“To Monet, Giverny” by Abdallah Benanteur.

A woman where I work - we’ll call her Meg - wears a Kamala for President pin. (I was going to include an image, but, nah.)

She pops into my office and says “Do you love Kamala?” (She knows I see it as theatre.) She has an idiotic grin on her face. I silently give myself props for not uttering ‘idiot’ in reply.

Meg’s a taunter. She likes to get a rise out of people.

“No.” I say.

“What?! You don’t love Kamala?,” she persists. “Why not?” She points to her pin proudly, like a child who knows she misbehaving.

“I. Don’t. Like. Her. And, I don’t care.” My tone is even as my eyes go back to what I was reading before she made her appearance.

Meg leaves, failing in her mission.

This woman lives in the world brought to you by CNN and even as its propaganda-fueled narratives are in tatters, even as it’s no longer holding, she is attempting to hold on to it.

Most of the time, I’m not annoyed by her. Most of the time I feel sympathy with a generous sprinkling of frustration.

I remind myself that Meg is absorbed in a program. A program that can’t sustain. Right now, she’s not in control of her mind. She’s floating in a trial-balloon-bubble the blob has sent out, which can pop at any moment.

As with many people who live in this low-income, senior housing authority where I work, I’ve assisted her with applying for benefits; the SNAP program; Senior Nutrition Farmer’s Market program; Renters Rebates, etc. She lives on very little and needs assistance, which I’m happy to help with.

She’s in my life - as a reflection and I’m in hers. That our worlds overlap and include each other is not by mistake or happenstance, in my view. I challenge Meg and Meg challenges me. In different ways, yes, but when seen in a certain light - we are both in service to each other.

What we do with those reflections is up to us.

Meg is not an idiot, but she can act like one. I can too.

The reductive nature of words like ‘idiot’ and ‘normies’ - which I often think and write - are meaningless when applied to complex human beings. (Though still helpful in some contexts.)

I work in a very “normie-centric“ place. Writing that tells the reader a lot, but it won’t tell you that they have helped me, largely in seeing through those own easily uttered phrases that act to place me as separate from them.

Technically I’m there to help them through applying for assistance programs; planning and executing events and crafts, booking speakers, or taking them on trips - various ways of improving connection.

I spend most of my time, listening. I hear about their health issues, their families, their pasts. I talk them through spats and perceived injustices with other residents.

I ask them lots of questions. When the opportunity arises I may plant a seed here and there. I remind them they are resilient.

I don’t talk to them about the unraveling world and the new world emerging.

I don’t mention the trans agenda and where it’s headed. Or that the medical industry they rely on has been taken over and is far from reliable.

I don’t mention the larger field we exist in and how that field is rapidly changing via new cosmic energies and the very questions that challenge predominant narratives. That everyone is effected by this morphing field - questioners and believers alike.

We are watching lies that persisted over decades - or even centuries - coming undone, while the new lies generated just yesterday have far shorter lifespans. Like fireflies on a summer night, blinking in and out of view - they won’t be here very long.

For those like Meg, still holding on to ‘realities’ already dismantled, well, I don’t know what that means going forward. Either a very rapid catching-up will happen or a checking out. Or something I can’t even imagine.

When the war in Ukraine broke out, Meg told me she felt guilty she wasn’t sending them money. She meant it. (Inwardly I was in a state of apoplexy, though outwardly, merely shook my head.) However confused her position, however hijacked her emotions, the nut of it - the desire to help - was real and admirable.

That she spent her life working yet has no savings or pension and can barely get by on social-security isn’t what worries her most. She still believes in the system that landed her in a vulnerable position at 74. She still believes our country is a democracy and has even agreed to the belief that she’s guilty of not doing enough.

(Should the climate agenda folks ask for carbon-based volunteers to give up their very breath for the benefit of the planet, I suspect she’d raise her hand. )

She’s lost a sister (late 60’s) in the last year to a fast-moving pancreatic cancer. She has another sister (mid-70’s) in a hospital in Florida with a mystery-disease. Her cousin died (55) of a heart attack a couple weeks ago.

She’s up-to-date on her shots.

Her life is hard. She’s cried in my office. I’ve cried with her. She’s been surrounded by death, and yet she’s all in on Kamala and the system that puked this ‘choice’ out. It’s not difficult to understand that if she pulls on the thread of what she believes in, what unravels might just be too much. She’s already lost a lot.

If there is a bridge from where I view the world to where she does, I can’t find it. But I don’t need to. I can build many smaller bridges - and I do - to connect us. In fact I don’t have to do anything but show up with my heart open to her and my attention present, and that connection just happens.

How are your nephews?

Is your shoulder better?

How was the last Farm to Table pick up?

Are you attending the luncheon on Friday?

These are my questions. When Meg veers to politics - hoping to pick a fight - I tend to veer away. (Though sometimes I take the bait.)

An unexpected bonus of my job has been the sincere gratitude expressed by many of the residents for my help. Meg included. They are often kind and appreciative. They talk to me about their troubles and their pasts. Some are truly amazing in their resilience and desire to stay positive. (Like “Rebecca” who took up a walking challenge I posted last April - on who could rack-up the most miles in a month - and hasn’t stopped since. She does 4 miles a day every day. She’s 88.)

They all want connection.

I’m grateful I can help. I’m grateful for the reflections they offer and opportunities that come with them. Rather than seeing the world as made up of clueless normies VS those who see through the lies (sometimes I still do that) and wringing my hands over the difference, I can actually engage and do something meaningful for these complex human beings, and even recognize why they can’t or won’t see what’s happening. They literally don’t have the bandwidth to go there - their lives are already stressed enough.

As Ed Brenegar writes in this post - which came at a perfect time - Making a difference that matters is a good way to orient your life in a world that is in transition.

Isn’t that the truth?

The world for me has been undone and redone and then undone again. I suspect that cycle will continue. Yet even with all that I’ve learned and unlearned, an essential lesson came from normies and idiots.

Go figure.

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