tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41157780812318086972024-03-05T14:56:14.224-08:00A Standing Place for the Feetmiddle-aged womanhood; creativity; education; spirituality; reflections on a well traveled past; personal essays; peace activism; political commentary;Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-63802342745585939152012-08-26T09:22:00.001-07:002012-08-26T09:30:32.626-07:00Women on a Beach<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">WOMEN
ON A BEACH<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRaqcygJbbjqWTEwnJ10Ny09pRju_izsBF-5ZR8dYGmZ2NzgxpPHSzKyR78qIELU3v9rcnQAf4Zx9dUO9dacMZ-3VDn-Fun8S1yYoNe0qqHRtfl7nbjcB4MxYSC5oSkZci3sG1T9LFuKLa/s1600/moon+over+beach+with+rock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRaqcygJbbjqWTEwnJ10Ny09pRju_izsBF-5ZR8dYGmZ2NzgxpPHSzKyR78qIELU3v9rcnQAf4Zx9dUO9dacMZ-3VDn-Fun8S1yYoNe0qqHRtfl7nbjcB4MxYSC5oSkZci3sG1T9LFuKLa/s320/moon+over+beach+with+rock.jpg" title="" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Light
chooses white sails, the bellies of gulls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Far
away in a boat, someone wears a red shirt, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">a
tiny stab in the pale sky. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Your
three bodies form a curving shoreline, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">pink
and brown sweaters, bare legs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">The
beach glows grainy under the sun's copper pressure, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">air
the colour of tangerines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">One
of you is sleeping, the wind's finger <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">on
your cheek like a tendril of hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Night
exhales its long held breath. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">Stars
puncture through. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">At
dusk you are a small soft heap, a kind of moss. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">In
the moonlight, a boulder of women. <span style="mso-tab-count: 3;"> </span>Anne Michaels<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">It’s a small
wish I have - to hold a writers’ retreat at the beach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want us to stay in one of those beachfront
properties with broad balconies decorated with comfortable blue and white
striped cushions on lounge chairs overlooking the Atlantic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want a big house with enough room for
privacy and places to share, a Jacuzzi and a pool would be nice, a large dining
table, intimate corners where small lamps with sea shells carefully glued to
the side of the base glow into the amber sunset.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">I want us to be
able to walk on the firm crust of sand in the first morning light when the sand
looks like stone and crumbles beneath our weight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to look up from a page of just written
words and see the pelicans glide across the ocean’s aura.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reach for an ice chilled club soda with a
slice of lemon sizzling in the bubbles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Breathe in the salty air crashed across the dunes from a million frothy
wave ripples, watch the sea saliva peel from the sand like a thousand slippery
tongues, and find just the right next word on the slipstream of a screeching
gull hawking its belly need.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large;">In the evening I
want to dine at my favorite restaurant, “just hooked,” completing a meal of
encrusted ahi tuna with a fine decadent slice of rich flourless chocolate cake
with sea salt and toasted chopped hazelnuts and served with a scoop of coffee ice
cream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eaten slowly, perhaps shared
because it’s richness is nearly too much for one person to endure in a single
sitting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I want to fall
into a soft large bed with fine cotton sheets to the sound of the sea crooning
to the stars around the moon, spinning a fine tale in the repetition of the drumming
on the shore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to turn over on my
bed, and there on the shore, spot my companions, watching the moon dance across
the ebbing tide creating a boulder of women, dark against the coagulating stone
of sand, cool after the heat of the day, holding onto the warmth of each other.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Photo:</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 32px; line-height: 41px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Full Moon Over Varkala Beach by Nitin Joseph</span></i></span></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-11814558621115491462012-08-16T19:10:00.000-07:002012-08-16T19:12:15.492-07:00A Birthday Blog
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">"If we didn’t have birthdays, you wouldn’t be
you. If you’d never been born, well then what would you do? If you’d never
been born, well then what would you be? You might be a fish! Or a toad in a
tree! You might be a doorknob! Or three baked potatoes! You might be a bag
full of hard green tomatoes."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Or worse than all that…Why, you might be a WASN’T! A
Wasn’t has no fun at all. No, he doesn’t. A Wasn’t just isn’t. He just
isn’t present. But you…You ARE YOU! And, now isn’t that pleasant!"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is
no one alive...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">...who is you-er
than you! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Shout loud, “I
am lucky to be what I am! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Thank
goodness I’m not just a clam or a ham <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Or a dusty old
jar of sour gooseberry jam! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I am what I am!
That’s a great thing to be! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">If I say so
myself, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dr.
Seuss<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Last Saturday
was my birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So was the day
before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not that I was born twice
or any thing esoteric.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was born in New
Zealand on August 11<sup>th</sup>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
August 11<sup>th</sup> on the 10<sup>th</sup> in New Zealand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I celebrate a trans Pacific birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not that I do anything terribly wild or
even wonderful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There comes a point
where birthdays are low-key affairs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, I definitely celebrate myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I’d hate to be “a doorknob” or “a dusty old jar of gooseberry jam” or,
God forbid, a “WASN”T!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">In truth, I use
any excuse in August to celebrate myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I buy myself presents, take myself out to dinner with friends and
sometimes without, get a massage, go to the beach, and am generally very kind
to myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like birthdays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t mind getting older except for the
aches and pains that come creeping in the door and end up staying as permanent
guests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This year I
bought myself a sky blue sun hat and a print of a wonderful painting by Damon
Pla called “Stillness of August.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Stillness is the greatest gift I give myself these days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I allow extra time in bed if that is what my
body asks for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spend time in my
meditation room, candles lit, prayer shawl on, allowing time for my mind to
become still.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It’s a restless
mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It likes to wander to the day’s
activities or tomorrow’s concerns or yesterday’s fears but generally after a
time, it will come to a point of brief rest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In those brief moments of rest I am aware of an immense gratitude for
all the small things that make up my life, a small but comfortable home, my
tiny abundant garden, the welcome of friends, the health of my children, this
cracked body laptop, the stack of unread books, the job about which I complain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t imagine my life without gratitude but
I know there was a time when it eluded me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I can’t imagine my life without birthdays either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">I’m a bit of a
news junkie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yesterday as I tuned in to
my favorite morning news show I was dismayed to see that Mitt Romney had
selected Paul Ryan as his running mate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It told me even more bad news about Mitt Romney and the Republican
party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t watch the speeches and
back slapping or endure the layers of propaganda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to turn it all off and take myself to
place of stillness and quiet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">A friend and
former colleague of mine who is a member of the LDS church told me that they
don’t celebrate birthdays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, there was
no cake for her on her birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
seemed a very sad omission from religious life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Apparently, not all Mormons adhere to the omission of birthday
celebrations; there are conflicting reports of how these celebrations happen if
and when they occur.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps Mr. Romney does not celebrate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps that’s why he seems such a “wasn’t,”
a person who is not really here, present to his own life and the lives of
others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel as if I were to get close
enough to him to tap on his arm or torso, there would be a sort of hollow echo
instead of the pulse of a heart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">For my part,
cake is a must whether it is a reflection of the old Pagan ritual of honoring
the moon or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I prefer chocolate
cake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In deference to my increasing
cholesterol numbers, I bought a $3.25 “designer” chocolate raspberry
cupcake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I ate half on each of my
birthdays.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-24673437391743682732012-03-31T08:19:00.007-07:002012-03-31T18:30:16.946-07:00Start the Revolution<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfcQ4U96c0Efu7BGDgFGdLNJKc8qmHElJkpwf0tvnWhbOEpVyRbpodGRPvcJYta2c6J5tK7XzraeRQd8JdBJu1BWllvn_CKN4vhxCZa1pIfZv32eaUNJZyWMntKDNM7xjVm3ujZuJjEPM1/s1600/hearing+on+contraception-1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyPVe1s8rG7Gu8xGXYaZeI9sANh86v0kmL4cHKcobYXbVkSTbtMuBSgQrfa8_ZangrvrGbcrom6rqjJfDAog-Bf30i5nfPzcSRDeKlVYMHLIdexGH4i8JEGcCVPfJfAUTtLrd2iu2oCc3V/s1600/suffragettes_new_york_times_1921-500.jpg" id="il_fi" height="300" width="399" style="border-top-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-color: initial; padding-top: 8px; padding-right: 8px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 8px; " /></span></a><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 1px; "><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">Many times I have wondered what it would take to spark a revolution in America. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have lived in countries where a revolution has taken place and it has not been a positive movement.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I’m talking about places like Iran where a relatively secular society turned almost overnight into a puritanical theocracy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was most visible among the women.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Overnight the women with whom I worked went from strong, well educated, and fashionably dressed to scared, barely visible beings in black chadors.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fortunately they were still strong and well educated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was just a lot more difficult to discern these character traits under their black cloaks of oppression.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">What is it I wonder about religious men that compels them to target people they perceive as easy victims for their thinly veiled hostility?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps it is their equally thinly veiled insecurities.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What is it that compels women to acquiesce to and embrace ideologies that commit such violence to mind, body and spirit?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps it is fear?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps it is ignorance?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps it is an alignment with the perception of power?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">Egos that perceive a need of defense will often point an accusatory finger at a nearby, often innocent, victim.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We have all witnessed it happening among our children travelling in the back seat of a car on a long journey.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that is about where this level of ego defense belongs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It’s an immature attempt to deflect criticism for a real wrongdoing of which the accuser is usually guilty.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Cambria;">There seem to be a number of religious men with sensitive egos riding the campaign trail these days.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In recent weeks we have seen an explosion of vitriol spill all over women in a way that has not been seen since the days of the suffragettes, and for Americans that is about a hundred years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe there is a collective unconscious remembering among masculine archetypes of that particularly embarrassing wrong and its attendant violence on women that is rearing its head, looking for light and understanding once more.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But then, that may be way too sophisticated a supposition for what appears to be profoundly petty, immature, puerile behavior among men with no less of a potential for violence toward women.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-family:Cambria;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">It is a stunning shock to women to see that there are still men, apparently quite a large number of men, religious men, and women, religious women, who cling to the belief that they have the right to tell women what can and cannot be done with or to their bodies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And not an embarrassed face was seen among the recently convened panel of men, religious men, to discuss the right of women to access birth control.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They all looked suitably self-righteous.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">Rick Santorum on the other hand, once he gets started on the issues that even hint at women’s rights, can wax forth with volumes of lies stoked with his righteous, histrionic, indignation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Not only is he an embarrassment to the system of education that produced his lack of serious critical thought, he has become an international embarrassment to the country he professes to love and is attempting to lead.