“Pruning to Propagate”

 

            Earlier this week, I spotted a Swedish Ivy at HEB that dangled possibilities before me. Years ago, these plants filled hanging baskets that adorned our back redwood lattice. Draping with Spider Plants and Boston ferns, their delicate glossy scalloped leaves contrasted to the spikey Spider’s hardiness. They sport a soft white or mauve flower each spring and fall. Of course, I added the ivy to my grocery purchases and found a nice spot for this piece of memory in the front yard. As they propagate easily, all I need is one to begin a new line of a forgotten favorite. A few clippings placed into a Mason jar of water, and roots will sprout soon.

            Inside, my three Pothos dragged down to the floor. Winter’s unrelenting freezes showed no mercy to the ones housed in our small greenhouse, and outside only three or four pots now sprout in resilient defiance. Instead of cut flowers adorning the dining room table, the promise of more Pothos baskets sits in filtered light.

            My Jade became leggy over the last few weeks. I lopped them off and have their cuttings set aside to cure. All of the Jade will shift outside to take advantage of our longer and hotter days and more sunlight to spur their growth. My troubles with Jade come from ignorance on my part, but this year my research should result in new growth for old plants and new plants that thrive.

            My focus on nurturing each of these plants stems from a need to control something in the world around me. Every day, something new becomes endangered as our current regime slices brutally through our democratic rights. Propaganda’s incessant wail forces me to retreat to my garden where I can prune to propagate promises for tomorrow.
 
Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman               

“Careless, Callous, and Cruel”

 

            A little over 100 days into this regime, my head aches and heart breaks to understand the agenda embraced by the people I know. I spent weeks diving into The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. Although published in 2012, this provocative synthesis should be on everyone’s reading list. I find myself going back to its pages as I desperately try to understand why the good people I count as family and friends have moved so easily into being careless, callous, and cruel.
            Then I remember that many of them showed levels of thoughtlessness and insensitivity whenever life required them to think from another person’s point of view. Why should they consider the needs of anyone that didn’t fit into the cultish family traditions? Why should they change anything in their routines and rights? Why should they step outside of their protected, cultivated, restrictive communities to engage in a wider worldview? Any suggestions that their telescoped opinions could be inaccurate met with ostracism. “US verses THEM”, their family moto, primed them to embrace political leaders ready to hijack them, even if they get hurt.
            When confronted with the tenants of Project 2025, they wrap themselves in their protective layers of privilege, knowing their misogynistic purity protects them and their lockstep families. They defend that they care—for their immediate family, as it should be. No one else matters. Even family can be shoved aside if there’s even a hint of “free riding” scenting the air. Homelessness and suicide for adult children who don’t show proper loyalty and subservience becomes an honorable badge to sanctify their callousness.
            I shouldn’t be shocked that these same people easily accept the ruthlessness this regime embraces. These people adorn their walls with trophies and their homes and bodies with gaudy displays of wealth. One of them is the woman I no longer talk to because she defended slavery, saying that she read somewhere that not all slave owners were cruel. She refused to understand that owning another person is cruel. Period.
            What kind of suffering can these people justify? Will there be an action or order that will wake them up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat?  Can they walk away from this careless, callous and cruel path? Do they want to?

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

               

 

“When You’re Not in a Cult”

            Yesterday I woke up wrapped in defeat. My stomach ached. My head ached. My heart ached. My belief in American voters lay bludgeoned and bloody at my feet. I had no desire to triage my world. Let it bleed out.

            My writing sharpened down to eight lines of poetry predicting regrets that I realized today won’t happen. These people want to add heat to boiling wrath. They feed their outrage with a volatile fuel of racism and misogamy. Their deity’s failings purify him and absolve him. They expect nothing from him but chaos and destruction.

            He empowers them because he is them.

          Those of us not in the cult can only step aside right now to keep from burning up in the initial explosions. When you’re not in a cult, you know that there is more than one person or one way to put out a fire.

 Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

              

             

 

           

“July 21, 2024”

 

one letter at 1:45 PM

became another personal “Where were you?” moment

soft tears of acceptance slid down my cheeks

one courageous act rekindled hope

“Ready or not, here we come!”

my new mantra reverberated

texts, emails, and phone calls late at night

words binding us with destiny

one letter at 1:45 PM

Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

“Heartbreak and Horror”

            Right now, my throat tightens to fight back tears as today’s events play out. Only it isn’t some kind of game. It isn’t a distant country. It isn’t someone else’s home or problem.
            This reality is our problem caused by angry, gutless people who cultishly defended a sociopath. He twisted and manipulated with ease all of the weakest points within our society. He and his enablers stoked the discontent of racists and misogynists and fanned their smoldering embers of distrust into flames of “righteous” outrage. He had no substance. He relied on smoke and mirrors—magic tricks that never hold up in the light of day.
            In horror, I watch the evacuation of members of the House and Senate. I listen, dumbstruck, as reports come through that key people responsible for the function of our government have been swept away to safety. A woman, trying to break into one of the chambers holding congressmen, was shot. I celebrate her death. Consequences are a bitch.
            There’s no control over the Capitol right now because we have no leadership. We have a want-to-be dictator. The full measures of our legal system need to come after Trump, all of his enablers, the followers. White House officials huddle in their offices and wait for Trump to give a longer, stronger statement than a few inept tweets. 
            Biden, the President Elect, supplies a need our resident narcissist cannot fulfill. Biden renounces the insurrection and rejects the selfish interests of the anarchy and chaos spawned by Trump’s insistence that our election was fraud-filled. His call for Trump to step up will set a tone for Trump to stop the siege. “The words of a President matter.”
            However, we all know that Trump is incapable of doing what is best for anyone but himself. Instead of showing leadership, he posts a short Twitter video that continues his lies about a “landslide election” that was “stolen” and although the election was taken away from him, his followers, and the country, they should “go home in peace.” He doesn’t denounce the mob rule that spews throughout D.C. screaming, “This is Civil War!” An unstable despot-wannabe grabs hold of conspiracy theories, making them true and real while undermining evidence and data by shouting louder than anyone else, “Fake!”
           
