Butchblog

Another cool and cloudy day here at the Coast. At the same time Portland folks are sweating in the end-of-summer heat wave. I think all of us who live here full-time are secretly smug about this state of affairs. And, yes, we can’t wait for Fall to come and the tourists to leave our little slice of paradise.

            Some days I think I am burying my head in the sand by avoiding the intensity and bustle of the city, but I could not go back at this point in my life. We now even avoid the occasional trip. The traffic freaks me out as does the sight of the vast encampments of homeless. I sympathize, imagine myself in that situation, but mostly just want to hide it from view. There’s so much these days that is hard to stomach and I puzzle about how we have arrived at this point.

            I came of age in the sixties, after graduating from college. I became aware of how life might be different than what I had been led to expect. Marijuana helped, as did LSD a few years later. They were, truly, mind-expanding substances, and a lead-in to a different culture, one populated by people who had similar complaints and aspirations. For the first time I did not feel alone or adrift. Yes, some of our ilk took the psychedelic thing too far. Blowing your brains out on a regular basis was not a sustainable passion or a way to build community. But the occasional trip could be revelatory. There are still moments on such trips that remain firmly in my memory. Though hard to fully explain, there was a time for me, in my altered state, that I felt the basic secret of life was revealed—namely, that all of what we experience is a vast cosmic chuckle, and that when we pass on all of the insanity will be revealed and we will smile peacefully. I’ve never felt happier or more clear than in that moment.

            But aside from the drugs, what made me come alive in the ’60’s was a sense of hopefulness, that maybe life in this country could move to a place of more personal awareness, more fairness, less oppressiveness. We protested the Vietnam War, resisted the draft, listened to great music, rejected outdated and mean societal norms, helped pass legislation to end inequality and improve voters’ rights. We marched for all sorts of things, long-haired freaks dancing in our bell-bottoms and boots. We were going to make this truly a free country. We were way too innocent I’m afraid.

            But as naive as we baby-boomers were, we never imagined that we would find ourselves in the situation we are in today. Yes, we suffered through Reagan and the Bushes, but still were confident that we would get through those periods and the pendulum would swing back. We still believed that society was moving forward, improving, becoming (dare I use the now forbidden word), inclusive. I never imagined a Trump. Yes, I knew such people existed in the world—psychopaths, criminals, con-men, but never in my wildest imagining could I think one would be president. Fool that I am, I also thought the great majority of the population would feel the same, would reject the hideous man-child. My friends and I laughed about his endless lies and corruption. Just another clown, we said. He’ll soon be gone, we said. But at the same time, a bubbling fear was growing in our bellies. And when he was elected—twice, we wept for our country and for all the shattered ideals we held so precious in that long-ago time of the sixties.

            So today, I’ll walk on the beach, enjoy the smell of Fall in the air. Maybe I’ll even take a nap. I’m grateful for the life I live, but each day I’m reminded with a sinking feeling in my gut how very far it is from the society that we worked for, believed in, and expected to be here in 2025. And, yes, I still hang on to my hippie brain. I believe that we will reclaim our country, we will resist with all our strength, right the moral compass, recover our senses.  I hope I live long enough to see it. Maybe I am an optimist after all.