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>His most recent long litany of lies about the Netherlands and policies he claims begin with women having the right to contraception and abortion should be an automatic disqualifier for the Presidency of the United States of America.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes;font-size:130%;">What these religious men and women do not disclose in their verbosity is that the religious institutions whose right to refuse women reproductive health care that conflicts with their beliefs are supported more by government funds than church funds. That is, we who pay taxes are subsidizing not only the care that is provided but the religious cloak over the care that is not. Perhaps it is is time to demand that we the people receive all the benefits from our subsidies to religiously affiliated health care providers. Or, we could just demand that those subsidies be removed then those institutions will truly have the right to proceed as they wish within the confines of current laws.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;"><span style="mso-spacerun:yes;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">As a woman who lived through the revolution of 1978<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and ’79 in Iran, I can attest to the fact that I did not believe for a second<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>that America would let Iran fall into a puritanical theocracy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>History proved me and thousands of other ex-patriots living in Iran completely wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In disbelief and shock we straggled to our various home countries with little more than could fit into two suitcases. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">It is with the same level of disbelief that I listen to the current GOP candidates, to so called leaders such as Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia, to legislatures across the country and try to reassure myself that Americans<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>would not let America slip into a puritanical theocracy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But the reality is that it is happening, America is returning to its roots; roots that have always been present in their religiosity and violence toward women.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">Over the past decade laws have been passed in eight states that have restricted a woman’s right to access abortion services.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At the same time these laws also restrict a woman’s ability to access the kind of health care that she needs in order to maintain her reproductive health and ultimately to care for herself and her family in a way that ensures personal, family, and community well-being.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;">From the back seat of the car we are hearing these puerile voices demanding attention in the name of a god, which if his followers bear witness, is getting more petty by the day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps we women drivers need to stop the car and start the revolution. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps we are the ones who need to channel the spirit of those not so long ago suffragettes and take to the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I have a feeling that there are many men, men whose egos are not quite so sensitive or immature, who would join us.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;font-size:130%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Cambria;"><span style="font-size:130%;">For my part I am putting aside the yoghurt tops in the plastic container in my pantry.<span> </span>I won’t be signing up for any more Susan B. Komen walks.<span> </span>It’s not that I don’t want a cure for breast cancer.<span> </span>I do.<span> </span>But I will not compromise the health of women now or in the future by any longer supporting an organization that has the ideology of oppression in its closet.<span> </span>What I will do, as many have already done, is send a check to Planned Parenthood.<span> </span>It will be accompanied by a note requesting that my donation be specifically used to help a woman who cannot afford to do so, pay for an abortion.</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-69370479950570672292011-05-18T17:04:00.001-07:002012-03-31T18:33:08.142-07:00On My Dime<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I’</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">ve long been a news junkie. I have lived in places where it was a matter of life and death to have access to credible news sources. These days my less adventurous life allows for less hypervigilence. My main sources of news are NPR, truthout.org, NY times and Jon Stewart – not necessarily in that order when it comes to integrity or credibility. I listen to NPR when in my car. I can’t access it from inside my home with any clarity. The other day I heard a tidbit that piqued my interest; apparently the IRS, not known for its innovative thinking, is considering the provision of a receipt for taxes paid. The belief behind the idea is that Americans need to feel a sense of patriotism and citizenship when they pay their taxes and a receipt would go a long way towards showing individuals how much money they have contributed to various government functions by paying their taxes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Sounds like a plan, possibly even a good plan, as long as they actually print receipts that show the truth. I suspect there would be a surge in anti-war sentiment if we actually knew, with accuracy, how much of our tax dollars go to conducting our multiple wars. There might even be a bit of a peak in the desire for a reduction in Pentagon spending – after all how many more obsolete weapons do we need to manufacture considering that we currently have the world’s third largest airforce parked near Tuscon, Arizona, each plane carrying a multi-million dollar price tag while it earns a few dollars as a tourist attraction (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i9wQGidG2M). Perhaps we might also experience a little embarrassment, even shame, when we see how small the percentage of our tax dollars go to provide international aid -less than 1% of GDP. You would think the Christian right who like to tout the moral and fiscal value of tithing at a rate of 10% would be outraged by our collective miserliness in this respect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Perhaps we might get to learn the multiple places and services where our government sends financial support. Personally I would like to see an end to corporate welfare. I don’t know how much of my money goes to places like Exxon and Shell and even British Petroleum – how do they qualify for my tax dollars? Bernie Sanders has done us a great favor by publishing the list of the top ten corporate Welfare Queens. And none of them are driving up to the supermarket in cadillacs – they are sending their personal shoppers to Washington to bring home the cash.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Is there anywhere I am willing to send my money? Of course there are a myriad of places.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Recently I had the privilege of applying for my first American passport. After living here for almost 20 years, the 2008 elections inspired me to go forward with my application for citizenship. I knew it was time to vote. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The process of passport application has changed somewhat since I stepped my American children through the process. I guess they want to make it appear that the process can weed out the nefarious types who might have the audacity to apply for an American passport. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Once the photo, my original citizenship certificate, the application, and the check for $110 was placed carefully into the packet by the Post Office employee all I had to do was wait. The $25 check I had to write for the Post Office seemed like a small price to pay to get the passport and my original certificate returned. Presumably it also paid the young woman who was filling in for the usual passport person. She had to field five phone calls to deal with hostile inquiries while I sat in her office completing paper work and ultimately swearing that what I said was true and I truly qualified for an American passport. Would that it would be so easy for our President to put to rest the persistent birther bovine scatology.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Life has a way of flipping over on itself sometimes bringing us into places we may have witnessed but not experienced first hand. When that happens we hope that those who have walked paths of treachery or despair have done so with dignity leaving us a trail to follow. Within a week my sister in New Zealand suffered two strokes followed by complications that left doctors few options but to wait. I was stunned that my younger sister with whom I had just planned a summer vacation was now unable to communicate and in a very serious and unpredictable condition.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There are many things that must be tended to before taking off for a long vacation, especially if you plan to leave in a hurry. A new suitcase was purchased, the winter clothes were laundered and stacked in piles ready to go into the new suitcase, the neighbors were informed, the process for shutting off the water and securing my little townhouse was discussed, rides to and from the airport were arranged, care for the yard and my plants negotiated, mail hold at the post office put off until the last minute. The greatest concern was my passport. It was not due back for another four to six weeks. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The young woman at the Post Office had highlighted a number to call for any emergencies or just to track the passage of my passport. Much to my surprise I could call any time between 8:00am and 10:00pm. Imagine that, a government office open until 10:00pm. About eight o’clock one Wednesday evening I called the number. After determining that I wanted the English option I got to speak to Roberta right away. I explained to Roberta that I needed to expedite my passport. She checked and was able to tell me it was being processed in Chicago, another surprise. She then carefully and succinctly explained my options. If it was possible to expedite, they may be able to get it to me within two to three weeks. If it was a life and death matter and I had a flight arranged within the next 48 hours, they would get it to me. There would be a charge. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I was not concerned about the charge. I didn’t have a flight arranged until June but thought my passport would be the first thing to arrange. I then explained to her my situation. She listened attentively, expressed her concern and then asked me to pick a date by which I wanted my passport. I dithered. She gently made it clear that she couldn’t pick the date for me; I had to pick. So I chose a date that fell just after the Easter holiday and within that 2-3 week period. She summarized everything for me, expressed again how sorry she was that my sister was ill and I reciprocated by saying how pleased I was that this could be done and so late in the evening. She chuckled a little and said that I had picked the right evening to call.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">On Friday morning I received a phone call from an unknown number. I was keeping my phone in my pocket and switched on. I was talking with my principal at the time of the call. As soon as we finished speaking I listened to the message. It was a very clear message from a young man in the Chicago passport office telling me that my passport application had been approved and expedited and my credit card charged. He informed me that the passport would be sent out in that day’s mail, express mail. It was less than 36 hours since I had talked to Roberta. I was impressed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I suspect that the receipt from the IRS will contain a “miscellaneous” category. In it will probably be lumped all the places that receive less than one percent of our tax dollars, places like National Public Radio, the Environmental Protection Agency, International Aid, Research and Development (most of the money goes to military R&D), the Department of Energy, the Small Business Administration, the National Endowment for the Arts – all these areas currently being slated for huge cuts in their already meager budgets. I’m sure that the department that issues passports will not even feature on the receipt. But, as far as I’m concerned, that is one government department where they do deserve a raise, and they are welcome to it on my dime. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-56290526115387875922011-04-03T09:16:00.000-07:002012-03-31T18:34:17.175-07:00Images of Libya<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I don’t want to go to Libya.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> It's 1979 and we are still recovering from the evacuation of Iran in the midst of the revolution. </span>My first stony act of rebellion takes place 20,000 feet in the air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The entry form for admission to Libya is a full page long and we are expected to fill in every gap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Beside <i>Religion</i><span style="font-style:normal"> I carefully write “Agnostic.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My husband of slightly more than a year pitches a fit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was the one who pushed to go to Libya.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“It’s filled in with something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s all they want.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Turns out I’m right.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The airport is a low white building, almost empty except for a few baggage handlers and the occasional man in Arab garb and sunglasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We have to identify our bags before they are taken from the runway to the building.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is a routine, one of the few I will ever appreciate in Libya that we will get used to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It becomes somehow reassuring to place my hand on my bag on the runway before it is loaded onto the plane; it is more reassuring to watch my fellow travelers do the same.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The hotel is a throwback to one of the more recent periods of colonialism in Libya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is a mix of Italian design and British proclivity to pretension while in lands that have a better climate and belong to people other than the British.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It suffers from benign neglect and old age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The balcony overlooking the Mediterranean is the size of a large ballroom.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We are not allowed to use it while Billy Carter and his henchmen are guests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They have arrived as guests of Ghaddafi for the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the revolution. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There will be fireworks.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are always fireworks, haphazard displays of the supposed bright lights of freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There’s a display for the kicking out of the Italians, the British, and the arrival of the revolution courtesy of Muammar Ghaddafi and members of the military he apparently coerced into deposing the elderly and western friendly King Idris.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of the displays will coincide with our wedding anniversary.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We will take ourselves up to the roof of the apartment building where the crosshatching of rope clotheslines serves to dry both laundry and sheep intestines.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Young thugs sit on every street corner, revolutionary youth in American style garb and mirror sunglasses.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They apparently also have access to western style porn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Their English is limited to short sentences with permutations of the words “fuck” and “whore.