            The optimist in me stays glued to our reconvened Congress’s speeches, and the heartbreak weighs heavily on me. Some determined words bring me hope. I listen for those who will change the horror of today into honor for tomorrow.

Frozen in place?

Copyright 2021 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

"Resist This!"

         Not long after Trump announced his candidacy for President, I began following him on Twitter. My logical, fact-bound brain couldn’t absorb the ridiculous tweets attributed to this man, and I had to witness first hand that the racist, misogynistic and narcissistic beliefs truly belong to him. They did.

         When Trump’ campaign came to San Antonio, I joined hundreds of protestors outside the country club at which he spoke. My fellow demonstrators chanted and picketed. We participated in peaceful dissent. At that time, hints of Russian involvement within our election process didn’t seem believable. Robert Mueller’s indictment of thirteen Russian nationals this week means we’ll soon learn more about the exact way Trump and his cohorts manipulated media and voting. With 2018 midterms looming, I find it necessary to email and call my Congressional representatives to beg them to do their jobs to safeguard future elections within our country. Also, in response to this I’ve joined a local chapter of Indivisible and completed the training to register voters within my county. 

         Many of the Executive Orders signed by Trump will prove harmful to my family, community and environment. I’ve written emails and made phone calls to protest. I’ve used social media to educate those within my radius. I joined the San Antonio March for Science after it became apparent this administration wants key Cabinet positions filled with unqualified, small-minded personnel.

         This week’s slaughter, so close to the lives lost in Los Vegas, wrapped my mind in foggy disbelief. I will make another round of emails and phone calls to remind my representatives that the miniscule progress made on gun reform has been stripped by this president. I will March for Our Lives in a few weeks. I will hit Twitter and Facebook. I will write through my tears and heartache. I worry that nothing will change. That my generation’s failure to protect everything (our environment, our health, our security, our children) will overburden me. That I will give up. I realized today that’s the goal of the opponents. They want us overwhelmed and off-balanced as they pummel at rights and regulations.

         I am tired.

         But Emma Gonzalez isn’t. David Hogg isn’t. Cameron Kasky isn’t. Delaney Tarr isn’t. Annabel Claprood isn't. These survivors, a year away from voting, will rip apart the current political system. They will save us all.

Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Coping in Trumpland?”

         I didn’t plan this journey into Trumpland. I didn’t put this nightmare adventure park on my Bucket List of places that I must travel to before I die. Instead, the people around me abducted me. With hands cuffed, feet bound, and mouth duct taped, they forced me to join them.

         I kick and scream and struggle. I resist.

         I don’t want to be here.

        Trumpland feeds fears.

        Trumpland belittles kindness.

         Trumpland strips dignity from its citizens.

         Trumpland operates as a for profit business.

         Trumpland makes up its own rules.

         If I complain, insults thunder over me and drown out my protests.

“Libtard.”

“Stupid Snowflake.”

“Delusional.”

“Communist.”

“Socialist.”

“Mouthy Bitch.”

“Worthless Cunt.”

I respond with phone calls and emails, petitions and protest rallies.

I focus on the one thing I know best—educating those who do not understand. That means I spend hours each day reading, fact checking, and sharing.

I do this because I want to go home.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

  

          

         

“Our Moral Obligation”

         Another round of presidential misogyny left me fuming for a few days. A horde of angry responses snarled and gnashed their fangs within my mind. Yet I stayed away from keyboard. Not because I wanted to reign in my words, but because I fought for just the right order and organization to my thoughts.

         My little blog posts won’t change anything.

   The president’s deeply rooted personality disorder won’t miraculously disappear because I wish it so. There’s no magic. Not even the fervent prayers of the multitudinous faithful will rescue us from this current mess.

       Instead, we have to watch every day and wait for this man to stop skirting around social inappropriateness and actually break a law. A “biggy” that really matters. In the meantime, we summon every ounce of patience as investigations into obstruction of justice play out. Our gut tells us that this may not take that long; but whenever it happens, it may still be too late.

      And so, why do I write? Why do I pass along every article I read about this administration? What do I hope to accomplish?

         A moral obligation.

        A moral obligation to speak out every time an injustice occurs.

        A moral obligation to share facts and data that become obscured by ignorance—or even worse, a political agenda that seeks profit over prosperity.

        A moral obligation to pass along documented and referenced research about the administration’s desire for authoritarianism.

         A moral obligation to protect our right to vote.

         A moral obligation to voice dissent.

         A moral obligation to stand with our free press.

        A moral obligation to address the absurdities of this president and to yell, “THIS IS NOT NORMAL!”

        

      And that’s it. The bottom line. My moral obligation compels me to educate everyone I can with the understanding that we must stand together to fight against this abnormality.

Copyright 2017 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman