After an Equitas meeting in Dayton that left us discouraged, we decided to adjourn to our HQ, Ye Olde Trail Tavern in Yellow Springs, which has finally reopened after months of remodeling.  It’s much cleaner, brighter, and more functional, while preserving its historical character.  The menu has been reinvented German style.  It was a nice way to spend solstice evening and rally our spirits a little.  I had a lovely Belgian Whit that helped.

Happy longest, brightest day of the year.  Early this morning, the sun was high and blinding.  Now it’s just hot.  That’s all I have for now.

Living above savages makes it challenging to do any gardening.  Nevertheless, after picking up their gun hardware and rocks left strewn in the lawn, so I could mow, I managed to retrieve some actual greens and herbs from the raised beds, and tend to the volunteer tomato plants and other veggies which showed up from last year’s seeds.  We haven’t invested any money or time in seeds or plants this year, because it’s pointless.  But it’s amazing what came back for free.

I was excited to see my swamp milkweed blooming for the first time (for Monarchs), and also my pink coneflowers.  The big yellow sundrops have been blooming all spring, and the neighbor’s pink hydrangeas are flowering.  There have been tons of mulberries, which attract birds, the raspberries are ripening, and the old apple tree has its green apples.

It sucks having to sneak around in our own yard and hide out upstairs like fugitives, but all the more reason to keep focused on our plan.  We have to hold onto the modest hopes we have left, or what’s the point of living?  No one can live without hope.

We hiked through Clifton Gorge this morning.  The gorge was high and rushing far below, and the woods were cool and wet from rain.  We ate handfuls of black raspberries growing wild.  Many wildflowers and trees were blooming.  The Blue Hole was high and full of turtles, water snakes, fish, and water birds swooping.  Large raptors soared overhead.  We met a fellow hiker who was wearing a Great Smoky Mountains National Park emblem, and who turned out to be from, of all places, Maryville, TN, with family there!  What a small world.  We took it as a sign–of what, I’m not sure.

If you look closely, you’ll catch a rare sighting of some cave dwellers on the trail.

Obviously Father’s Day is sad for the many who have lost their fathers, but this isn’t about that.  This goes out to the less visible set of fathers who have lost children, and even fatherhood, for one reason or another.  It’s a subset we don’t think about much, or even see.

I’m purposely keeping this vague and general, but if you’re in this number, you know who you are.

Perhaps you’re in the tiny minority of fathers who literally transitioned MTF for necessary medical reasons, and in the process were abandoned by your children and family.  Maybe you’re a father who is uncertain about the future of your kids’ guardianship.  Or you’ve literally lost a child to death.

There are also those of you whose fathers are alive, but may as well be lost to you, having abused,  neglected, or abandoned you in childhood.  Or your father moved on to start a whole new family, leaving you behind.  Some never even knew their fathers.

Some are in unconventional marriages and will never be accepted as fathers, no matter how devoted and responsible they are.

I know people in most of these categories.  Just as with Mother’s Day, this is a particularly difficult day for them, as society commercializes Ideal Fatherhood and rubs it in their faces.  This is just a humble shoutout to the lost and forgotten fathers among us.  We see you.

I think that was the first time in a while that I haven’t posted my usual “erev” post.  I just wasn’t feeling very articulate.  So belatedly, erev cheers from yesterday.

I still can’t find the words to say all that I’m thinking.

No matter how hard you work to finally realize a dream or resolve a lifetime of unfortunate events, life has a tricksy way of pulling the rug out from under you.  Whether it’s political or personal, you can have the best of intentions and work your damnedest to achieve something better down the road, but there are always hidden causes and effects beyond your control, undermining and tearing down.  It seems random and arbitrary, though it probably isn’t.  You can never get complacent.

It’s the cost of being human– having hopes and having them dashed, then dusting yourself off and carrying on in a new, uncharted reality.  You can never let down your guard or rest for long.  You have to readjust constantly, or you die.  The trick is to keep breathing.

As in a plane going down, sometimes you have to inhale the oxygen first so you can then administer it to your loved ones.  You can’t help them if you’re incapacitated.  Not to be morbid or anything.  Just talking to myself…

Well, OK, so I had a few words to say.

