HOLY DAYS: Gods and Goddesses

 

After seeing the documentary, "Allen Vs Farrow" on Prime, I was struck anew by an exceptionally weird phenomenon of sexual abuse - that is, that the abused child is pulled away from what I like to call "real activities," innocent activities, playing ball, swimming, running, reading, laughing, etc, to have sex with an adult. It's one of the creepier aspects of sexual abuse and it stays with the child forever. The victim doesn't have a strong feeling for real activities, the child thinks she should be having sex. In Holy Days, Gloria comments on her admiration of "real people doing real things." Here is an excerpt from Holy Days, the chapter called "Gods and Goddesses." 

GODS AND GODDESSES

When the boys and girls came down the street on summer evenings, after sunning all day at the Beach, the boys’ pastel shirts stood out against the buttery tan of their necks, the girls’ athletic knees strode surely and strong, their hair a shade lighter than when they’d awakened in the morning, tinted with sun and surf; they laughed cruelly and gaily at each other. My heart leapt to see them, luminous and gilded; my heart sank to be excluded from them. I watched them from afar, from the confines of my porch and my fatness, my ignorance of smart manners, my terrible shyness and fear of anything graceful, anything glowing as they were, a rank of young gods and goddesses straight from their mother’s dinner tables on their way to a Little League baseball game.

Preston and Ha were already at the ballpark. Calling him Ha out loud in front of people was forbidden to me, but I called him that secretly when I was alone. Ha and Preston were in prep school now. They strode past wearing real baseball uniforms that shone beautifully in the setting sun, grey and sparkling white, with blue and white socks that shaped their firm legs like colonial pantaloons and stockings. I snuck down after they’d passed my house: the crack of their bats, their shouts, the way the girls sucked on straws stuck in real Cokes. There at the baseball park I studied them: the murmurs of players and the scraping of their cleats in the dugout, and if I stood on top of the dugout, I could feel through the soles of my sneakers, the vibrations of real people doing real things.

I meant to write about Rick Likus and his friends, the group of boys and girls Rick went with, but my own classmates strolled down Hichborn Street instead. Rick’s group was very much like them, except for age, of course, and religion. The popular kids in my class were Jewish. Rick’s friends had no religion; they were wild.

If the boys and girls I knew were gods and goddesses, Rick and his gang were satyrs, centaurs and nymphs. They ran around the streets and islands, in and out of the houses and cars, their little goat hooves and bare nymph feet flying as fast as the pandemonium they left behind.

Frankie Carter, tall and blonde, quiet, always watching. Jerry Finley, skinny, with long, curly red hair that shined copper in the sun; he delivered our Revere Journal. On the days he collected, I answered the door if I didn’t have a pimple. “He’s here to collect,” Ma said, like a song, “He’s here to collect.” I was in love with Jerry Finley for years because he was so skinny and his red hair shone like golden metal when he slapped on our steps that rolled up Journal Ma devoured. She clicked her tongue over the stories and obituaries, repeating Revere names, “Leach, tsk, tsk,” “Roposo, tsk, tsk.” She made me sick every week. The sound of everyday Revere names made me sick, though the sound of magical Revere names, Frankie Carter, Jerry Finley, Rick Likus, Ha and Preston, resonated over Ma’s and Daddy’s, Jakey’s and my tongues, ringing bells of familiarity, inspiring adoration sometimes strangely mixed with contempt or fear.

Other boys whom I didn’t know were in Rick’s gang, their faces and bodies merged with the group as vague dirty brown jackets and dungarees, dirty brown hair and faces. The girls were tough as tree bark; they had harsh voices like crows cawing that cut across the street, laughter like sin. They wore ruffles on their bathing suits even though they didn’t need ruffles to flesh out their figures. Their long, bronzed legs shone out of cut off dungarees; they had stiff, sun-bleached hair that whipped their faces like dirty mops.

I didn’t dare look at the girls too closely. I didn’t know their names. I was afraid to look at them except sideways. If they’d caught me, they would’ve beaten me. I could hear them calling Annie Likus, “Hi, Rick’s mother!” Everything was Rick’s. They didn’t call Annette or Linda by name, the girls sang out across the street, “Hi, Rick’s sister!” from where they dangled their wondrous legs over the side of Rick’s little Triumph.

Rick’s gang played hockey for the High School. They were a fierce team, eager to fight, proudly limping, sneering with scarred eyes and broken teeth and lips torn up and pasted back together a little lop-sided.

