I'm Just Not Funny Anymore

"I don't understand. You used to be so funny! Now you just seem...angry and sarcastic".

I've heard that from more than one person in the last few years, and I'd like to apologize for being a big ol' Debbie Downer but JEEBUS have you SEEN what we've been through, survived, clawed our way out of this last decade?

Seriously.

It was easy, so very easy to write 'funny' when my family was all healthy and well and I had nothing better (or worse) to think about than the antics of chickens or what a gawdawful gardener I am.

Then Cancer.

Then the financial (what's a word like 'burden' but a million times more depressing?) that goes along with cancer even WITH insurance coverage.

Then the eye-opening trauma of finding out the REAL things that happen to real people when in medical crisis in this country followed by looking at other shit that was/is going on and HOLY CRAP I'LL NEVER LAUGH AGAIN.

I remember sitting at Neil and Olya's dinner table the very first time we visited them in Missouri. Probably half a dozen years ago or so, and Neil asked me when I'd be getting another article to him for the homestead.org website. A valid question as I was supposed to provide him with one a month and it'd been...more than that.

I couldn't. I just looked at him and said, "I'm so sorry, Boss- but I don't feel so funny anymore".

Well, once you start looking at something like the fractured infected wound of the health care system in America you can't help but look to either side of it- things like the rest of the social safety net and how we treat old people and children and our infrastructure. How we treat employees and teachers and policemen and soldiers.

And the short answer is, as a culture and society we clearly suck.

The bullies are taking over. The selfish are squashing everyone else. Corporations and special interest groups *cough* NRA *cough* and some lunatic fringe of Christianity *I* never encountered up in Wisconsin where I grew up Lutheran and was taught that evolution is real and to respect ALL other beliefs and oh by the way this country is NOT a Christian Nation- all those are running roughshod over everyone else and crying foul and persecution if anyone even politely and quietly asks them why they are shredding the Constitution to bits and pissing on the Founding Fathers' graves.

There's not a damn thing funny about that.

In fact, I'm not only angry and sarcastic, but I'm also scared- which usually manifests with me as looking like sarcastic anger.

I'm scared silly about my son- where are we heading as a society, the society he'll have to deal with and live in?

I understand the whole "rugged American individualist" thing, but honestly how is that mindset going to bring anything but more of the mess we're now in? There's no compassion, no forgiveness, no acceptance of anything other than what looks back at you in the mirror...no HUMANITY for the society as a whole, not just private little pockets of it.

Corporations and banks can do whatever they want to because CAPITALISM

Christians can force their beliefs into our laws because THE BIBLE

Gun owners can have whatever the hell they WANT (not NEED- WANT...and freely admit that) because SECOND AMENDMENT

What the hell happened to "all men being created equal"? That is a very simple phrase and it's pretty straightforward.

If everyone is equal, everyone matters. But every day in every direction I see and hear people being pushed out of the way, shamed and criticized and berated because they don't think the 'right' way (pun intended) or they don't 'deserve' something that they're getting. Whatever happened to 'judge not lest ye be judged'?

Don't get me wrong. I don't walk around in tears or with a black cloud over my head all day.

I smile and shake my head at our black cat Fred, who thinks stalking birds means climbing to 20ft above the feeder then letting go and dropping like a furred rock to the earth below. We're assuming he figures he'll nab one as it rolls on the ground laughing. The farm is full of characters.

Both Ward and Alec have razor sharp and dry wits and are funny as can be and they both make me laugh out loud on a regular basis. Even when I'm just watching them, I smile inside- they're so very precious to me.

I inhale the good clean air of a cool Texas morning and breathe in the molten sap aroma of a midsummer midafternoon and it calms me.

I see beauty almost everywhere, and am surrounded by love.

But when I sit down to put words on virtual paper, I'm just not funny anymore.