(Digital Collage by Rockyann)
I have been growing weary of politics. The news and the basic political trends both in the US and over here in Europe are just depressing and completely absurd. Perhaps I have shared this before on this blog but AP and I sit together in the evenings and yell at each other with each news story that floats across our TV or computer screen. We are in total agreement, of course, but as we talk about the issues our voices get louder and louder until we’re yelling at each other and we’re on the same side of the argument.
Well – I’m taking a deep breath and dipping my toes into the water again because tomorrow I’ll be handing out flyers for the National Health Action Party, who are working to unseat various MP’s in order to stop the trend of austerity cuts here in the UK…mainly those cuts to the National Health Service.
So yes. I’ll be standing on the street corner, shoving paper in people’s hands and asking them to come to a community meeting.
And because hope springs eternal, I also planted some flowers in my garden today. Every year as the days lengthen and the daffodils and crocuses show their little flowers, I run to the garden centre and I buy a load of bedding plants and I fill my patio pots with colourful posies. And every year, by June or July, it all looks sad and forsaken.
In both instances, I am certain I’m in for a heartbreak and yet, I just can’t help myself.
Dragonlane Artisan Jewellery 
I did that when I was ten years old. I canvassed our neighborhood with flyers for John F. Kennedy in 1960. I remember two things about that day. One, I lived in a republican town and I was not well received when I knocked on the people’s doors. Two, the flyers were printed with red and blue ink, and the red ink came off on my hands. My hands were red for two days. When your elections are over you and A.P. should take a week or two off from watching television news and from reading about such things. I do that every once in a while when it gets to be too depressing. It’s like a brain cleansing.
One thing that sustains me is turning to Seamus Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy.” In the last several pages he writes: “Human beings suffer,/They torture one another,/They get hurt and get hard. …… History says, ‘Don’t hope/On this side of the grave.’/But then, once in a lifetime/The longed-for tidal wave/Of justice can rise up,/And hope and history rhyme./So hope for a great sea-change/On the far side of revenge./Believe that a further shore/is reachable from here./Believe in miracles …” (Sorry about the slashes, wasn’t sure how to format the poetry.)
Oh – the digital collage is very nice ;0
You don’t know how much I needed this today!