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I learn to keep my shopping forays to well populated streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It doesn’t do me any good in the end.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The building is on Abdul Nasser Boulevard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The street is a wide well made sweep that brushes past the Mediterranean for the full length of the city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are strangely placed and unnecessary overpasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ghaddafi’s attempt to have Benghazi look more city-like.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The overpasses act like speed ramps for the impulsive and inexperienced Libyan drivers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Their accidents create a panoply of the impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One car is impaled from stem to stern by the guardrail on one overpass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The car sits swaying like a weathervane on top of the overpass, the guardrail protruding from its rear in a twisted tale of speed.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The apartment is on the sixth floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is no elevator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The head of a department at the university lives across the hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One evening he comes to the door in his striped nightgown and Willy Winkie nightcap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I never meet the couple who live at the end of the hall but I know they lose a child to miscarriage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A candle burns outside their door.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A bowl of salt sits beside the candle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Inside the apartment a small entry room leads to a hallway and the kitchen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On the left is a room we use as a dining room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The kitchen is minute; I can touch both walls standing with arms outstretched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is no counter space, just a sink with a space for dishes and a cupboard under the window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The window overlooks the back of the building and a narrow balcony.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We sit out there most evenings as it begins to cool.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We watch the rats, as big as cats, wander among the rubble and rubbish at the back of the building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They have no fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are rumors of the plague in eastern towns near Tobruk.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We sleep in the back room that has only one small high window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is cooler in the dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The two fans whirr us through the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One night we are awakened by the sound of water.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We awake to the sight of small waves rippling down the hallway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The overflow pipe of the water cistern for the building is sending a torrent of water splashing onto our tiny balcony, rippling under the door into the entrance room and down the hall towards the bathroom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The torn rag that was once used as a plug for the pipe has jettisoned into the rat’s nest below.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I teach at the British School.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was once the British School for British Petroleum employees’ children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The school consists of three older villas side by side at the dusty end of an unpaved street on the outskirts of town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The villas are the same dun color as the dust that surrounds them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I teach the second year kindergarten students.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By the time they have been through their first year with Sylvia they are wonderful readers and have learned how to sit quietly on hot days.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sylvia is the quintessential English school marm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She wears a long-sleeved dress and pantyhose every day no matter how hot the day.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She remains cool and calm under every trying circumstance and simply continues with her focused pursuit of educating the young.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She teaches every one who is willing how to play the recorder in all its variations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At the end of each year her students give a concert that is stunning in the level they have attained, a musical miracle in the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She teaches them how to cross stitch bright colors on rectangles of burlap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They take their projects home to their grateful parents.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Mo brings me a runner and matching rectangular doilies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are beautifully cross-stitched in shades of violet and beige and yellow onto a soft aida cloth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The back is lined with a silky smooth polyester attached with meticulous neatness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The set was made by an eight-year-old Palestinian orphan in the tradition of the crafts he brought with him from the place he once called home. There are many orphans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are many Palestinian refugees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mo has them in his classes at Garyounis University.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Young girls eager for an education, desperate to be heard, longing for a place to call home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They have no home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are captive in Libya; their travel documents removed from them as soon as they arrive, their men forced to become revolutionaries or part of the forces Ghaddafi sends to places like Chad or Uganda or they disappear into the camps in the dessert; camps for terrorists in the making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>American and Israeli mercenaries train those who arrive at the camps.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is not a rumor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ultimately they are all doomed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To the Palestinian students, Mo is America and freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Little do they know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They write heart-wrenching poetry of their plight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Their words drop into the dust at the edge of the University.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are rumors that students, not considered revolutionary enough, have their throats slit before the student body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The sleek black limousine brushes past us on the way out of the university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ghaddafi on his way back to Tripoli.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Carefully selected members of the unrevolutionary populace are left kicking their last breath in the public squares.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are rumors that soldiers captured in Uganda are defaced, literally; their noses, ears and lips removed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Their deepest wound is shame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are not seen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Families of the fallen are sent a bag of rice and a sheep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No telegram.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Food becomes more and more scarce.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is being sent to the forces in Chad and Uganda.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ships languish at sea waiting to unload their cargoes, food rots in containers at the port, store shelves empty even of the ever-present olives and tuna.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is a near riot over tomatoes at the central market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The souk, centuries old, is closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A forlorn woman stands outside one of the shuttered stalls, holding out her wedding silver to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She looks ancient; life in Libya is harsh for its women.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">My favorite chicken store in the main square just closes down overnight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I still owe him $1.40.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t have the correct change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He gave me what I wanted and trusted I would return tomorrow with the money.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>There was no tomorrow for him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The shoe store across the square is still open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He no longer offers shoes for me to take home for my husband to try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are rumors that children are turning in parents and family members for not being revolutionary enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are reports of crime, unheard of break-ins and theft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Trust begins to slowly leak into the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A way of life begins to disappear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There are demonstrations of a sort in the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A television camera in the back of a flat bed truck slowly sweeps over the faces of the small crowd of paid revolutionaries who shake their fists and shout slogans to demonstrate their belief in the revolution in general and Ghaddafi in particular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are plenty of unemployed survivors who have pushed a barrel of water across the dessert to reach Libya in the hope of work and a better way of life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Shouting their pretended allegiance to Ghaddafi is an easy way to make a living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The odd procession makes its way up Abdul Nasser Boulevard.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The majority of the people on the streets barely glance at the strange display.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They will get to watch the carefully edited version on television. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Villas are taken over by the military.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Foreigners are sent to Bennina, a compound built for the military.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Bennina becomes a United Nations of Russians, Italians, Czechs, Scots, English, and a hodge –podge of the world’s travelers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Reagan, ignorant of all that happens in Libya, will bomb Bennina.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By some miracle it does not kill foreign nationals nor start a war.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Each New Year’s eve we go into the dessert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We travel south to Ajdhabiya then at Brega we make a left turn into the Sahara.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Brega is just a small oasis in the middle of nowhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There are date palms, surprisingly short and stumpy but heavy with dates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The dates are harvested, pitted and compressed into sacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Chunks are cut from the solid mass of nutrition that has sustained the dessert tribes for centuries.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We pass duck rock, a massive outcrop of mica shaped like a duck that forms one of the gatekeepers to the Sahara.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>We pass mountainous dunes and camp under the heavy stars beside the remains of a WWII tank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Its turret and muzzle are slanted toward the stars as it makes its creeping descent into the sands of the Sahara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In Benghazi the war cemetery holds the young remains of the soldiers who died here, in the dessert, in the dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A long empty opened can of army rations lies perfectly preserved beside the dying tank. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The dessert holds and preserves that which it destroys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I find a perfect sand dollar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s young, probably from the Jurassic period, a mere 300 million years old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On one occasion we stumble across a wadi completely filled with brilliant color, flowers on flowers, on flowers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Wild flowers sprung suddenly from the open empty wadi, from seeds long dormant, long waiting for the rain that had finally released them into a brief and beautiful life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ghaddafi spends enormous amounts of money trying to reclaim the Sahara.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The dessert is more than equal to the task of accepting his largesse and good intentions and sucking them all dry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mostly he spends money on weaponry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Franco tells the story of the five fighter planes brought in from Italy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On a demonstration flight the lead plane experiences some difficulty and smoke begins to pour from the engine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The lead pilot ejects to safety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The four pilots following him mimic his example and the dessert claims all five fighter planes.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Each New Year brings another repression of the Jamahiriya, the people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ghaddafi devalues the currency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The people swarm the banks as their life savings disappear overnight.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Surely there will be a counter revolution!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But no, the people accept whatever new scheme Ghaddafi dreams up to press them to the edge of their ability to survive, and then appears to give them some small reprieve, some gift from his fatherly benefice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And they are grateful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If they are not, they lose their homes, their stores, and sometimes their ability to walk.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I participate in ballet lessons lead by a waif like creature from Romania.