Even amongst demi-gods, one god stood out. He didn’t need to be the strongest or the handsomest. He didn’t need to be the King.

I saw him on a summer morning when the pear tree shone green in the bright sun bearing heavily its load of tough, fat pears, while Daddy was mowing the lawn, sending the sweet smell of green into the air, while I sat on our porch steps reading a book, I looked up and he was walking down the street, as it turned out, to Rick’s house.

Our eyes met across the street. He didn’t know who I was, or wasn’t, so he reacted normally, kindly, as he would every time he saw me as long as we were alone with the street between us. A soft boy, gentle, he had light brown hair and brown eyes, a round face, a kind smile. He hung on the outer fringes of Rick’s little gang; he was the soft one, the sweet one, softer and sweeter than any of the girls. They called him Tweetie.

I looked up from my book, across the street into those gentle eyes.

“Hi,” he said, softly.

“Hi,” I returned, unsure that he could be so kind.

I was in love.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when he opened Rick’s door and went in.

Who was he? I ran in and asked Jakey.

“What do you want to know for?”

“Who is he? How come he went into Rick’s house?”

And Jakey told me all he knew. The boy’s name was Richie Silva. I couldn’t believe his first name was the same as Rick’s. He lived - I’ll tell you where he lived, where I snuck down in the middle of the night to stand in front of his house. It was a dear little forgotten road, half-paved as though the city had run out of tar right there, so the wild roses and lilacs, the morning glories and lilies, the skunks and stray dogs and cats took over. The scrub trees and bushes, black green where I stood under the street light, smelling the fierce odor of skunk, praying I wouldn’t be sprayed; Ma would kill me. I sniffed, trying to filter out of the smell of skunk and diesel fuel, always present on the air, to find the perfume of roses and the salty scent of the sea flying straight up the hill to my nose. This little street would be so dear to me, just kitty corner from the park where Helen Krauss had squatted and shat on the way home because she couldn’t hold it any more.

One night Richie came home with his friends; he stood on the curb, he laughed, “Ya, right!” into the car. He laughed, “Ya, right!” into the car. I could repeat that forever, strong as it is with memory, love and terror. “Ya, right!” He laughed with his friends. He didn’t see me. I wish I’d run up to him. I wish I’d run up and kissed him. At least once.

I saw another movie late at night. The night is filled with things. If I went down and turned on the television, in the middle of the night, I would see a thing I knew I wasn’t supposed to see: a true thing, a secret thing, hidden under the black screen of TV Land. Just turn it on, that’s all, just turn it on. There. A girl. She was on a bed in the dark. I could see nothing but her face, her hair, her shoulders. I knew she was on a bed because under her head were the black and white stripes of an old bare mattress. But, something was going on. The door of the room kept opening, throwing a weird light over her; she’d squint into the light at the boy coming in. Sometimes, she laughed. Her dark hair was spread out on the black and white stripes, flung out about her laughing face. But, then, if she didn’t like the boy whose turn it was, she made a grimace at him and his head blocked out her face for a moment; she reappeared over his shoulder and she looked angry. Several boys went into the room for her, but it was the last one she loved. Her face lit up with joy when he entered and came toward her. She held out her arms to him and in her mind, she whispered, her silent face rapturous over his thrusting shoulder, “You’re the only one, my love. You’re the only one.”

When I thought of Richie Silva and I thought of him every day and night, I thought of him that way. I knew I was the girl on the bed and the boys were all coming to me, one by one, Rick, Jerry, Frankie, the Nazi, Daddy, but when Richie Silva entered the room, he was the only one.

It was strange, eerie. A few years later, when I met the beautiful Junie, out of the blue, she said, “I’m gonna call you Tweetie!”

©Patricia Goodwin, 2015

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.

Nostradamus Says, “Wash Your Hands!” and “Don’t Eat Meat!”

Nostradamus

When my daughter first went to school, I asked her many questions about her first day, including if the teacher had led them down to the bathroom to wash their hands before lunch.

She looked at me as though I had just suggested something very weird, like did they all jump off the roof?

“No,” she said.

“No!” My turn to be astonished. “You didn’t wash your hands before lunch? How about after lunch?”

“No.”

I felt like a very fussy old lady who’d been taught by a bunch of other fussy old ladies. (That could be true. But, fussy old ladies are often right.)

