Bokeh: The Nature Of The Future

 

Bokeh

What does it mean? According to the internet - “Bokeh is a word with Japanese origins, defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” The word comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “haze” or “blur.” (The “h” was introduced to help English speakers pronounce the word correctly [BO - KEH].)”

Took me a while to find it. The way I discovered Bokeh, it was a movie, on television in the middle the night, but it might have been some other art form, a dream, a nightmare, a walk in the deep snow.

I was switching channels when I saw a blonde. I stopped. Something about seeing yourself on tv. I began to be pulled into the story - lovers on a brief, impromptu vacation in Iceland, just a lark, enjoying themselves.

I still didn’t have the word, Bokeh. I still didn’t know the story. Until I did, the whole experience floated in a blur.

The way we see the future. The nature of the future.

All we really know is that we love.

Lovers, making love. They fall asleep. She wakes up, alone, at the witching hour, 3:30 a.m. She’s gazing out the window when suddenly a flash of white light, so bright, it consumes the view, then, back to reality, back to bed.

But daylight brings a new reality.

Perhaps a devastating snow storm, a blizzard. Perhaps a pandemic. Perhaps Iceland will be closed. Italy closed. How could such a thing happen? Overnight? Who or what would close Italy? I begin to worry about the Eiffel Tower.

It was lovely the way it happened. They get up, get dressed and go down the café to get some of those lovely waffles they’d had the day before. But the nice lady who’d made them wasn’t there. In fact, no one was there. The café was empty.

The stores are empty. Giggling, they help themselves to some Icelandic goodies, a fur coat for her, a funny knit cap for him. Food is free! They pile it into a shopping cart and run back to the hotel.

Now they are camping. 

I still don’t know what’s happening. I haven’t read the synopsis. That’s the best way. I don’t even have the title, not that it would help. Bokeh.

I bought the movie, just to have it, I propped the case up in my bedroom. It came to mean, on its own, a question, a deep question, deeper, why do we live? Where do we live? Where do we love?

She wants to go home. I'm beginning to feel the larger tension. They are on an island and there is no way off. Everyone is gone. There’s no one to run the airline, no-one to fly the plane.

She gets angry that he is eating a yogurt out of sequence. “The blueberry is newer! You should be eating the strawberry, it’s older!” she scolds him. “I didn’t feel like having a strawberry,” he explains. Makes perfect sense to me.

They syphon gas and take a car. I shudder. Don’t go too far, I warn, then I realize it makes no difference. 

They drive to the hot springs, which becomes their spot. Lovely scene of naked lovers swimming. Iceland seems a perfect backdrop. Bare and primitive. A good place for life to begin again.

Every now and then, there are moments of hope. Maybe she’ll have a baby! She’d be lucky to get through it alone, but then, it’s a story and maybe she will.

He gets a little crazy and hurts himself riding around the market on a shopping cart. His arm is bleeding. She cries out, “We have to be careful! There’s no 911!”

Then, I remember saying those very words myself.

“There’s no 911!” Hospitals aren’t taking non-essential injuries. Broken bones are waiting hours in the Emergency Room, if that. 

All our care providers called us up and cancelled our check-ups. Luckily, we keep healthy. But, even healthy people need care. A dentist, perhaps. First do no harm. Do dentists take the Hippocratic Oath? My husband has a bad heart. We have to be careful. Physical stresses, even tooth pain, could be deadly for him.

But, what about people who need operations? Nothing. They have to wait. The people, God help me, who let their immune systems die. Some guy ate a bat, a comedian quips.  Or did the  lab release a secret bio-weapon? Either way, we are stuck in a real life horror movie.

Then, the police said they would stop responding because people were shooting at them. No 911.

I don’t remember everything about the movie. I remember the feeling of finding my soul in the middle of the night. I remember the lovers finding old man. They had a meal together in the evening. In the morning, the old man was dead.

I begin to see my injuries as Bokeh, my nasal passage, months later, after finally getting those two infected molars removed. The dentist said, I might have nasal issues. Good God! I’m gonna need that! My nasal passage! I have a dream that I am in a airplane terminal with my mother and I am explaining to her that there is a girl I wish to follow - a blonde girl - she’s right behind that plastic tarp - she saved the airplane and I want to go where she is, through the tarp to the other side. My mother is oblivious to my desires. My husband said she never understood that I wanted to fly.

