Not a good time

This is not a good time to look like me.

I spent the last week in a non-wealthy area of a minority majority city. I pretty much shuttled between the work location and my hotel, in part because we were way too busy for sightseeing and in part because the sights I did see were troubling. And sometimes, even scary.

To be sure, I did have some nice but brief encounters with local folk. It won’t surprise you to learn of my penchant for striking up conversations with total strangers. One younger man was six months into his marriage and we spoke of the challenges of new couples melding dietary habits and preferences. He’s a lover of animal proteins and his new bride is near vegan so good luck with that.

It was a nice oasis of friendliness in a sea of worry.

Every business and almost every private residence has some form of bars denying unauthorized entrance. The Garmin lady took me to five grocery stores in succession before I came upon one at which I was comfortable parking and getting out of the car. Is this because of legitimate fear or simply a function of my own ingrained prejudices? A bit of both, maybe?

Anyway, I got a really good dose of being the face that stands out in the crowd. Can’t say I much cared for the experience.

This experience of being the alien in the inner city got me to thinking about my otherness in a wider sense. Most of the people I consider friends outside of work are women. Which means my Facebook feed is chock full of posts that celebrate strong women and identify men as the enemy in one way or another. And as the father of daughters, I can’t say I resent the women doing the posting. I get it. But it is difficult to be identified even tacitly as one of the enemy.

I’m a conservative, in the sense that I strongly believe the best government is the least possible, effective government. I would never single out Planned Parenthood for defunding, but it does fall into the category, along with hundreds of other in-some-way-taxpayer-supported organizations that I do not feel lie within the legitimate province of government to fund or regulate.

I think I would choose a single payer approach to health care, but not while Mitch McConnell and his ilk have a say in what that means. And even if we’re successful at the mid-terms, there’s always another Mitch McConnell arising from the ooze.

I’m white, male, non-religious, looking over my shoulder at middle age and generally conservative.

In the eyes of many people whose opinions matter greatly to me, this description makes me one of Them. I don’t blame my friends for this label. They’re mostly just reacting understandably to the upwelling of bigotry in all its forms that brought the current occupant to the White House (when he’s there, that is).

I blame the guys who look like me who created this situation. I am assumed to be a member of the club but it’s not a club I would have voluntarily joined.

I do not like this, Sam I Am. 

My skills...

…do not include web design.

I first learned this sad fact when I took on the chore of designing a family website to which we could post pics and share stories of our adventures during our 2001 trip around the perimeter of the mainland US. We called it the Ball of Twine Tour and it was epic! Somewhat less epic was my attempt at building the website using an application that I was assured any idiot could master.

Apparently, I didn’t qualify as any idiot.

After two months of trying, I gave up and asked Daughter One and her friend – both then twelve years of age – to take a whack at it. They required all of about two hours to complete the task.

Now, I’m engaged in building the website that will supplant this blog and as the good people at the hosting site assure me, do o-o-o-oh, so much more. I’ll be able to post blog entries, share my short fiction, make announcements, stream videos, link to other writers’ sites, the list of functionality I’ll be able to apply goes on and on.

The thing is, now that I’ve paid for the first year and set up my username and such, I have to be able to figure out how to log in and, you know, actually use the functions I’m paying for.

Anyone know a web savvy twelve year old?

Man caves

Can we talk?

I want to start with a question (okay, another question). What the (insert expletive) is a man cave?

Sure, I know it’s a room or outbuilding set aside and fitted out for the sole use of the ‘man of the house.’ There are actually web sites devoted entirely to helping, er, men design their caves. And there has arisen a whole sort of orthodoxy about what goes into a man cave. So, I guess my real question is, why?

There are as many styles of man cave as there are man cave owners but looking at photos of them on the web or perusing the guidance to be found under the guise of ‘104 of the best man cave ideas,’ a definite thematic direction begins to emerge.

The decorating style seems to revolve around sporting events and the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Dark woods and subdued lighting set the tone, while neon and task lighting call attention to the owner’s favorite – you guessed it – beverage or sporting team logo. The more fantastic examples include revolving banks of seating to allow viewing on multiple media screens, or full bars replete with draft brews and back mirrors. Several I’ve come across included single lane bowling alleys.

Cigar smoking seems to be emblematic of man cave culture. As do billiards and car racing themes. Large companies are also well represented, companies like Harley-Davidson, Budweiser and Porsche. Dead animals grace many of the walls, serving as proof of the man in question’s prowess with weapons and passion for violence.

I don’t get the whole idea of man caves but then, I’m not really a man according to generally accepted theories of man caveliness. I don’t watch sports or smoke seegars. I have to admit I don’t really care all that much for many of the leisure pursuits that our society seems to consider manly.

