Friday, January 20, 2017

Carry on, my friends.

Somehow, we need to carry on.  We need to live our lives, show up to our jobs and our friends and loved ones.  Do chores, teach our children right from wrong, and work to care for our little corner of the world.

It feels impossible.  Each day, for months now, a new outrage.  Trump boasting that he grabs women by the pussy.  Mocking a man with a disability.  Planning to take his first weekend in office off.  Loading the government with old white businessmen.  And on and on.  You know all of it.  We sit here and love this country, love what we want it to stand for: the land of the free, the home of the brave.  Lifting our lamp for the oppressed.   And being smacked in the face with the reality that it never really was that.  The dark seed of hatred toward people of color, people with different sexual orientations, people without a penis, has blossomed into a terrible, intolerable fruit.

But we believed.  We believed, as Dr. King said, that “the arc of history bends towards justice.”  We believed that our imperfect government stood for justice.

Now, our government stands for making a small cadre of old white men richer, at the expense of everyone and everything else on the planet.  We’re told by Trump supporters to get over it, to make nice.

And it feels like there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.  We weep, we march, we knit pink hats, we share our outrage on social media, but deep down, I work to stave off a looming sense of dread and helplessness.  I fear that nothing we do will matter.  The train has left the station, with us on it.  We feebly grab at passing branches, knowing they will snap without slowing the train. 

But endings aren’t prophesied.  We think we know how the future will unfold, but we don't.  So let’s write a different one.  Let this be the time where we don’t get outrage fatigue, because the work we do is nourishing and positive, gives us a reason to get up, a reason to feel hopeful.  Let it be the time where finally, we are able look at the small and large injustices and problems in our own communities and the world, and take them on, one at a time, without flinching, without looking away.  Where we believe that love is bigger than hate because we see it every day in our lives.  Where we bring our highest good into the world, right now.  We’ve been training for this.  When we don’t know how to behave, let's imagine how a really strong, kind, principled person would act, and do that.  


Because how we live, how we respond to injustice and hate, is all we have.  We love, we lose, we die – that’s pretty much it.  The only thing we can control is our personal integrity.  We can choose to live in fear, worrying about our eyebrows or perceived slights or whether North Korea will blow us up, or we can be forces for good.  We can live with hope, or we can give up.  We can choose to believe in the basic goodness of humankind, and nurture and delight in our fellow earthlings, or we can put a pillow over our head and wait.  As Clarissa Pinkola Estes said in her beautiful essay, we were made for these times. Let's prove it.





Wednesday, January 18, 2017

It's weird out.

Today is my one day a week working for The Man, so I drove a county truck around in the pouring rain.   I forgot my boots, and the truck had squeaky brakes that didn't seem reliable, but I got to the site and climbed the fence and started walking around.  The weather was so dramatic and blustery that I suddenly felt glad for it.  It was raining hard and I imagined I was in the wizard of oz. Everything looked magical and scary at the same time.

It was a huge site, so I drove to the other end where there was a small, sketchy driving bridge across a stream.  The water was coming up so fast that I got out of the truck and walked to the middle of the bridge to watch it.

I must have looked kind of official, like perhaps I was inspecting the bridge and deciding whether to close it, but in fact, I was just being a tourist.  A lady drove up in a big SUV and rolled down her window and started ranting.  I want to say she looked like a republican, but that would be profiling, so I won't say that.  I will say that she was wearing a giant sign on her head that said, "DON'T TAKE MY GUNS AWAY."  I guess you call her apparatus a hat.  She was probably in her seventies, and except for the weird sign on her head, she was put together with make up and a hairdo and so on.  (Is "hairdo" still in use?  Or did that go out with dippity doo?).

She starts ranting that she can't take any more flooding, and it's the county's fault.  She's pointing her finger at me in that particular way that suggests it's actually MY fault.  I look at her and say, "I'm so very sorry," in my inside voice.  She begins to weep then, and says her garbage can, which is on the far side of the bridge, is tipped over and she can't pick it up, because there's too much water, and she doesn't have boots.  I offer to go turn it upright, because why the hell not?  It's not like I have something better to do.  And it fits in with my whole other thing that I'll get to in a bit if I can focus that long.

And the river is coming up really fast, and now it's over the bridge.  And I look out and there are three dead birds -- two ducks and a goose (hey, that sounds like a children's game!  but it's just an honest to goodness species account.)  They've washed downstream and are now caught on the bridge, and its horrible, like Wah Mee of the avian world.  And I'm not a real medical examiner, but it looks suspicious.

 


And the lady is alternately ranting and weeping.  "We never used to have all these dead ducks!  The ducks used to be alive.  And it didn't used to flood before."  And I just keep standing there, and every so often I say how sorry I am about it all.  She asks me who's ass to kick at the County, and I say I have no idea, but I can turn over your garbage can.  This goes on for a while while the water gets higher and higher.  She tells me she has more garbage in her car that she couldn't put in the can because of (yeah, we're back to the beginning again -- the water, the County, no boots.)  I offer to take her garbage, and she hands me these giant plastic sacks of garbage, and as she drove off, I slogged through the by now nearly six inches of water in my shoes with her garbage, because I, too, forgot my boots.  Thanks Obama.

I think it's weird when an actual lame duck washes up on the almost last day of friendly rule in this land.  I also think it's weird that I carry random lady's garbage through a flood, but that's not the point.

