Posted Christmas 2023: And a Merry Holiday and Sane New Year to each and every one.

Could 2024 surprise us and turn out to be less frightening than we anticipate? Unlikely, but I do so want to write a happy and hopeful post, a letter to family and friends that encourages us to keep trying in our own small ways to be decent human beings—to live by the golden rule of ‘doing onto others as we have them do unto us.’ But I just cannot let go of my constant sense of unease (dread) without a few lines of song that pretty much say it all.

You see, the only music that’s ever spoken to my heart and soul was the folk protest songs of the 60s and 70s. So, when I want a song lyric/poem to express my everyday state of being, I search through my old favorites. As we draw closer and closer to a new and supremely frightening year…I hear Buffalo Springfield: “…Children, what’s that sound?/Everybody look, what’s going down?” Yes, indeed, “there’s something happening here…but what it is ain’t exactly clear.” 

Or maybe it’s too clear—and has nothing to do with the golden rule. “There’s a man with a gun over there/Telling me I got to beware…”

It is Christmas though. You know, that season of peace and love. Therefore, my holiday goal is to post about the things in my life that make it all worth getting up in the morning  and, with multiple coffees, fighting off the weighty blanket of doom. I’m searching, in other words, for a few days of thinking peace and love thoughts. No, sorry, there’s no peace to be had in the entire world, so it’s gotta be love. An album of photos then…people I love and/or like a lot/or admire and respect—often one and the same.

Family first on the list. Those people we love, almost always like, and feel closely connected to by blood, relationships and, if neither of those, then by bonds of experience and/or togetherness that go deep and profound. And friends, near and far, bound by a variety of times, and places. There do remain in my world a few groups or individuals I trust and admire. Prime among them: Journalists. Without whom we wouldn’t have a clue as to what’s really going on anywhere in the world, including the US (As you history buffs or keen-eyed political junkies may have noticed there is an enormous gulf between our “leaders” and truth—applicable to all times and places and parties). Occasionally a politician slips through the greed-and-power net and, if I can think of any, this post will acknowledge them.

I will add, here or in Part 2 or 3 of this ramble, one single addition to my respected-people list besides journalists: artists—dancing, singing, painting, writing. In a world less focused on gold, greed, and guns, the good guys, journalists and artists, would have the space and power to save us from our worst selves…alas, that is never to be. “Paranoia strikes deep/Into your life it will creep/It starts when you’re always afraid/Step out of line, the men come and take you away…We better stop/Hey, what’s that sound?/Everybody look, what’s going down?”

Okay, for the rest of this post, it’s all peace and love, I promise. Politics and mean people Be Gone.

Right now, December 23, as I start writing, I am at Robert and Marsha’s in Sierra Vista, Arizona. And would you believe it actually rained, as in hours of water falling from the sky, with thunder and lighting to boot. Maybe that’s what got rain-starved me writing this morning. As discussed in previous posts, R&M, in their ongoing quest for their own personal Garden of Eden or perhaps (more recently) Fountain of Youth, have lately landed in southern Arizona. Actually, all they want is good winter weather and Florida got too expensive and politically crazy. Their search is fun for the family as we get to travel to new places to visit, be made comfortable, fed the excellent midwestern kind of meals we all favor, and roam around the countryside a bit.

The area around Sierra Vista is picturesque in that high-desert, mountains-near-and-far way of New Mexico and Arizona. The sun’s a little too plentiful for my taste but otherwise it’s most pleasant. We took a drive yesterday to break the pleasurable monotony of desultory low-key conversation, lots of snacks, and reading time—with the occasional evening murder mystery of which we are all overly fond.  Our lives are too short now to argue, which Robert and I managed to do a fair amount in the past, and we mostly don’t care if we’re eating enough vegetable, so togetherness is completely without drama—just the way I increasingly like my life.

Here we are—the family elders. Pre-Christmas eve and day. 2023.

Marsha…with her most mischievous holiday smile.

Me and the baby bro.

We took a drive down to Naco, Arizona on the border with Naco, Mexico. It looks to have been a place chockful of eccentric buildings and a lively life at some point. Sad in its almost total abandonment.

Robert sees things. Then we drive home.

This blog post will expand into an end of the years series of happy photos to make up for the opening paragraphs of doom and gloom. Although I’m sure I won’t be ableto resist a bit more of that. Almost Christmas Eve now. Be as merry as possible. And don’t forget happyish.