Why I dropped everything to help Garnet Lewis go to Lansing.

Hi folks,

Julie Ridl here, Jack’s wife. He kindly allowed me to hijack his audience to share this message. I hope you don’t mind.

I need our friends to understand that helping Garnet Lewis in her run for Michigan State Senator has been the best work of my life, already. Selling products was fun. But helping a really fine person seek a seat on our broken Senate is easily the greatest contribution to my community that I’ve ever made in my lifetime. But I’d like you to know why I put my business clients and other commitments on hold to do this work:

If Atticus Finch, as played by Gregory Peck in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and Eleanor Roosevelt had a baby girl, she would grow up to be the Garnet Lewis I have come to know and love.

From these virtual parents she gathers relentlessness in discovering the right things to do, then seeing them done, building coalitions and communities of people who care for all the people, listening intently, guiding respectfully, honoring differences of opinion, all with nearly unsinkable humor.

Nearly unsinkable, because her righteous anger, when sparked, is a wonder to behold. She is powerful. A legacy from Eleanor.

Sandra Bullock would be cast to play Garnet in the film adaptation of her life for her ability to portray the right blend of virtue and goofiness, with two ticks of southern charm.

For me the shorthand to her character is that she is an Air Force Brat. I am a Navy brat. We both grew up on military bases where our dads served as career servicemen, overseas. This was during the 1960s-1970s. At that time, servicemen were drafted into service, and so military bases were an egalitarian microcosm of the whole melting pot of U.S. culture. We grew up serving side by side with people from many U.S. cultures and ideologies and religious faith traditions. And I say serving because military families absolutely sacrifice and serve alongside their service people, in our cases, our dads. Our mothers were strong and self-sustaining women who could form and reform strong, hardworking communities at the drop of a pin on the map.

That’s all I needed to know about Garn, that she is part of a tradition that respects and values the contributions of the whole community, that she will fight for the health and wellbeing of any community where she lives and serves.

But wait. There’s more. She…

+Was raised in England and Germany, where she learned to appreciate different cultures, and the value and challenges of international relations
+Moved to her father’s ranch in Texas when he retired from the Air Force, where she learned about the hard work of managing land and livestock
+Studied animal husbandry
+Fell in love with the philosophy of Education, earning a Ph.D. in Education
+Fell in love with Michigan as a young professor, and has lived here ever since
+Educated many, many educators
+Educated and guided Democratic legislative candidates
+Was the first openly LGBTQ person to be appointed by our Governor to serve on one of MIchigan’s University Boards
+Chaired that board
+”Retired” to run a small business, serve on Saugatuck City’s planning commission, serve on city’s board of review
+Is a thoroughly engaging community organizer
+Bravely answered the call when her community pleaded with her to run for office
+Donated a kidney to a total stranger
+That’s right, a total stranger
+Is a selfless mensch
+Is always the adult in the room
+Has an infectious laugh
+Is Vicky’s spouse
+Is Norman the Campaign Dog’s mom

And when we elect her, she will be the first openly LGBTQ State Senator for the State of Michigan. Ever.

Big, dark money has already launched her likely Republican opposition for this seat.

It will take a lot of people with heart and small, light money to win it.

I absolutely believe in my heart and bones that if we can’t send a woman like Garnet Lewis to Lansing, we will have utterly failed our State.

So. Now you know Garnet. Will you help me support her? You don’t have to live in my district or in my state to support her campaign. You do need to be a U.S. Citizen. (sorry German buddies.) Will you consider it? Max donation to a particular candidate is $2000. Any amount is most welcome. Thanks for making it this far if you did!

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/garnforsenate

Or write checks to: Garnet Lewis for State Senate, P.O. Box 611, Saugatuck, MI 49453

–Julie Ridl

Oxbow Workshop!

Hi there, one and all–

My daughter Meridith Ridl and I will be teaching a class at Ox-Bow July 9-12, from 10am till 12:30. The max number of participants is 12. There are some openings. We’d sure love to have you join us.

This is an Art on the Meadow Class. We’ll start each day with some directed writing that you will enjoy, especially because you can write any way you like: fragments, notes, lines, sentences, prose, poetry, chicken scratches . . .  Then we’ll turn to coordinating what you wrote with a visual artwork.

Each day will be different.

To find out more and sign up, here’s what to do:

Register at http://www.ox-bow.org/art-on-the-meadow-day-course-registration

Or you can call Ox-Bow at 269-857-5811

Meridith and I would love to spend the week with you!

Here’s Hoping You Read as Well as He Writes

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/trump-kritiker-jack-ridl-the-number-of-the-beast-1.3926572

Behind this link is the lovely piece Christian Zaschke wrote about Jack’s “In Time” series, his act of resistance. We are heartbroken that we cannot read it in German, because after spending a few days with Christian (after a few minutes, we knew), we realized that this writer loves his words, uses them carefully, builds and sculpts his stories. What an honor to have met him, and how kind he was to put so much effort into casting his light on this project.

Dear new readers, here are all of Jack’s Thursday posts, resisting the administration of 45, under the tag “In Time.”  https://ridl.wordpress.com/category/in-time/

So many thanks to Norbert Kraas for introducing us!

