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America Collection/General interest
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Looking Back at a Roller Coaster Year

by Fran Johns
Sunrise

Chainsaws, axes and masked militias must still contend with ordinary people standing up for justice 

Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

(As a rule I avoid talking politics on this platform, although I mourn the days when we could talk political differences with civility. Or without offending. Some readers, though — thanks, both of you! — asked that I not withhold some essays that are posted on Medium &/or Substack. The following recaps a dark year.)

A little over a year ago I took a deep breath and started a Substack.

Writer friends had been suggesting such a move for years, but I had resisted. I already write on Medium and WordPress, I argued, and my learning curve bends about as slowly as the arc toward justice. One more technology? No, thank you.

But I needed help. My country had just elected a man who is the antithesis of everything I hold dear — an egotistic narcissist who lies with abandon, abuses women, denies science, craves power and cares not a fig about our fragile planet. He pledged to trade longtime allies for alignment with autocracies around the globe and to destroy institutions that had been built over decades and centuries to protect our freedoms.

I sank into a pit of despair. For a while I found myself saying, “OK, I’m done. I’m 91 years old, and I don’t want to live in this kind of a world. I’m done.” After a while, though, despair does not work very well as Lifestyle.

So I began The Optimistic Eye (Substack) with the express purpose of writing once a week about something politically encouraging or some positive action that was underway or could be taken. With that in mind, the daily task became that of sifting through the rivers of chaos and destruction that began even before Trump 2.0 took control to find reason for hope. 

It worked. The enterprise began with an interfaith Thanksgiving prayer breakfast that was all about light shining into the darkness. Once the Trump regime was in place we saw right away just how dark things would get — but there have always been people shining light. That long-ago breakfast featured prayers in just about every known religion and a few you hadn’t heard of: Native American, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu . . . and the Brahma Kumaris, who are all about inner light and peace.

The year would see a great deal more chaos and darkness than peace and light. But even as the doom squad swooped in, with Donald Trump and his then-best-friend Elon Musk leading the charge, forces for good could also be found mobilizing.

Over the year I wrote about Climate One and the fight to save Planet Earth despite the swift removal of environmental protections, about the healing power of music and the multitudes of individuals standing up for democracy one by one. Quickly, those single souls coalesced into like-minded groups and took to the streets. 

The No Kings marches were as satisfying to write about (well, almost) as to participate in. Below is the flip side of my all-purpose demonstration sign. Its front reads KAKISTOCRACY: Government by the worst. The least qualified. The most corrupt. More ordinary Americans turned out in 2025 to shine the light of truth than ever before in history. All. Year. Long.

For every destructive DOGE cut there was someone working against the destruction. As springtime eased into summer the Optimistic Eye spotted individuals and groups quickly picking up pieces. I even found people in Europe — where head-spinning executive orders were turning longtime allies into foes — who were still our friends. “We can’t understand what’s happened to your country,” one Sicilian homemaker said, “but we still think the Americans we know are good people.” 

Darkness spread. Our Republican-led Congress utterly abdicated its oversight responsibilities; even the Supreme Court caved. But the Optimistic Eye was always able to find a ray of light. Beginning with District Court Judge John Coughenour way back in January there were justices upholding the Constitution and keeping Mr. Trump from running totally amok. There were the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center and other nonprofits pitching in to help.

Then the cracks in Humpty Dumpty’s shell began to appear and the mad king was suddenly not all-powerful. In what has to be the most poetic justice ever known, serial abuser Jeffrey Epstein may play a major role in stopping Donald Trump’s tsunami-level abuse of humankind. Not even his MAGA warriors could stomach the stonewalling to protect himself against whatever incriminating messages lurk in the Epstein files. Atop that bit of good news — the truth of that long, sordid story will (largely) eventually be told — lo and behold the Supreme Court finally weighed in to limit the power of the mad king.

And ordinary citizens, the stars in the skies of democracy, continue to protest against ICE, to protect their immigrant neighbors, and take to the streets in defense of democracy. It ain’t over, Yogi Berra (and Lenny Kravitz) would have us know, ’til it’s over. 

