The Muse November 2022 issue

I’m sitting in the car on the eve of the mid-term elections, while my daughter is in her martial arts class. Of all the news stories I’ve read over the past year, none have made quite the same impression as the story I heard from someone I met recently through Nextdoor.

I had put two of our jigsaw puzzles up for sale (because I can't (won't?) do the same puzzle twice), and a gentleman responded. Let’s call him Sam. Sam and I got to chatting when he picked up the puzzles. I've let a lot of things go this way—decluttering sparks a great deal more joy if you get to know the people who want to give a second life to your furniture and toys and kitchen appliances.

Sam works in the transportation sector and knows a heck of a lot about the way traffic moves, the four-wheeled marvels of engineering we rely on to get around, and about the underlying systems and logistics that are needed to coordinate it all. We talked about transportation, solar, electricity and a host of other topics. And then we touched on politics. Turns out Sam is Republican; I’m a registered Democrat, although I do wish there was a viable third party at times. But that in itself made no impact on my perception of Sam or my interest in continuing the conversation. 

I was born in a country overrun by the Soviets after WWII; I’m a living breathing example of how entire generations can be uprooted when one country decides to lord it over another, and tell its citizens what to think, what to say, and how to act, just because it thinks it can. My earliest memories of interacting with my community and society were having to watch what I say in public lest my parents get thrown in jail for capitalist or liberal ideas. Freedom of speech was not a thing, and it certainly wasn't enshrined in law. We lived behind the Iron Curtain, and imagined America as a wealthy land brimming with opportunity and liberty to do anything you could dream of. To be able to live in a country where people can freely speak their ideas, is priceless.

Sam shared with me that on a recent occasion, someone tore up the political signs on his lawn, and burned the word “Biden” into his front lawn with gasoline. A typical Silicon Valley homeowner, Sam had security cameras set up and recognized the person who perpetrated the deed.

It was a neighbor. A man who’d walk his dog past Sam’s house and they’d exchange friendly greetings. It must have been a gut punch for Sam to see this same friendly face wrecking his lawn under cover of night. So Sam walked over to the man’s house and calmly confronted him. He showed him the camera footage. “Is this you? It looks like you.” I imagined the man going pale. That sort of vandalism could land him in quite a bit of trouble. “Tell you what,” Sam offered. “You come to my house for the next four Sundays, we spend a couple hours getting to know each other and discussing the news, and I won’t call the police.” 

The man agreed. Good for him. And good for Sam for having the decency and wisdom of preferring dialogue over vitriol.  I’ll say the painfully obvious: isn’t this the way our nation should conduct itself in every community? Isn’t this the way school board meetings should be run. The way lawmakers should approach legislation. Conversation over mudslinging. Respect over name-calling. Honoring facts over blatant lies, no matter who is spewing the falsehoods.  

Our lawns depend on it.

~ Birgitte

 

After a long dry spell, I’ve started reading whole, complete books again. It feels great. Like having a nutritious meal after subsisting on snacks for months. Here are a few of the latest:

1491 by Charles Mann: One of the most fascinating historical works I've ever read. The book description says it best: "A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492."

The MindBody Code by Dr. Mario Martinez: A riveting deep dive into the interconnections between the mind, the psyche, and the health and wellbeing of our physical bodies. I've been listening to Dr. Martinez on the radio for years, and finally got his book. His work feels like that last frontier that medicine has always denied to itself—and its 'patients.'

Usually I don't mind ebooks, as it saves paper, packaging, and shipping. But this is one of those rare titles I much prefer reading in "paper person."

The Survival of the Richest by Douglas Rushkoff: Another intense book. This one discusses something Mr. Rushkoff calls "The Mindset"—a fiercely tech-focused approach, attitude and mentality prevalent here in Silicon Valley that has spawned the obsession with colonizing Mars, living in virtual worlds like the metaverse, and building bunkers for the ultra rich. He covers tech utopianism, the transfer of all human interaction into data that corporations can exploit. Definitely a sobering read.

What's next on my list? I've got a pretty long one, but two books I've bought recently are The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World by Vijay Prashad and Megathreats by Nouriel Roubini.

As for fiction, there's a new story bubbling up that I'm starting to work on... stay tuned!

Reading books, essays, and long-form articles is soul-filling. It enriches the mind and spirit, gives you new insights, facilitates critical thinking, and enables you to make connections among ideas and experiences in your life that you might not otherwise have made. A good example of this... The knowledge I gained in "1491" about the latest research into the medical reasons behind the massive fatalities in native American populations due to the smallpox introduced by European colonizers, I was able to use—completely unplanned—in a talk I gave to a middle school class last month. This is knowledge the kids most likely would not have access to even in their textbooks.



So yes, last month I gave a talk to a 7th grade science class (it was actually 4 classes) about the cyclical nature of product development, in the context of the region they were studying, South America. You're probably shaking your head... a talk about product development for 7th graders?? Sounds like a cure for insomnia right? You can just see the glazed-over eyes, the bodies slumped in their chairs...

Haha, not when you have a literary author do it! We talked about quinoa as an example of a product sourced from South America. I brought in a few packages of quinoa that I passed around so the kids can touch the little seeds. They asked a ton of questions—and answered all of mine. It was a wonderful thing to see them so engaged.

And of course there was chocolate. That's a given anytime I give a talk. It was Alter Eco's Quinoa Crunch, for obvious reasons. I don't think I need to describe how quickly that chocolate was vacuumed up...

Speaking of chocolate... I was recently contacted by a gallery in Vermont that wanted to stock my books as part of their holiday sales. They loved the idea of my Book-to-Bar gift packages and put one together for their store: take a look here! They even found the most perfect chocolate bar for the book: Jaguar Tree Cacao. Serendipity is alive and well.

So if you find yourself in Manchester Center, Vermont, or have friends there, check out Ellenbogen Gallery, an absolutely gorgeous space.

That's it for this month—I covered September and October, too, which went by in a quantum second. Be well, snuggle up with a good book, and we'll see you next month with news about Mini Muse Aria Luna and a new lineup of exhibits in Miami, New York, and Los Angeles.