 

 

 

A Free Writing (and freewriting) Event

Hey folks, I’ve got a gig coming up on April 12, 6:30 to 9:30pm at the DUCC Friendship Hall, 56 Wall Street in Douglas, MI. It’s free, and open to the public, and I’d love for you to join us, and bring a friend! It’s described in this attachment, below, which is handy for sharing with your friends and family. If you think you might like to come, please use the contact link, on my website, or the event link on my Facebook page to let me know. Thanks, and hope to see you there!

After Reading Dom John Chapman, Benedictine Abbot

There are times for those who pray that it doesn’t seem possible. What words would one mutter in response to a horrific sorrow? Silence may be the most sacred of all prayers. I often think that prayer is there to lead us into being prayerful. Perhaps that’s one way to stand in opposition to what assaults all that is good and to overcome that which separates the sacred from the everyday. This week’s poem tries to enter that way of being.

After Reading Dom John Chapman, Benedictine Abbot

“Pray as you can; not as you can’t.”
My prayers will sit on the backs
of bedraggled donkeys, in the sidecars
of Harleys, in the pockets of night
watchmen, on the laps of widows.
They will be the stones I walk by,
the smudges I leave on anything I touch,
the last place the last snow melts. They
will be brown, weekdays, potato pancakes.
They will stick to the undersides of porches,
docks, dog paws, and carpets. When I’m sick,
my cough will carry them. When you leave
in the morning, they will sink into the bed,
the sofa, every towel. I will carry them
in the modesty of my feet. Everything
will be praying: My dog will be petitioning
for mercy when he stops to sniff a post.
Every window in our house will be
an offering for supplication. The birds
at the feeder will be twitching
for my sins. I will say my prayers
are bread dough, doorknobs, golf tees,
any small and nameless change of heart.
When I forget my prayers, they will
bundle up and go out on their own
across the street, down into the basement,
into a small town with no mayor where
there is a single swing in the park. When
I forget, they’ll know I was watching TV,
the sky, or listening to Basie, remembering
the way my mother and father jitterbugged
to the big band station, he pulling her close,
then spinning her out across the green kitchen floor.

—Jack Ridl

from Broken Symmetry (Wayne State University Press)

Prayer

Comfort often gets a bad rap. It strikes many as avoidance, or that which the privileged seek or have, or it gets attached to the odd term “comfort zone,” as if there is some area we can go where we aren’t going to be troubled. How can one get up in the morning and expect to find that? It’s where the snipe hangs out.

The comfort we deserve now is that which gives us comfort within our distress. Kinda like that old sweatshirt, or soup, or, that person who doesn’t leave when there is nothing to say.

This week’s poem, I hope, speaks to the kind of comfort/comforting we deserve, perhaps especially now.

Prayer

There are those who know
the world without words,

not even a murmur or
a breath. Within the modesty

of presence, a prayer
could be green, tattered,

cold, alone as a possum
crossing a back road. It’s

the touch of the still. It’s
where we are Amen,

Shalom, Namaste—it’s our
there, here, our forgotten

habitat of yes. We become
sigh, our “I” the wet dog,

the sparrow nesting
in the anonymity of brown.

–Jack Ridl

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Visit Roan & Black and Cabbages & Kings and Reader’s World to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

And, of course, click here to visit ridl.com, check out what Jack’s been up to, maybe say hi!

The Poet at Seventy-Two

Our little houseboat in Key West suffered some damage so Julie is there for a week doing repairs.

So while Julie manages the repairs in heat that feels like 103, I walk the dogs. 

Perhaps a laugh or two would be good, so here’s a poem that tries to keep things afloat.

The Poet at Seventy-Two

The poems follow me, biting
my ankles as I limp my way
through Dante’s dark wood praying

the path will end where Beatrice holds
an elegant sign proclaiming, “Welcome!”
The poems gnaw and nip and jeer, “You

mixed a metaphor in mine about
the old car and the kangaroo!”
“You had four comma splices

in that last collection!” And “Why
in God’s name did you give me
that inane title!” I mumble

that I never knew what I was doing,
each synapse but a radio tube without
a wave. They shout, “No rationales”

and nibble toward my knees. I blame
Roget. They shrug. They roll their eyes.
“You’ve written your last lyric meditation

on a dog. No more dogs!” I lurch
toward Beatrice, see her wave,
her smile, her held-high sign—

“Welcome, Billy Collins!” The poems
howl, guffaw, giggle, sneer, and snicker.
“But Beatrice! I used assonance,

alliteration, made every line break
on the very perfect word. Her smirk
is luminous. I turn, and enjambing

on the poems, snarl, “You wouldn’t
even be if I could pound a nail straight,
balance a check book, change a tire,

wire a goddamn entertainment center!”

—Jack Ridl

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Visit Roan & Black and Cabbages & Kings and Reader’s World to find Jack’s books in West Michigan.

Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

And, of course, click here to visit ridl.com, check out what Jack’s been up to, maybe say hi!

Whoops.

