I have a recurring dream and it is partly inspired by a child’s book.. I don’t remember the book but what I do remember is the ittle old lady who lives in the woods in a rustic cabin.
In my dream I am sitting in a wooden chair in the front of this house with my trusty dog by my side. I am content. I am fully realized. I have enough.
When I wake up I realize that I am living in a little house in the woods with my dog (and my husband).
I am living the dream.
Bear with me. I was showering this morning and thinking of this and that and then I thought,(after this and that), about our “heroes”, the folks who have to go to work each day to care for the rest of us. The grocery clerks, truck drivers, teachers, nurses, bus drivers. The necessary toilers without whom we couldn’t survive. The non-superfluous. The farmers, the migrant workers, the pickers and pluckers.
Everyday people doing essential work. We make a big deal out of them. Do we think our exuberance, our praise is going to put food on their tables. Do we think thank you is enough?
Remember Madoff and his Ponzie scheme? Let me show it to you.
Sometimes I think the entirety of our lives has been a con. Because we in the middle class have food and heat and safety and education and all of the bennies that a robust economy can give us, we have failed to see the iniquity all around us and beneath us. We have been served a plate of bullshit with a side of thank you.
A robust economy should lift everyone up. Wealth needs to suffuse the economy so that nobody wants. A guaranteed income for all. Real help for families no matter what they do for a living. Take off the top a little, give to the bottom. Taxes, best beloved. Taxes. Let the rich pay more taxes.
How about flattening the top. Get rid of that pointy apex. How would that look?
Flatten the top and let more people inhabit the middle. Essential workers would be brought up. They keep our world fed, clothed, transported, healthy. They need fair wages. They do not need lip service. Thank you and clapping is not enough. It’s nice but not substantive. I don’t want to starve CEO”s and their families (fat chance), but to have a more even distribution of wealth.
Many of our front line workers are at the bottom of earners. Meanwhile the top earners continue to rake in massive amounts of money. Shouldn’t this be equitable? Shouldn’t the worker who comes in on public transport to clean your office, or your schools or your hospitals make a living wage?
Of course they should.
In summary, don’t listen to the folks at the top talk. Let their words go in one ear and out the other. It’s ephemera. Watch what they do.
And now from Robin’s seemingly inexhaustible fund of old and hoary songs comes this:
It’s the same the whole world over
Ain’t it all a bloody shame
It’s the rich that gets the pleasure
And the poor what gets the blame.
I ‘ve been watching the live cam at Monterey Bay Aquarium. I go away to the bay and just bliss out.
This morning they had hammerheads, rays, tuna, a murmuration of tiny fish cutting a dark but luminous swath through the water. A turtle drifted by his head fully extended, eyes bright.
Should we allow aquariums anymore? Like zoo beasts, These animals are captured and then exhibited just like zoo beasts. Is that wrong?
Oh, but I would miss the show. I don’t think I could stand it. I loved going to Akumal where I could swim with the fishes, the rays, the turtles. Weaving in and out of coral reefs; wondrous sights with the sound of my own breathing in my ears. My sister-in-law Pat exclaimed “I saw a ray as big as a school bus. (I think it must have been the short bus). One goes to a deeper level of consciousness, a more profound sense of self in the sea. It’s womblike. I suppose that sounds silly but it’s true. Going home to Mama.
Akumal had started to get overdeveloped the last time we were there. It must be over the top by now.
Sandals all inclusive hotels and the like chum the water to bring the fish in closer to shore for the tourists. Everything for the buck. If these developments were enriching the communities in which they lay, that might be to the good. These are multinational corporations that pay the working folks minimally while reaping huge profits. Tourism is good for the economy, but not the native economy necessarily. The inequity is staggering, blatant and ugly.
Oh shit. I’m getting all worked up. Back to the sea.
We come from water and to go back is my greatest joy. I too am a fish, a slippery, glittery bit of life swimming through my element. I may breathe air, but I am water.
How would I like to be captured and put out for show?
But again, who can resist an aquarium? The jelly fish, bits of tissue in a beating heart, pulsing through the water. Glorious colors. They touch my soul, these creatures. They are my soul.
Hello. Yes, this is Dog 