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We waltz to Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty in the “theater” villa of the British school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I take over teaching an aerobics class from Cici, the Italian physical therapist after she and her husband leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On Thursdays I participate in a yoga class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most other days I play tennis under the hot sun and stares of some of the Libyan men who dare to be so flagrant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One masturbates up against the fence around the tennis courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He follows us home, assuming that his display is as perfectly acceptable as our display of legs and arms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We visit the ancient remains at Cyrene and the port at Apollonia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is one lone archaeologist working under constant threat of dismissal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The remains are astonishing in their breadth and degree of preservation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Even the paintings have been preserved in the almost complete dwellings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Everywhere we look there is another mound of discovery of our collective history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I slip between the cracks in a rock and find myself in the baths of Diane, perfectly preserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I sit in the hollowed rock and feel the centuries wash down the water troughs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Greek, Roman and Byzantine civilizations flourished here, their amphoras of olive oil still sit in the bays at the port, their temples still stand, the doors to their homes forever opened.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is an influx of Korean workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are constructing high-rise buildings near the tennis courts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe it will be a hospital.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Benghazi’s medical services are primitive at best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tall, slender men and women from Cameroon or maybe Chad argue with the manager of the “peoples” store that is now on the ground floor of our building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I am sure the argument is about money, about something owed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The women are extraordinary creatures, tall and graceful they float along the jagged pavements of Benghazi wrapped in the beautiful colors of the cloth from their home country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They have crossed the dessert to be here.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Western ex-patriots begin to leave in droves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Life is becoming more and more difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Reagan orders all Americans to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>On summer vacation we talk with the person in charge of the Libyan desk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He admits that he had to look Libya up on a map when he got the job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He has no idea what is happening in Libya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He doesn’t seem very interested in learning about Libya.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We return for another year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another year of picking our way across the beach trying to avoid the clumps of oil, another year of scouring the stores for something to eat, another year of enduring the hot red dust of the gibli’s as they sweep up from the dessert, another year of watching and waiting for the counter revolution that never comes, another year of dodging the traffic on Abdul Nasser Boulevard, another year of brewing our own beer and wine, another year of increasing hostility on the streets of Benghazi from the revolutionary thugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, in our building, Mo’s Libyan colleagues are grateful we have returned, appreciative that we have stayed despite Reagan’s orders, kind to us in ways that only those who know how to survive the dessert are kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the end we are paid well for our three years of service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The bonus for our endurance is more than the jihad tax we have had to pay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There is almost nothing of Libya we take with us. There is nothing Libyan left to buy. A silver wedding bracelet Mo bought for me in the souk before it closed, the runner and placemats from the Palestinian orphan, some photos, and these images of Libya.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-1605643202417703402011-02-06T10:58:00.001-08:002011-02-06T11:10:51.235-08:00Magical Thinking<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRJHPkHcIoQli4WoZuzCiHFb2dWfFk9y65bKFT_yxINv-1MOXCOmhmf9vmEYFV-aS0qn0YzKua3xixZa4_AGqRyAENETpgVviDrAkxt0vTyzgvaDvU4YCfPjIF0FD_UuDj_pFLenAxZexg/s1600/orang-1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRJHPkHcIoQli4WoZuzCiHFb2dWfFk9y65bKFT_yxINv-1MOXCOmhmf9vmEYFV-aS0qn0YzKua3xixZa4_AGqRyAENETpgVviDrAkxt0vTyzgvaDvU4YCfPjIF0FD_UuDj_pFLenAxZexg/s320/orang-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5570653775961957970" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:TrebuchetMS;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:TrebuchetMS;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:TrebuchetMS;">"</span><span style="font-family:TrebuchetMS-Italic;"><i>We are shaped by each other. We adjust not to the reality of a world, but to the reality of other thinkers.</i></span><span style="font-family:TrebuchetMS;">" </span><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:-.25in;line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .5in;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="mso-font-width:93%;font-family:Georgia;">—<span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""> </span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/30099.Joseph_Chilton_Pearce"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonefont-family:Arial;color:windowtext;">Joseph Chilton Pearce</span></a></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"> author of</span><span style="Arial Black"font-family:";"> </span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><i>The Magical Child<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;"><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Many years ago when my children were still very young I took them to the Catactin zoo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was relatively nearby and although small as zoos go, I thought it would be an excellent day trip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">We learned the difference between crocodiles and alligators – it’s all in the teeth – and inspected the reptile and spider collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The high point of the day came as we watched an orangutan sitting in a tree on a small island in the middle of a man made lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The orangutan watched us back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One of my children commented on how human it looked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The educator in me saw the teachable moment and I gave a brief lesson on evolution pointing out that we as humans did in fact descend from orangutan like animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">My children, ages six and four at the time, watched the orangutan swing through the trees, fascinated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They were reluctant to leave.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>My son began to be more than reluctant and pitched a full-scale temper tantrum, an unusual event for him.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He was a very curious four year old with a wild enthusiasm for other creatures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">When our neighbors captured a chipmunk in a humane trap so they could take it far away into a field where it could dig all the holes it wanted, he begged me<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Can we keep it mom, can we, can we?”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">He had to learn the sad but humane lesson that some animals are meant to be free.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The orangutan did not look happy swinging around in its tree on the island in the middle of the lake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It looked even less happy as it sat still and alone and quiet watching my son pitch a fit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Finally, like a typical exasperated parent, I demanded to know why he didn’t want leave.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“I want to watch him turn into a human.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Lesson learned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Four year olds operate on magical thinking; it’s what helps them survive our often miserable attempts at parenting.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They create a world from their observations and experiences that is both hedonistic and pragmatic to them and frequently bewildering to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">I had to explain that the change occurred over many thousands and millions of years, a time completely inconceivable to my four year old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I had to explain that it happened at a time when the change was needed in order for survival and that it wasn’t going to happen again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This orangutan was going to stay an orangutan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He watched and waited a little longer and then reluctantly took my hand as we went in search of the zebras.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He trusted part two of my lesson on evolution but just to be sure, he kept checking over his shoulder.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">My son continues to be one of the only 16% of Americans who believe that the process of evolution is historical, provable, fact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now in his mid twenties, he does, like most of us, indulge in magical thinking from time to time but he has an understanding of events that occur over long periods of time and an appreciation and acceptance of the role of science in establishing fact from fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He still has a lively curiosity but somehow the disappointments of the world have curtailed his wild enthusiasm and warped it into a cynicism too deep for his youth.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Like me, he is challenged by the thinking processes, or lack thereof, of religious zealots and those who insist, or are not convinced of, the reality of the process of evolution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What is the obstacle for 84% of the American public to acceptance of evolution?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This lack of acceptance is the highest in so-called developed nations.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This happens in a country where our president insists the best institutes of higher education exist and thrive.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>An assertion I would certainly question.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">My friend, Harriet, wonders if evolution is taken as a personal insult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In a country where the populace has to loudly reassure itself on a regular basis that it is “Number One” at just about everything and certainly anything that is considered important, the fragility of American self confidence could easily be shaken by an assumed relationship, even kinship, with primates in general and monkeys<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>- also in general.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But wouldn’t that assumed close kinship require some magical thinking?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The kind of thinking that a four year old might indulge in when presented with an abstract process such as evolution before his brain is capable of processing such an idea?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Perhaps it is a function of the religiosity of American life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>America is at its heart is a very parochial collection of church going communities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In order to belong, attendance at and membership within a church community is almost a necessity. There are many within big city environments who do not act in the same way on the need to belong and there are small groups of us out in the American heartland who simply refuse to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We stumble into each other, perhaps drawn together by a different set of beliefs and the same need to belong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In order to belong to most church communities, the prevailing belief is that creationism, not evolution, is responsible for our human presence on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Again, perhaps this relationship to monkeys is just too primitive for our germophobic natures and presumptions of cultural superiority to accept.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">But don’t most religious beliefs, particularly but not exclusively, of the Judeo-Christian heritage require a hearty measure of magical thinking?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Burning bushes, parting of the seas, virgin births, walking on water, resurrection after death all require some suspension of critical analysis at least not mention a good measure of magical thinking in order to accept.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The kind of thinking a four year old might use to construct a paradigm of meaning around to incorporate new and possibly conflicting information into his belief system?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Maybe it is the education system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe the means by which we attempt to instruct our children in the scientific method are insufficient.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Maybe the usual 12 years in institutes of learning is not enough to equip our children and youth with processes of critical thinking so they are able and willing to question beliefs that do not meet criteria of evidence and proof. *<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">The problem with questioning widely held beliefs is that it renders the questioner open to personal criticism even exile in communities where there is a lack of maturity of communication. We fear reprisal, we fear being cast out of communities to which we want to belong, and so we remain silent and acquiesce to the steady drumbeat of ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sadly in America we often confuse the message and the messenger and instead of listening carefully to and inquiring deeply into what might be an opinion in opposition to our own, we continue to crucify the messenger and become lost and dangerous in our grip on ignorance and self-righteousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To paraphrase Herman Spencer, contempt before investigation cannot fail to keep us in everlasting ignorance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Evolution not only as scientific theory but also as a process of human development seems to be part of the life process of the dwindling few in America.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Humans and monkeys are actually cousins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We share about 95% of DNA, the genetic code that makes us who and what we are, and 98.4% DNA with chimpanzees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Although there is still some controversy about exactly where the split occurred, we most likely evolved from a common ancestor, Sahelanthropus tchadensis, about seven million years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our similarities in appearance and behavioral characteristics are not an accident; they are a matter of relationship and DNA correlation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I wonder if part of the deeply held resistance to acceptance of our primate cousins is in some way related to our deeply held and sometimes repressed resistance to our acceptance of people of color in this country, people who have often been referred to as monkeys in a derogatory way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Americans hate to be called racists, yet we continue to behave at a personal, social, emotional, and political level like racists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We don’t really understand what it means to be racists, but we are sure we’re not.