I have recalled this incident several times during the news about the coronavirus. I know that children are doing very well with the illness because they are exposed to so many germs every day that their immune systems have responded to that exposure by getting stronger. Yes, they are getting well faster than other more vulnerable groups like the sick and the elderly. But, generally speaking, they do get sick a lot! My daughter was never sick until she started school. Then, she got sick every few weeks from something that was going around the classroom. 

Of course, she also got well. Often, not easily. A few times, I slept with my face on her bed to listen to her breathing. I wiped her brow with a cold face cloth, her neck, the inside of her elbows, to reduce fever. Of course, I used medicine too. And diet. As a practicing macrobiotic, my child has been macrobiotic since before birth. We ate and still eat very simply at home: brown rice, vegetables, beans, sea vegetables, occasionally fish when good quality fish can be found. When she was sick, I fed her simple, clean foods to get her well and strong, usually brown rice and veggies, and fruit.

But, why is this article titled “Nostradamus Says Wash Your Hands and Don’t Eat Meat?”

Nostradamus, besides being a prophet, was also a renown physician. Born in 1503, in France, the son of a grain merchant, Nostradamus was well educated in both Hebrew and Christian religions as well as Latin, Greek, astronomy and mathematics. At the age of 14, he entered medical school at Avignon where he pretended to learn all the wrong things in order to pass. As the son of a grain merchant, I like to think Nostradamus had a background in good quality food and cooking. He certainly had strong common sense. Nostradamus couldn’t hang around medical school and wait for his degree; he had to get out there - medieval France and Italy - and cure the Bubonic Plague. Nostradamus cured the Bubonic Plague, which had originated from flea bites from flea infested rats, using hygiene: he burned the infected clothing and bedding of plague victims; he encouraged them to wash and keep themselves clean at a time when washing was thought to be dangerous - one’s skin could fall off! He also used immune-strengthening Vitamin C that he had garnered from rose hips; he made his own rose pills and preserves. In order to keep their blood clean, Nostradamus advised his patients to not eat anything unclean, which in those days was a Biblical reference to animal food, that is, meat or anything coming from an animal, such as eggs or dairy. Lastly, and this is vital, plenty of fresh air!

PETA published an important letter today from their Australian Director saying this: 

“The virus, an anagram of carnivorous, appears to have emerged from a fish market that was also selling wild animals such as beavers, porcupines and snakes in the city of Wuhan, in central China. The 2002-2003 SARS pandemic was similarly traced to civet cats. In these markets, urine, faeces and other bodily fluids from live, wild animals end up mixing with blood from butchered ones, providing ideal breeding grounds for viruses and bacteria.

Overwhelmingly, human diseases start with the abuse of animals. Hunting and the appropriation of animals’ habitats has led to diseases such as Hendra and Ebola. The 2009 H1N1 epidemic started in pigs. Measles originally came from cattle, and whooping cough from dogs.” 

And what about that recommendation of fresh air? I can’t help thinking after stories of some of the quarantine situations I’ve read about - including a room in Vietnam that had no running water and no toilet - cruise ships, isolation rooms, army tents, that people being held together, sick and not sick, breathing the same stale, circulating air are just getting more and more sick. One passenger of a docked cruise ship said, “We’re sitting in a petrie dish.”

I mean, Nostradamus was curing the plague in 1536! He was telling people to wash their hands nearly 500 years ago! In Vienna, almost 400 years later, Dr. Semmelweis  couldn’t get doctors to wash their hands after examining cadavers - before they put these filthy hands up inside of women who’d just given birth. The doctors said, “Why wash our hands, they’re just going to get dirty again!” 

Dr. Semmelweis suspected that the death rate for childbirth in his hospital was being exasperated by infection from the examining doctors’ germ-ridded hands. After all, the midwives, who washed their hands frequently, did not have such a high infection and death rate among their new mothers. No one would listen to Dr. Semmelweis who died of the very infection he spent his life trying to prevent.

We are also vulnerable during this time from infections that occur only in hospitals that are resistant to any known antibiotics - resistant, ironically, back to PETA’s warning - because we consume animal products from animals that have been fed so many antibiotics every day, the bacteria become resistant. Why are these animals - usually cows, pigs and chickens - fed antibiotics? Because they live in filthy unnatural conditions with little or no fresh air, often in feces and urine, a veritable disease soup.

