Happy Labor Day, one of those fuzzy holidays that is no longer much about what it was intended for, but now marks the change from summer to Fall.
In workaholic America, we don’t really want to think about labor and work, we do want some time off from it.
And we need some time off. I’ve never really learned how to relax away from my work, it has always been my sustenance and purpose.
I had a meaningful summer, I hope you did as well, we now enter the long season of discounts and bargains and online shopping, the true American national religion. This week, Bishop Maginn High School starts a new school year, and I am eager to witness it and hopefully, be of some good.
Today, it’s raining at Bedlam Farm, black and white photos all day. I am thinking of the people in the path of Hurricane Dorian, I wish them safety and peace, I hope they can keep their homes and be safe. Those videos coming out of the Bahamas are wrenching.
I can’t help but see clearly that we humans are entering a new era, some people can see it, some people just can’t.
I wonder how long we will have to pretend as a nation that there is no such thing as climate change and that some things – like life on the earth, and the future of our children – are as important as money for the corporations.
Our friend Eve Marko a writer, blogger and Zen teacher, is coming to join us here for lunch, I am always excited to see her, she is one of the smartest and most interesting people I know, and we have become true friends.
Afterward, Maria and I hope to go see the movie Blinded By the Light, based on the book Greetings From Asbury Park: Race, Religion and Rock N’ Roll by Sarfraz Mansoor, a British journalist.
The film – based on a true story – is set in the town of Luton, England in 1987, the harsh days of Thatcherite England. It tells the story of Javid, a British-Pakistani Muslim teenager whose life is changed after he discovers the music of Bruce Springsteen
As a young man who went to high school in Atlantic City and a young reporter who wrote about Asbury Park, the story has some relevance to me. Springsteen was important to me then, but my life was nothing like Javed’s.
If the movie is as interesting as it sounds, or as the book was, I’ll write about it.
My daughter’s best friend from childhood and my second daughter married a Bahamian man. He has immigrated here but has a huge extended family in the Bahamas. This is a tough time for them. Not much news coming forth for us to know the details. And the storm is stalled for perhaps another 24 hours. Communication is limited from them. Prayers are needed. These are a people without much in the way of resources and it appears that there is catastrophic devastation. Please send your best thoughts their way.
I went to see Blinded by the Light and thought it was good. I am a Jersey girl born and bred and and actually met Bruce Springsteen .