We watched a fascinating documentary on Amazon about everything you might want to know about coffee, from grower to consumer, http://caffeinated.vhx.tv.

I was struck by the fact that poor growers in Central/South America never got to drink the best of their own product, having to export all the superior beans to the US and world.  No matter how high coffee prices went up at the consumer retail end, the farmers always made the same low wages.  They couldn’t risk trying new methods or varieties, because it takes years for a crop to mature on their small farms, limiting them to time-tested practices.

Many factors, like corporate monopolies of the industry, and climate change, will impact the availability and rising costs of the end product, which ultimately affect the livelihoods of small farmers, who take great pride in their traditional trade.  Whole families, generations, and villages engage in and depend on coffee-growing.

I’m all for fair trade, in theory, making sure small farmers have a shot at success making a living, not just the huge monopolies.  Ironically, even though poorer Americans still live better than the average small coffee grower, we can’t afford decent fair trade coffee beans, or fancy coffee-snob gadgets to roast, grind, or brew it.  We’re almost in their same boat.

On the mug-half-full side, our humble home brew is still better than the pathetic excuse for “coffee” found almost everywhere in this area.  People here don’t even know the meaning of the word.  I miss the taste of something many of us take for granted–decent water and coffee.

Not to complain or anything.  I’m thankful for whatever we’ve got, because I’m learning the value of little things, necessities.  Never take anything for granted, because it’s not guaranteed.  Anything beyond that is a bonus.  Like this excellent bread E just baked.  Not your average bread.

Yesterday we experienced the privilege of volunteering at a periodic Equitas Health name and gender change legal clinic, assisting lawyers to walk clients through the process of getting a probate court order and changing identity documents.  This is the same legal maze we had to learn to navigate, with very little help, and now get to help others with.

We met many interesting people of all ages and in various stages of their transitions, some just starting on the long journey.  The young lawyers do this work pro bono on the side, because they feel very strongly about advocacy for LGBTQ legal rights, along with trans- and cisgender professionals from Columbus, Dayton, and other cities.

We went into this clinic with some trepidation, but came away very encouraged and inspired.  These people refuse to give up or give in to the current discouraging political climate, believing that this momentum for equal rights cannot be stopped, just temporarily set back.  It gave us hope, even for places like Ohio and Tennessee.

(Also, there was lots and lots of pizza.  Earlier, E had made us her own original breakfast pizza (pictured), but one can never have too much pizza.  So there was that.)

Here is the early morning sky, getting ready to thunderstorm, and some flowers.

I couldn’t bring myself to write yesterday, as I didn’t have much to say.

Life is unpredictable at best, and makes sure you never get too comfortable or complacent.  It’s a law of the universe, or something.  You can’t look forward to an imaginary future that will never come.  All you can do is make the best of the here and now.  Assume it’s all you’ve got.  Then, if any of your hopes are realized, it’s a big bonus.

At least, that’s what it looks like to me from here and now, killing time in a dead-end layover, waiting to move on to an uncertain final stage.  There are no do-overs at this age, just tying up loose ends, with no time to make one more mistake.  So the trick is not to kill time, but to somehow find something positive and productive to do with what you’ve got, as if there’s no tomorrow.  Not my strong point.

I wish I had more optimism to share.  Someone very close to me is suffering, all their dreams dashed, and I feel sad and helpless and unable to be there.  It’s not about me, but it affects our hopes and plans as well.  But–reality is a force to be reckoned with, and reckon we will.  We’re still alive, so not done here yet.  Time to improvise.

Here at the Almanac, in Tornado Alley, we keep a close eye on the weather, which fluctuates like a volatile rollercoaster.  This week promises to be a steamy boiler of a week, in the 90s with T-storms. It makes me edgy, but as long as I don’t see any rotation, I’m good.

Speaking of a hothouse, here are some tomatoes, peaches, a New Guinea impatiens, birds grazing on the new-mown lawn, and one of my pet rutabagas.  Yes, we are freakishly pet-and-nature-deprived, here at the Almanac.