Recently, on the PBS talk show Greater Boston, an informative gem readily available to us online and on TV, Stephanie Leydon, WGBH News, talked about super bugs mutating and becoming resistant to drugs, saying, “100 years ago during the Spanish flu outbreak, it wasn’t the flu itself that caused most deaths, but bacterial infections.” https://www.wgbh.org/news/local-news/2020/03/11/coronavirus-surprised-the-world-but-doctors-have-been-sounding-the-alarm-on-another-global-health-threat-for-years

And, here we are. 

There are many sites for information on the coronavirus, much of it erroneous, so I’m going to advise going to the CDC for all coronavirus questions. I cannot speak to you as a medical professional, so I’m going to speak as a mother and as a friend.

We all wash our hands at home. We take off our shoes when we come in the door. I wash my hands whenever I touch something from the outside and before (and after) I touch food. 

The Triangle of Good Health: Nutrition, Sleep, Exercise has always been a basic part of my life and it’s so simple, though not always easy to implement. Often, we can’t get the sleep we need, nor do we have time to exercise. However, nutrition should never be allowed to slacken. Here is a good base for every day nutrition: the Healthy Plate:

Though recently re-emerged from Harvard, this simple plate has been with me since elementary school. I have, since then, updated my protein from meat to a healthy vegetable protein of beans, or occasional good quality fish. (Our fish supply has also been usurped by factory farms, so it is not as easy to find good fish as it used to be. Be careful: good fish looks good and smells fresh and clean; its edges are moist, not dry and curled; it smells sweet, not fishy; the flesh is white, not yellow or rubbery.)

Other sources for good healthy choices are:

Denny Waxman's macrobiotic cookbook, The Ultimate Guide to Eating for Longevity: The Macrobiotic Way to Live a Long, Healthy, and Happy Life

Denny Waxman's Up-coming Macrobiotic Lecture on the Macrobiotic Approach to the Coronavirus, sign-up link, $10 suggested donation (I am not affiliated with this program, nor do I profit from it, except by knowing I’ve given you the info!) 

Allen Campbell: Nutrition Studies Allen Campbell was Tom Brady's nutrition coach and chef. His advice on non-inflammatory foods has helped me a great deal with any occasional pain.

Please do your best and stay well and happy! And remember what Nostradamus says, "Wash Your Hands!" and "Don't Eat Meat!"

Edward Esko live online lecture on Coronavirus.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2020

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.

***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 

Reading the Internet is Dangerous

Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, The Reader, c.1760

The Internet Makes You Stupid. The Internet Makes You Smarter. The Internet Makes You Lazy. The Internet Makes You Fat. The Internet closes bookstores. The Internet is Dangerous. The Internet Makes you Anti-Social. Internet Porn Ruins Young Men. Online Gaming is Addictive.

You can Google the Internet makes you ______ and find pages and pages of articles to back up any claim.

But, did you know that all the things that are said about the Internet were once said about books? Especially novels.

As someone who has studied English Literature, these absolute statements made my ears twitch. I’d heard them before. About the first novels, and the 18th through 19^th Century reading craze, especially among women.

Reading novels was considered, not only frivolous, but, like the Internet, dangerous to society. In her introduction to the book Women Who Read Are Dangerous (Stefan Bollmann, Abbeville Press, 2016), Karen Joy Fowler quotes the 18^th C philosopher, Johann Adam Bergk, when he said of novel readers, “senseless extravagance, insurmountable reluctance to undertake any effort, boundless love of luxury, suppression of the voice of conscience, becoming tired of life, and an early death.” And from Karl G. Bauer in 1791, “The lack of all physical movement while reading, combined with the forcible alternation of imagination and emotion, would lead to slackness, mucous congestion, flatulence, and constipation of the inner organs, which, as is well known, particularly in the female sex, actually affects the sexual parts.” The painter, Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, in 1760 depicted just such a lady, who, though dressed to go out, has apparently been diverted by a sexy novel, pleasured herself, and now lies recumbent in disarray. I know of at least one novel during this period, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, that was pretty steamy stuff. Pamela was a maidservant pursued by the young master of the house; she rebuked his attentions until, finally, he married her. So, virtue rewarded. The danger of reading novels was not just a feminist issue. In the 16th century, Cervantes' Don Quixote was inspired by romance novels to embark on his improbable quests. Novels made him unable to distinguish fantasy from reality. There was also Paolo and Francesca in Dante's Divine Comedy  - a 13^th Century love story in real life - whose reading about Lancelot and Guinevere had disastrous consequences.

