beauty is where you find it…

pasted from http://www.theroot.com/id/48726

it was posted on November 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people’s enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people’s spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,
Alice Walker

some days….

 just feel overwhelming. i am there today.

i am still reeling from the weekend with my son. he was home when i got home from a beautiful and soul-lifting violin recital saturday night, having just seen midori and spent some amazing one-on-one time with my daughter. i had asked him to come by our house because he’s using our truck while his car is in the shop and it has jumper cables in it, and my sisters battery on her car had died.

he was talking about having gotten screwed over at work again. he works harder than a lot of people, he knows all the jobs, but he’s still considered a part-time temporary person and he was up for a full-time position and they gave it to someone else who’s been there less time and made less money. precisely BECAUSE they made less money, so they knew it would cost less to promote this other person. also, the other guy doesn’t want to utilize the educational benefit that goes along with full-time employment, which my son does, which would ultimately cost the company more, also. that does truly suck, but sometimes life isn’t fair. i know he knows this. then he was saying how his company are hypocrites because they talk about how important their employees are, but they don’t treat them well, or not all of them, anyway. i told him he should tell his company they were hypocrites and he looked at me like i was a child and said something to the effect of "just what am i suppose to tell them, mom?" well, me, i would tell them that, but i live and work in a place where it’s okay to be somewhat idealistic and that’s sort of honored here. there are still disappointments and shitty things that happen, but as i’ve said before, there is also a tremendous amount of freedom here. i am free with my thoughts and ideals because i can be. that’s a very important distinction.

i am in a better place with my husband, but it’s still tenuous. i knew when i met him and fell in love with him that i was marrying a soldier. i can’t blame him for being what he is, most of the time i think it’s charming and endearing; it makes me feel safe. he’s almost NEVER soldier-like with me, i get the other side, the tender side. he’s a good man, and being a soldier is all he’s ever known. it’s as much a part of him now as me. he’s been married to the army longer than he’s been married to me. i have to keep reminding myself of that.  

that doesn’t mean i want my son to follow those footsteps. the soldiering ones, not the tender ones, i know he has that, i raised him =) we always hope for better for our children, and i had hoped he wouldn’t have to make a choice like this. part of me wants to take what equity i have out of my house and pay for my sons debts and for his college, to keep him safe, to keep him near me. but that won’t teach him anything about dealing with the consequences of his decisions, that only teaches him that parents will always bail ya out. or does it? where does responsibility end and compassion begin? is it right or proper for me to take on more debt that he might be debt free? i don’t know what these answers are….

my son has some friends that are already in the national guard, and he’s going in with them. they are in an mp company that already knows it’s deploying to afghanistan next fall. afghanistan is not a nice place to be at all, that’s probably why we never hear about things there. that’s where the friends that we’ve had killed have been killed, in the majority.

my nephew is doing well, i got to talk to him on saturday. he will graduate from boot camp this coming thursday, the 20th. he made it through. he was concerned about the run because he injured his foot. but he made it…he got the minimum number of points, but he passed, which was what we were worried about. i asked him if there was any way he could still not make it and he said pretty much only by getting into a fist fight would he not finish. he told me that he sort of wishes he had chosen national guard instead of active duty, but now, he’s there, and signed up for active duty. but, once he serves his time, he can transition to national guard. they’ve told him it’s hard, but that’s not strictly true, they just want him to think that.

it feels good to write.

there is some drama going on with the fire group, too, but that should be it’s own post. i think this is enough for now.

i am scared for my son, and feel powerless.

i wish i could make him understand. violence begets violence, and when it comes to violence and choosing to inflict it, in my mind, there is ALWAYS a choice.

i wish he thought so.

no peace.

feeling betrayed….

most of the time, it’s pretty easy for me to go through life knowing that some of the people that are closest to me don’t share some of the values i do. to me, it seems there is a decided lack of compassion on the other end of my marriage. this person lives in a very dog-eat-dog world, which is generally fine with me because it doesn’t effect me overly much.