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It just makes us feel better about ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just as a refusal to accept our kinship with the rest of the animal kingdom somehow supports our belief in our own superiority and lends a rational justification to our beliefs and actions while we destroy the home of that kingdom, our home, our planet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">At what point will the clash between knowledge and belief lead to serious questions being asked in serious conversations?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At what point will we rely on critical thinking to investigate information in search of truth rather than support for belief?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What will it take for Americans to truly begin an educative process both for ourselves and our children that will dispense with contempt before investigation and lead us out of our own ignorance?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">Perhaps we need a collective visit to the Catactin Zoos of America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps we need to spend more time in nature observing and learning its ways. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Perhaps we need to lend our magical thinking and imaginations to work on behalf of actions that might restore balance to our planet, to our conversations about our planet, and our relationships to all sentient beings that inhabit it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most of all, we need to begin to adjust to the reality of our world by exploring the reality of thinkers other than those whose opinions and beliefs reflect merely our own.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:14.0pt;color:#181818;">* </span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#181818;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Future blogs on education and critical thinking are to come.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:18.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;font-size:10.0pt;color:#181818;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-91565919833332021342011-01-22T14:18:00.001-08:002012-03-31T18:41:32.351-07:00A Superlative Nation<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana-Bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><b> <!--StartFragment--> </b></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana-Bold;"><b><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">My friend Kathy drives a bright red Toyota Camry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She looks like your average middle aged, middle class American woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kathy doesn’t scare easily; her response to her fear of flying was to earn her pilot’s license.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She graduated top of her class.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Kathy’s bright red Toyota Camry is neat and clean inside and out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The large hammer with the worn wooden handle and solid iron head seems out of place on the floor of the passenger seat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Kathy was involved in a serious car accident some years ago that left her with a broken foot and a fear of being trapped in her car.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The hammer and a strong flashlight are her responses to that fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They seem reasonable once the story is known.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Given the events of January 7 in Tuscon AZ, the responses of our leaders to the understandable fears the shootings have generated cannot be considered as reasonable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In fact, the responses are almost laughable were they not suggested with the serious intention of precipitating action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At least two of our elected congressmen stated they intend to carry weapons when meeting constituents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Other elected officials have suggested that they carry arms while on the floor of the House of Representatives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As one congressman, more measured and wise in his response pointed out, “Congressmen have trouble controlling their tongues, I hate to think of them trying to control guns.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And now there is the suggestion that teachers and students be permitted to carry concealed weapons in class.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Guns, particularly handguns, are responsible for the majority of deaths by homicide, suicide and accidental shootings in the USA every year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A very small proportion of those deaths result from shotgun or rifle shootings, the kind of weapons that most hunters would have in their homes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Americans own more guns per capita than any other nation on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>America has the highest rate of death by deliberate or accidental shooting than other nation on earth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most of those deaths, 16,907 in 2009, are by suicide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>More than 10,000 are considered accidents that come about as the result of a gun being in the home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Americans are more likely to kill themselves using a gun or kill someone else, usually a family member, with a gun than any other nationality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">It’s a list of superlatives that should give Americans pause for thought and an even longer pause before taking action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">America is in love with superlatives, there is no such thing as too little hyperbole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Americans love to believe in the idea of being Number One!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The biggest economy, the strongest military, the greatest possibility, the land of plenty and the land of the free – as if freedom was somehow invented in America, this young and often impudent nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sadly the positive superlatives cover a dark and rarely discussed reality that also bears the burden of being “the most.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Here are some superlatives America owns that do not often find their way into the news or the public conscience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They are the kind of superlatives denied and ignored, for acceptance of their veracity would shame us all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Americans use more of the world’s resources per capita than any other nation and produce the most trash while in the process of the fastest and greatest amount of consumption.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>America has slipped from the number one position of economic growth but Americans continue to consume products, mainly imported products, at an alarming rate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the process, our number one export is now trash, usually shipped to China then sold back to us in numerous forms.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Americans spend more on health care than any other country. We are the fattest people in the developed world with a 30.6% obesity rate and yet we are more likely to die from malnutrition than in any other developed nation on earth. Our doctors earn more money than they do in other developed countries yet we have the highest infant mortality rate and premature death rate (death before the age of 64)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>and the lowest percentage of the population covered by public insurance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We spend more for less than any other developed nation – no wonder we get angry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No wonder the mentally ill are overlooked.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">We have the greatest disparity between CEO and worker wages, the least number of vacation days, the highest poverty rate, and come in at 9th on the size of the middle class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The wealth of that middle class has fallen considerably since 2008.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We have the highest percentage of families earning two paychecks, the highest credit card debt per capita, are 11th for household savings and are top of the income inequality index.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The top corporate executives earn about $500 for every $1 the average worker earns.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No wonder so many Americans are angry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>No wonder so many Americans reach the bottom of the place where hope is held. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">In what has been long considered the wealthiest nation on earth, we have the highest poverty rate of industrialized nations. More then 50 million people rely on food stamps in order to eat. On any given day, three million people are estimated to be homeless while an astonishing 25% of the world’s incarcerated population is in the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The design and building of massive prison complexes, is one of the few construction industries that continues to thrive in a poor economy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">America spends more money on defense weaponry and the military than all other developed nations combined. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:16.0pt;line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">In 2008 America spent 79.8 billion dollars on research and development – in the department of defense. The 2011 budget will contain some restraint due to the poor economy but research and development will get about $111 billion and 80 billion(72%) of that will still go to our most profligate industry after the creation of trash – the creation of weapons that kill people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Waging war costs money, money that was not always reported in our budget, money that is often hidden under misleading titles but the cost is real. This year we will spend somewhere between $114.8–$454.2 billion in interest incurred on debt in past wars. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Funding of the arts through the National Endowment for the Arts is miniscule in comparison to arts budgets throughout Europe.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Less than 1% of funding for the arts comes through government funding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A mere $124 million, with an “m”, is allocated for funding of the arts at the national level as well as for programs in all 50 states.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">So far any investment, true investment, in developing and creating industries such as renewable energy and sustainable smart growth has been miniscule in comparison to the amount of money spent on the destruction of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The availability of money and credit for the working and middle class over the past two years has amounted to zero by comparison to the amount of money given to Wall Street investment brokers and bankers for their super-sized bonuses. No wonder we lead the world in the consumption of anti-depressants. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">The gap between the hyperbole and reality is an enormous chasm that threatens to swallow any real political solutions to the increased intensity and frequency of the problems that beset the majority of Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Political will, integrity, and imagination long ago disappeared over the edge of the chasm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In its place we have an arena covered in layers of bombastic rhetoric, demonization, ignorance, and superlative lies all of which serve to polarize a terrified populace grasping for something to believe in, something to save them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And this is where we begin to grasp at unrealistic and over-the-top solutions like carrying a gun to meet with constituents, like the insanely expensive and ineffective “Star Wars” program, like giving money to the rich while denying the poor basic life necessities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is where our striving to be the best in some undefined category makes us very dangerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like the drowning man lunging at a would be rescuer, we are oblivious to the violence inherent in our increasing panic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">My friend Kathy is relieved that car technology has finally caught up with her fears.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She has become increasingly aware that the big old hammer in her passenger seat would become a dangerous missile if she should ever be involved in another accident of the severity of the previous one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She says she is just about ready to remove it but for now, until she can buy a car that will allow her to escape in the event of an accident, she will keep it there as a kind of psychological safety blanket.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;">Would that we have the luxury of time to have some solution present itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Would that we indulge in some courageous, honest, self-reflection that allows us to see beyond the veil of superlatives into the nature of the reality we have created. Then maybe, we might truly grow beyond our fears into a well defined best. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:13.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </b></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:19.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Verdana-Bold;font-size:13.0pt;"><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-5082278970997735312010-12-19T17:28:00.000-08:002010-12-19T17:34:13.470-08:00And so this is Christmas….<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:4.5in;text-indent:.5in"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">“Where’s all the food?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I lamented to a friend recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Usually by this time in the festive season I have gained ten pounds, become allergic to the sound of Alvin and the Chipmunks, sworn off any form of artificial lighting,<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>and developed a distinctly “Bah Humbug” attitude towards anything that smacks of Christmas as we know it in the U.S. of A.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">“Is it just me or is it not as Christmassy as usual?” I asked another friend.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">“It’s just you,” she assured me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Apparently Christmas has befallen us with all its usual paroxysms of joy and obligation, light in the time of dark, and drunken holiness but somehow this year I have managed to miss most of it.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">How could this have happened?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A cursory inspection of my life so far this year would indicate that I have been somewhat preoccupied with important matters. Two of the top three stressors, one welcome the other not, have eventuated for me this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">After much hand wringing and even more clutter cleansing, I managed to sell my old house and move into a wonderful little townhouse, the last room of which I have just finished painting in an almost overwhelming shade of lavender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I spent a lot of time contemplating what needed to be done in my new home, and then doing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps I overdid the whole “doing it” thing as I am still in physical therapy for pains in places I didn’t think would be affected by standing on a ladder with paint-brush in hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps age is a factor that I really haven’t taken into consideration with the due respect it deserves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I am after all getting to an age where most people wouldn’t dream of climbing on a ladder for any reason.