Month: November 2016

In a rather wince-worthy conversation this week in my writing group, one of my writing partners self-identified as a heathen before asking a question about the imaginary religions in my science fiction novel. (Said religions are variants on religions with which we’re familiar here on Planet Earth.) Later, I mentioned “the heathen in the room,” before asking that person to specify something. In reply, every single person in my writing group prefaced their responses with, “well, as a heathen,” or “well, I’m not entirely a heathen, but…” when I was only talking to one of them – the self-identified heathen. And, chagrined, I realized it maybe wasn’t a joke I – as the singular church-attending person in the group – could make.

Heathen is a stupid word; it’s an old English word, rife with schismatic, Eurocentric meaning which brays, “I survey your country and you’re not me, you’re too dark and foreign and possibly lightly clothed, thus I am saved by my very white god, and you are not.” It’s a word which was applied to Muslims and Jews and anyone not Anglican well before the Crusades; the OED has first usage as 970. It’s been a pejorative for centuries. Eons. Ugh.

My sister and I, when we were little, called them by another name: The Channel 9 People. Channel 9 was the PBS affiliate station where all the parental-approved TV shows lived. It was the channel our long-haired, pot-smoking, hippie neighbors watched, and it was difficult to think that people who watched This Old House and News Hour were the bad people we’d been taught to see, in the world outside of our church. People who watched Nature, and The American Experience, and stayed up late to groove to Austin City Limits like our neighbors were …the nice people, who wouldn’t support the government turning against us – as we’d also been taught would happen. People like our neighbors were our secret weapons. The good guys, the Channel 9 People, in a morally ambiguous world.

There is a level of hubris and arrogance in assuming we could tell who would be Bad and who would be Good; who Lost, who Saved. I think of what damage has been done in the name of who’s in, and who’s out, in the name of grouping people so that Ours and Yours are clearly seen, and especially after this election, when “good” has meant so many varied things to varied groups of people, it is troubling. As we are all drawn in shades of gray, and there is no one righteous, no, not one, it makes me both smile and wince that my sister and I even came up with the Channel 9 People. I regret that I was brought up with such a polarized view of the world, but I’m grateful for my old neighbors, whom we loved so well, we bent the rules of our world … and for my friends who were raised heathen – without church at all – and who look at the world from another angle, to show me something new.

Messy. Noisy. Nosy.

It’s an unfair fight, animals v. suburbia. Usually, suburbia wins, but… not always. Under the porch, we’ve had raccoons move in, and once a brilliantly red fox used our back wall for her personal potty station; out walking one morning, we encountered a rangy, long-legged coyote who surveyed us coolly and loped on. We have squirrels we’d like to sell, or we’d give them away for free, and then there are Franklin’s little nuisances, the turkeys. Until the Sierra Club put a stop to it in the eighties some time, turkeys – a California non-native species – were imported from the Midwest, because… someone thought more hunters would be interested. Unfortunately, hunters in NorCal, at least couldn’t keep up with the numbers, and maybe were less interested, what with the abalones and the fish and the blacktail and the wild pigs (I’m going to go ahead and be grateful we ONLY have the turkeys; boars are vicious AND destructive x110) geese, doves, ducks, quail, and what all else to also hunt/gather. Additionally, the turkeys were like, “Pfft, the woods. Where’s a house with a remote?” and moved in to more suburban landscapes. And so, here we find ourselves. With turkeys.

Toms in the Spring are the WORST, striding about in the middle of the street, doing threat displays and getting off on the equivalent of avian testosterone poisoning. They make an unavoidable nuisance of themselves, saber rattling and running at the postman.

They are second in annoyance to the hens, who win the Clueless Motherhood awards, dragging their poults along through neighborhoods in search of dog food and bird seed and any and all of the olives – apples – windfall anything – from everyone’s trees. Then, too, stand in driveways and on rooftops and trees and shriek shrilly at their wee ones, insisting that said little ones shriek back their assurance that they haven’t yet been eaten by something bigger. It is all VERY loud, and generally, very early. Because Nature.

Wait. Where’s my baby?”

But, today, I’m not eye-rollingly annoyed with them. I’m not calling Animal Control because some yahoo tangled one up in rope, and it was strolling along, dragging a huge knot and wouldn’t let me get close enough to help it. Today, I’m okay with the turkeys, because one of them dropped a perfect feather in my front yard.

Okay, it’s silly. But, it felt like a gift. I will take it in that spirit, recompense for waking me up more times than I can count, occasionally chasing me, threatening me, and scratching in the yard like a ginormous chicken.

One perfect feather. Thanks, I’ll take it.

Mental Health Check: Never underestimate the soothing power of crafting, people. Winding twine around a cheap straw wreath can put your head in a good space. Having glue on your fingers to pick off is just a bonus. (Question: why do we enjoy picking off glue? Talk amongst yourselves.) I’m slowly wrestling my anxiety down by sheer dint of repetition: there’s nothing I can do right now, so look toward something I can do. Right now, I can get prepped for the people coming over to my Thanksgiving party, I can plan my decorations, find a fitting prize for Dart Board Turkey Tic Tac Toe (involving darts, balloons, water and and bird seed. Impale these balloons at your own risk.)

The night before the election, I flung myself out of bed at 2 a.m., and stood next to the bed, panting, sure someone had shouted my name. Nope. I haven’t slept well since then, and I am taking Valerian tea and hops and all the good herbal remedies. I may have to step up my pharmaceuticals, which distresses me; I’m one of those people who falls asleep after taking Advil… except when I have insomnia.

My weekly Twitter Sabbath means I get off Twitter Friday night, and come back Sunday night. This week especially I’m going to try and uncouple from social media for twenty-four hours, get a deep night’s sleep, take a walk, eat vegetables and drink sufficient water. My Sabbath means that when I am tired, I will try and sleep – and not do that busy-mind thing of putting it off to mess about on Twitter.

I’m so grateful for the weekend, not just this weekend, but every weekend. I’m grateful for my Sabbath and my sabbatical from talking about or thinking about certain things. I don’t even want to go to church this weekend – just spend time with trees and water and possibly some wriggly little people who don’t know anything but to be artless and full of their own concerns.

Find some quiet, kid time yourself this weekend. Turn off the electronics. Nothing has to be done all the time; give yourself a break.