If you read one article today, make it this one

I'm gifting my readers this article written by Thomas L. Friedman that was published yesterday in The New York Times--How We've Lost Our Moorings as a Society. It's an important opinion piece and it clearly resonated with many readers (just take a look at the Comments section). I hope the article makes you think about where the USA is going as a nation. We need to wake up before it's too late. Our future depends on it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/opinion/trump-civility-society.html?unlocked_article_code=1.vk0.Maax.uk9wgGLn_2hg&smid=url-share

Looking back

I went through a nostalgic period around ten years ago, when I used a lot of time to sort through memories of childhood and young adulthood. It was a fairly creative time for me personally and led to my writing several books of poetry as well as several non-fiction books. My memoir about growing up in Tarrytown New York (A Town and A Valley: Growing Up in Tarrytown and the Hudson Valley: De Angelis, Paula Mary: 9798842022946: Amazon.com: Books) is my homage to a past that meant something to me personally; it was also was a reminder of a simpler time in my hometown's evolution. Tarrytown is no longer the town in which I grew up, nor would I expect it to be. But my childhood memories of it are quite alive in my heart and mind. I tap into them from time to time when I think about my parents, my family, my friends, and my old neighborhood. 

This morning, while I was getting ready for the day, I was reminded of my work past, more specifically, my experience working at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Little did I know at that time (early 1980s) that it would change my life the way it did. Those changes were positive and far-reaching, but of course I couldn't know that at that time. I found myself thinking about my three bosses--Frank, Zbigniew, and Myron, and how much they supported and encouraged me to reach my full potential in the field of investigative cytology. It is thanks to them that I went on to pursue my doctorate in tumor biology. It is not without a tinge of wistfulness that I think of them; they have all passed away as of this writing. It's strange to think about that, that they are no longer with us. They were good men and immensely qualified professionally. I hope they know how much they meant to me, a young woman starting out in the work world. They gave me a real chance to succeed and I know that is not always the case. And I have no regrets about my work experiences with them. I can't say that about all my work experiences. I was lucky to get the start I got. There was something special about that time in my life. I would imagine all young people starting out in the work world feel that way; that their first years are formative years. They are. A good first work experience helps to shape one's later mindset about working. If the first experience is negative, it destroys trust in the future; I know several young people whose negative first work experiences destroyed their self-confidence. It took them several years to build up their self-image and to be able to trust a potential employer again. 

I don't look back too often anymore. There's far too much going on in the present time for me to dwell on what was or to miss the past. And even if I miss some aspects of the past, the pragmatic part of me knows that it's futile to focus on them. We can't go back, nor would I want to. The experiences of childhood, teenage years, and young adulthood are placed in memory and it is possible to go back to visit from time to time. My way of going back is often through music; I hear a song from those years and I am immediately transported back to those times. I know people who don't want to look back or be reminded at all of the past. That doesn't describe me, even though I wouldn't want to return to the past. The past has its place; the bad or sad things that happened then, happened. I moved on. And even if I had chosen not to 'move on', life would have moved me on anyway, whether I liked it or not.  

The slimy underbelly of everything

There is a slimy underbelly to everything. It is a consequence of our living in a fallen world. And make no mistake about it, we live in a fallen world. Random observations I've had this past week lend credence to this:

The USA is looking at re-electing a man who has cheated on his wife while she was pregnant, with a porn star and then paid said porn star hush money to keep her quiet. You can't make this stuff up. We've had philandering presidents before, but eventually they gave up trying to defend themselves and took the consequences (e.g. Bill Clinton). Imagine how social media would have crucified him when news of his affair came out? As it was, the news media did what they could to crucify him. You could wonder why these men do what they do? I'm not likely to get an answer to that question. 

The USA has a congress and a supreme court that are beholden to this man whom I call 'the mouth'. For some reason they are afraid of him. I guess because when he opens his mouth and badmouths someone, that person is cancelled for good. Bye bye political career. Hello harassment and more harassment. God bless Liz Cheney for speaking up about his bad behavior. I'd vote for her in a heartbeat. 

The USA does not have to remain a democratic country. There is nothing written anywhere that states that this is the case. I will miss my old country if it becomes an autocracy. If it becomes an autocracy due to 'the mouth', we will only have ourselves to blame. He's already talking about a third term in office. What does he think, that he'll live forever? Or will he appoint one of his children as his successor? I know what I'm praying for, but I'm keeping it a secret. It's my own underbelly.

And then there are the media reports about music moguls who abuse(d) their girlfriends and denied it, music moguls who rape(d) women and denied it, movie moguls and actors who did the same. But when the abuse shows up on a hotel surveillance video, suddenly the tune from some of these men is quite different. Men who abuse women are pathetic losers. But most importantly, they are criminals. Their behavior is criminal and they belong in jail. But of course the rich abusers will have a battery of lawyers to defend them. The rich always have a handy 'get out of jail free' card. 