Which is not to say I don’t have my own retreat within our house. Mary and I each have a room we consider our office. Mine is used for my writing and includes my reference books and some favorite other books, the shelves holding some of my favorite keepsakes, that sort of thing. I suppose it’s my cave. If caves have windows to the back yard.

I have nothing against man caves, per se. I guess the thing I don’t get about man caves is that they seem intended to provide a place for a man to escape but from what? His wife? Children? Pets?

I go to my work room to, you know, work. When I want to relax and enjoy life, I want Mary in the room. Even if we don't speak a word, having her in the same room is part of being married, isn't it? A really good part, yes? 

I enjoy just being around Mary. And Mary does not like cigars. 

Gathering tables

Mary and I have begun thinking about retirement. Not that it’s going to happen this year or next but we tend to be planners. Okay, make that dreamers, for those who know us well and have smirks on your faces.

We watch a lot of home shows, particularly those that involve fixing up older properties. We have always been DIY types and as we get older it’s more fun to watch someone else do the heavy lifting.

One of the trends I’ve noticed over the last several years is the practice of ‘antiquing.’ And while that term used to refer to going forth in search of furniture that was actually antique, more and more these days it refers to the practice of taking sandpaper and screwdrivers to perfectly good wooden furniture and cabinetry, roughing edges and creating dings and gouges in the attempt to make the piece appear old and well used.

Which, of course it is not and the fakery is easily discernable to anyone who actually knows anything about woodworking or who simply appreciates old wood furnishings. I admit to being perplexed at this whole idea of ruining perfectly good finishes in an attempt to make the new appear old.

Anyway, all of the above is background to what I really wanted to share.

A book I was reading made reference to a gathering table and it reminded me of a piece I’d seen being built for the client on one of the shows we watch. True to form, the TV woodworker made this gorgeous table of reclaimed (old with gorgeous, widely figured grain) wood, really fine work. And then, at the behest of the designer – the TV host – he applied his tools of destruction to make it appear old and worn.

I just don’t get it and this gathering table is a perfect example of the reasons for my disquiet.

You can google ‘gathering table’ if you like but the first several pages of offerings will simply add to your confusion. You might be led to believe the term embraces a multitude of styles, materials, periods and price points. The offerings you’ll see are either high or low, round or rectangle or square, fancy or plain, ready-made or some-assembly-required. And of course, there’s the question of finish. Fine or fake, smooth or ‘antiqued,’ paint or stain or even (Gawd, I can hardly even type this one without cringing) anodized aluminum.

There are those who will themselves cringe at what I’m about to say – those who believe words carry the evolving meaning of the moment and that I should just get over myself. In the hope that you’ll forgive me, I admit to believing that words and phrases have inherent meaning and even though they change over time through usage they still retain the core elements of that meaning.

A gathering table is what it sounds like. It is a piece of furniture with a flat top around which people gather to do work together. Work such as assembling a communal dinner or sorting things. Or the more usual meaning, that of a table used for gathering signatures in books. They can indeed be quite different in size and shape, material and finish. So for example, a turn of the century (1800s-1900s, that is) farmhouse gathering table would be large and sturdy and working height (counter height rather than desk height in modern terms). A gathering table that served people signing guest books and dropping off gifts for a wedding reception might be lower, smaller, and more finely crafted. Still, they are gathering tables, tables for gathering.

The pieces that I imagine when I use the term may indeed show their age but if so, it’s from long use rather than artificial scoring. The bumps should be from heavy items set down awkwardly, not by application of screwdriver or peen. And the missing finish should convey the story of thousands of touches. Human touches, not sandpaper. I know, I’m an old Fudd and you can almost hear the ‘Harrumph’ following that last sentence. And after all, who anointed me the king of gathering tables?

I suppose I’m on this rant in part because of the penchant these days among politicos and others for egregiously misusing language. Where do we get terms like ‘alternative facts?” And no, this is not aimed at any person or group in particular.  

Emerging meanings and usages should add to the precision and beauty of language, not detract from it.

Antiques are old things, facts are demonstrably true things.

Words have meanings.

Harrumph!

Tall tales

Lots of things I could have been.

When I was a pre-teen and while the other kids on the block were playing baseball, I was dissecting preserved specimens. I guess at that point I might have become a mass murderer but my life has been about nothing if not twists and turns. I just had to know how guts worked and so I had a collection of dead things in formaldehyde on one of the shelves in my room. Thought I’d grow up to be a doctor but it turned out I didn’t have the right kind of studiousness for the formality of a medical education.

