More horrid bullshit. More confirmation that the world sees us as one giant sucking asshole. That was not what I needed. I grabbed my cup and bag of drawing stuff and headed down the path.

Tom was already digging around when I walked through the gate. My first thought was “mustard” again. After yanking the biggest plant and rinsing it in the ol’ orange bucket, I patrolled rows of greens and onions and lettuces. The simple act of wandering through all that chlorophyll usually grounds me, but not this morning.

I couldn’t get the thought of our allies seeing us as predatory empire building fascists out of my head. I couldn’t get the thought of dead Cubans and bombs dropping on Caracas out of my head. I couldn’t get the thought of THAT January 6 out of my head. I couldn’t get the thought of what it must feel like to be Mark Kelly out of my head. I couldn’t get the thought of maybe thinking about this shit was going to give me a real live heart attack out of my head.

I sat at the project table, suspending further thought, and looked up at the sky. No planes. One buzzard. And the most hilarious sign left by a couple of contrails. You know what I had to do. I mean, it was so perfect. So fucking perfect.