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I tend to forget that and act as if I’m still in my thirties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My body knows differently but doesn’t tell me until it’s too late and the damage is done.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My life has been changed this year by the passing of my dear friend and work colleague, Chris Smith.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>By this time of the year we would have been into all kinds of cookies and preparing for one of at least three annual visits to the Pacific Ocean restaurant for sushi.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Chris was a vital young man with a gift for communicating with and motivating the troubled adolescents we tried to push and pull through every school day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His presence was such a huge part of every day that I still have not accepted that he is no longer on this physical plane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I walk into the room we shared every school day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The desk he sat at is still in the same place, set up pretty much the same way he had it, only he is not there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Three different people have occupied that desk since Chris’ passing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I think the most recent one is a keeper. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday one of our more successful students drew a heart on the white board with “Smith” in large letters underneath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She looked at me and for a moment we stared at each other in disbelief and sorrow.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Then she erased it, picked up her books and went to class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s really what we’ve all been doing since September, just picking up something and moving out of the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I haven’t had that luxury.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I am pretty much chained to my computer and my large brown folders that hold the confidential tragedies of my students’ lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My administrators have taken me to task for not being attentive to the small things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In fact they’ve brutalized me.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Grief is not a small thing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For a while it’s just too big to see past or around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Some days it can only be picked at, given a cursory nod and other days it just brings you to your knees. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I remember my grandmother after Uncle Ron died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Uncle Ron had lived just down the only street of their tiny rural town in the deep south of New Zealand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He ran the general store and in those days that meant putting in as many hours as any dairy farmer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Uncle Ron worked hard serving the far-flung community of farmers and his mother.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was a huge blow to her when he decided to retire at the very young age of 46 and move to a small but vigorous community in a warmer climate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But the greater blow was to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He took a job as a gardener in the botanical gardens and three days into his new and idyllic life he just quietly dropped dead over the top of his shovel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">For a while everyone thought Nana had lost her marbles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was forgetful and withdrawn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At 75 she still took care of her garden and home with its dozens of plants in the only sunny front window.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She traveled the countryside sewing wedding ensembles for blushing brides, and still created fine crochet doilies and her own special cheese and onion crackers.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But after Uncle Ron died, it was as if she suddenly became old. One day I found her in our sunny front room at the ironing board staring into space while the iron burned into the tablecloth.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Nobody knew what to do about Nana.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Her grief hollowed her out leaving her tough exterior still strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A year or so later she seemed “better” as if she had slowly recovered from a long illness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She lived another 22 years and it was only in her nineties that she really did lose her marbles and was unable to find them again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She just had to navigate her way through her grief and find some way to pick up her dignity and live on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I haven’t done that yet.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I keep losing things; the most recent is the key to my mailbox.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s attached to a pretty red dress key ring my friend’s mom brought back with her from China.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have no idea what happened to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I couldn’t remember writing a Christmas letter last year but apparently I did.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I make lists of things I need to do or purchase and lose the lists or just drive by the stores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Paperwork, supposedly important paperwork, sits on my desk at work. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My desk faces what was Chris’ desk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As I ploughed through the paperwork that was all-important, he would take care of what was truly important, then we would laugh or commiserate about it later.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He would sneak into the reward cookies then get an attitude about gaining weight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The kids would watch us argue and work together.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“You were like a mom to him,” one of our students said recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was right. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Perhaps that’s why I haven’t been able to see Christmas in all its glittery ghastliness this year.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-2860688232718334772010-12-19T16:45:00.000-08:002010-12-19T17:25:22.976-08:00Through the Eye of a Needle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_DRLgiXzzwav1AWe0XMFNuOh4AtY-Olmi_yLZ54D2daC7IkQ_URipZdKBpSAGr4RafmVOdb0ykvCgMXhohNKkdszmDHenpK-X8e1MqcUEXPYWUzv-Ofaj_uN50ihKaDxqdRF0GtPRp0Z/s1600/images.jpeg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW_DRLgiXzzwav1AWe0XMFNuOh4AtY-Olmi_yLZ54D2daC7IkQ_URipZdKBpSAGr4RafmVOdb0ykvCgMXhohNKkdszmDHenpK-X8e1MqcUEXPYWUzv-Ofaj_uN50ihKaDxqdRF0GtPRp0Z/s320/images.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552568722276440210" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I see them</p> <p class="MsoNormal">as the long cold slants </p> <p class="MsoNormal">of morning light</p> <p class="MsoNormal">brush the sprawling, frost bitten </p> <p class="MsoNormal">fields of Morton Mains</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I see them</p> <p class="MsoNormal">warm agile bodies, separating,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">moving into the crisp morning </p> <p class="MsoNormal">the heat of their lovemaking translucent</p> <p class="MsoNormal">against the stoic farmhouse walls </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I see her</p> <p class="MsoNormal">tucking rambunctious curls into </p> <p class="MsoNormal">a tight knot</p> <p class="MsoNormal">her slender, bustling body</p> <p class="MsoNormal">secretly carrying the seed of</p> <p class="MsoNormal">their fourteenth child</p> <p class="MsoNormal">as she bends to raise </p> <p class="MsoNormal">a younger, hungry mouth</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to her breast</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I see him</p> <p class="MsoNormal">tall and broad shouldered</p> <p class="MsoNormal">fiercely handsome</p> <p class="MsoNormal">pulling at the clothes of his long day</p> <p class="MsoNormal">over shoulders made strong</p> <p class="MsoNormal">from the demands</p> <p class="MsoNormal">of loving and living on the soil</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I see them</p> <p class="MsoNormal">head strong, heart strong</p> <p class="MsoNormal">steeped in the bleatings,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the never-ending demands</p> <p class="MsoNormal">of the world’s young.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">until her ears, her arms, her body, her heart</p> <p class="MsoNormal">can bear no more new-borns.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I see the needle</p> <p class="MsoNormal">desperately clean and sharp in her hand.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to tell her to stop</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to tell her that this needle will pierce</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the hearts of the generations that will come</p> <p class="MsoNormal">one after another,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">after another,</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I want to tell her that one more child</p> <p class="MsoNormal">is a smaller burden than</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the empty space her absence</p> <p class="MsoNormal">will leave in the lives of her children</p> <p class="MsoNormal">of her grandchildren,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">of her children’s, children’s children</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know the desperation </p> <p class="MsoNormal">all my mother’s have faced</p> <p class="MsoNormal">in their longing for a life </p> <p class="MsoNormal">lived on their own terms</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I know the courage it takes</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to walk</p> <p class="MsoNormal">with intention</p> <p class="MsoNormal">with mindfulness</p> <p class="MsoNormal">towards that life</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It requires full-breasted courage</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and open-eyed attention</p> <p class="MsoNormal">focused and sharp</p> <p class="MsoNormal">like the steely-eyed tip of a long needle.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>Written after a reading of Sharon Olds <i>I go back to May 1935</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-8047933813892363562010-10-23T11:21:00.000-07:002011-01-23T15:06:38.975-08:00Requiem for a Butterfly<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio4SUUk5HRSA7IZ2XX8BNjA2y3BaXb06E3DOKj1XwFlbCdkmInSvbQbd3FVTAlSpsEw1xnPe666LUrId0XDgE64WfJh09XTh61i169ASR4WAlh2sEKLGVBLZ9btWmjFv6ZqtH5Cg-DR0NG/s1600/butterfly30.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 223px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEio4SUUk5HRSA7IZ2XX8BNjA2y3BaXb06E3DOKj1XwFlbCdkmInSvbQbd3FVTAlSpsEw1xnPe666LUrId0XDgE64WfJh09XTh61i169ASR4WAlh2sEKLGVBLZ9btWmjFv6ZqtH5Cg-DR0NG/s320/butterfly30.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552554039357045266" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s the fourth generation that knows the way</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to the Oyamel forests of Mexico</p> <p class="MsoNormal">buoyed by instinct, air currents, the sun and </p> <p class="MsoNormal">the magnetic poles of the Earth.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s the fourth generation</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that lives three to four times longer</p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- as long as the milkweed lasts</p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- as long as the flowers can bloom through </p> <p class="MsoNormal">the increasing heat of the summer</p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- as long as they can find one another on their journey south.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It’s the fourth generation that bears the weight,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">less than one gram,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">on golden wings</p> <p class="MsoNormal">over 2000 miles.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">My friend’s journey was less</p> <p class="MsoNormal">than one mile</p> <p class="MsoNormal">from the parking lot to his apartment</p> <p class="MsoNormal">born by his youth and strong legs</p> <p class="MsoNormal">pushing the pedals </p> <p class="MsoNormal">of his geared up bicycle</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that lay undamaged where it fell</p> <p class="MsoNormal">beside his barely bruised body</p> <p class="MsoNormal">beside his broken skull</p> <p class="MsoNormal">outside his swelling, bleeding brain.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In Indianapolis a gun lying on a table</p> <p class="MsoNormal">amidst drugs that pull at the</p> <p class="MsoNormal">troubled mind, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- a gun is raised</p> <p class="MsoNormal">by a four year old hand</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and fired…..</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A three year old sister dies.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Journeys to old age,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">to the fourth generation</p> <p class="MsoNormal">are interrupted, paused, or abruptly ended</p> <p class="MsoNormal">by all five cumbersome ways to kill a man</p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- or a woman</p> <p class="MsoNormal">-- or a child</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the milkweed disappears,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the sun shines too hotly, </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">too many days in a row</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and the nectar for the journey</p> <p class="MsoNormal">dries up</p> <p class="MsoNormal">before it can reach the mouths of the first generation. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And sometimes it is just the blush of being alive</p> <p class="MsoNormal">that kills us.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Somewhere dignity blinks</p> <p class="MsoNormal">a child hesitates then steps forward</p> <p class="MsoNormal">into the path of a bullet --</p> <p class="MsoNormal">A door closes </p> <p class="MsoNormal">then opens</p> <p class="MsoNormal">then closes</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and the world has changed</p> <p class="MsoNormal">completely in Indianapolis –</p> <p class="MsoNormal">for my friend—</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and the sun rises on the </p> <p class="MsoNormal">same blue planet.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Somewhere in September some God </p> <p class="MsoNormal">shrugs</p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">and the butterfly,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the giant fourth generation monarch </p> <p class="MsoNormal">cascades into my windshield</p> <p class="MsoNormal">wings pinned to the wipers flutter</p> <p class="MsoNormal">---- helplessly</p> <p class="MsoNormal">and shred into the sunlight</p> <p class="MsoNormal">leaving a golden smear </p> <p class="MsoNormal">of life’s dust.