Muddling along . . .
is the best I can do these days as I count my blessings. The dictionary definition for muddling is to proceed in a disorganized way. That doesn’t have the greatest ring to it.
For someone how likes to plan and line up my options, you might think a friend has done an intervention. No one has, rather life has forced me “to take it as it comes,” to use an old phrase, and to be grateful for all I have despite the family and current world challenges.
I count my blessings, but my heart is heavy, as I talk with my West Bank colleagues. Life gets harder and harder for them. The northern West Bank is targeted more than the south with routine IDF and Settler attacks. My colleague in Tulkarem tried to enroll her daughters in swimming lessons, wanting them to do something more than watch television or play internet games. There was an attack when they were at the pool and she was seeing patients in Nablus. She worried about how to get them home safely and spent a terrifying three hours making arrangements. Prior to October 7th, travel between the two cities, home and work for my colleague, was 30 minutes. With checkpoints and closed roads it currently takes her two hours or more. Now she keeps them at home. “It is not safe for them to go out. I might lose them.” Her face has grown noticeably thinner, with dark circles around her eyes, when I chat with her on Zoom. These long months are taking their toll.
I count my blessings as I interview refugees seeking safety in the U.S. This summer, I started doing asylum evaluations for the Brown Human Rights Asylum Clinic. Lawyers, mostly doing pro-bono work, put together paperwork for asylum cases and ask the student-run clinic to create an affidavit documenting the individuals torture and its physical and psychological impact. LBGTQ individuals from Senegal, who have suffered for the sin of loving someone of the same sex, are the current survivors we are helping. Many are the same age as the medical students who transcribe the interviews, early twenties. It is both heart wrenching and shocking to consider the difference in their lives as we listen to the clients’ harrowing pasts. One was beaten by his own father. Another remained in hiding after being beaten by neighbors for 7 months. She received no medical attention and had a reopened surgical wound. The asylee seekers all paid to fly from Senegal to Spain and then to Central or South America. Guided in part by traffickers, they traveled by vehicle and walk through countries to the Mexico/US border. They barely flinch as they report being robbed during their journeys. This has put a human face of all that is happening along that border and is so different from what we hear from some politicians.
I count my blessings here along the shore. Summer is lovely. Dawn skies are painted with high drama shades like tangerine, cerulean, and magenta, before the sun rises. This morning featured the crescent moon and Venus in an indigo sky. I can pull my kayak across the grass and sand and launch. At low tide, I head out to the just repainted Conimicut Lighthouse. Built sometime in the mid-1800s, it looks diminutive when the car-carrying cargo ships pass behind it. Reed and I joke that the paint job, along with recent road paving, are part of the Warwick mayor’s re-election plan. NOTE: Roads in Rhode Island are worse than Minnesota’s pot-holed variety because people drive 10-20 miles about the speed limit and don’t get pulled over.
At high tide I paddle into an estuary, Old Mill Creek, which offers abundant birds, muskrats and the occasional huge turtle, s/he has been living there for quite awhile. We watch six osprey nests for Rhode Island Audubon and most are now filled with young birds with their full array of feathers. One nest is in a sports park when we regularly walk Conner. Last week, Reed and I laughed during our hour-long walk as we watched the fledglings test their wings and try to land on the park’s spotlights, a narrower target than the nest. One of the adults is missing a feather in his right wing, so we recognize him when he is fishing near our house on the bay. It is incredible to watch the osprey hover than make the precipitous dive into the water, come up with a fish, and try to stay balanced.
Wishing you a happy August and many opportunities to count your own blessings.
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