Weatherings

Yesterday was another stinking hot 31C summer day in KZN – and no rain to cool things down.
Gone are my “salad days” – childhood and youth in South Africa - when I hardly noticed stinking hot 31C summer day as “inclement” weather.
These days, however, the weather forecast is one of my first daily go-to apps. My heart sinks when predictions indicate temperatures in the upper 20s and higher.
I tremble as I learn more about predictions in the future of global weather and climate. 
We, the people, appear particularly unwilling (or unable?) to grapple with issues of climate, climate change, and other ecological changes. We ignore predictions and continue blithely to act as if “nothing” much will really change.

News blues…

Last summer California fought unprecedented fires. This winter, Texas faces unprecedented ice storms and deep freeze. What’s clear to anyone willing to pay attention: few are prepared for the chaos of coming climate crisis.

An analysis of US Department of Energy data published in September found weather-related power outages are up by 67% since 2000. Climate change is expected to continue fueling hotter heatwaves, more bitter winter storms and more ferocious hurricanes in the coming decades. As both California and Texas have discovered in recent years, power plants, generators and electrical lines are not designed to withstand the catastrophes to come. And all the while, the fossil fuels that both states rely on to power these faulty systems are driving the climate crisis, and hastening infrastructural collapse.
“We’re already seeing the effects of climate change,” said Sascha von Meier, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “There will be more of this and it will get worse.” 

Related but not “officially” recognized by “elected leaders”:
The planet
Prof Sir Robert Watson is one of the UK’s most eminent environmental scientists who led the UN’s scientific organisations for climate and biodiversity, is a former chief scientific adviser at the UK’s environment department, held senior positions at Nasa and the World Bank, and worked for then-president Bill Clinton.
Upon hearing that the British government will not block a new coalmine in Cumbria (“that’s absolutely ridiculous”) Watson said with great irony, “We’re going to lead Cop26 in Glasgow, we really care about climate change…but, by the way, we won’t override the council in Cumbria, and we’ll have a new coalmine.’” He added, “You get these wonderful statements by governments and then they have an action that goes completely against [their statements].” 
Human health
Outbreaks of the H5N8 strain of bird flu has been detected for the first time among seven workers who were infected at a Russian poultry plant. In recent months, the strain has been reported in Russia, Europe, China, the Middle East and north Africa, but only in poultry. 

My advice to fellow humans?
Educate yourself on how to prepare for a future our “elected leaders” are unprepared to acknowledge. And build resilience, in yourself, your children, and your loved ones. We’re gonna need it.

Healthy planet, anyone?

Photo essay: Lockdown in Brighton, UK 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

I’m dreaming of a … California summer….
Now that I’ve dared entertain the notion of re-entering my own life, caring for my own life tasks and my own personal business, it’s as if a spell cast over me has broken.
For more than one year, I’ve lived in my mother’s house and dealt with issues raised by her life decisions/lack of decision. It’s been a wild ride. (Remember, for example, her “faithful” domestic worker’s son threatening to kill me, shoot me, rape me - this, after he’d served 5 years of a 7-year prison sentence for rape .)
Since I daring to imagine re-entering my own life, dealing with my own taxes (deadline to file taxes in US is April 15), living on and maintaining my houseboat again, even finding short-term income-generating work, the idea of returning to California holds steady in my imagination.
Yes, there are many things to complete before I purchase an airplane ticket, and many considerations - who can I line up to visit and/or communicate with my mother while I’m away? What if she dies while I’m away? -  but do have the right and a responsibility to my own life….

***

I’m hosting potential buyers of “stuff” – water pump, welding kit, pillar drill, and lots and lots of nails, screws, electrical switches. This activity stimulates me to permit myself actually to buy a ticket, get on an airplane, and return to my own life!
Nevertheless, I tremble at how I’ll tell my mother that I’m leaving.
I’m “it” for her day-to-day visits, and her day-to-day life decisions. I’m confident that, once I’ve sold the “household stuff” and begun to implement whatever plan will deal with the house, I can accomplish remotely most of the day-to-day bill paying, etc. Rather, it is my mother’s day-to-day life that gives me pause.
Can I persuade my brother to visit twice a week? His health is such that he cannot drive anymore. He’ll need someone to drive him the 20 to 30-minute each way. I’ll pay for his petrol.
Can I persuade my nephew, my mother’s favorite person in the world, to phone her or leave WhatsApp audio message after I depart when he’s not done so in the last 10 weeks?

One of the less-alluring aspects of my mother’s personality that regularly regurgitates in my life? She selectively weeds out full disclosure and presents to others a picture of how I victimize her.
For example, yesterday, I returned a phone call my mother received from one of her acquaintances. I explained to him that she loves to hear from him but she’s unable – too weak - to respond. I asked, would he continue to call her and be prepared to talk to her yet not expect a response? He was agreeable. Then he asked me why she was still in “that place”?
Apparently, prior to her fall, she’d expressed to him how terrible the Care Center was and how much she hated it, that I’d forced her into it, fired her ultra-faithful domestic worker, taken away her dogs, abandoned her….
Sigh.
I offered an alternative view to her friend and filled in details she’d conveniently forgotten to share - himself living in a care center.
“That does sound like your mother,” he said.

Yes, elderly people feel disempowered by and resentful of their growing frailty. Ditto their dependence on others.
I sympathize. After all, “growing old is not for the squeamish….”
I’m also reconciled, after a lifetime of the same, to my mother undermining my efforts and diminishing who I am.
I’m disappointed. But the upside? I’m a functioning adult. I've learned to weather this kind of emotional betrayal and I can handle disappointment.

She’s trained me well.
Thank you, mother.