This wide-angle perspective of Wren shows her complete ownership of me. I love how she seems to experience me as a convenient piece of furniture to give her a higher perspective one moment, and another moment as though I am an extension of her very self, or she of mine.

Wren and I did something today that I haven’t done in a few years: we went to a Super Bowl party. We took a bacon-cheddar-cream cheese dip, topped with avocado and the first two tomatoes of the season! That little vine in a bag that I brought in last fall? Its tomatoes ripened through December, and then it didn’t quit: I gave it one dose of full-spectrum plant food, and a couple weeks later it made a few flowers, and then a few more. I picked the first ripe tomatoes today, and there are half a dozen more green tomatoes on the vine. They’re small, just barely bigger than a cherry tomato, but still! I’m grateful for this pertinacious little plant.

The party was just across the living room in my recliner, and we were the only guests. Topaz stopped by for a few crunchy treats. Our team didn’t win, but we had a good time, and the event gave me plenty to reflect on. I was grateful to swap perspectives with a friend over zoom after a halftime show that NPR called “chaotic.” I’ll say. I couldn’t make a lick of sense out of it after the first few minutes. I kept waiting for Usher to sing a song. But I watched, and I wondered, How is there still racism in this country when so many Americans of all colors and political persuasions celebrate the Super Bowl? It’s not a white sport. At least half its megastars are Black. The halftime show was a celebration of Black artists and cultures. How do some people revere Black football stars or performers, and simultaneously hate their Black neighbors?

The ads, which for some years were actually clever or artistic or surprising, this year struck me as even more materialistic, banal, depressing, and alienating than ever. I don’t even remember seeing a single Clydesdale, but maybe I blinked during that one. I’ve been studying human beings from the moment in college when I learned I could get a diploma in people-watching, and I barely understand them any better than I did when I embarked on my Anthropology degree. What I do understand, though, is that our predominant American culture is tragically alienated from one thing that is essentially real and true, the natural world: soil, water, trees, non-human animals, and the interconnected cycles and systems that regulate this fragile spinning globe we live on. For all we know, “Life is only on Earth… and not for long.” (Justine, in Melancholia.)

On the political front, here’s another hopeful, clarifying, and inspiring perspective, recommended by Jessica Craven, from Mike Lux Media with the headline “The 2024 election will be determined by two things. Neither one is Joe Biden’s age.”