Wanted to be a singer at one point and actually thought it might work out but it turns out you have to have the fire in the gut and I was more interested in filling mine with tacos and chocolate. But I performed in a lot of shows and sang in small clubs with my high school buddy and later with my erstwhile girlfriend. She went on to actually make a moderately successful solo CD and sing with John Lee Hooker and I went on to the next thing.

I thought I might be a woodworker at some point, actually had a small business making items for children’s bedrooms. Taught myself how to make dovetailed joints and built a few sticks of furniture. But then being a dad and needing to actually make a living wage sort of put an end to that aspriation. As a job, not as a hobby. I kept on building things but never again as more than a hobby. You can see evidence of my woodworking in our mantelpiece, in our daughters’ ‘big girl beds,’ and a few other items around our house. It was a fun diversion but as it turned out, only a diversion.

I was always interested in accommodating the needs of folks living with disabilities. Don’t know if that came from my mother’s polio or my own early leg deformities or the deaf friend of my early school years. I was just always comfortable around people living with differences and after decades of working small manufacturing startups, I settled comfortably into my current role as an adviser to nonprofits that train and provide jobs for people living with challenges. Love my job and I seem to be decent at it.

Tried taking up this and that over the years. But through it all, I’ve loved making up stories. Yarns. Tall tales. Charming fabrications and outright lies. It seems that no matter what else was going on in my life I’ve never been able to get by without pencil and paper. (Or typewriter or word processor or laptop, as both technology and the tremors in my hands progressed.) Wrote my first full length novel in my mid-twenties. Enjoyed the process of writing, of making up stories. I became an accomplished fictionalizer, much to my chagrin at times when my tall tales were exposed, but that’s another story.

While I could share a number of reasons why I like to make up fictions, I’m not sure I could explain why I need to do so. But I do.

To me, the two most promising and intriguing and exciting words in the English language are ‘what if.’

So, I’m a writer. Not because I’m literary or brilliant or even sharp-witted.

I just like a good story.   And I’m not above making up my own. 

Sad words and phrases

I came across an item in the webisphere today with the morbid title: “10 of the Saddest Words (or Phrases) in the English Language.”

Their list included: back to school, goodbye, heartbroken, if only, might have been, lonely, love (in reference to the unrequited variety, one might assume), melancholy, terminal, and what party?

I’ll admit that some of these words and phrases do seem unalterably sad. Melancholy, for example. Not sure how one might put a positive spin on melancholy. The sheer Eeyoreness of the word condemns it to the realm of the other-than-mirthful.

Other terms from the list require context to frame their claim on misery. Back to school is not always and evermore a sad concept, is it? I said, is it? Might-have-been’s position depends on the nature of the ideas immediately preceding or following – the ‘this’ that might have been.

Anyway, there certainly are sad words and phrases in our lexicon. One of the saddest for me is ‘I wish I’d known.’ While I suppose there are less-sad contexts for it (If I’d known you were coming I’d have baked a cake), in my world this phrase is usually associated with missed chances to do better, be better, find better.

I wish I’d known then what I know now. Fairly mild.

I wish I’d known (s)he liked me. Less mild, heading for melancholy.

I wish I’d known in time to stop him/her.  Ew, let’s not go there.

Sometimes ‘I could have’ or ‘I should have’ are seen as sad. But for me, there’s no phrase quite as damming as ‘I wish I’d known.’ 

Ana Vidovic

Yes, I’ve been listening to music again. (What else do you do for background while you slog through re-writing a book?) And yes, once again I found myself listening to Ana Vidovic, who is hands down the best classical guitarist I can name. Her expression, her phrasing, her mastery of every aspect of her instrument produce a listening experience that is simply glorious.

If you wonder what I’m going on about, please Google her playing Asturias by Isaac Albeniz. The clarity – the cleanliness of each and every individual pick and strum – is truly remarkable.

We could stand to have more people like Ana Vidovic in our world.

I’ve been trying very hard to stifle the temptation to allow the distractions of writing short stories and blog posts while I am on deadline with the book and need to keep shoulder to stone. But really, this guitarist just forced me to pop in here and share.

I readily admit this is a selfish exercise. Between Trump and MS and ailing friends and dogs and looming retirement for which I’m not fully financially prepared, I’ve found a lot to worry about of late. Seems like the world has been turned upside down and I struggle to find examples of good news. I do find them close to home in both my daughters of whom I am justifiably and immeasurably proud. But I sometimes have trouble finding such uplifting examples in the wider world.

Ana Vidovic’s music is such an example.

Seriously, Google this music video. It’s seven minutes out of your life and it’ll make you feel good. 