We are macrobiotic, and yes, we can fly without an airplane.

I begin to call it, Bokeh, all of it. The hole in my mouth, the empty nasal passage. Dreams of my mother. Bokeh, the mystery. Bokeh, the future. I still don’t know the official meaning of the word. But, I get it.

I won’t spoil the ending of the film, except to say there is no resolution. No alien invasion. No superhero to the rescue. No government experiment, though we know they exist. Suffice it to say that I shall keep this film to my heart till I die.

I finally find the meaning of the word (I was spelling it wrong): “Bokeh is a word with Japanese origins, defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.” The word comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means “haze” or “blur.” (The “h” was introduced to help English speakers pronounce the word correctly [BO - KEH].)”

The way the future looks. Now, it means so much more. 

What will we make of it?

©Patricia Goodwin, 2022

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

Greta the Great

Greta in 2018, her first climate strike,

alone in front of the Swedish Parliament building

Every time I type her name, I type Great. Freudian dyslexia. I’m not too ahead of my time writing about Greta, and I usually don’t write about people everyone else is writing about. But, this time, I got into a bit of trouble on Facebook over her. It was her meltdown at the United Nations. I said something to the effect of how sad it was to see her like that and the comments - from friends of mine who know me and should know better - took the opportunity to rage against my lack of political correctness, as if I were suddenly Fox News attacking Greta’s Aspergers. Comments like “You don’t have to be normal to be wonderful!” As if anyone had ever accused me of being normal.

I had to look up Aspergers. I won’t bore you with the details you probably already know about Greta having read about her so much. I couldn’t care less what conditions Greta the Great has or doesn’t have. I read that people have commented on her clothes, her diet, her hair, her size, what the fuck ever!

I also said something about how they - operative word, “they,” my definition of “they” is anyone who has more power over your life than you do - said once, “We wait for you to get tired.” I got attacked for being tired. “We can’t get tired in our work!” came the comment back to me. Sorry, you’re actually one of the people who burned me out.

I saw something that day, the day Greta raged. I saw a person who had tried so hard. I remember her first day at the UN, when she was calm and quiet and told the world leaders, “My comments to you today will be this report on climate change from the world’s leading scientists.” She, a rational, thinking, caring, intelligent person had thought, “This is all I need to say. After they read this report, there will be no dispute. No more questions, only action.”

Look at the science. Look at the polar ice melting. Look at the animals going extinct. Look at the storms, and the floods, the fires and the drought. Now, now, now, act, act, act!

Nothing.

I’ve seen it before. Nothing, a terrible reaction to the truth.

She’d just come off a dramatic journey across the Atlantic on a sailboat powered only by sustainable energy. She disembarked to march and speak. Millions of people - and remember she started with only one, herself - my favorite picture of Greta, sitting alone outside of the Swedish Parliament building with one sign - now followed and supported by millions marching and shouting in the streets of national capitals around the planet. 

Greta Arrives in NYC, August, 2019

Millions of Marchers in cities around the globe

Climate Strike, September 20, 2019

Now, September 23, 2019 was the time to speak to the leaders and, it seemed, though probably it wasn’t the first time she realized, she saw quite clearly that she may as well be alone. Because, she realized that the throngs of marchers are the choir. The throngs of marchers are not polluting the planet. The men and women in front of her representing nations and corporations ARE POLLUTING THE PLANET and they are the ones who were not listening to her or to science or to anyone.

Greta the Great Lioness 

hissing and snarling

at the United Nations, September 23, 12019

Two articles recently appeared about the despair Greta must feel. These articles urged me to write today, as the authors were the only ones who seemed to see what I saw. From Smithsonian, reposted from 2013, “The Money Behind the Climate Deniers” by Colin Schultz, and from Truth Dig, September 23, 2019, “Saving the Planet Means Overthrowing the Ruling Elites" by Chris Hedges. These articles are about the powers that be, the powers out there, not only denying climate change, but contributing to it daily.

The Guardian reported, “In an impassioned speech (at the UN, September 23, 2019), Thunberg told those who hold office, ‘you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you?’ Greta snarled. “You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing.’"

