Practicing What I Preach (This Time Anyway)

“That’s just the trouble with me, I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine that follows his own instructions: I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Like Portia, Alice, and (I bet) a whole lot of us, I don’t always listen to the advice I give myself or “follow mine own teaching,” BUT BUT BUT — here’s an instance in which I did:

I’m fortunate enough to live in Colorado, where voting is pretty easy. All voters who register on time get a ballot in the mail. We can register on line. We can register by mail. We can register in person — even on Election Day.

We can mail in our ballot. We can put it in a secure drop box. We can vote in person, early or on Election Day. If we make a mistake, we can go get a new ballot. We can even do it more than once if we, say, fill out our ballots when we’re so tired we don’t track the bubbles properly and need to go twice to trade in our ballots and then finally decide to vote in person so that if we make ANOTHER
mistake we can get a new ballot on the spot. Not that I know anybody who’s done that. (We do have to trade in the original ballot to get a new one. No voting twice.)

I wish all eligible voters had the options we have here in the Centennial State. To everyone who has waited or will wait in lines for hours or even for the whole damn day, who has to face down intimidating “watchers,” who has to travel for hours to get to a drop box, who has to contend with any of the myriad obstacles that are placed in your way because of your race, your politics, your address — YOU ARE HEROES. And all I can say is “Thank you.”

“I hate ingratitude more in a man
than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
inhabits our frail blood”.”
― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Inktober 2020: Day Thirteen — Dune

Dunes have to be sand dunes. Are there other kinds of dunes? Sand dunes are naturally kind of slippery because the sand slips as one walks up anyway; putting ooze on one is kind of painting the lily.

Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp,
To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

— William Shakespeare, King John, IV.II.10-17

Inktober 2020: Day Twelve — Slippery

I know, I know — “slippery slope” is pretty cliché. But it seemed to work here. The strained and inverted syntax is supposed to reflect the opposing forces of gravity and the climber’s desire to get to the top of the dune. I’m not sure  it works; I confess my choices were dictated by what I could draw. What I had verbally sketched out was

…And gnashing teeth —
Lodged in a lethal throw
Against hope.

Disgusting,
The slippery slope she barefoot treads
Up the oil-slicked dune…

But I didn’t know how to draw “disgusting” on its own.

Inktober 2020: Day Eleven — Disgusting

I meant to start a new stanza, but I forgot to leave enough lines to skip any. “Disgusting” wasn’t as hard as “hope”; I’m not sure what that says about the way my mind works.

Inktober 2020: Day Ten — Hope

Ack. As if getting a verb yesterday wasn’t bad enough, today’s prompt had to be an abstraction. I mean — really? What are the options? There’s always the stand-by of Pandora’s box/jar; the potter could be throwing the container for the legendary woman who supposedly was endowed with all the gifts necessary to make a perfect woman. But I dislike the misogyny of the story.

Then there’s Emily Dickinson’s famous poem that seems to show up on home decoration plaques everywhere these days:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.¹
But the current ubiquity of the poem made the bird option seem trite. So I decided to go ahead and try an abstract representation. Right now, hope seems to me to be a fragile, fragmented thing, an emotion that is bright, but on the verge of disintegrating, rather like the lacy ice that forms on the edge of a pond or frost on a window.
1. Poetry Foundation, 19 October, 2020. Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)

 

Inktober 2020: Day Nine — Throw

Today’s word — throw — was difficult because my already unsatisfactory drawing skills don’t extend to comprehensible depictions of verbs. My first thought was to go with throw, as in throw rug or throw blanket, but I couldn’t see that going anywhere. So I pulled up the thesaurus and learned that throw also refers to a potter’s wheel. That option seemed much more promising than a blanket. So here we are:

 

 

Inktober 2020: Day Eight — Teeth

I had rather hoped to give this poem a bit more narrative structure, but I think it’s going to depend more on evocation of mood and feeling than on story. At least it’s Hallowe’en season, so I’ll try to keep it a little spooky.

Inktober 2020: Day Seven — Fancy

“Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?”

(Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice, III. ii. 63-65.)

If one is a rodent, I would guess Fancy is bred in the better class of trash can. Remember Templeton at the Fair?

Inktober 2020: Day Six — Rodent

Writing a poem like this, one word at a time, with the words already chosen, feels a little like trying to channel someone else’s free-association session. It’s an interesting mental/creative exercise.

Because I Like to Bang My Head Against Brick Walls: Another Open Letter to Colorado Senator Cory Gardner

Another Open Letter to Colorado Senator Cory Gardner

Senator Cory Gardner
1961 Stout Street, Suite #12-300
Denver, Colorado
80294

5 October, 2020

Senator Gardner, 

I see that you voted for the bill calling for the Justice Department to to withdraw its support for the lawsuit that would end the Affordable Healthcare Act. I also see that you have introduced your own bill that putatively would protect those of us with pre-existing conditions. I thank you for your vote and hope that it portends a turn toward listening to and caring about the needs and opinions of your constituents.

However, your record of voting against the ACA makes this vote suspect. After the election, if you are returned to the Senate or during the liminal period between the election and the Senate’s new term, will you continue to support the ACA? Your own brief bill, which at first glance seems so promising, does not guarantee that insurers must accept applicants with pre-existing conditions, nor does it it spell out what kinds of coverage a plan must provide, nor does it contain a provision forbidding discrimination based on gender or sex. There are too many loopholes to bolster the impression you seem to want to cultivate that you are ready to stand up for health care and affordable insurance for all of us.

The most effective way to convince us that you do, in fact, care about the lives and health of your constituents, and of all inhabitants of the United States (we’re all too connected, as COVID-19 has taught us, to pretend that we need only be concerned with the health of our neighbours) is to oppose seating a new Supreme Court justice before the Inauguration. The push to put Amy Coney Barrett on the highest bench in the land before the tenth of November is motivated by the intention to destroy the act that has brought affordable insurance to millions of Americans. Commit to voting only for a nominee who will support not just the ACA, but who will also protect women’s health by preserving our reproductive choices, including our right to control our bodies, our lives, and our destinies through access to safe, affordable, and legal abortions. 

If you vote for the Justice Department to step away from the legal challenge that is trying to eradicate the Affordable Healthcare Act, but also vote to confirm a new Supreme Court justice to sit in Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat, a justice who will strike down the ACA and overturn Roe v. Wade, then you are merely attempting to have your cake and eat it, too. 

Senator Gardner, I remain

Your voting constituent,

Ruth E. Feiertag