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">“all five cumbersome ways to kill a man”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">is a reference to Edwin Brock’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Five Ways to Kill a Man</span><o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-2974318441058938382010-07-13T08:08:00.000-07:002010-07-13T08:21:59.854-07:00Joy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2crRa1rwrmXVd_6QkvAh-b6HVWHgS1oFWo6wjRMbAI7E6wvrXoYjiJB8J2ABJwdzrG07-d3RT2_VIofBUUn4oXBpB9B6-IVzoZySl33mYm2S0sm0mks_fz30Rpw_o-KtqeTfGSQ_XjtxO/s1600/misty+fern.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 211px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2crRa1rwrmXVd_6QkvAh-b6HVWHgS1oFWo6wjRMbAI7E6wvrXoYjiJB8J2ABJwdzrG07-d3RT2_VIofBUUn4oXBpB9B6-IVzoZySl33mYm2S0sm0mks_fz30Rpw_o-KtqeTfGSQ_XjtxO/s320/misty+fern.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493408682572532802" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Joy passes. Joy rises in different forms but, like rage, profound sadness, and terror, it passes.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There was the time as a ten year old I wandered from the group on a weeklong field trip. We had stopped at the end point in the road of the Haast Pass. The diaspora of green unfurled its rain forest fronds and drew me to its breast. I fell into it clambering over the river worn smooth rocks of the pristine water feeling its song inside every cell of my being. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Then there was the time when I was 17. Heather and Cheryl and I were hitchhiking as usual, up through the North Island after our summer raspberry-picking gig. We had decided for some reason to head from Wellington around the east coast instead of straight up through the middle. Traffic was sparse. Long empty stretches of road wound up through tree-clad mountains. Forests of pine pricked the cloudless blue skies. An ancient Holden Ute patch-worked in the colors of its past picked us up. There was not enough room in the cab for all of us. I sat in the back open to the clear blue sky that carried wafts of pine scent and the ocean to me. Bouncing around among rusty tools and discolored tarps in the back, I felt completely free and embraced by the world at the same time, held in place with an unshakable love. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And then there was red matched with my determination to have it on the walls of my new home. As the color dripped into the deep base I expressed concern that it did not look at all like the red that I had so carefully chosen from among more than a dozen possibles over the course of two months. The young lady assured me that it was most certainly “Red Obsession.” It was expensive paint even with my professional discount. As I opened the can the next morning, the brightness of it halted my breath. It dribbled miserably over the nondescript beige, catching onto nothing until it fell in great blobs over the white trim. Panic and despair followed the roller as I stubbornly but carefully applied the paint. It set in different hues and intensities, looking more and more like the fruit punch pink my daughter had forbidden me to use. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Holy shit that’s red”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I attempted to avoid looking into the open 25 by 18 foot room. It meant having my eyes trapped by the red nail polish on my recently pedicured toes. The room looked like the slaughterhouse from a bad nightmare. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I persisted. Completed the first coat and started the second before my body mounted an irresistible protest. Rumpled blankets with wiggles and squiggles of red greeted me the next morning. I completed the second coat with new tools. I set the off white rocker and espresso bookshelf from Big Lots in one corner by the window. It didn’t look so bad. In fact, it looked a lot like I’d hoped. As long as I didn’t look from the nighttime dark through the drapeless windows into the well-lit brightness of the red, it looked pretty damn good. It just might be what I had dreamed of and stepped toward so slowly over many years. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Joy passes. But first, it has to rise and with inscrutable love, unscrew the hinges of the heart. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Photo of fern by Roger Sonneland</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-67464056740619475912010-07-10T08:07:00.000-07:002012-03-31T18:35:44.852-07:00Smile for the Camera<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EG8_t7lRvbxFA9RfAc1dZjzELIfKKlFQgMU5gVMwc3A8Yahei7hvtURCfPyiXl_Ov_0F95cbSqIb3bBbii7gS2eT3Prnf-woW73j48UHWwh6qER4aAA8YSH5Y0bxtQ1ql7v7377RS6zq/s1600/VAG+ULTRASOUND.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 209px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-EG8_t7lRvbxFA9RfAc1dZjzELIfKKlFQgMU5gVMwc3A8Yahei7hvtURCfPyiXl_Ov_0F95cbSqIb3bBbii7gS2eT3Prnf-woW73j48UHWwh6qER4aAA8YSH5Y0bxtQ1ql7v7377RS6zq/s320/VAG+ULTRASOUND.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492297607043859058" /></a><br /><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I have discovered yet another example of the American Euphemism. I encountered it at the diagnostic imaging suite at the medical center. It’s the perfect context for minimizing, deflecting, obsequiousness, and Victorian manners. In short, it’s the place where the American Euphemism can thrive. It’s quite possible that it was born in some very similar place where female genitalia needed to be exposed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It is probably a little known fact that for hundreds of years in so called Western civilization there was not even a name for the most exquisite part of the female genitalia – the clitoris. Long after the detailed exploration and naming of parts of the human form by the ancient Egyptians in the fifth century B.C., men of the medical persuasion in the west still didn’t know of the existence of the clitoris. Religious and moral beliefs and prohibitions prevented male “doctors” from seeing naked women dead or alive, even while they were attempting to birth their children. So, for about 700 years the clitoris remained unknown and unnamed in the west. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Women knew it was there of course.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 283px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiyFC6YvWpN7mMLQhqDIAOsB6cLe1juQDBPZJMAQ9Tq2Rx6vEsAyc_T4zGd_uSNvG6sD4w9y1ub3Ld6MmRBDZK8xOg2tBCaGfY26VKyG_B_AkasJ6YMgntQKqJv07ZTmWcG4hiDTwZyeoX/s320/a418_dildo.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5492295508420777714" /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">During the same time period, it was also believed that women were spiritually inferior, that they did not possess souls, as did men. Women knew differently about that too.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It took a movement of women into the workforce, into positions of economic and political power, into places where women were not supposed to go, before it was recognized that perhaps, just maybe, women not only had souls but also the ability to achieve sexual ecstasy. It was a huge shock to the men in the royal courts. All of a sudden being called impotent by a woman could disgrace them. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This was followed by a harsh put down of women. We were supposed to know our place and remain in it and there would be no talk of sexual anything unless it was to titivate manly desire. From there, despite hundreds of years, the feminist revolution, the love fest of the sixties, and the movement of women into places of economic and political power, demure practices from a Victorian era permeate places medicinal.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So it was that I found myself emerging from the bathroom in the sonogram section of diagnostic imaging naked from the waist down with a sheet wrapped around my waist. I was busily knotting it at the side when the radiologist, Michelle, told me to place the opening at the rear. I thought that a little strange but did as I was told. And then I attempted to lie down on the low bed with my feet in the stirrups as instructed. It’s not easy to place yourself on a low bed and insert your feet in stirrups while keeping a sheet with an opening at the rear wrapped around you. In fact it requires some considerable physical gymnastics.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Task accomplished, I lay there as Michelle readied the vaginal ultrasound transducer, a long bright red penile shaped thing that looks for all the world like a dildo for the color blind. The camera in its smooth rounded head would take pictures of my ovaries ad anything that may be attached to them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> “I’m going to give this to you to insert just as you would a tampon.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It’s years since I inserted a tampon and told her so as I placed the bright red dildo in my vagina. Michelle held it and began to maneuver it so she could get a clear sighting of my ovaries and take all the pictures she needed. The computer whirred and beeped every time she took a photo. With her left hand she reached across and pulled the sheet from where it had dropped exposing my knees and thighs. She pulled it back up over my knees.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I laughed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> “When you’re holding that thing in my vagina, I don’t think you need to cover my knees.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michelle laughed. Another American Euphemism exposed by women who know about these things.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-47459754203575934192010-06-22T07:58:00.000-07:002010-06-22T08:16:45.079-07:00Curveballs<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhxAJHFfUv8kxHTfMgcP4cy8jQZQb6Q6RADZInxoJBNlQ-o7fJ4tpnHZ2ReyI31EJwcYw7nAXZXVysKRXxgx4OdFE3_T9hDfSATS3Ki4QfqSsBnT0s5Y62-do2iSF0hXle7h7TfnxQ8GJ/s1600/helmet-2.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdhxAJHFfUv8kxHTfMgcP4cy8jQZQb6Q6RADZInxoJBNlQ-o7fJ4tpnHZ2ReyI31EJwcYw7nAXZXVysKRXxgx4OdFE3_T9hDfSATS3Ki4QfqSsBnT0s5Y62-do2iSF0hXle7h7TfnxQ8GJ/s320/helmet-2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5485615447874970274" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Some curveballs are strikeouts.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Apparently, in the plethora of statistics kept in the vast memory banks of baseball nuts, the number of strikeouts that are the result of a curve ball is not of interest.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I am sure that someone, somewhere is keeping a tally and would be able to reassure me exactly how many strikeouts are the result of a curveball as compared to, say, a fastball.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I’ll bet that someone in the coaching staff that has brought the pitching phenom Strasburg to light, someone on that staff knows.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">People like predictability.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">People like to know that there is something in this strange and chaotic world that they can count on to happen or not happen.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">What is certain is that curveballs happen, just like death and taxes.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Saturday of Memorial weekend was a hot, sunny day.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My friend and work colleague, Chris, was scheduled to DJ a wedding that would take him out of town for most of the day.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I knew he would not be happy about it.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">If it is over 70 degrees, Chris takes his bike to a trail, usually a rails to trails or the C&O canal and bikes furiously for the day knocking out as much as a 100 miles a day by summer’s end.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">On Memorial weekend Saturday, he took his bike no further than the end of his short street to the parking lot and stadium of a local high school.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He plugged in his iPod headphones and set out to bike laps.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He wasn’t wearing a helmet –he doesn’t do helmets.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We’ve argued about it.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He’s stubborn, he’s doing the riding, and he gets to make the choices.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">On Saturday afternoon I received a call from Chris’ supervisor.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He is employed by a local mental health agency and works in my classroom with the emotionally disabled students we try to get through each school day.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The kids love him.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Years ago he was christened “The Hulk” in deference to his muscular build and his repeated good natured banter.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Don’t make me bust my shirt,” was a common plea that often was enough to make a recalcitrant student at least smile. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Chris has been in a bicycle accident.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He’s been life-lined to the shock trauma unit in Baltimore.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I stood and watched the curve ball approach.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I had no idea which way it was going to curve.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">All I could do was watch it veer right and slam into my body.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“What happened?”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Nobody was really sure but the result was not in doubt.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Chris had sustained a fractured skull from taking a fall from his bike directly on the right side of his head as he was leaving the high school parking lot.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">His brain was swelling, there was a brain bleed, he was non-responsive, doctors were giving his mom very grave messages.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“He may not survive.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">If he does, they are talking about nursing home care for the rest of his life.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Rachel is crying.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I am standing still, stunned.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My mouth is open but words aren’t coming out.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Her call is followed by a call from Melissa, Chris’ on and off again girlfriend over the past four years.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She repeats the news.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She affirms that it is very serious.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He will never be the same.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He may not survive.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">By Sunday morning the doctors are doing emergency surgery to remove part of his skull.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">His brain has swelled with a rapid and dangerous zeal far sooner than doctors had anticipated.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He may not survive the surgery.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Curveballs are flying through the atmosphere.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They are all strikeouts.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">What do you do when an extraordinary blow fells a vital young person?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I cried, I lit a candle, I prayed, I called my principal, I continued with some planned activities. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">By Monday his condition was still unstable and critical.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I went to the University of Maryland Medical Center in the afternoon after dropping my daughter at the airport.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Melissa and Chris’ mom had prepared me for what I would see.