Scolding the world leaders, she cried out, "This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school, on the other side of the ocean.”

There were more strikes for Climate Change today, Friday, October 4, 2019. Greta herself will join activists in Iowa City and she is calling for more strikes, “Fridays for Future.” Next, she will move on to march in Chile.

I wondered why I was writing at all about climate change, burned out as I am. I’ve never been politically correct and I hate following a crowd. Possibly because I like the way Great (oops, I did it again)*, Greta had started - with diet. I’m sympathetic to this approach because I’ve been macrobiotic since 1974, 45 years. I’ve been climate friendly my whole life, as I was brought up in a traditional Italian household. Yes, we grew our own food and bought only from the North End and East Boston traditional markets. Greta changed her parents first, getting them to stop eating meat and to adopt better dietary and lifestyle habits. Here is where climate change will happen, and happen naturally. Those who eat well, live well. They do not take, they give.

I have no idea how to stop the greed of our current leaders: presidents, kings, prime ministers who are selling their land, their water and their people for a few pieces of silver. I only know how to go around and under them. Good food is getting harder to find. Real food is no longer as nutritious as it once was because of soil depletion and water and air pollution. Fake food, which is often the only food available to people, inundates our supermarkets and makes us sick. We may find ourselves sick and dying before we actually drown or burn up.

What do we do? We keep on. Our dollars speak loudly at the cash register. The millions who are marching represent voters and customers as well as future leaders. Plenty of people are out there visibly fighting with us, and invisibly striving and working.

Thank you, Greta, for all that you do. Greta the Great is no longer alone.

*These typos are absolutely genuine.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2019

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.

Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.

Will Hillary Save the Bees?

"I believe in America."

The first line of "The Godfather." We hear it in the dark.

I am from a family of Italian immigrants who brought their knowledge and appreciation for good food with them to America. Growing up, we always had wonderful, real, natural food. My mother would not serve anything that, in her words, “came from a factory.” That included boxed breakfast cereals, candy bars, cake mixes, and the like. She was known to forage in open fields for dandelion greens. That is, when what she called “white people,” i.e., rich people, weren’t looking. My uncles, her brothers, would bring us cuts from wheels of cheese and thick papers full of meats from the North End markets of Boston. The egg man dropped off our eggs every week. I was fascinated by the feathers that fell from his clothes. Hot pepper came from my grandmother’s garden, about five feet of space rescued from the concrete backyard, as did arugula and tomatoes. I grew pumpkins when I was old enough to teach myself how, but my mother liked to steal the blooms to sauté with eggs in olive oil and garlic, these we shoved into our eager mouths on crisp Italian bread.

None of us could have, would have, perceived what we are facing now. A blank screen.

"The Godfather" is perhaps the most perfect movie ever made. Brought to you by the people who brought you the Renaissance. Italians. The people who also believe in food, WHO STILL HAVE REAL FOOD in their old country, Italy. The Italians, everyone will agree, brought the most wonderous food to America – I don’t need to tell you, but I will just to make you drool – pizza, spaghetti, lasagna, ravioli, wine, olive oil, bread, cheese, prosciutto, cannoli, rum cake, gelato – are you hungry yet? And, by the way, I’m not talking about fast food. Real Italian food, made from scratch with whole, fresh ingredients from traditional farms. Have you ever eaten a cannoli made without trans fats? The filling made with real Italian cream, the shell made with real Italian butter? 

I doubt it. Unless you went to Italy for it.

In Italy, the Vatican has its own self-sufficient farm, called Castel Gandolfo, 136 acres south of Rome, containing the papal summer residence, formal flower gardens, woods, hay fields, its own working farm and dairy, and its own papal bees. Pope Francis, who will not be summering at Castel, has opened the farm to the public for tours. Visitors may see the papal beekeeper, Marco Tullio Cicero, tending the hives and gathering honey.

 Marco Tullio Cicero, Papal Beekeeper

Since growing up with wondrous fresh foods, I have long admired the self-sufficient farm. I have a picture in my kitchen of a self-sufficient manor home, gardens and farm that I love to look at, and try to emulate as much as possible. It has been a constant vigilance, sometimes requiring that I travel several miles to get good quality food.

