When Life is not a Bed of Roses . . .

Plant some. That is what George Orwell, famed author of that prescient "1984" futuristic book did in his own backyard. Those roses like his book still live. At the time he wrote his book, the year 1984 was a distant future horizon. When some of us lived through 1984 the book had a resurgence. It felt a little closer to our truth. We began to see that eye looking over our shoulders even then. Don't look now, but exactly forty years later, his futuristic ideas have eerily come home to haunt us jumping from the page to cameras everywhere we live and walk and meet our friends . . . even in our homes. The pool where I swim has not escaped the "evil eye". We have been both numb and naive to the dangers that Orwell knew lurked around corners. To counteract his fear and worry, he planted roses.

For some period of time, Orwell, whose actual name was Eric Arthur Blair, lived and wrote in a tiny cottage in England. The backyard was his "happy place" where roses bought for a song from the local Woolworth Department store served to create a secret world. This visible world of color and sensuous smells filled him to his inner core. He cherished his hours there. He did not write about them but about the complete contrast of beauty and bitter truths. He had a foot in both worlds. So do we.

The week following the recent election was described by so many as a "hard week". It was true for at least 50 percent of Americans who voted in a fair and free election. That we did so, once again, speaks volumes. I think we know today that in spite of the results we needed to acknowledge to ourselves and to the world that our Democracy lived on through the 2024 election. Now, we shall see if "1984" was fact or fiction. Orwell's imaginings were warnings. Had he lived to see this story unfold, he would recognize his characters with their own agendas. He left us much to consider as his dystopia comes into view. He also gave us hope in planting a living thing that lasts.

Each of us has that power. You may wonder why or how it matters? Simply put, there has and always will be beauty juxtaposed with bitterness in life. We can contribute to one or the other. We cannot do both easily because bitterness will not prevail in the face of beauty.

For sometime while living in the Southend of Boston, coming straight from a large Cape Cod garden that I had turned over every Spring and enjoyed every Summer for two decades, I felt something was missing. The "Friends of the Southeast Corridor" tended beautiful gardens along the walking path that I traversed often. I volunteered to tend the roses. They were prolific and needed much pruning. I donned my gardening gloves and joyfully broke out my shears. Once a week, I made my way out toward the busy nearby subway station where I smelled a mixture of street odors and sweet flowers. The red towering bush stood well above me. I could not trim the top, so I tackled the straggling outward reaching thorny branches. It gave me great joy to be back amongst the natural beauty, this time against the backdrop of a struggling neighborhood beyond, where I worked on Sundays mornings. The children there knew little of the "niceties of life". They could see the differences between their lives and mine. I knew it. I felt helpless against their adversities. Nothing I could say would change that; Music was my way in with some.

One day, as I arrived at the rose garden, putting down my basket of gardener's tools, I noticed the tiny sign: "Roses tended by Charlene". My heart swelled with pride and joy. As I reached for my gloves I saw something shiny catching the brilliant sunshine of the perfect Fall day. As I got closer, I saw a used hypodermic needle laying in the grass. I stood straight up, glanced around at the whole of life passing by on the corridor heading for the subway. The roses, I thought, make all the difference to some dreary and difficult existences, and brighten the eyes of small ones in strollers who may someday need to remember beauty in the face of bitterness. Life is not a bed of roses, but a bed of roses helps raise hopes.

Sheltering Walls

. . . "On our farm in the winter, we put the cattle out on the mountains into the winterage. There the grass has been preserved all year. Even in the worst of weather, in frost and snow, the cattle still have fresh fodder. Because the landscape is bleak, there is little shelter. Every so often out there, one notices semicircular walls. The cattle know them well. These are the "sheltering walls" when winds and storms blow up. "*

Are we not in need of sheltering walls as the winds and storms blow up around us? A week ago our world was shaken up like kaleidoscope fragments falling into new forms that we do not recognize. Yet. None of us knows how things will actually look, but we have some sense of how we will feel because on November 6, we woke up with that feeling in our hearts. My eighteen year-old niece said many of her teachers were not in the classroom, my thirty-something daughter said the subway was silent, an eighty-year-old friend said she couldn't drag herself to yoga when she heard the news. We will each remember where we were and how we felt as the fragments of our country were shaken to the core. Nobody will be unscathed, no matter which fragment one belongs to. That is perhaps the ironic twist of fate yet to be revealed.

The image of a "sheltering wall" has been deepening in my psyche as we try to make sense out of nonsense. I Imagine those massive beasts of burden, snow-covered, standing still, side-by-side, behind a semicircular wall shielded from fierce winds and deep cold of an intolerable winter relentlessly bearing down on them. In my mind's eye I see us standing together, huddled against the bleakest winter of our lives. The sheltering wall holds the herd together while providing warmth to one another. The sheltering wall serves a special purpose for those who find their way there, one by one, to join the others.

The sheltering wall is there to serve as a gathering place not as a hiding place from the dark days of winter. This is no time for being out there, alone, on one's own. It is time for standing in solidarity. As I write on this otherwise ordinary Tuesday,

after 80 blog posts, I haved decided to change its name for the third time. I first began the blog:"Banned in Florida . . . Period" when the Florida legislature passed a six-week ban on abortion; I renamed it "Banned in Florida . . . and Beyond" when that ban spread across other states. Today, I am ready for a paradigm shift because old ways have failed us. The new blog will be "Sheltering Walls".

In the coming weeks, I hope that you will join in this semi-circular sheltering conversation in solidarity against the elements beyond ourselves. Last Spring when I led a pilgrimage to Julian of Norwich's anchorage, I learned about sisterhood. The "Pilgrim Sisters", had met as strangers only six months earlier. On the train from London, another woman said of us: "I thought you were a group of old friends". We are old soul friends. Our Pilgrim Sisterhood is bigger than us. It includes you, too. All of you.

As we move toward our Sheltering Walls I am reminded of that woman of the Dark Middle Ages who lived within a sheltering wall. She was hidden from view except for that one window to the street where ordinary people came to meet her. She was not an optimist looking through rose-colored glasses. She believed in something sustainable beyond her sheltering wall. She believed it through the Black Death plagues, through the reign of the oppressive, imperialistic Church when speaking up got you burned at the stake. She was the quintessential insider/outsider choosing her words while writing her manifesto that has outlived her by six centuries. Julian knew what the authorities did not see. Julian believed in Love. Julian of Norwich has become an old soul friend of mine and of many around the world.

I hope that you will add your thoughts in the comment section (anonymously if you prefer) and come together within these Sheltering Walls. As always, please share with your own circle, but do not post on social media.

*To Bless the Space Between Us, John O'Donohue

Election Eve Vigil