Perhaps even encouraged. Promise. 

People you see at the DMV

              I finally gave in to the demands of the fascists among us and went in the get my driver’s license ‘enhanced.’ Which entails proving my citizenship by proffering my passport and answering a series of questions that felt distinctly invasive. Ostensibly, this is all for our protection from terrorists. Which of course seems specious when one considers the number of terrorists currently residing in Congress.

              After wending my way through the entrance line and once I had received my ‘number,’ I decided to cease my reflection on the indignity of the situation that brought me there and began watching people. I love people-watching as a recreational activity and as I often do I pulled out my ever-present notebook and started taking notes.

              So, what did I see?

              First, I have to say the Washington Department of Licensing has really improved the customer service experience. While I was there, on a very busy Saturday morning, the system was efficient, the workers competent and friendly. This is NOT my father’s DMV.

              The folks in the long line when the door opened were mostly patient and polite. I say mostly because the guy in front of me clearly thought he’d pulled a fast one when his girlfriend cut the line, although they arrived in separate cars and she showed up some time after he did. What are you going to do?

              The oblivious texter was well represented, including an immaculately coifed and expensively dressed woman who was clearly not impressed with the replies from the person on the other end.

              Children with electronic games added to the background noise. One little boy stomped about, fascinated with the little light that flashed on his sneakers in time with his footfalls. He drew quite an audience.

              Boyfriends and girlfriends – not sure why this would be seen as a dating opportunity. You don’t see older husbands and wives coming together to renew a license. Must be a young thing. And of course, I’m making assumptions as to the relationships involved.

              So many teenagers getting their first licenses, proud and worried and impatient. And several proud younger sibs, “My (brother/sister) is getting a driver’s license today!”

              The guy with the yard-long dreads and multiple piercings. I don’t get it. Don’t mind, really, but don’t get it. In much the same way I don’t get sagging, stretch pants or dressing up like furry animals. And that’s okay – they probably don’t get me, either.

              One guy was online and on his phone, purchasing a used set of wheels while he waited to apply for his driver’s license. Now, that’s confidence!

              If you’ll excuse me a bit of profiling, it seemed to me that the most patient customers were recent immigrants. I guess they’re accustomed to being inconvenienced by bureaucracy. I’m glad to report that they were treated with respect.

              One mother / daughter pair cracked me up, the daughter leaning almost out of her chair every time the lady at the take-your-photo-and-pick-up-your-temp-license window called out a new group of names. The daughter was on toes and chair front for each new list of names, only to sag back deflated upon not hearing her name, making her mom laugh each time this sequence played out. I was sitting next to them and we got to chatting. Turns out they had been watching me watching people and the mother bet the daughter I was a writer of some sort taking notes on the people I watched. Then they mentioned they were listening so intently for the name to be called because they have a French surname - the mother having grown up in the Alps - that is frequently mangled by English-speakers. Just then the daughter's name was finally called and as we wished each other well, I told the Mom to say hello to Jean Claude Killy. Turns out, the mother is Killy’s daughter’s friend. Small world.

              I got a lot of noticing done this morning. The DMV turns out to be a rich well for a writer.

              Who knew? 

Trust

This question: Who do you trust most in this world and why?

Mary. My wife and best friend and life partner.

I suppose this seems a bit too Hallmark for some of you. Fair enough. But it’s true, nevertheless.

She is the one person in this world of whom I can say without reservation that I would trust her with my self-image. Oh, I know the standard measure is a person you would trust with your life but for me, there are too many of those. My siblings, several close friends, my daughters, perhaps a few others.

Self-image is another thing entirely. Wholly personal and closely held.

Although you might not know it from my posts here, I am a very private person. Perhaps to extremes. And I learned early and have confirmed again and again over the years that Mary is the person I can trust with my most private thoughts.

We’ve been married going on thirty years and there has never been a time when I was unsure she had my emotional back. Which is not to say we haven’t had our fair share of brouhahas, we have. But through all of it, the thick and the thin, long and short and in between, Mary has been my go-to person for feeling secure.

She is trustworthy. And that is – has to be – the foundation of a good marriage.

I learned the hard way when and whom to trust. And of course, in meeting Mary I was lucky. 

What do you say?

What do you say to your daughter who has just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis?

‘Everything’s going to be all right?’

Probably not. Because the thing is, it won’t. It will be what it will be.

Over the last few weeks she has dealt with an episode of paralysis, blood tests, scans, pokes and prods and through it all, uncertainty.

And of course, expressions of hope and love from folks who mean well but don’t get it. Because they can’t.

I can’t know what it’s like to be a twenty-seven year old woman absorbing this diagnosis because I’ve never been a twenty-seven year old woman absorbing this diagnosis.

