Neither Stops the Tide
The poet May Aygun, author of the poetry collection Roots and Winds, wrote:
Life comes in waves,
You never know which ones break,
Which ones carry,
Neither stops the tide,
Only shapes your story.
I am thinking of the ocean and its power today as I hear so many using it as a metaphor for the last election. At the same time, others of us are being forced to contemplate its real power as we face the long-predicted effects of climate change and the resultant overwhelming destruction to our southwestern coast.
As to the election, I can easily understand how such a sweeping and powerful change to the basic governmental fabric of our country is best expressed by comparison to the power of an unstoppable force of nature.
The Blue Tsunami was described by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as an “extinction-level event” for one party…”the political equivalent of a meteor strike”. For the other party, it was one, big night of riding the towering wave all the way to victory and of understanding it as another piece of the larger wave that is drowning the right-wing around the world.
We turn to the ocean when we want to describe a power whose terrifying and awe-inspiring sweep cannot not be withstood, a literal force of nature, inexorably reducing everything before it to splinters and flotsam. Laughing at us as we hold out a hand to stop it.
Our world, along the coast, however, didn’t have to resort to metaphor to describe the actual power of the sea. The City of Long Beach saw its boardwalk shredded and homes battered to the brink of collapse as their balconies were crushed and facades torn away. The Long Beach Peninsula had already suffered severe coastal erosion and infrastructure destruction following a rapid series of Pacific storms including Hurricanes Marie and Polo and Post-Tropical Storm Rachel, as well as worsening El Niño conditions. It’s been relentless and building for a long time.
What might these disparate events have in common? Well, this may be a stretch, but here’s what I can’t get out of my mind. The election: In many ways, those who casually, intentionally and constantly chose corrupt self-enrichment, as well as arrogant and cruel actions against their fellow humans, ought to have been able to see that, over time, more and more of their supporters would withdraw their support in disgust and that those somehow deciding to remain loyal would be insufficient to hold back the crushing waters.
In a somewhat different way, those of us who have ignored all warnings about the effects of the use of fossil fuels on the ocean itself, the vicious storms and other results of even a few degrees of warming, may not have a trace of evil intent, but, as the poet said, in the long run, such enforced ignorance cannot stop the tide of the resulting outcomes.
We have long seen our oceans as something greater than ourselves, sometimes giving us waves we can ride, sometimes literally breaking us. And, we are told, it’s about to get worse as our ocean turns into a more powerfully destructive force, thus proving that our stories are often shaped, not only by what we, ourselves, do, but also by what we ignore, to our detriment.
What can we do? Well, many of us did it for the election, not knowing whether our individual actions would have any impact. We postcarded to Texas strangers, stood in line to cast our one vote, each doing our little piece, with no clue as to whether it would make a bit of difference.
In the same way and in the same optimistic mood, we can each take an action to save the planet and stop saying it’s just me, what good would it do. Use less fossil fuel each day. Try a hybrid next time? Do the part you can do.
Life comes in waves but you can still work to shape your own story.
I’m Melting, I’m Melting
Speaking of water, the white house squatter seems to suddenly find himself in the same position as the Wicked Witch of the West when she was doused by a bucket of water thrown to put out a fire that she, herself, had started, in order to set fire to the poor Scarecrow. (Talking Wizard of Oz, of course). Thus doused, she began to melt. And melt she did, until she was just a puddle on the floor sighing, “What a world, what a world…”
In the same way, the cold water thrown on the president’s grandiose plans and power grabs, the dousing of his one-fingered salute to the Constitution, and the rejection of the way he snapped his fingers in the face of the rule of law, seem to have caught him (is it possible?) by surprise.
Well, welcome to the other world, your faux king majesty. But what’s that dying squeak? The melting guy, even as he shimmers down into nothing, decides to name Cardinal Richelieu as his chief advisor. That will certainly help, he thinks.
A refresher: Cardinal Richelieu was the chief minister to King Louis XIII of France, consolidating royal authority by reducing the political influence of the high nobility, razing private fortified castles and executing those he identified as conspirators. He replaced traditional noble provincial governors with loyal, bureaucratic officials who answered directly to the crown, at the same time using a ruthless state security apparatus to eliminate his rivals. He stripped French protestants (the Huguenots) of their independent military and political rights. He was the architect of authoritarianism and the sole whisper that caught the ear of the king.
Well, how’s that gonna work for you as you melt down into a puddle of hair dye and face makeup? Not so well, one would think. What a world, indeed.
More fodder for the next blue tsunami? Only 2028 will tell.
———————My autobiography And Then What Happened? My Life From Zelda to Politics is now available wherever you buy books, at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Bookshop.org. It is also available digitally for the Nook or Kindle format. I hope you will enjoy it! If any of you wants to gather a group for a reading and book signing, please let me know at Kuehl.website@gmail.com. Thanks!