The news is also filled with stories of celebrities on the verge of divorce, or those who have divorced, or those who are filing for divorce. Honestly, why do they bother getting married? Why have all these lavish over-the-top hyper-expensive weddings? What's the point? Just live together and stay out of the public eye. But that seems to be impossible for most of them due to their over-inflated egos. Stay off TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, YouTube or any other social media channel that exposes your life for all to see. Is it worth it? No. Learn to be private about your private life. 

I haven't read or heard about one feminist women's group that has come out and condemned the October 7th attacks on young Israeli women who were massacred at the hands of Hamas. Not one group. Prove me wrong, people. I find this abhorrent. If these women who were raped, mutilated, murdered and beheaded by Hamas were your daughters, sisters, mothers, friends, would you step up to the plate and condemn their actions? You are allowed to condemn Hamas and also be critical of Israel's revenge war. It is possible to have two viewpoints in your heads at the same time. But of course we live in the age of woke, so you can only adhere to one way of thinking, determined by the wokers, which at the present time is anti-Israel.  

The world is a mess. There is so much violence, lying, cheating, greed, abuse, bad behavior, misery. It boggles my mind that cheaters, for example, deny their cheating when it is blatantly obvious that they have cheated. I'm thinking of a female politician in Norway who basically plagiarized over forty percent of her master's degree, and when caught, did not apologize but rather blamed everyone else around her for pointing out that fact. She didn't cheat, she said. Oh well. What would you call it then? In my day, we called it cheating. These days, no matter the crime, we must always feel sorry for the perpetrator. I don't.

I would guess the world is in need of some kind of divine intervention. But I doubt that it will be a merciful one. We don't deserve it. 

Giving back to the world

I find this quote from Ursula Le Guin to be both intriguing and comforting. I really like the idea that one can give back to the world that gave each one of us life. It's an intriguing idea, and what's comforting about it is the knowledge that we belong to something much larger than ourselves. Also that we matter to the world, even in death. 

I think that when I die, I can breathe back the breath that made me live. I can give back to the world all that I didn't do. All that I might have been and couldn't be. All the choices I didn't make. All the things I lost and spent and wasted. I can give them back to the world. To the lives that haven't been lived yet. That will be my gift back to the world that gave me the life I did live, the love I loved, the breath I breathed. 

~Ursula K. Le Guin, from her book The Other Wind 

From winter to summer, just like that

We're now in summer mode here in Oslo, even though the summer season hasn't officially begun. All it takes is a few warm days when the sun shines brightly and the temperatures hover around 70 degrees F as they have done for the past few days. That's the signal for everyone to exit their apartments in order to be outdoors. Restaurants, cafes and bars with outdoor seating are packed and the lines of people waiting to be seated are long. 

I always enjoy this time of year--May and June--because those are the months when my garden takes off. Up until around two weeks ago, we were still experiencing chilly winds and chilly temperatures. And then suddenly, whoosh, they're gone, replaced by warmer temperatures that define summer in Norway. We rarely if ever get temperatures in the 90s, nor is it very humid here. That's good in one sense, because even though summers in New York were/are warm, they could often be brutal due to the humidity that made it hard to breathe. My family and friends in NY keep me updated on the weather there, among other things. Interestingly, we've had similar unstable weather patterns this year, especially in April--some chilly and windy days, followed by warm days, then chilly again. It's rained more there than here; last year we had a very wet July and August. We'll see what this year brings. 

I worked in the garden for the entire month of April, cutting down dead plants, pruning the fruit trees, cleaning and raking. I did some planting as well (potatoes) as well as starting seeds in the greenhouse. I'm always amazed each year at the miracle that is a garden. The perennials return at the same time every year (hence their name); you see the new growth amid the dead stems that have been cut down very low. The snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and forsythia make their appearance in April and usually bloom until around mid-May. The forsythia bushes are now turning green. The magnolia tree is blooming, and I see buds on my wisteria. This past week I planted my zucchini and pumpkin seedlings outdoors; so far they're doing well. Night temperatures hover a round 45 degrees F, which is fine. As long as there is no frost, they'll survive. 

Here are some recent photos of the garden. Enjoy.......

Queen Bee

I play The New York Times Spelling Bee game each day. There are a set number of words that one must find (spell) each day given the letters for that day. If you make all of the words, you achieve Queen Bee status. It's not often that happens because most of the time it's impossible to find all the words. It's happened to me only once before. And then again today. Small things make me happy as today's spelling game was difficult.