Believe me, being the father of the twenty-seven year old woman sucks enough.

MS is a bully that we can’t have kicked out of school. It is a condition of life that will now become part of my daughter’s normal.

She has us on her side. Mary and me and her sister and a large family. We will never step away from her, never abandon her, will always be with her.

Still, the fight is hers. And for this reason I am thankful today that she is who she is.

Angela will find her new way of being. She will adjust, she will fight, she will persevere.

Because she is Angela. It’s a hard thing but my daughter has dealt with hard things before.

I am, of course, frightened on her behalf.

I’m also proud beyond belief. Because she’s Angela.

What do you say? You say, ‘I love you and I’m here, no matter what.’ 

Organized

My ‘organized’ probably looks different from yours.

Many of the folks in our office keep their desks so neat and tidy I’m tempted to be jealous. Which is not to say my work desk is a pig sty, it’s not. But there are stacks, if you know what I mean.

My writing room at home is an unused bedroom, small by bedroom standards but for a writing room, bordering on palatial. Okay, perhaps palatial is a bit over the top but certainly plenty big for the purpose.

Most of the things I use on a semi-regular basis are within arm’s reach of where I sit and I can grab my Webster’s or Roget’s without turning to look. But that’s not to say the space is all orderly spic ‘n span.

For me, it’s all about comfort, about feeling at ease in the space where I need to be able to let my mind go on flights of fancy without feeling adrift.

The shelving immediately above the desk space is largely taken up with what Two would call my Whimsy Corner. Lots of doodads and keepsakes from times I enjoyed and people I love. Items related to my daughters predominate. A wreath-decorated tin box still holds the index cards that comprised my parents’ Christmas list. A clock shaped like a drum set looks just like the set I played for years.

My guitar sits in a corner and on the wall, the crew photo of USS Columbus from 1947, with my dad grinning out from the back row. As I said, lots of ‘me’ stuff in that room.

I don’t know how many hundreds (thousands?) of hours I’ve spent sitting in that chair, the scene of our backyard beyond the window and all my stuff arrayed around me. I love working here.

It’s a great work space. But organized? Maybe not by your measures. But it works for me. 

Prokofiev

Sick as a dog with a nasty bug and trying to balance getting enough rest with preparing for my next business trip (I fly again tomorrow), here I sit in my writing room answering emails, sorting last week’s ‘go’ materials from those for the coming week, and just generally making sure that my fog brain won’t cause me to leave behind anything I’ll really need.

I love to listen to music while I work, especially on days like today when my concentration is so easily broken. The background music de jour is the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s presentation of Peter and the Wolf with Bramwell Tovey performing double duty as conductor and narrator. He’s fantastic, by the way.

I won’t pretend to be much of a musicologist. In fact, the reason I started listening to Prokofiev is that a flautist upon whom I had a short-lived and utterly unrequited crush in tenth grade expressed her love for his music.  And while I will listen to several of his works today, I readily confess that Peter and the Wolf appeals to me in large part for the same reason it’s so frequently used as the vehicle for bringing your children to concert music – it’s accessible. It tells a story on several levels so it speaks to an assortment of learning styles. And – let’s face it – it’s fun.

The arts – or at least, funding for them – are under attack of late. I won’t get into that except to say I truly hope we prove to have the convictions and the fortitude to continue to encourage future Prokofievs to develop and bring forth their work.

I would hate to try to work on a sick day without a Prokofiev to keep me company. 

Friends

I had a wonderful day today.

Took part in good series of meetings that were collegial and productive. 

Met up with a dear friend and her wife who I’ve not seen together since their wedding. Living where they do (Texas), their freedom just to love each other became a bit less assured of late and it was wonderful for this one evening to see them having a nice dinner with a crowd of people who valued their smiles more highly than their differences.

I sat with another friend who was one of the first people to make me feel welcome in this company and who embodies the best of what we do. She’s one of the people we need in this world.

Okay, I’m coming down with a cold but in the grand scheme of things…yeah, so?

My daughters are fantastic people who belie their upbringing. Or perhaps (I’d like to think) validate it.

And before I hit the sack, I get to say good night and love you to a woman I’m still not convinced I deserve.

I know we’re going through some stuff right now. But I wanted to remind myself and share with you that life isn’t all bad. 

The frog is boiling

The frog is boiling.

We should have known better. Some of us saw parts of it coming but I don’t believe any of us were sufficiently astute and observant to predict the events of this week.

We should have been, but we weren’t.