Every day we hear the same phrases about the Internet, young people and the devices they use to go online – phones, computers, laptops, iPads – all of which seem permanently attached to their hands.

Kids who keep their phones on all night, open to Twitter or Instagram, waking at that buzz, sneaking under the covers, if need be, that intimate, artificial glow on their faces from the lighted screen. Likewise, a child reading with a flashlight, or before that, a candle. Parents are encouraged to get their kids to put their devices down and run around in the fresh air. They may even show a kid reading a book out on the lawn in any of these public-service announcements.

If you’ve ever watched an 18th - 19th Century period piece and wondered why the characters are visiting friends, or running off in a carriage with a lover, but have a book covering their faces – like any kid with an iPhone - it’s because reading was a fad at the time, and a book was considered a hip, intelligent accessory – again, much like an iPhone.

Also, according to Fowler, there was a phenomenon called “silent reading,” which was considered subversive. Apparently, reading had been more like lecturing, or a sermon, with the “reader” reading aloud to a congregation of other humans, meant to be instructional, educational, not necessarily, fun. The idea that people, women especially, had their heads bent silently, entering an unknown world, a world known only to them, not supervised, not devotional, perhaps moving from idle thought to strong feelings, all this was considered dangerous to the health of individuals and society.

Recently, on the BBC TV show, "Downton Abbey," the kitchen maid, Daisy, who holds the bottom-most position in the household discovers she is good at Math, takes a Math course, and talks about leaving service to improve her life, perhaps to become a bookkeeper. Thus, Daisy accomplishes what the ruling class had dreaded for a very long time, since reading and mass education began to get a foothold – she manages to break through the stone ceiling of her class. In one episode, Mrs. Patmore, the cook, mumbles something about Daisy “getting ideas above her station,” which is exactly what Daisy does get, more than an idea, she gets a better job. It wasn’t only World War I that broke up the old class system of England, it was reading.

On that note, the modern internet has also provided something vital for people that may have been lost in most cases since the Industrial Revolution when city districting codes were put in place and poor people who depended on the extra income of cottage industries could no longer make the hats or grow vegetables gardens or keep pigs or bake cookies that used to supplement their income. The internet has brought back the cottage industry in sites like Etsy or eBay and individual, personal websites where people may sell their crafts. The freedom of being able to create and sell is enormous. 

Today, thanks to the Internet, we are no longer at the mercy of the mainstream media for our news, which is highly censored and delivered to us in cute, tasty, albeit bad-for-you, homogenized, brightly colored junk food packaging. Turn on the network news, flip the channels; you’ll find the same stories presented in the same fashion on every channel. Thanks to the Internet and orgs like Organic Consumers Association, Institute for Responsible Technology, and Food Democracy Now! we know about GMOs in our food. Mainstream media would never have covered GMOs and they still don’t talk about them. Events like Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, Protests at Standing Rock, even the true story of what was happening at Hurricane Sandy, and the riots at Ferguson, these were covered online by sites such as YouTube, Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Sandy on Facebook and Twitter, and other renegade online news sources, such as Democracy Now!, Native News Online, Alternet, Anonymous, and Unicorn Riot. After such off-the-charts, in-your-face coverage, mainstream media could no longer ignore the riots, the killings and the demonstrations. Mainstream news began to cover what they couldn’t ignore, but only with a generic, fast-food wrapper, returning as soon as possible to stories that promoted a more positive, feel-good national agenda, even repeating news stories that served the message the network wanted to convey.

Right now, even as I write, the NSA could, if so inclined, look directly into your eye (or your room) via the camera on your computer. We know this because Edward Snowden sacrificed himself to tell us. More than that, retail outlets are listening in on your conversations at home or any where in the presence of any device into which you may speak, and are sending you promotional emails and ads in response to your spoken wishes. If only they paid for these wishes too! That would be like rubbing Aladdin's lamp!

Every day President Trump horrifies Americans by deleting more and more Twitter accounts and web pages, from orgs he disagrees with such as the National Parks Service and even his own White House pages on veterans' rights, civil rights, women's rights and climate change. He also wants to destroy the free internet. Spiteful and mean as a schoolyard bully, he'll take our lunch money and toss our hard-earned sneakers to dangle over the telephone wires. Well, I'll walk home hungry and barefoot. I'll wear a T-Shirt and I'll carry pamphlets! 

