I woke up today telling myself that I need to stop worrying. I need to stop obsessing about what is going on in Washington, and how we are sinking under a deranged president who is bringing out the worse in this country. I need to ignore the news for the next few weeks, at least until the election, and just concentrate on surviving and getting my family through. We have to make it through, and this gut-wrenching anxiety and anger is not doing me well. My sugar levels are cycling up and down, they are sky-high one hour and bellow 100 the next, and I feel as if I am suffocating. I need to just blank everything out, even when I see the white men in their trucks waving banners and flags. I need to ignore them.
To try to find some peace and healing I went again to the California Botanic Garden in Claremont. I have now bought an annual membership so I should be able to go when I want, without a reservation. It was hot today, but I knew, if I stayed at home, my mind would not be at peace, and I needed to go out.
Before I left, however, I sang Happy Birthday to my nephew via cellphone video. He doesn't understand what is going on, my youngest nephews don't, but we need to make sure they survive this white supremacist regime in Washington. We need to survive because if I don't calm myself, I will be having the same panic attacks my niece is having.
I arrived at the Botanic Garden at about 1:15 p.m., and there were, of course, more people there than when I first went on a weekday. The key is, don't go out on weekends to visit these places, people are sick of staying at home and many do not even want to wear facemasks even as the Covid death tolls soar. In California, we are above 15,000 deaths, and climbing by about 80-100 deaths per day. And this is the summer, when the heat is supposed to protect us, because the flu seasons only ravages us in winter, not in summer. Things will get bad once again, they haven't stopped being bad, but many people feel they are sick and tired of quarantine and protective measures, so many are ignoring them. There were small groups that were walking around the garden without their masks, oblivious to the concerns of others.
There are so many paths to explore! I still have not explored everything here, but I am seeing more and more. There is no explosion of colors and flowers such as what I saw at the Sherman Garden, but this garden in Claremont somehow feels more natural, not so cultivated, although of course, it is cultivated. There are no wild splashes of roses, the flower garden in fact was bare, but there are cohesive arrangements of habitats with plants. The desert trees call to me more than the others, and there are sculptures planted in many places, not artful classical nudes like at the Huntington, but abstract art structures.
It got hot again today. It was in the 70s this morning when I was walking, and there was a marine layer. Later on, the layer withdrew (as I knew it would), and we were inching up to the 90s. It was still bearable, although we will hit the lower 100s again by the end of the week.
There were things I wanted to photograph, and I took plenty of Rollei Infrared film this time. I also took my Kraken 6x12 camera. I shot two rolls, both color, one regular color film and the other slide film. I can't wait to see how they come out. The Kraken is actually a pleasure to use, although of course, I may find myself in dismay since I had noticed a problem with the focus plane. But things might turn out, the ground glass I was using was several millimeters thick, so that might be why I could not verify focus at infinity. Since the film will be several millimeters closer to the lens, it might be in focus. I hope so.
The bombshell, according to a story I saw from the Guardian Newspaper, is that the New York Times managed to obtain copies of Trump's tax returns, and the information is every bit as damning as we knew it would be. He is a fraud, he has paid hardly any taxes, and he has accumulated wealth while claiming exhorbitant losses. He is a fraud, and Trump was supposed to have lashed out already, claiming it was "fake news", as he always does when he is caught in his lies and mendacity. And his base will follow along with him, they are oblivious to all the transgressions, to the everyday racism directed towards blacks, to his demeaning comments about women as groups, not just as political rivals, to his failure to denounce the KKK, to his comment about Wisconsin (or Minnesota) white having good genes in comparison to the black Somalian refugees who have arrived. There love those statements because they always did have a white supremacist agenda, and he is openly expousing it, not just lunatic fringe elements, but the president. The tax returns will make no difference, they will be dismissed like the Covid failure and all the other failures of his administration, all the corruption, all the insanity.
I am trying to escape from all of this with my self-imposed news blackout, and I will have to try harder. I want to hear nothing. It reminds me of the Bush presidency, but this is much worse.
While walking around the garden I found these Joshua trees. I thought, why not take a photo in IR? I didn't expect they would reflect it, and they really didn't, but the photo somehow is a study in contrasts, and mirrors how twisted I feel.
It has its' own austere beauty, even as they are bent over like old men.
The anxiety is really eating away, as well as the frustration and anger and depression. I need to find some peace, not continue this way. Apparently the first presidential debate is scheduled for this week. I will definitely not watch it.
I'll post a few more IR photos tomorrow.
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