Tenterhooks...




The news keeps us all on tenterhooks, all the while we know that nothing good is expected or will come from whatever happens in Congress. It can't. Whether it's a slow erosion of norms or if it's a total gut-stomping-- those are the choices, it seems. In the meantime, we are hoping to hang on, to navigate our way through the wreckage, and ... celebrate Independence Day? 

Nah. I'm good.

This should have been a bang-up palooza of a 4th, being the 250th and all that. I can't muster (all puns intended) the excitement or the energy. Freedoms, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, can't come with so much anxiety. That ain't freedom, eh?

What I am excited about is the seven-week Sunday in the Barn with Bob featured reader/ open mic series that will begin on July 13th and run until August 24th. We've got a nice group of established poets coming (I'm hoping for two more), and I hope that local enthusiasm builds. We need community, as I wrote about yesterday. All I can think to do right now is find ways of helping people connect with each other. It's survival.

Please stay safe. Stay out of the hottest sun of the day, watch out for sharks and ticks and bad fish and stuff. Most of all, hug your loved ones. And plan for saner days.

C


BTW: I looked up "tenterhooks"-- those are the grippy things that secure a stretched piece of fabric to a drying frame. So, by metaphor, we are all being stretched and held in place. Sounds about right.

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