Friday I'll post something with fewer dead animals and more of a point.






Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Dreams for the New Year

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  Do you suppose that dreams try to interpret the humans?  Like, the dreams  hang out together during the day, saying, "wow, I had the weirdest human last night..."  Pisces, don't be that guy.  Be the best human, the ones the dreams long for.  Be the flying, if you know what I mean.

Aries (3/21 - 4/19):  Perhaps I've been thinking about dreams a lot because I sleep so much.  I kind of want a fit bit, not to track the 10,000 steps, but for the sleep thing.  I think we split off from the bears evolutionarily about 125 million years ago, but the deep instinct to hibernate remains in our cellular memory.  Embrace your inner ursine, Aries.  Take a nap!

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  The other thing I've been wondering about is this:  where do dreams go if there aren't enough people sleeping?  Is dream unemployment high when everyone's all crazy, "I only need 3 hours of sleep a night!"  I think about that each morning, because lately, I dream so much.  Every single night, dream dream dream, drea-ea-ea-eam.  (do you have the song solidly  stuck in your head now?  I'm sorry.)  Are the dreams hanging around, waiting for a sleeping human, but, due to some people who aren't pulling their weight, I have to carry the burden of hosting more than my share of dreams?   No one can  call me a slacker, Taurus.  Do your part.  Put your head on a pillow and create a spot for a headless dream.

Gemini (5/21 - 6/21): Someone asked me recently if I had cats.  Of course, as you know, I get asked that a lot, and I'm able to respond, "No, but I have a blog called 'What makes you think I have cats.'"  Which, might make me sound a tiny bit witty, as if I made that up on the spot, but  it's more like a Forrest Gump thing.  At any rate, Gemini, no one has ever answered the question.  Just give it to me straight, Gemini.  Not just a cat, but lots of them? 


Cancer (6/22 – 7/21): I went to the carwash yesterday.  Since I mention it here Every Single Time I go, you know just how dirty my car is.  I discuss it because I love the whole thing so very very much --  the scrub brush, the wand with the different settings, the little cubicle that you work in, and most of all, the special currency.  I know, I've talked about this before, but I still can't get over it.  Special coins for carwashing.  It's so ballsy to do that, as if you're a country.  And I wish there were separate currency for every thing we ever did.  Think of it.  When life gets boring, Cancer, just make it a little tiny bit harder.

Leo (7/23 – 8/22):  It's that time of year, when we gather to write.  Join us, Leo (and others!)  Just a few spots left.  This will be a fun, nourishing way to spend the dark times and feed your creative soul.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22):  I'm sitting in the coffee shop, doing my job (one of my jobs, anyway), which is "stalker researcher".  My duty is to listen to the conversations going on around me, google what is being discussed, and chime in with new information.  First question today:  what are bobtails, and why do they ring?  Virgo, they ring because they're shortened horses tails, and when they pull the sleigh, jingle jingle happens.  

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  The next bit of workload arrived when people started talking about Bruno Bettelheim, and his theories on why children like to hear the same story again and again.  I did my assigned work, and learned that Bruno Bettelheim was a psychotic savant who arrived in the USA a penniless refugee and had no qualifications whatsoever in psychiatry or psychotherapy he was appointed the Director of the University of Chicago’s Orthogenic School for disturbed children.  The most interesting part of the whole thing is that when I shared this with the others at the coffee shop, the woman who initially mentioned Bettelheim was all, "yeah, whatever about the psychotic thing.  Does it explain his theories about reading books over and over?"  Right?  Libra, this is a volunteer job, but if you must pay, you'll need some special tokens.  Your money is no good here.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  Will we ever learn what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke?  I hope so.  But so far, no DNA relatives have turned up.  I guess in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter, but the world is ever-so-slightly better now that we suspect that Amelia Earhart lived on an island for a little while.  Scorp, you don't have to live on an island to make the world better.  Just show up on this island!

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21): I listened to a podcast yesterday about Sarah Sole, who had one romantic/ sexual dream about Hillary Clinton that changed her life.  She spent years painting her and having an imaginary relationship with Hillary, which she says enhanced her life immeasurably, and prepared her for other positive relationships.  Right?  Back to dreaming again, Sag.  Dream big this year!

Capricorn (12/22 - 1/19):  We will shortly have a new president with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.  I know other people with this -- people who cheat on their partners, and lie to their loved ones. The things to remember about the NPD's are: they can't help it, and they will never change.  Protect yourself accordingly.  Here are some tips.  

Aquarius (1/20-2/18):  The San Francisco Night Ministry has been offering compassionate listening in the streets of the Tenderloin for 52 years, every single night, walking around all night, talking the terror away.  Aquarius, be that.  You don't have to be a priest, or even nocturnal.  Just help your people be less afraid.   Here's the thing, Aquarius:  I looked into a dream interpretation class online, because why not?  And there are only about 2 million to choose from.  But I think we could just do that, right?  Here's what your dream means, since you're wondering:  You're going through a transition of sorts.  It may be bold, it may be subtle; that will reveal itself in due time.  And you are afraid of losing control, but also, eager to let go and shed the old you.  The interplay between these forces is what causes you to wake up and jump back into the rat race every damn day.  (Did I get it right?  If so, please send money.)

I'm excited to report that the author Celeste Ng has selected m y modern love essay to read for the Modern Love podcast next week. Suc...