Until now. Now, I find it even more difficult to find good food than it was in the ‘60s when the closest thing to a vegan meal you could find in a restaurant was a house salad and a tuna fish sandwich on white bread. For a time, since the cultural revolution of natural foods in the ‘70s, we enjoyed far-reaching vegetarian treats like hummus and tabouli, and we were blessed with fresh vegetables, fish and eggs from relatively clean soil, water and GMO-free farms. Fish used to be fished out of a clean ocean. 

Now, I find that our fish, meat, and eggs are factory-farmed. Farmed salmon are fed GMO corn mash, pigs, chickens and cows are fed GMO soy, most dairy contains BHT, bovine growth hormones, which are illegal in Europe. Farm animals are kept under horrid conditions making factory farms dangerous and toxic, and all of these poisons are in the fish and meats and eggs and are being transferred to our bodies every day. 

Only organics can save the day. But, organics are under attack. Organic standards need to be safeguarded by watch-dog orgs like Organic Consumers Association, Food and Water Watch, Food Democracy Now, Institute for Responsible Technology, and the Cornucopia Institute, among others. The Clinton administration, in 1998, tried to contaminate organic standards by allowing sewage sludge, GMOs and irradiation to be included in organics. Such efforts to eliminate, or, at least, discredit organics are still going on. In 2014, Alexis Baden-Meyer, Political Director of the Organic Consumers Association, was physically pulled out of a National Organic Standards meeting in San Antonio, Texas and arrested for protesting the proposed contamination of organics with synthetic materials.

Think of it, if organics are contaminated, we will be left with only toxic GMOs, toxic factory farms and toxic sick-care to battle the health problems that are already here and will surely only get worse – illnesses like ulcers, ADHD and other behavioral problems, autism, allergies, and cancer. Bill Gates, a GMO advocate, is already trying to buy The Svalbard Seed Vault. Monsanto is buying up organic, heirloom seed companies as part of the conspiracy to undermine organics. Harvard has been working on RoboBees intended to replace the intricate and miraculous bee that God gave us. 

I ask you - How long can the human race survive on astronaut paste?

That’s the nightmare.

Back to the dream, the Pontifical Gardens at Castel Gandolfo, the self-sufficient farm and the papal bees. 

Einstein is reported to having said, “When the bees go extinct, mankind will follow.” Of course, the Internet exploded with denials. “Einstein never said that! We have no evidence that Einstein ever said that.”

I have a feeling the statement is a lot older than Einstein and was probably uttered by Pliny the Elder, or Nostradamus, or Friar Lawrence or Juliette de Baïracli Levy or some other great, ancient gardener, healer and herbalist. Though, why on earth should they ever have imagined a world without bees? Why would Einstein?

Beekeepers, right now, are taking measures to save the bees – and their efforts are working. More bee hives, more beekeepers, more organic methods. In China, hundreds of sincere, hardworking pear growers stood on ladders and used feathers to coax the pollen into the blossoms. Bees were driven in to Maine – Maine has 60% bee loss – to pollinate the blueberry crop. Those bees died. The nightmare keeps creeping in.

"A growing body of evidence has pointed to one class of pesticides in particular, neonicotinoids, as the culprit to the massive bee die-offs. In fact, the European Union banned the three most widely used neonicotinoids in 2o13, but they are still used widely in the U.S."  - EcoWatch

Bees are the tiniest, sweetest little computers. They are probably the most programed species on the planet. Programed by the DNA they take in, programed to perform a certain way. A way that feeds us. Without the bees, we will no longer have onions and garlic (Italians, can you imagine a kitchen without onions and garlic?), fruit, many vegetables, trees, and flowers. Human life will change dramatically, if it is able to continue at all. We can only imagine the ramifications, the ripple, the butterfly effect of such a tragic loss to the natural world.

I have another statement:

“Whoever saves the bees will save mankind.” I said it.

The tiny, buzzing, inconsequential bee. The bee represents so much right now. Like a marvelous superhero, whoever saves the bees will also save America and the planet. That President will save the trees, the waters, the soil, the air and the sky. He – or she - will save the future.

Which Presidential candidate will save the bees? That’s who will have my vote.

It’s well known that the people who were voting for Bernie Sanders were voting for Mother Nature. Alas, Bernie has endorsed and all but passed the torch to Hillary Clinton. But, did Bernie stand a chance? And, if he had become President, would he have had a seven-ton elephant sitting on his chest?

