Writer’s Block … Speechless … and so much more.

July 29, 2025

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately just poking about the gardens and surveying what is surviving the summer’s heat.  Echinacea, Russian sage, marigolds, hollyhocks all seem to love it.  So do those Mediterranean herbs like rosemary, basil, sage and lavender.  A few daylilies have sprung back to bloom after that 100-degree blast earlier last month.  That extreme heat really took a toll on so many perennials.  The bronze coral bells in the front garden have positively dried up to a crisp.  I’m not sure they will recover and the astilbe does not look much better.  If this is not just a passing thing, then they might need to be transplanted in the fall to a shadier location. That’s the thing with summer heat.  We take the wins and the losses and make amends where we can.

Walks in the garden pondering about little plant crises are a wonderful distraction from the outside world.  Until recently, I would consider myself a news junkie.  Morning news show, afternoon listening on Sirius radio, 6:30 national news and then a bevy of night time anchors.  Throw in some Facebook and Substack posts to fill in the blanks.  Sounds kind of crazy to be addicted to the news, but I was always waiting for that bit of hopeful news to blossom into something positive. Something life changing for our sorry country.  Always waiting… and always disappointed. Yes, that is where I was until recently.

Lately, I have had to turn off the news more and more.  The news is just so …. depressing.  Floods and tornadoes here.  Bombs and war zones there.  I know that not watching or listening will not make bad news go away.  I know that not paying attention will likely make bad situations even worse, but there is a point where the human mind screams “Enough!”  It could have been all the sex trafficking news.  Why has this sickening saga gone on so long?  Or it could be all the migrant news.  People whose only crime is coming to America for a better life forced to lie in shackles like caged animals.  Or maybe it is the steady, circular round of high-powered crimes set to rewind and repeat.   It makes a common person feel helpless when elections might as well be light years away.  And yet, some are happy.  This is the way that they have always wanted it.  That seems hard to believe, but sadly true.

We may feel beaten down and disheartened.  We may be left without words to express our anxiety and our fear.  All has already been said in elegant op-eds and in nightly prayers.   My own prayer is there are many more honest and kind hearts than there are evil ones.  My hope is that we find each other and empower each other to be better humans.  My wish is that our grandchildren can live on a better planet than the one we have right now. Geesh, it’s going to take some work.  Where do we even start?  One small step …today.