Unfortunately there was a smooshing together of two different subjects in the latest post. I did not mean to have the care/not care comment and the thank you to those who checked in on us be together. We of course know that millions of people we’re caring in many many ways, and that friends were caring who were concerned about taking our attention. The reference to “not caring” was meant to refer to those who were exploiting the disaster. Having friends who are dealing with the storm we too keep trying to figure out whether or not to contact them or trust they know we care.I regret that I didn’t check that copy to catch that misleading construction. And I called myself an English teacher!

Fourth Annual Reading at the Red Dock

You know that poetry reading on the water in Saugatuck? No? The one that started as an experiment, became a sensation, and is now a tradition? Well, it’s back.

Announcing the Fourth Annual Reading at the Red Dock with Jack Ridl, and this year featuring… all the way from Moveen, Ireland… beloved poet Thomas Lynch.

DATE: The Red Dock reading is always on the second Tuesday in August. Set your calendars on repeat! This year, that means AUGUST 8

TIME: 6PM, with music starting hours beforehand.

WHERE: The Red Dock, the chillingest, laid-backest, best water-living, sun soaking joint in Saugatuck/Douglas. Find it where the Keewatin used to be parked. If that doesn’t make sense, then set your GPS to 219 N Union St, Douglas, MI 49406. Or put another way, it’s just past the Saugatuck-Douglas bridge, on the Douglas side, on the harbor. Park in the big lot, walk down the pier by the boat ramp.

PRO TIP: For this reading, come early, because once the dock is full, it’s full. And this reading usually fills the dock. Also, you just might want a folding chair in your trunk, just in case. Also, dress is extraordinarily casual. You do need shoes. Possibly also a shirt, because it’s a restaurant, and there are just a few rules. Not many.

About Thomas:  Thomas Lynch is known throughout the States and Europe for his poetry, prose, documentary films, lectures, commentaries, interviews, features on PBS, NPR, the BBC. His THE UNDERTAKING was made into a Frontline feature and he was featured guest on Bill Moyers’s On Our Own Terms, MSNBC, the Today Show. His work has been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Times of London, The New Yorker, The Paris Review. He has published five collections of poetry, four of essays, a collection of short stories, and memoirs. Thomas makes his home in the family’s ancestral cottage in Moveen, County Clare, Ireland and in Milford, Michigan where he has been the funeral director since 1974. He brings a rich sense of humor and poignant depth to all he does, to everyone he is with.

Seriously, get there early to secure a seat, have a meal, a drink, a conversation, a good listen to the good music.

You know how good it is to see you there and for all of us to be with one another.

Deepest thanks to owner Tony Amato who makes the magic happen, and his warm-hearted staff who make us all feel at home at this touch of Key West in the Midwest.

But He Loved His Dog

24 million will lose their health care unless some in congress have a backbone and a twitch of caring for those they are sworn to care for.

When our daughter, Meridith, was living in France for a year on a Watson Fellowship to paint in the footsteps of Cezanne, she was struck by a hit-and-run motorcyclist and was taken immediately into surgery for critical head injuries: no paper work, no questions, no nothing but care, excellent care. When we arrived, we were told not to worry about any financial concerns. “We are here to take care of your child.” Total cost: $25 dollars. She continues to paint in the footsteps of Cezanne.

Coda: When Meridith first visited Cezanne’s studio in Aix en Provence, the curator was struck by Mimi’s awe and asked her to return in a couple days to talk. (Incidentally, there were no ropes to keep visitors away from everything: his bag, brushes, easel, everything.) When Mimi returned to her apartment we asked her about her talk. “She gave me a key and told me to come anytime to do my painting in the studio.”

24 million. Ropes to keep us away from everything. Get rid of the National Endowment for the Arts. Take a selfie with your microwave. Now as pass by those such as this man, I wonder . . .

 

But He Loved His Dog

Wednesday was trash day so he pulled
the garbage can to the curb. There
was never that much in it. Sometimes
he stood there for a few minutes, looking
down when a car drove by, looking up
at the trees in the yard across the street.

No one really knew if he knew anyone.
He had a dog. It wasn’t much of a dog.
It was an old dog, a mix too mixed
to know what all might be there. He
told someone once, “Oh I suppose
there has to be some beagle, maybe
some German shepherd.” Each noon
he walked the dog down to the corner,
left on Maple Avenue, three blocks
to the park where they would stop and

he would sit on a bench under a Beech
that had been hollowing out for years.
The dog lay at his feet, once in a while
lifted its head and sniffed. He never read
or talked except to say, “What do you
think of this day, boy?” and the dog
would wag its tail across the gravel path.

He would sit for most of the afternoon,
then tug on the dog’s leash and they
would walk on through the park, then
back home. He would bring in the mail,
toss it away. When the evening’s light
began drawing its shadow across his porch,
he would turn on the radio, open a window,
and sit outside, with his dog, listening
to the classical music station and the cicadas.

–Jack Ridl

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Click here to subscribe to receive Jack’s poems and news in your inbox.

Click here for Jack’s entire collection, In Time — poems for the current administration.

Click here to watch Jack’s TedX talk.

And, of course, click here to visit ridl.com, check out what Jack’s been up to, maybe say hi!