my son is thinking of joining the national guard. he is being sent to oakland next week for his physical stuff. he’s an adult now, and the rational part of my brain knows that he now has to make his own decisions. but he has these romantic notions about what war and life are like that i know are not true. he wants the adventure, he wants to get out of our town. much of his current predicament is a result of his own poor choices. he had a 10,000 scholarship, in essence, and he blew it. he was more interested in partying than he was in doing well in college. he also owes the college a bunch of money from being careless with parking, so they won’t let him register for classes any more until he pays it and then he has to reapply for college as he’s not gone the last few semesters. he’s working full-time in a warehouse. he had to move after burning man, and he chose to get into a lease with a high-ish rent thinking he would have his girlfriend and two other people to help with rent. as they were moving the girlfriend broke up with him and said she wasn’t moving in, which essentially doubled his rent. he hates the warehouse because he used to work in an engineering firm and do stuff that he considers to be inifinitely more cerebral and important than stacking boxes. he has a second job at a mexican restaurant that’s been so slow he is often told not to come in….the economy. his work has screwed him over a few times, but the bitter part of me says "yeah, welcome to the real world, it happens". so he thinks he has no choice about joining the military. when he tried to get a car awhile ago, they told him he didn’t have any credit, so he went out and got a bunch, and now he has all that to pay off too. i tried to tell him that having credit is a double-edged sword….sometimes it’s better not to have, for having it means paying. i have always been a cash and carry sort of a gal, myself. i know my credit score has suffered for it, but i really don’t care because i don’t pay as much exorbiant interest and i keep more of my money than the average person.

the thing that has me feeling betrayed is that when i got home from a concert last night, my son was here talking to my husband. my husband is trying to talk him into going active duty rather than national guard. this seems like a huge deal to me. either way, if the boy joins, he’s going to war the way things are now. even with obama elected, people don’t understand that with the economy the way it is, he can’t bring all the troups home because there aren’t jobs for those men when they come home….it would cripple the american economy to have so many people home and unemployed. there are no jobs for them now, and it would make the market that much harder for those already here and unemployed also, having all those extra veterans in the market. besides, war isn’t something you just end, it’s been going on too long.

the hurt and angry and scared part of me says, of my husband "how could he?" all he’s ever known is the military, but it’s a different place now than it was when he was there, in active duty. he joined at a time when we had had over 20 years of relative peace. i saw a documentary called "the peace" recently that talked about the war, what led up to it and stuff. we have friends who’ve been over there and know how fucked up it is. we’ve had friends killed. it doesn’t help that my son has been speaking with some friends of his and is set to go into an MP unit they’ve already told him is deploying to afghanistan next fall. he is supposed to go to boot camp in february. he wants him to go active duty so that if he’s going to get blown up, at least he has a chance of seeing some other cool places in the world in between the times he is deployed to the war zones. hell of a theory, that. what’s a mother to do?

i told my son last night "there is always a choice when it comes to fighting or being a part of a war". he doesn’t see it that way. i am verklempt. he has to do what he sees as right, i just don’t want my son damaged forever for some idiotic sense of heroicism, some misguided sense of obligation or some false sense of "need". he does have choices, but to him all the other ones lead to misery. the largest misery could be the one he’s making.

i am unbelievably sad today.

there is no peace.

life, going on….