What about Hillary and Trump?

There’s absolutely no reason why the other candidates can’t step up. Except, of course, their beliefs.

The media right now keeps asking the same questions over and over about Hillary’s campaign funds, from which oil and gas drilling and fracking machine did she take money? But the media is asking the wrong question. It’s not about the money. It’s about Hillary’s beliefs. Does Hillary believe in fracking for the future of energy? or for the future of Hillary? She wants to be the first woman President. She wants to be President. Fracking, we’ve discovered, is causing earthquakes. Hillary could blow us up surer than Trump with his nuclear bombs.

Hillary, step out of your hazmat suit and save us! Hillary is the only candidate who has the power. The brain power as well as the strength and the know-how. Will you, Hillary return to your common sense grass roots mission of long ago, shake your head and get your thoughts straight? Right now the common sense is to go along with corporate giants to get what you want. But, think of the future. Think of Chelsea and how she helped Bill change his diet and lifestyle to improve his health! From the most practical aspect, common sense for the future demands an organic approach. You know. You. Know. Deep down, you know.

Dump the frackers! Embrace solar! The sun, Hillary, the sun! Pure reflection! And, what about the currents in San Francisco Bay that could generate enough power to light up the city forever – and then some! The Vivace Tubes, Hillary, can you imagine?

Be the first President to harness clean energy! Tear off that hazmat suit! Go solar! Go organic! You will be our Super-Hero President, our Wonder Woman!

If only she would! But, here’s the problem – if a person still eats badly, that person still thinks badly. Eating regular American food leads you to believe in GMOs, fast food, prepared food-like substances. You’ll think: It can’t be that bad, “they” wouldn’t let us eat it. I remember one person’s comment online: “Do you mean to tell me that our food is making us sick and health care is just raking in the profits on the other end?” Ah, yup.

Trump wouldn’t know real food from fake food. Take cheese, for instance. If he orders cheese at home, it probably won’t be made out of trans-fats or plastics. If he orders a cheeseburger on the campaign trail, he has to eat like the rest of us. Would he know the difference? I doubt it. While driving through Iowa, Trump waved his hand out the window at fields of GMO corn and said, “Look at this! Look at this! Beautiful! This is America!”  After what Trump did in Aberdeen, Scotland – see the film "You’ve Been Trumped" – he destroyed a lovely eco-system for a golf course that no one goes to – there’s a special place in hell for anyone who pulls up trees by their roots and buries them head-first underground.

Trump is hopeless. He’s not smart enough to understand the significance of organics. I can’t imagine Trump actually visualizing the importance of such a tiny thing as a bee. He’d swat a bee. He’d say, very Bush-like, when Bush was asked about the polar bears – “There’s plenty of polar bears!” or Reagan about forest conservation – “A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?” Trump would say, “There’s lots of bees! Tons o’ bees, tons! Look at this great country! Fields and fields of corn!”

But, Hillary is smart enough. She. Is. Smart.

I believe in America. I believe in Nature. I believe in Organics.

Who will stand up for the bees? Who will stand up to defend the bees – in effect, to defend what God gave us? To defend God?

Hillary, it’s up to you. 

Hillary, step out of your hazmat suit! I challenge you as a mother, as future Queen Bee, as The First Woman President of the United States of America. Will you nurture us or throw us to the corporate wolves?

I believe in America.

I want to believe.

UPDATE: The 2012 Swiss documentary "More Than Honey," currently streaming on Netflix,  suggests that, in a kind of bee justice, we are now left with African bees, a stronger fiercer breed than the gentler European bee that is dying out. African bees - not to be confused with "Killer Bees" which are a cross between European and African bees - make honey, can survive on scant resources and are more able to defend themselves against disease. The film's narrator comments, "Are the bees finally striking back, or are they helpless in their hour of need?" Some beekeepers, like Fred Terry of Terry's Apiaries, Oracle, AZ have embraced the African bee as a solution to Colony Collapse Disorder. 

©Patricia Goodwin, 2016

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Patricia also writes about the benefits of Organic Foods and the dangers of GMOs on her blog, see patriciagoodwin.com for Blog Archives and other posts about health.