Almost 30 years ago, I was standing among a large group who were singing “This land is your land.” (No way would I ever sing with other people, but that’s not important.) As I looked around the crowd, I noticed the people around me were White. It occurred to me that this land is neither mine nor theirs. We White folks have past the point of trying to ‘splain our way out of the mess we’ve made since we set foot on this unlucky continent.
Independence Day is a good time to remember that even now, not all people in this country are free. Some people are growing less free by the minute.
I try to blog every Sunday. I didn’t blog yesterday. I didn’t feel like it, so I immersed myself in a Chinese romcomdrom. It’s my drug of choice these days, to get lost in a story and escape the sad reality of the failing American experiment.
I don’t give in to despair but neither do I imagine the precarious survival of democracy is just going to happen, like some sort of force of nature, the unstoppable march toward justice. As a White person, I have no claim to be part of America’s historical progress toward justice. For my part, the only thing I can think of today, besides being kind, is to stay out of the way and not make things worse.
Speaking of marching, the turkeys are back. They were busy hatching chicks in early spring. Now their parents are introducing their offspring to the tasty treats in my backyard. The kids are young teens now, audacious feathery chunks digging up the grass. The parents split the chore of maintaining security, one leading, and one following. There’s not much danger in our yard. Cats won’t mess with turkeys, squirrels and crows don’t care, and the one dog big enough to cause trouble is lazy and stupid. Good personality, though. Similar to some people I’ve met over the years.
Summer in Northwest Oregon is usually dry and mostly sunny. Like so much of the country, we are in a drought. The grass in this yard is green when it should be brown because sprinklers pop up for 20 minutes every morning at 5:00 am. I don’t care about green grass. However, I’m guessing that source of water is important for all kinds of critters in the neighborhood.
Speaking of critters, two skinny teenage cats came to visit me last week, one solid gray, the other solid black. They might have been siblings. Friendly, not feral, which made me think they had homes somewhere. They had skin problems, though, which suggested they weren’t receiving good care. I spent a day and a night fretting over how I could help them. I called the local animal control and a local feline rescue place. What I learned is that the only action they would take is to spay or neuter them and then return them to their territory. Ear mites and scabies and all.
For a few minutes I contemplated paying for care myself. Then I realized that was a bottomless black hole of financial and emotional insanity. Cats are allowed here in this apartment but the pet deposit is steep. I wouldn’t be able to afford it. Not to mention the ongoing cost of care and feeding. And not to mention the fact that they weren’t my cats. After dreaming about them all night, I woke up and realized I could not get involved. I closed my blinds.
Since then I haven’t seen them. Maybe one glimpse for a few seconds, in passing. As if they picked up my vibe and decided I wasn’t an easy mark after all. I’m sure someone else is feeding them. Probably they have feeding stations all around the neighborhood. I feel stupid and also a tiny bit abandoned.
I still have the turkeys, though!