I have a friend who is an artist who asked me to speak from my heart right in the middle of an online "conversation" about politics that to my mind I was clearly winning. Anyone who knows me well, understands that I am a plow when it comes to conversations and so when Lisa explained to me the rules of her topic it stopped me in my tracks like a flip flop deep in clay. Forget about my statistics? Research, definitions, logic, resources are against the rules? Speak from the heart? How can she be serious?
Now after a long day of pretty much standing still waiting for what was going to be next, Wayne and I were settling in for the night when of course Luna needed to go outside. When we returned, Wayne asked if anything was happening out there yet and I responded, "Oh it's happening, it's all happening out there, all of it, out there, it is surely happening." So this is what cabin fever is like.
My brother in law Gregg just celebrated his birthday by climbing a mountain. It wasn't one of those small Putney Mountain type mountains, this was Smugglers Notch in the winter time. If you are going to climb a mountain on your 58th birthday in the winter, make sure it is one of those real mountains where skiers and snowboarders are coming at you like Atari Asteroids, then make sure to call your sister in law who was thirty minutes into a ten minute nap after work and tell her all about it.
This was supposed to be my blog about the American eel. It such a misunderstood fascinating creature that has locally been known to make adult men who have tossed back a couple of beers while ice fishing utter the most unacceptable words and it's found right here in the Connecticut River. (I really need get out there to do some ice fishing). I won't go too much into the eel right now, but I do want to ask how it is that a female American eel can lay four million floating eggs before she dies and yet American eel populations are dwindling?* It's crazy really, more crazy than talking politics online, discussing Vermont's Act 250 with a developer, explaining a carbon tax, convincing a Capitalist of the importance of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, or seeing where I am going with all of this!
Speak from the heart without facts? Without winning? This is just crazy! The American eel is an ancient fish born in the .......spends it's life ........ends up in Southern VT before it is pulled out of an ice fishing hole scaring the bejesus out of grown men.. It goes through no less than......changes before...Speak from the heart...You mean like John Denver singing about eagles?
I'm tired of comeback stories. We are all supposed to cheer and feel accomplished because we saved the Bald Eagle from extinction when we are the ones who caused their peril. Let's polish our red apples on our polyester button downed shirts because the Green Mountain ridgelines were preserved until some politician paved the way for them to be cemented over for green energy. Let's study for three years, how doing so impacted the animals that depended on what was the largest Beech stand in the state! Speak from the heart? My heart is too troubled! (It's easier to hide behind stats!) Why must profit and progress be the asteroids that our environment continually faces? When does freedom stop meaning the free will to dismantle the web of life that we all depend upon?
And yet for a day we stopped. Perhaps because the power was out, perhaps the roads were too slick and the skies were bloppy, perhaps it was a good day to nap on the couch with the dogs. Perhaps we discovered along the way, that while we rested, others took up the challenge. We were reminded by an artist, that in order to speak from the heart we must release the crazy notion of winning and replace it with a desire for understanding. Perhaps right now, it's not all that important that Joan Norton and Gail Mouradiain mentioned me in their comments, it's 1:34am... and I'm ready to sleep. -Norma Manning
*American eel, Wikipedia
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