(Open Diary archive)

well, here i am.

no where near the entry a day, but am trying to write more often.

today is family day in georgia or where ever my nephew is and he has no family there to celebrate his accomplishment with him, but he made it, and for that, he should be exceedingly proud. i am proud that he stuck it out and was able to make it through despite aches and pains. i pointed out to him the last time i spoke to him that he’s pretty much spent the last twenty years of his life NOT being physically active. his body is bound to need some time to catch up with his increase in activity and motivation. i am sad that i can’t be there for him, but he knows we love him, so it’s all good. it would easily have cost 1K to go and see him, rent a car, a hotel, etc. i just can’t spare that right now. we talked about what he should do with the money he has now, i told him to get a laptop and wait until he comes home to get a phone, it would be less expensive for him to get a local phone, and he can ultimately do more with the laptop, i think. i hope he listens to me, and takes my advice when it comes time to order the laptop.

i haven’t spoken to my son since he was at our house on saturday night. i sort of commiserated with my husband last night and asked him why my son was mad at me, i haven’t done anything to him. he says he isn’t mad at me, he’s afraid of disappointing me because he knows he is doing something that goes against my values. what silly creatures men are….that doesn’t affect how i feel about him, he’s an adult, his own person, and can now make his own decisions. you don’t have to like what someone does, or the choices they have to make because of what they’ve done to keep loving them. i guess i want him to know that. i will probably send him a text message and let him know that. he has to go to oakland tomorrow to the medical in-processing center and get his paperwork done.

i am feeling more connected and close with my daughter lately. she went with me to a violin concert last weekend, and it was amazing. afterwards, i took her to a local place called the chocolate bar and we had some chocolate fondue with fruit for desert. it was a nice time. i love that kid. i love both my kids so amazingly much. it’s a lot of fun to be able to be friends with them as they go boldly into adulthood and not feel as much responsibility for them as when they were growing up. i’ll always both care and worry, but they are both beautiful people and i am proud.

i thought i probably ought to post something positive. today is a good day.

kinda peace.

worst president ever....

i love me a good protest song...

Worst President Ever

pretty much sums it up =)

tired…

these weeks are an adjustment. they say that the body takes 10 weeks to adjust to a new activity level or routine. by that time, it will change again =) while i am having a great time in welding class, i am also tired at the scheduling change and at getting the feeling that i don’t really have time for myself. that’s actually patently untrue, but it sort of feels that way. after i came back from burning man, i spent some time just sort of hanging out at home, and reading. that is a much easier life, i tell ya….and one could debate about it’s being more rewarding or not, but that time appears to be past, for the moment.

i stayed out too late last night. and this morning i am feeling odd.

there is a halloween party today at work. i have stuff to dress up like a pirate wench, not sure i am going to go there, but i’ve made soup, so i suppose i need to.

i have to go and train someone right now on how to do something.

i will try to write later.

peace.

blood moon weekend

friday i worked half a day. i mean, i was there. some work was actually accomplished, much to my chagrin, but motivation was not high, it was a blood moon weekend!

by noon, i was ready to head out, and my friend i was carpooling with was to get me at 2pm. a quick lunch and then home to pack. i hadn't packed previously, but the weather promised to be nice in sacramento, so i wasn't too worried about that. we headed out pretty much on time, and the drive was lovely. watching the fall foliage was amazing. it's so interesting to watch the trees turn their vibrant colors, some yellow, then interspersed with bright reds and oranges. fall is truly an enchanting time, hinting at the bareness of winter, but giving a colorful and grand show before we are left with nothing but stark, bare trees.

we checked into the hotel without incident, and our room was decent. i think i may explore different places to stay if we make the trip next year, the place we were was okay, but seemed sort of expensive for what we got. it seems we could maybe do better. being there, though, was familiar, and yet new. having been there before, but the experience was new with a new companion. we headed to dinner reasonably early, then back to change for the show and get all fancied up, and head to the venue. one thing for which i was incredibly grateful over the weekend was my husbands tomtom gps thing. that little thing is amazing. i had pre-programmed all our destinations into the unit, and just had to tell it where i wanted to go and it took us there. i wonder sometimes at the routes it chose, but it never failed to get us where we needed to be =)