I’ve known for a long time that – freed of restraints – the ultra-Christian Right would put people like me in camps. The trouble is that they are backed up and given credence by their presumed association with the much more vast population of people who identify as Christians and believe in the teachings of their prophet but can’t see where unexamined sectarian belief inevitably leads.

Them vs us.

I’m not writing to slam Christians. I once thought I was one. And I believe I would have nothing to fear from those who truly embrace the overall intent of the teachings of the Christ.

I also thought I was a Republican and I thought that meant something. I believed (still do, actually) that the best government is the least government. Personally, I would take the funding away from Planned Parenthood and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the welfare state. But not because I think those are bad things (okay, we can talk about the welfare state) but rather, because when you accept funding, you give the federal government a de facto interest in how these programs are run.

I don’t want federal bureaucrats or the likes of Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi to be able to dink around with a women’s health care choices or determine what I can hear on the radio. And it’s through this lens that I view government in general and the federal government in particular.

The framers of the Constitution had a tough nut to crack. They had to provide both the rigidity and the flexibility that would be needed to have this document serve the reasonable best interests of all citizens, but they could only know what they knew in 1787. They couldn’t know how twisted the interpretation of their document would be after two centuries-plus of finagling.

And so, we sat there in the pan of water, comfortably back-stroking. We didn’t notice the water getting warmer. Not when the religionists gradually established belief in their dearly held fairy tales as a prerequisite to holding office. Or when drivers’ licensure was co-opted to create a de facto national ID program.

To be sure, there were times when we stood together to beat back the insidious creep of hate and division. The sixties and seventies saw many citizens standing united to resist the hob-nailed advance of bigotry and Big Brother.

We fought the big fights and meanwhile, the little ones went right past us.

We railed at Nixon but then forgave Clinton for lying famously, egregiously, to the detriment of the country. Watergate was denounced, as it should have been. But not wag the dog.

And the water got warmer.

We cheered W for his bold statements atop a burned out fire engine at Ground Zero, but failed to notice when he and Cheney used the that upwelling of national defensiveness to allow terms like ‘Homeland Security’ to slip unexamined into our lexicon.

And now, a bit warmer and we’re starting to yawn.

We became so accustomed to the various, ridiculous attempts to repeal or defund the ACA that we failed to be frightened or repulsed by the McConnells and Ryans and Cruzs behind the curtain. In fact, we allowed them to take the soap box without recognizing and responding to their insertion of their hateful agenda into our daily lives.

Almost asleep now…

In our collective self-satisfaction at having elected a minority president – twice – and the warm glow of eight years free from scandal and with unprecedented openness we took our eyes off the gathering dark. Some of us felt the bubbles start to form in the water around us but not enough. So we let Bernie pass by and instead nominated a lesser (and yes, fundamentally dishonest) candidate with plenty of handles the haters could grab onto.

And they did. Gleefully.

Recognizing their moment, they turned the heat all the way up and the water, already hovering just under 212, broke into a boil. And it was too late for us amphibians.

It wasn’t just the political landscape or the dampening effect of hijacked religion that got us here. It was those things but so much more. Our culture has changed, sometimes for the better but with progress came challenges that we haven’t recognized, much less worked to resolve.

We assumed because we can each name a black friend and Martin has a holiday that the racists were defeated.

We allowed the indoctrination of our youth into a world of violence and misogyny under the cover of harmless game playing.

We railed at sexual assault but ignored the assumption that women are somehow less qualified.

We fought the ‘great evil’ that knocked down our buildings but ignored the dead child at the tide line.

In so many ways, we chose not to notice the rising temperature until almost too late.

But it’s not. Not too late.

We need to get smart.

We need to look at consequences. And we need to examine the motives and beliefs of the people into whose hands we put the reins of power.

It does no good to rely on the teachings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John if we give power to the cretins who only read Leviticus.  You want to use the Bible as your guide, fine by me, but read the whole thing. Understand the aspiration and not just the anachronistic rules.

We need to read more than headlines, react to more than just the most obvious trespasses.

We have to start paying attention. 

One thing

I wanted to fix it all.

Wanted so badly to roll back the horrible.

Can’t do it. Can you?

Didn’t think so.

I can’t unwind all the malicious, destructive and just plain wrong-headed things happening today, this week, this month.

I just can’t.

And neither can you.

And that’s okay. It’s okay to say can’t. It’s actually sort of liberating. And even necessary.

Important note: I did not say won’t. Said can’t.

You need to say can’t to clear away enough of the haze to see your way to can.

Because – and please believe this - there is a path to can.

It doesn’t wend its way through dozens of issues beyond my control.

The path to can runs straight through clarity and commitment.

One thing.