This essayy also is The Optomistic Eye post #77. In the first essay of The Optimistic Eye (12/13/25) was this quotation from the SFIC interfaith proyer breakfast, “Candles of liberty flicker and dim; there will always be those to light them again.”

Happy 2026 to us all. Bring it on.

America Collection
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The Huggable Christmas Tree

by Fran Johns
Christmas tree-shaped pillow resting on sofa

How I found the perfect tree, and regained the holiday spirit

(Author photo)

OK, it’s not your grandmother’s Christmas tree; it’s a pillow. But it was a gift from a favorite friend last year, and when I pulled the holiday box down off the shelf, there it was on top, just begging to be The Tree.

How could I not?

If ever proof was needed for that old truism, ‘The bigger your children, the smaller your tree,’ I’m it. With the kids long grown and my enthusiasm for dealing with tinsel, glitter, angel hair and tangled strings of lights correspondingly diminished I was about to be tree-less several years ago. My faraway daughter couldn’t handle this idea, and promptly sent a lovely, if artificial, little three-foot-tall tree complete with lights already circling its piney green limbs and miniature baubles ready for hanging. The problem? Assembly required. I finally threw a party for a half-dozen dextrous friends and after several bottles of wine (I served, they drank because I don’t any more) we got it done.

I had to work through my inborn antipathy to artificial trees, but I became downright fond of the little faux pine with its twinkling lights and tiny baubles. The initial assembly was the most complicated; after that it folded back into its box and required only a few tricky openings-up and fittings-together to reappear the next holiday season. A small hassle to start the season.

It’s been a fine tree. I’ve had some great tree-assembly parties. But after the daily chaos of the past year I could not deal with even minimal holiday stress in my own home. I walked to town to soak up the wonders of the season at San Francisco’s Union Square:

(Author photo)

The Union Square tree is a beauty, though I do believe it’s artificial too, and you’d think we might have sprung for a giant spruce in a forest that needed to be thinned. Furthermore, couldn’t the Union Square people also strike a deal with whoever’s in charge of the giant billboard featuring a handsome hunk who seems to be stressing out over the scene? For a while there my Christmas spirit faltered.

I bought a cup of white chocolate mocha and sat down at an outdoor table with a couple from Denver who brought my spirits right back up. Their tree was up and decorated back home, and their children and grandchildren would all be coming, but they were having a holiday getaway first and they love San Francisco. I love tourists who love San Francisco.

I walked back home and contemplated the pillow-tree. Made of the softest velvet imaginable, it begs to be stroked. If you snuggle down on the sofa with a good book, it is happy to rest against your cheek. Even its little Star of Bethlehem is soft and cushy.

’tis the season to be comforted. Peace on earth.

America Collection/General interest
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What Goes Around Comes Around

by Fran Johns

THE UNIVERSE PAYS ATTENTION TO KINDNESS. BELIEVE.

Photo by Mei-Ling Mirow on Unsplash

Did it again yesterday. Left my wallet — it’s one of those mesh things that fit so easily into the back pocket — in the unisex bathroom of Kaiser Medical Center in San Francisco. Not your ordinary nobody’s-around-here spot.

Did I notice? Of course not. I was merrily walking home about ten blocks east, listening to a good book via my one earbud, trusting the other ear to pick up any beeping bike about to wipe me out as it whizzed around the corner.

Instead, my phone beeped, interrupting the book narrator. Given no choice, I answered. An unknown male voice was speaking calmly over the traffic noise. “Are you Fran Johns?” he asked. Who else would I be? Didn’t he know who he was calling? “I am,” I replied, anxious to get back to my book.

“This is Kaiser Family Medicine. Someone just brought your wallet to the check-in desk,” he said. Oh, dear. I patted my very empty back pocket.

This would be the same wallet I have left in countless coffee shops and bookstores, other miscellaneous bathrooms and twice in airport security areas. One of those was in Madrid. Some people learn; some don’t.

I did an about-face and returned to the check-in desk, where three or four Kaiser people were busily working. “Ummm,” I said, “I don’t have any identification, but someone found . ..” One of the clerks looked up with a broad smile. “I’d know you anywhere,” he said, handing it over.

Moral? One kind stranger turned what would’ve been a nightmare of changing passwords and obtaining replacement cards into one more happy San Francisco day. Thanks, whoever you are.

In my (self) defense, I am notorious for tracking down errant library books or returning found objects to safekeeping, once including a frightened three-year-old in Macy’s.

The universe notices.

America Collection
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AI on the Literary Scene? 👎

by Fran Johns

NOT READY FOR CUTESY AI BLOGGERS, THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Photo by Unseen Studio on Unsplash

I just received a link to a fellow Substack “writer.” It has a name which I will not repeat. It even says it speaks for a human, though the named human cannot be found with extensive searching. An actual human posts the clever “thoughts” of the artificial, unintelligent bot.

You may be picking up my distaste here.

Up front I want to acknowledge the fact that AI has immense, far-ranging benefits to humanity, primarily in health, science & technology. If our ethical controls were not light years behind the technology we could all just sit back and celebrate.

But AI in the writing business? Please. Pity the English teachers in high schools and colleges everywhere— not to mention those in just about every other academic field — currently having to spend endless extra hours just trying to separate out what the student wrote from what the bot wrote.

Chalk this up not just to the gaping lag between moral-ethical codes and AI capabilities but to an entire generation born into the digital age. They, and generations to come, are led to assume that anything one can click on one can claim. Think about that for a while.

My rage, however, is with AI takng over the adults in the literary room. Where does it get off, barging in as if it owns the world, a scary but likely scenario? AI is announcing that anything we can write it can write better. Faster, cleaner and thoroughly spell-checked.

Here’s what AI does not have: a brain. It has only a composite of a zillion human brains that pour themselves into an artificial universe where data collection and algorithms now take over in lieu of human thought.

Here’s what else AI does not have: a soul. It cannot feel compassion, act in kindness, respond with love.

Great writers since the stone age have labored to record human truth, to create stories that help us understand ourselves and our world. Their words engage our thoughts and emotions to help us make sense of this life.

AI now presumes to grab, by the billions and trillions, those words put forth by human brains. By human beings who put their human blood, sweat and tears into the work of creation. AI then professes to reorganize the words we humans created into its “perfect,” soulless algorithms .

Sorry, I will not be subscribing to a bot.

+. +. +

This essay also appears on my Substack, The Optimistic Eye, which (despite today’s pessimistic note) seeks optimistic observations on all things political and otherwise. C’mon over any time, it’s free. (https://franmorelandjohns.substack.com/)

America Collection
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Immigrant Prayers & Thanksgiving

by Fran Johns
crowd of people holding up pocket-size copies of US Constitution

THIS YEAR’S INTERFAITH BREAKFAST MESSAGE: WE’RE ALL CHILDREN OF THE SAME GOD

Hoisting our new copies of the Constitution (Author photo)

The Interfaith Prayer Breakfast is pretty much my favorite morning of every year. You get prayed over in every known religion and a few you probably never heard of; it’ll just about carry you through the next 364 days. It is sponsored annually by the San Francisco Interfaith Council.

This was the 25th annual such event. The first one — in 1998 — I remember well; we had four or five tables. It’s grown ever since (excepting the two pandemic years) into today’s over-capacity crowd; but who’s counting? The Fire Chief was among the dignitaries. Others ranged from Lt Gov Eleni Kounalakis to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (we’re her people, after all) to local committee chairs and union officials and everyone in between.

These events have themes — generally falling within the faith/hope/love spectrum. This year it was Sanctuary: A San Francisco Value. “San Francisco Values” is not a pejorative term around here.

In accordance with the theme, every speaker or participant at the prayer breakfast led off with his or her immigrant ancestry. I lost track after a while. But almost every one cited immigrant parents, grandparents &/or recent kinfolk who had arrived on these shores as refugees from the Holocaust or from genocide or persecutions beyond imagination. Seeking sanctuary.

The parallel prayers — Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim and other — then used their various languages to point out that we’re all children of the same god, by whatever name. In other words, brothers and sisters, immigrants all.

Said one speaker, “Sanctuary means a place of refuge, a sacred space.”

“The protection of others is a divine trust,” said a Muslim speaker.

“The Buddhist call to compassion results in gratitude,” noted another.

The morning swag was a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution. Early on we were invited to hoist our Constitutions high, just to make a point. It’s actually pretty good reading. I leafed through my new copy before starting this report, impressed once again by some of the niceties like co-equal branches of government, powers of the Congress, guarantees of individual freedoms etc that have not been brightly evident this year.

Brightly evident at the 25th Annual SFIC Prayer Breakfast: Good food, good vibes, good will to all. Immigrants included.

America Collection/General interest
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What Is It With Housecleaning?

by Fran Johns
Man holding vacuum cleaner in a dance pose

CAN SOMEONE FIND INNER PEACE, BETWEEN SQUEAKY-CLEAN AND CLUTTERED?

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

Editorial warning: This is a first world problem story.

The housekeeping people just left my apartment. Happy as I am to see them arrive, I am sixteen times happier to see them go.

It’s an every other week ritual. The hyper-efficient housekeepers trained and provided by my senior living building appear with their cart-load of sweepers, dusters, mops and vacuum cleaners and swarm my otherwise happy home. The exorbitant fees I pay to live in this place (where DO old people in the U.S. go if they don’t have a zillion dollars? — that’s another story) actually cover housekeeping once a week. But I find the experience so traumatizing I elect to have them only every other week. I am still waiting for the small rebate I feel due for all the $$ I save them.

Why the trauma? It’s because I have to zoom around before they arrive, making sure there’s nothing in the way of their Marie-Kondoing the place. Never mind that I do a lot of cleaning, arranging and tidying up every day; I have a lot of company. But whereas my visitors would overlook a small pile of stuff on the table or even the occasional toothbrush on the sink, our housekeepers may whoosh it away forever in the frenzy to maintain their standards of spit-and-polish. The housekeepers here are, I believe, recruited from the military. 

Well, anyway. After they finish sweeping, mopping, dusting, wiping down, vacuuming and generally disturbing the peace, my work begins.

Bottles at the backs of counters, invariably left just a few degrees askew, must be rearranged in proper alignment. Pictures must be rescued from their descent into lopsidedness. Books and treasures must be restored to their rightful places. And — here is the real bi-weekly challenge — everything I shoved into cabinets or drawers just so it wouldn’t wind up in the recycling bin must be recovered from its hiding place. This last is not always successful. After I die it is likely someone will be heard to exclaim, “Why in the world did Mom put this basket of popcorn behind the stack of sweaters in her closet?”

Here is my question: What law of the universe ordains that the square bottle of hand lotion be positioned squarely against the back counter ledge?

For that matter, will the earth quit turning if pillows meant to be placed at angles on the sofa are left in improper poses? Will climate change be accelerated even faster if glass vases are left to refract the suns rays rather than being restored to positions of predestined alignment?

Marie Kondo I am not. I am just still in recovery from the loss of an otherwise spectacularly beloved husband who never saw a flat space he did not feel would be improved by a few piles of books, magazines and papers. I maintain a few perpetual piles of papers on at least two or three surfaces at all times in his memory. But of course, then I have to remember that I stuck them behind the laundry detergent when the cleaners came.

And the popcorn? Yeah, did that once. Bulky sweaters are rarely called for in San Francisco. I am not admitting in public print how long the popcorn remained undiscovered. (It was soggy. We don’t have mice in this building.)

There is probably a moral to this tale. All suggestions will be welcome. 

* * *

This essay also appears on my Substack, The Optimistic Eye (franmorelandjohns.substack.com) where I also write weekly about things political. C’mon over any time; it’s free

America Collection/General interest
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A Tale of Love and the Moon

by Fran Johns
Moon and clouds

EARTHLINGS’ TURMOIL COMES AND GOES, MOON AND MOUNTAINS ARE FOREVER

Photo by Ganapathy Kumar on Unsplash

These are Blue Moon times. Still trying to get used to the early dark, still trying to readjust to the time-change jolt, I for one have been looking for some relief — any relief please — from the chaos of life.

Enter the moon. Its waxing and waning in spectacular beauty have brought the best kind of balm.

A few nights ago San Francisco City Hall even pitched in to help, turning itself blue to create this photo op as captured (below) from Fulton Street at the San Francisco Ballet building. I mean. Who could ask for anything more? And then came more!

(Author photo)

The November 9 Cloud Appreciation Society’s Cloud of the Day brought a Blue Moon tale. As follows:

According to the folklore of the Ladin people, inhabitants of villages scattered across the Dolomite valleys of northern Italy, a young prince of long ago married a woman from the Moon, and the two lived together happily on the Dolomites. Happily, but not forever after.

Over time, the pale peaks of the mountains made the princess pine for the Moon, and she left her bridegroom to go back home.

The prince, lonely and desolate, went for a walk in the woods, where he met a gnome. The two came up with a Plan: the gnome would paint the sides of the mountains in beautiful colors — colors shiny and blue enough to change the mind of the missing maiden.

Dave Wood, friend of Charles McDonald (Cloud Appreciation Society Member 55,390), visited the Dolomites in northern Italy, the cool blue peaks echoed the tones of the Altocumulus stratiformis undulatus sky.

And it worked!

Possibly comforted by the blues reminiscent of her home, the Moon princess returned, and the two lived happily ever after.

Only a tale, you say? Maybe you’ve not been to the Dolomites lately. (I surely have not.) But thanks to Members and friends of the Cloud Appreciation Society — which keeps one eye on the Moon — the photo above might change your mind.

At the very least, it offers this assurance: Whatever passing chaos we earthlings might create, the Moon and the mountains are here for the everlasting.

I heard it from a gnome.

America Collection/General interest
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The Secret Weapon for Preventing Falls

by Fran Johns

AN OCCASIONAL UNAUTHORIZED UNSUPPORTED (BUT HEARTFELT) HEALTH TIP

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

Look better . . . fall less . . . what’s not to love about good posture?

I had the great good fortune, a few eons ago, to study modern dance in college with a woman named Eleanor Struppa. “Struppa,” as she was universally addressed, had herself danced with the famed Martha Graham. You could spot her in any crowd — she’d be the person standing, or more often moving, with such fluid grace and effortlessly perfect posture that she commanded a space of her own.

Struppa’s students did not slouch. This was because we might be walking droopy-shouldered along some hall or pathway when a hand from behind would quietly grab a small chunk of hair on the top of our head and, as it was tugged upward, a voice would sing out, “A string! A string! Imagine a string is pulling you upward . . .” End of slouch.

The string trick alone doesn’t do it; there’s a lot of chin-tucking, muscle-strengthening, spine-aligning and proper exercise involved. Good genes are a bonus. 

Bone loss, physical afflictions and gravity have their way with the aging body, but concentrating on balance and posture can help us all stay upright. And here’s the pay-off: staying upright is the best way not to break bones.

In addition to a ridiculous obsession with posture, I am even more ridiculously obsessed with balance. I have a collection of balance exercises in my head that come into play in any given spare three minutes. You can sneak in a balance exercise anywhere, as long as you ignore the curious glances from everybody else in the wait lines. Extra points for executing rock-the-boats in a moving elevator —  near the railing, please, just in case. Fellow residents in my senior living building are all by now used to this. More than a few join in (though seldom in the elevator.)

So far, it’s working. The last bone I broke was about 50 years ago, playing doubles tennis with my then-70-something-year-old father. That time, I made a graceful leap at the net and wound up with a broken foot. I was in a walking cast for the next six weeks. What I remember best about that time was repeatedly having to tell the story, only to hear the listener ask, “Well, how’s your father?” He was, of course, just fine. His posture was impeccable until his death, at 90.

My posture has now outlived his by a couple of years, thanks in large measure to the lilting voice in my head:

“A string! A string! Imagine a string is pulling you upward!”

This post also appears on my Substack, The Optimistic Eye. C’mon over any time, it’s free

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