once we arrived at the venue, we were almost immediately greeted with the other members of the group who had come down in a separate car. everyone was there, and it was on time. huge relief number one taken care of. erika was on her stilts, which was awesome. that woman can't seem to stay off them, but they seemed to enjoy that she was there, so that part was good. we went inside to get the lay of things, and they were pretty organized. i got to connect and say hello to the beautiful amy or unmata and her partner and the tech advisor for the show, raven. they were awesome to be around and we kind of just got to chill until close to time for the show. this is always an interesting show because the stage space is somewhat small and presents some logistical challenges. someone took video of our stuff, it should be posted soon, i will post a link, perhaps, when it's posted. the show went very well. we were third from the end, and that seemed to be good placement for us, within the context of the groups that were there. we got the theme award, apparently being the only group who paid attention to the theme, which made me proud. our crew was very small, we only had seven performers, but then managed to pick up three guests who had come to our burning man decompression party, so that left us with an even ten. the show was pretty amazing. technically, we had some challenges, but we pulled it off, and there was one duet i was especially proud of. this young girl i asked barely two weeks before the show to do a duet with a tall, lanky staff spinner and she said she would. they learned a really awesome lift in less than two weeks and their portion of the performance was stellar. me and cindi also did a non-traditional piece that i hope to keep and perform again later in the year.

there were a couple of groups we could totally learn things from, and i hope that we can work towards that. we have our own style, and the gradation of things being what it is, we did well, but i'd like to improve. one can always improve, no?

after the show, we headed back to our room quickly, then went to the blues bar that was right down the street from our hotel. we had asked a bunch of people to meet us there, but who knows who was going to show up, ya know? several did though, our guest fire breathers who performed with us, and they were super fun to hang out with, and rog and his lady showed up for a bit, but they left pretty early. after the bar closed, we headed to a late night restaurant for some snack food stuff and that left us back at the hotel about 3:30am. it's a good thing i am of the mindset that all late nights such as those are training for burning man, or i might have been tired the next day =P as it is, training is good, right?

cindi and i both being semi-morning people, we couldn't sleep past 9am. we headed out to forage for food and walk around the downtown area. it was really cool. the merchants along the area we were in sacramento were having like a safe merchants trick or treating event thing for local kids, so we had a great time getting to look at all the costumes on the littles. it was pretty fun. saw lots of really cool little shops with lots of really expensive clothing. wow. we had greasy spoon breakfast and thai food for dinner, then it was time to head to the theatre for the blood moon show, disease 101. the show was great, but the topic was sort of depressing. although there were humorous aspects of the show, it's hard to be uplifting talking about lice, cancer, parkinson's disease, mental illness, things like that. it was an interesting choice, one that took courage and which i admire by amy. all in all, it was a good show. we ended up sitting with and getting to visit kerry and her group, who had also come down for the fire show. it was great to see her and what she's doing with her group. they happened to have an extra ticket for the after party, so that meant we only had to buy one, so we did that and headed there after the blood moon show.

the after party was one of the best parts of the weekend, although the entire weekend was an experience in itself. i think by the after party, several of the dancers and volunteers are just so delirious after having worked so hard to put on the show, it's a little time for them to be silly. seeing raven polka was definitely a highlight. and talk about how boys are icky. can i get an amen sistah? hahahaha...it was in fun, but also very amusing and largely true, for me.

managed to get in some shopping, too, for family and for myself. found some jeans of a type i hadn't been able to find locall, so was very happy about that. sunday we headed home. we went through apple hill on the way home and MAN was it crowded! when i've been there before, it's after halloween and i now understand the wisdom of that choice! we actually turned around and did something different because just the road to GET to some of the places was backed up for miles and miles. the drive home on hwy 50, though, was very pretty, with more glorious fall colors.

i wanted to document this weekend, and tell about it, but i think i've lost the flavor of the weekend. perhaps i will make another post that is random snippets and images from the weekend.

that's it for now, anyway.

peace!

p.s. tonight i get to WELD for the first time! WOOO HOOOO!