I can choose one thing

I’ll make it my thing. The one ship I can turn. (Okay, help turn.)

One really important thing. Yes, yes, they’re all really important.

But I’ll choose my one.

And get started.  

Today, I am thankful

As I write this, a new president has just been sworn in. And this presents me with a choice. I can hang my head in mourning or I can thank my lucky stars that I’m alive on such a historic day. I choose the latter.

Because today, they’re all vindicated.

Frederick Douglass when he said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”

Harriet Tubman, “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”

Mahatma Ghandi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Nelson Mandela, “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

Don’t get me wrong. I believe with all my heart that the new president will prove to be an unrepentant despot, that he will continue to reveal himself as a bigoted buffoon, and that at the end of his tenure, we will have taken a huge step backward in so many ways. By the simple act of elevating him, we already have.

I get that. But I choose this morning to concentrate on another threshold crossed, one that I can celebrate.

Today, I thank fate that I was alive to see the Presidency of Barack Obama. This has been an administration opposed at every turn by the haters who drew a line in the sand as he came into office and continued to obstruct right up to the last minute. This man’s right to hold office was challenged solely because of the color of his skin. His ability to exercise his constitutional duties was forestalled by the opposition’s atrocious refusal to even consider his proposals.

And now, the haters will tear down his signal achievement, one that has benefited many millions of our citizens. Make no mistake, they do this not because his plan was flawed. If that were the case, they could just set about fixing it. No, they are tearing it down because mostly, it worked. They cannot have such a glorious achievement stand, associated as it is with our first minority President.  

There’s symbolism in the fact that it began to rain at the Capitol literally as his successor stepped up to speak. But if I’ve learned anything in my years, it’s that eventually, the storm passes and we can begin again.

As horrified as I am by the now-incumbent, as saddened as I am by the willingness of so many of our citizens to either embrace or overlook his shortcomings and his perfidy, as fearful as I am of the things to come, I still can’t help feeling uplifted as I watch President Obama go through the ceremonies of the transfer of power.

Barack Obama, by his intelligence and incredible calm in the face of mindless opposition-for-the-sake-of-opposition, by his grace and courage, by his respect for the people he represented and the absence of even a suggestion of scandal, has vindicated the aspirations of so many generations who demanded their opportunity to contribute. No matter what the haters do going forward, a standard has been defined. It is a standard of competence, of goodwill in the face of viciousness, of perseverance in the face of mindless resistance. It is a standard by which we should measure our leaders from this day forward.

And we got to see it all.

I got to see the Obama years.

And for that, I’m thankful. 

The counter surfer

Zoey the Small and Annoying stole most of the pot roast off the kitchen counter last night and hid in my writing room to consume it.

When I die, and if there is anything to the whole heaven and hell thing, I want credit for not having strangled her.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

I’m home today for Martin Luther King’s birthday and it occurred to me to offer these few thoughts:

It’s not about the man. Although, the man was courageous, thoughtful, brilliant, a consummate strategist, and more.

It’s about legacy. A legacy of works. Get a recording and a transcription of his speech on the National Mall. Listen as you read the words.

It’s about struggle. A struggle that continues and will continue long after everyone reading this missive is dead and gone.

 Ultimately, it’s about us. It’s about who we are and who we hope to be. More important, who we intend to be, who we will work toward being.

You don’t need to become an MLK aficionado to understand the message. You don’t need to read ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ or research his struggle to get then-President Kennedy to do the right thing.

Today is not about strategies or tactics. It’s not even about Martin, really. Or Harriett. Or the West End Computers. Or Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. Or even John Lewis and his opposition to our current Buffoon-elect.

Today is not about individuals or individual efforts. If today is to be meaningful, it should be about us.

Today should be about our aspirations.

Few works in our history have been more about human aspiration than that one speech. So if you want to take a break from political rantings (mine included) and Tweets and hateful jabs and counter-punches, you could do worse than to put ‘I Have a Dream’ into your Google search box.

Or, just go here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Read while you listen to the voice. And remember what it’s like to aspire. 

Pleasures of the harbor (revisited)

(I was going through my blog posts as I try to decide what goes and what stays as I transition to another sharing vehicle (read: writer's website). This is one of my favorite things I've written and in the spirit of stepping away from political nastiness for a moment, I beg your forgiveness for recycling it. It's from June of 2013 and I wouldn't change one jot in terms of my feelings for 'home.')

Mary and I have been working on the yard this weekend. Weeding and leveling in 90 degree heat for Gawd knows what reason. Okay, I do know a reason. We’ve had unseasonably wet weather until just a few days ago so we’re using every non-waterlogged day we can to get the work done.

