Gathering Time (Title of Simon Baxter's Book)
Lost Roads
You know, we all seem to go down so many lost roads in our lives. Roads that don't have a name and take us from our intended destination. But some of these roads lead us where we didn't know we were going and when we get there it's like coming home.
Sunday, January 30, 2022
Gathering Time
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Walking to Afghanistan
Walking to Afghanistan
Soon we will walk to Afghanistan because the oceans have all dried up
And the climate has changed
Changed our moods, our minds, and even changed the countries where we live
We will march with Burkas and Gucci handbags bought in Doha
We will have bandaids and moleskin for our blisters
Walking sticks from REI
Flashlights and bandanas on our heads
Tiki torches in our hands
We will be woke
We will be progressive
We will be far-right
We will be far-left
We will be angry at each other for being each other and not us
Our boots will stomp on the ground in front of the walls we put up
Our signs will signify our distaste for you
Then we will head home happy that we started our walk
Towards Afghanistan
Towards a new cause
Just
However
Wait a minute
Wait for that tolling of the ancient clock you have hung on your wall
Wait
Again, just wait
Until all of your sureness
All those facts and UN resolutions you have memorized to prove your point
Prove how terrible the investment in me
In my country
In my people
Really is
You were here to win a war
No, you were here to win hearts and minds
No, you were here to build us up so that we
Could resist
Could survive
Yet when you were done
You had a new plan
A better plan
Cost-saving
You moved on and shook our hands
Gave us bread and cheese
Left us with some spray paint to cover up the signs that you were here and had a purpose at some point
Now you are turning again
Trying to knock down my iron dome
Equivocating in simple words
That should not be so equivocal
Yet they are
Filling the college campuses with the fuel of your cause
Your narrative
Building your ground troops
Standing on your platforms
With megaphones to project
Dictaphones to record
iPhones to capture selfies
Ever so woke
While Afghanistan begins to fade
Into blue burkas
Dust
Storm
While your footsteps fade
From that landscape
Sunday, January 10, 2021
2021 Opening Statement
We live in this time when Presidents refuse to act presidential and are excused by their constituents because some of the things they do prove beneficial for the masses. Yet, can good acts coverup corrupt deeds and comments that fuel hate and division?
This past week, we saw a President gone wild. During his four years in office, this President vilified those who held different viewpoints from his own, engaged in blatant acts that furthered the divide between diverse groups of Americans, belittled countless people, and engaged in acts that are proving to be detrimental to our environment. Yet, people were willing to storm our Capitol in Washington to support his claim that the vote had been stolen. They were willing to steal what they said was stolen from them. To destroy property, make threats, spread vile hate theories, and find fault with all that do not hold their viewpoints. All of this while the death toll from COVID soars over 4,000 people per day, and here in Israel, we are forced back into a very restrictive lockdown.
The challenge with all of this is how to teach our students that they need to be honest, forthright, and brave. They need to discuss all sides of an issue and recognize that to some degree, others may be more right than they are and that their point of view is flawed. Or, they need to recognize that several variables may exist and that, like in many cases, they will come upon in life, there is more than one way to achieve a given goal. They also need to put into practice that those who have a different viewpoint from their own should not be denigrated in any manner, for this only serves to further inflame the "conversation" and that once that fire is started, each side will become more resolute in the manner in which they cling to their beliefs.
So I will make this personal because this is my blog, and nobody reads it, so what do I have to lose? This has been a tough time for me, and in some respects, it has been a good time. It has been tough because I have not been able to travel out of Israel and go back to New England to see mom, who is ensnarled in dementia and the confusion and paranoia that brings. I have not been to my home in Vermont (though Connecticut will always be my true home) and walked the great woodlands with my socks tucked into my pants and long sleeves to keep myself from getting Lyme Disease. I have learned much about the Golan during this time and have even learned how to better navigate and utilize the application AllTrials, which is truly amazing and helpful. Eva and I have learned to better appreciate each other, which bodes well as I turn 64 next month and will only work one more year as an educator.
Yet, I can't distance myself from the sadness that finds me staying up far too many nights. This is a lifelong malady and certainly nothing new. I worry. I worry about myself, those around me, the polar bear, friends who battle illness, countries that deal with tyrants. My greatest peace is found in nature, though, in some ways, that has been taken from me. Even the city's view, which I loved so much, is being taken away as the distant cranes now surround me, and large apartments are not only blocking my view, but the amount of light we have coming into our apartment is slowly diminishing.
We live in a time when Presidents refuse to be Presidental. When corporate news programs dual it out with vocal sabers and those on each side wave banners of their own or wrap themselves tightly in these both figuratively and literally. As smart as it is to have a strong value system, and it is important, you have to realize (well, I have to realize) that entrenched beliefs can also be dangerous. That there is no conversation to be had with a person who believes that anyone who differs from him or her is stupid or blind. Once you start pointing your finger, the conversation has stopped. Once you storm the Capitol, the conversation has stopped. Once you become so progressive that others can't progress, then the conversation has stopped.
I am not convinced that our differences can be worked out or what divides so many in our world can be ameliorated. We are too hopeful in our belief system, for we tend to associate with people who have similar views as our own. We are frightened and repulsed by those with strongly dissimilar opinions, which is hardwired into our brains. Although it is magnificent that we have such diversity in our genetic pool, it has proven detrimental to our species.
Jamie-January 10, 2021
Sunday, May 31, 2020
A Place To View My Photographic Work
Each Of My Countries
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
I Miss My Forrest
How one as small as you, as non-human as you, as smart as you have impacted me over these past almost 12 years. It is inconceivable, still, that you are not here in our lives. How I just feel so different without you here.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Writing For Peace
Click Here to Read the Article
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Adrift
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Testament To Hate
Wednesday, May 16, 2018
On Forty Years
I am lucky.
I am lucky to have read Sports Illustrated and being a Connecticut Yankee who thought he knew so much back in the 70's, thought that I could learn something by traveling to Arizona State to pursue my education.
Yet, it started so strangely. This long-haired guy strumming on guitar (badly) who would not stop as I was trying to study a room over. Trying to get me to have a beer and relax a bit when the stress of school was so prominent.
I was lucky to have met this wide-eyed woman who came to visit at ASU during a break and my initial reaction was to walk into the campus waterfalls to cement a future lifelong friendship based on good laughs and shared memories.
People persist in their relationships through hard work. Maintaining the love and respect that couples have for one another is a challenge even for the best of us, and even in the best of marriages. We all change. We all evolve, and if we don't do this cooperatively, then we drift away from one another. Having three children to raise, jobs that force you to move from one state to another, and your own physical issues that come with the years one accrues on this planet, also add to this "challenge."
A couple that has made it forty years has figured all of this out. You guys have. You have maintained that strong bond that I witnessed as best man in your wedding. Your free spirit and grounded nature (contradictory on the service though each essential for longer marriages) has, from my perspective, kept you young at heart both figuratively and literally, in each other's arms.
So, I am lucky to have known each of you. Seeing how you have managed your marriage has helped me in my own through the good times and through the bad ones as well. I am thankful for your kindness to me, Eva and Shomron when we have visited. I wish that we all could get together more frequently, and hope that down the road we do, but feel fortunate for the days we have spent together.
Congratulations on these forty years. You have lived these years so well and I wish you (as does Eva, Shomron, Meirav, Daniella, and Forrest) many more to come.
Jamie
Leaving (Written in December of 2017 in West Brattleboro, Vermont)
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