On another subject, just as urgent to many, it's been said that Internet porn has ruined young men for any real relationships. And, many people also become addicted to online gaming. The Internet has also been blamed for surveillance, stalking and murder. Yes, the Internet has had many ill effects. And, sure, it’s dangerous for our society to be so dependent on the Internet. Businesses, government, banks, stores, etc. would collapse – for a time, at least – without an Internet connection.

But the Internet has also caught many murderers, made crime-fighting tools such as DNA, fingerprints, CCTV and facial recognition much easier to use effectively. Social media has allowed criminals to find victims, but it has also made it possible for police to turn that same social network around to find and arrest those very same perpetrators.

As for porn, Internet porn addiction is very real and has ruined a lot of young men, many of whom can no longer get an erection. Yes, guys, it can get worn out. Only complete withdrawal from Internet porn can fix it. I've never heard of reading causing such a problem, though our ancestors certainly feared it would!

Online gaming is also a serious addiction, as harmful as heroin. One of the stories that sticks in my mind and heart is the tragedy of the couple who forgot to feed their baby because they were playing a game involving their virtual child online. In another story, a clinic in the Netherlands that was treating cocaine addiction soon found that many of their patients were actually using cocaine to try to stay up all night and play in an online gaming community they couldn’t leave for a minute without falling behind. Their cocaine addiction was actually an Internet gaming addiction.

I’ve heard that the Internet spoils you. The research is certainly wonderful. I can get answers to my inquiries in seconds, answers that once would have taken days, weeks, months or years to receive. Interviews can be conducted via email or social networks, interviews that would have required not only travel, but, in some cases, repeated travel, as people often are reluctant to talk. However, one still has to read books, even though you might think that information in books becomes outdated – it does sometimes – but not as often as you’d think. One woman I know read 150 books – as well as years of study and practice, of course - to write the book she needed to write about perfume. Another writer read a very long book just to use one word accurately in his own. In my own case, one thing the Internet has spoiled is my sense of timing. I feel deep down in my bones that everything should only take as long as one click to finish. Waiting has always been hard. Now, it’s brutal. But, I’m not alone and the Internet is not entirely responsible. Do you know, for instance, what the attention span is for a New York editor who is reading your work? That is, how much time you have to impress her before she moves on? Half a second. That was in the ‘80s. Maybe it was the cocaine then, but I’m sure, by now, with the Internet, and all that clicking all day, her patience is even shorter.

I may be spoiled, but I also find myself wishing I could turn up the brightness on the page when I am reading a book. Most books – even quality paperbacks – are no longer printed on quality paper. The publishers cut costs by printing on a darker shade, which reminds me of the old math paper we had in school for doing preliminary sums. We called it scrap paper. As a publisher, I’m proud to say that Plum Press has always printed on the best quality paper, bright white or light cream. On the other hand, I do sometimes find myself wanting to turn down the brightness of my iPad screen while I use my Kindle reader app.

I’ve never heard of anyone getting sick from marathon reading, however. Lots of people have stayed up all night to finish a book only to be groggy and wobbly the next day, but I’ve never heard of anything more serious.

Nevertheless, reading can be dangerous.

Reading has produced a new class. An educated class, regardless of monetary rank in society. Anyone may educate themselves. Even rich people. Trump has proven that rich people do not need to be educated. They have people who do that for them. However, we the people need to be and I’m a firm believer in self-education. Cross-referencing, and not believing everything you read, either online or in books, but checking up on facts through more reading and learning through actual doing. Reading online has produced a more informed electorate. Oh, yes, even after this last election, how many butts are burning from past mistakes, causing more reading and, thus, more learning, to be currently taking place. People are learning how to do things for themselves online: from carpentry to plumbing, from cooking to dressmaking, from herbal remedies to acupressure, we are sharing what we have learned. Every day I go online to learn what is going on in the world, in my world and every other world. I can watch politics or take a break and watch a kitty video. Maybe Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance in evening dress. Maybe Michael Moore’s latest remark. Or Meryl Streep’s acceptance speech. I can watch everything from protestors to surfers, the choices are endless and each is being done by fellow humans all over the world. I can comment, I can write and I can share what I know. Shepard Fairey’s new work, his inaugural series, does not depict the new President. We The People is his theme. We can Learn. We can Do. We can Empower Ourselves.

One more thing: Scientists have also found that, not gaming or heroin or cocaine or reading produces the most dopamine: Love does.

Love on!

©Patricia Goodwin, 2017

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.