We were going to put in a new fence on two sides until Odin the Large and Lazy decided our disposable income should be shunted into the doggie surgery account. And the Boston bombers made it necessary for Mary to make an expensive unplanned Mom visit with Two. So now, we’re limiting our landscaping to jobs that cost no money. The trouble is, when you’re talking about landscaping, money and sweat are expended in more or less inverse proportion. Two’ s worth it; jury’s still out on the mutt.

I find manual labor prime time for contemplation and I got to thinking about our house and what it means to us. Just because it’s been our place of residence for twenty years does not make it our home, to my way of thinking. You can build a house but you have to make a home. And a home’s not made of framing and plaster. It’s made of comfort and familiarity and security and love and trust and a whole bunch of other attributes that have nothing to do with construction materials.

Nor is a home necessarily the place where you spend the majority of your time. It is the place to which you will always return, no matter what else changes in your life. When A.E. Housman wrote the words “home is the sailor, home from the sea,” they resonated with folks wherever the words were read. They’ve been repeated and paraphrased in so many ways and by so many writers not because we all go to sea, but rather because coming home is an experience we all know or at least wish we could know. Because while your home and my home might be leagues apart and entirely different in physical ways, home is a concept upon which we can all agree. We don’t all see a windowless cabin or an Italianate manse or a tract or row house or a mud hut. But we do all see ‘home.’ And that word carries more congruence than diversity in terms of the parts of it we care about.

When Phil Ochs wrote “The Pleasures of the Harbor,” it didn’t matter which harbor. It didn’t matter if a particular listener’s home is anywhere near the sea. “The sea bids farewell. She waves in swells and sends them on their way…” The traveler has returned home. It matters not one whit whether there’s a coastline involved. ‘The sea’ is where we go when we’re in and of the world. ‘The harbor’ is home.

Mary and I are downsizing our ‘stuff’ just now (the same stuff of which I’ve written disparagingly in earlier posts) both as a de-cluttering program and also to prepare for the day when home will be differently located. We’ll eventually move to a different house, most likely in a different city or even state. But home will travel with us. It’s a place in one’s soul, not a spot on a map. We will know it as the place to which we and our daughters and others will always return.

Silence is acceptance

I had a brief exchange this morning with a highly valued friend. She shared a view that I know from our conversations and your Facebook posts resonates with several of you – that folks should not be judged by how they voted in the recent election. That people have a variety of reasons for voting for a particular candidate and that it is wrong to categorize them as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ solely on the basis of this one decision.

I understand your point of view, really I do. I’ve even tried to embrace it. But I can’t.

Those who fail to understand history are indeed doomed to repeat it. And we have a history as a civilization of failing to stop despots, to our everlasting shame.

When I was studying ethics in college, one of my philosophy profs used to hit us with the old saw about ‘if you had the opportunity to kill Hitler before 1934, as a moral person should you do it?’  I know this one has become cliché but the thing about clichés is that frequently they become so because they hold an element of truth.

And yes, I know comparisons to Hitler and his minions are considered hyperbolic, so much so that when you make the comparison, folks tend to give you the benefit of doubt by assuming you’re merely exaggerating for the sake of dramatic effect. I get that. And because this is so frequently the case, I will ask you here not to make such an assumption or give me the benefit of a doubt that I promise you should not exist.

I DO believe Donald Trump and 2016 are the moral equivalent of Hitler and 1934. The thing is, I tend to take people at their word until they prove I can’t. And I’ve seen nothing to indicate that Trump was misrepresenting his core values when he invited the Russians to hack the other side, when he offered to pay the legal fees for any of his followers who assaulted protesters, when he spoke of assaulting women, when he said he could commit murder in broad daylight without losing supporters, when he mocked a reporter’s physical challenges, when he lied and lied and lied about every  aspect of his campaign, when he refused to follow the norm of providing his tax returns so voters could understand his allegiances, when he spent years attacking a President on the sole basis of race (and yes, the birther movement was about - and only about - Obama’s skin color and name), when he constantly used propaganda techniques rather than persuasion to keep his name constantly in the news, when he proved his distemper in countless rants on Twitter posts and in incoherent speeches, when he moved to install the worst possible collection of misfits and malefactors as his Cabinet.

As I’ve said before, Trump voters either knew for whom they were voting and didn’t  consider these things to be disqualifying, embracing the worst of the worst, or they voted from a position of ignorance. And if either condition describes you, it is difficult for me to think of you with respect.

This is one of those times. You believe that this is a country that embraces all, or you don’t.

I do NOT suggest that we commit violence against this new Hitler. But we do need to stop him from destroying our country.

And this is one time that silence truly is acceptance.