Some days it feels like I am parched with sorrow. If I turn slowly 360 degrees — north, south, east, west — I see loss, danger and fear at home and abroad as we face floods, decimating heat waves, hurricane winds, wars, famine, assaults on the lives and rights of women and attacks on democracy. Fear animates some of the threats that press down on us making it hard to breathe or see clearly. How can we ease the fears of those who threaten our very democracy? How can we ease our own fears so we can find ways to help alleviate the suffering all around, whether from war, climate, long-endured prejudice or newly reactivated hatefulness?
Like our gardens which have suffered through the hottest August since 1895 when records were first kept, we have felt the scorching and the thirst; like the pole beans and raspberries, we have not produced our best results, especially on the days too hot to think.
We missed the rainfall that finally began to ease the significant drought over the summer. For the first time in more than three years we visited our grandkids in California. From afar we cheered the weather reports of rain and more rain and imagined the sigh of relief from our crops and more importantly, the trees and shrubs that anchor the landscape. We also cheered the lack of smoke during this visit to California. Our last visit coincided with the Paradise fire. Even 200 miles away, it choked the air, making it impossible to see across the street much less the usual bay view. A few days into this visit, however, a new reality set in. The usually comfortable bay area was beset by record breaking heat. From norms in the high 60s, temperatures rose and we watched records break all around us — as high as 120 in some places not far away. The day before we left, it reached 103. We had to retreat to the basement because the house, though sturdy and spacious, has no insulation or air conditioning. We kept thinking of what it must be like for people who had more uncertain living conditions.
Back home, it was a relief to be greeted by much lower temperatures, but the effects of the drought were still evident. Plant growth had been slowed except for the invasive vines; crop output was likely reduced for farmers; water supplies were strained; rivers and streams stressed.
It rained all day on the autumn equinox. We were content to stay in because just the sound of the rain brought a sense of relief, a hope of respite. While the rain was too late to resuscitate certain crops in the garden, we are hoping the deep soak strengthens the roots that will help trees and shrubs and perennials withstand the winter to come and the challenges that will surely greet us next year.
There have been a few showers of hope politically, too. Although the January 6 Committee took an August break, leaving us to sizzle under its revelations, then to stew in its implications, the Justice Department has begun to move inexorably forward. Against the backdrop of steady prosecution of people who assaulted the Capitol on Jan. 6 2021, the raid on Mar-a-Lago to collect stolen government documents, raised the temperature by a lot. Adroit legal action has countered the indefensibly poor decisions of a judge, clearly out of her depth and in the pocket of a certain former president. There are also signs that investigation into election interference and vote tampering have kicked into high gear. And two brave Black women in Georgia and New York, a district attorney and an attorney general respectively, have persisted and made significant strides toward relieving the drought of truth and honesty afflicting our national politics.
The heated rhetoric of those still pushing the Big Lie about a stolen election in 2020 pours oil on the flames that threaten to burn away our national cohesion. Still, the showers of truth help dampen the heat, disrupt the spread, disperse the smoke and, hopefully, nourish and strengthen the roots that will keep our democracy vigorous and strong.
Judy Wagner lives in Northfield.