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Chris was propped upright in his bed, a neck brace keeping his head securely on the pillow.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">His swollen head was firmly wrapped in a bloodied bandage.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A double line of staples secured the skin over his brain where the skull had been removed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A feeding tube was attached to his nose.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">His mouth sagged open.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A ventilator tube forced his lower lip out and down.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A snake pit of tubes and wires surrounded him, punctured him, pouring in necessary fluids of life and evacuating the toxins.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Machines beeped.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Lights flickered a variety of numbers in different colors on a small screen.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">His bruised eyelids were closed. His swollen naked belly and chest protruded over the lightweight blanket.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Chris would have been mortified.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He had intended to spend the summer biking trails, building his DJ business, and maybe getting in some fishing.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There was a small possibility of going to Colorado with Melissa but that meant getting on a plane.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Hulk hated to admit it, but he is afraid of flying and has never been on a plane.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He loves the scariest rides at amusement parks, has even chided me into getting on a few myself during our annual field trip to Hershey Park, a field trip he raises money for and plugs with the kids at every opportunity.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But, he is adamant that a plane ride is more likely to kill him.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He may never get to overcome that fear.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I may never get to tease him about it again.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">When a curve ball is a strike out, those are the kind of things left on the field.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Relationships surround the bases, old friends that won’t creep with you into old age, new ones that won’t have a chance to challenge, ripen, or leave.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Talents unrealized are out in left field where no one can see them or will even bother to pick them up.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Belongings are scattered, bereft and bare with no one to claim them.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A group of needy kids waits quietly on the sidelines.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Quiet is not their usual stance and they won’t stay quiet for long.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I may have to say goodbye to my friend but it won’t be before I tell him how angry I am that he wouldn’t wear a helmet.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Somewhere in the inert, swollen frame of his body, I am sure he is mad as hell at himself too.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He was a man willing to admit his mistakes and able to learn from them.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But once that curve ball is a strike out, it’s just too late.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Photo is from </span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;font-size:13px;"><h2 id="post-5813" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><a href="http://blog.autospeed.com/2009/04/28/how-utterly-stupid-they-are/" rel="bookmark" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration: underline; font-weight: normal; background-image: none; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">How utterly stupid they are</span></a></h2><div class="meta" style="zoom: 1; background-image: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; -webkit-background-clip: initial; -webkit-background-origin: initial; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-left: 0px; border-top-width: 1px; border-right-width: 1px; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 1px; border-top-style: dotted; border-right-style: dotted; border-bottom-style: dotted; border-left-style: dotted; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-right-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-left-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Posted on April 28th, 2009 in </span><a href="http://blog.autospeed.com/category/opinion/" title="View all posts in Opinion" rel="category tag" style="color: rgb(0, 108, 255); text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Opinion</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, </span><a href="http://blog.autospeed.com/category/pedal-power/" title="View all posts in pedal power" rel="category tag" style="color: rgb(0, 108, 255); text-decoration: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">pedal power</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> by Julian Edgar</span></div></span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-10020491919363053172010-03-28T18:32:00.000-07:002010-03-28T18:38:55.962-07:00Crossing the Potomac<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivY2VCnS6MCUxAiEPZUamyr9UA2EdU52s7mgDnGJszcrc9zyb6PD_JItSEwZvK-YrMX9oMuM5ggSvwl4pjL_sd3pg6lFOd2kIxmQ2olkcc9R65rA4BiTT5DO-1weFvcuQulZtMKqI_Nmk8/s1600/Photo+29.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivY2VCnS6MCUxAiEPZUamyr9UA2EdU52s7mgDnGJszcrc9zyb6PD_JItSEwZvK-YrMX9oMuM5ggSvwl4pjL_sd3pg6lFOd2kIxmQ2olkcc9R65rA4BiTT5DO-1weFvcuQulZtMKqI_Nmk8/s200/Photo+29.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5453863575498978722" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I always thought that George Washington crossed the Potomac for some reason or other. Apparently he didn’t. He crossed the Delaware River in the dead of an icy cold December night to attack the British. The myth is that he skipped a silver dollar across the Potomac – even though there were no silver dollars at that time and the chances that he managed to throw one almost a mile from shore to shore is, well, unlikely at best.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This morning I had to find an alternative route across the Potomac. Funded in all likelihood by the Recovery Act, a large crew of workmen has taken up residence on one half of the bridge on Route 81 where it links Maryland and West Virginia. They are obviously setting in for a long campaign of repair and renewal. It is entirely possible that the bridge needs repair. Beginning said repairs the weekend before a large holiday weekend ( Easter and Passover) is about par for course with road crews I suspect,, the world over. The traffic back ups extend for miles along Route 81 as frustrated motorists slam on their brakes and wonder why there was no warning for an alternative route. I think it is due to some kind of subliminal power/revenge thing that is a psychological prerequisite for employment on a road crew.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Normally I wouldn’t care less about the closing of half a bridge between Maryland and West Virginia but these days it has taken on a new importance. West Virginia is now my new home. I finally moved. Someone, God bless her, bought my old house in Chambersburg, PA enabling me to purchase my little townhouse in Falling Waters, WV. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I moved out on one of the coldest evenings of a long, snowbound winter. It was nine o’clock and about minus five degrees by the time my small band of helpers completed the loading of the U-Haul truck. It was another hour by the time I made it to my friend’s house, usually only 10 minutes away. Chambersburg is both blessed and cursed by quaint, old railway overpass bridges that necessitate detours by most trucks approaching 12 feet in height. Through blizzard like conditions with snow whirling across the back roads, I struggled to navigate the U-Haul driving almost blind because the cabin and dashboard lights were dark.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I considered it an almost superhuman feat. The brakes on the truck were making very strange wheezing noises, the road kept disappearing before my night myopic eyes, nothing looked familiar. But, eventually I was seated in my pajamas before the fire eating a large plate of spaghetti while dancers floated and gyrated across the ice of the winter Olympics. It was done; I was out of my house. It snowed again that night; it blew fiercely the next morning as I drove to the first of two closings. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The power of friends to drag one over the finish line of great feats should never be underestimated. My friend’s son drove the U-haul across the Potomac to my new home while I followed in my car and went on to closing number two. It seems fate and the Angels of Mirth decided for a punctuation mark on this less than smooth transition. Part way through the second closing, the lawyer came in and put a telephone on the table.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> “It’s for you.” How could it possibly be for me? There was no reason I could think of except for really, really bad ones, why anyone would contact me at the lawyer’s office while I am in the middle of closing on my house. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> “Did my buyer change her mind after the papers were signed? Could she do that? Would I have to get a lawyer to fight it? Did I have to drive everything back to Chambersburg and live there forever? Did somebody die?”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">As it turned out, the agents at closing number one had made a mistake and a lesser amount of money was wired to closing number two. I would have to write a check for the difference. As fate and maybe the Angels would have it, I had one remaining check that I was saving to pay Joey the flooring guy who I was expecting at six the following morning. My body was beginning to go into adrenaline overdrive for the umpteenth time that week. I wrote the check, the papers were signed, I took the keys and drove to my new home. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It was snowing, again, as the truck was unloaded by yet another band of friends. We managed to find my sheets and comforter and create a bed in the bedroom where I slept amid boxes and chaos that first night. I had crossed the Potomac.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I doubt there will be any portraits painted of the feat. I couldn’t find my camera so there were no photos except for the few I took a couple of days later with my laptop showing the sofa still on its side surrounded by a small mountain range of boxes, blankets, carpets, and stuff I was not sure I owned.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Unlike the painting of George Washington’s feat, I hope the tale will be told with me at least going in the right direction with the correct stalwart friends at my side. I hope no-one will exaggerate the cold, the time, the craziness of each piece as it unfolded – there is no need to exaggerate. It was a great feat accomplished by a small but determined band that contributed to the freedom of one middle-aged, exhausted, and extremely grateful woman.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-91070331530372090152010-01-31T10:06:00.000-08:002010-01-31T10:10:37.619-08:00Dunking the Scum Bags<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">T</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">he earthquake in Haiti has given the world in general and Americans in particular the opportunity to reveal their generosity and spirit. In many parts of the world Americans are perceived as self indulgent and uncaring but the truth I have witnessed over and over again is that Americans are willing to step up and help in times of crisis.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Perhaps the current economic crisis that many Americans are enduring makes us all the more aware of what it means to be caught in the midst of tough times not of our own personal making. Research has demonstrated numerous times that the poor are more willing to give a higher percentage of their assets/income than those with the economic advantages of wealth. Americans have deluged collection points with goods, money, and offers of service for the people and nation of Haiti.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Amongst this generosity there is a blight that is, at its lightest impact, an embarrassment to Americans of all beliefs. The comments of Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson defy logic, compassion, and humanity in their perverse and bombastic rhetoric. How do these two continue to maintain hold of such large microphones? Who on earth listens to these two? Who provides financial support to these two? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">William Rivers Pitt (see </span><a href="http://www.truthout.org/the-scum-earth56138"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">www.truthout.org/the-scum-earth56138</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> )writes a powerful call for the silencing of these two “scum of the earth.” While I believe in the rights of Limbaugh and Robertson to hold onto their limited and hateful views, I do not think we need to be subjected to them through accident or design – they are offensive at the very least and hate-mongering drivel at their worst. They appeal to the lowest, basest of human character, ignorance and fear. They inspire violence and hateful actions among the fearful and ignorant. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So how do they remain on the air? Who supports them?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Rush Limbaugh came out of the south from a conservative Missouri family. He was in radio by the time he was 16, flunked out of Southeast Missouri State University after two semesters and a summer, fired from a string of radio shows under numerous pseudonyms, he was advised to go into sales as he wouldn’t make it in radio. Then along came President Reagan, the man we have to thank for numerous devastating domestic policies, and he provided the portal opening for the likes of Limbaugh and Robertson to vomit their venom. Reagan repealed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, which had required that stations provide free air-time for responses to any controversial opinions that were broadcast. This meant stations could broadcast editorial commentary without having to present opposing views. Limbaugh stepped up to and through the hole in the wall Reagan had blasted.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Limbaugh is now reported to be one of the highest paid commentators on the air. He owns the majority holding of his show that airs courtesy of Clear Channel. In 2008 he reportedly earned $33 million and signed a contract extending his show into 2016 for a whopping $400 million. Where does this money come from?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Here’s where it starts to get murky – nowhere near as murky as it does for Pat Robertson, but murky nonetheless. There are sites that have attempted to delve into the sponsors and advertisers that lend their corporate dollars to Limbaugh’s bombast. Many of these corporations deny that they support his views and state that their advertising is merely part of national campaigns. So, maybe we should hold them accountable for their thoughtless and irresponsible ignorance. Some have withdrawn their advertising as a result of public pressure. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Corporations exist to make money. They do not like adverse publicity or the threat of boycott let alone the actual action of boycott. At </span><a href="http://www.rushlimbaughonline.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">www.rushlimbaughonline.com</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> you will find a surprising number of links to businesses that do not control who links them to particular sites and an equally surprising lack of actual advertisers. The same is true on sites for Pat Robertson or his </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">700 Club</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">. So who are the advertisers who bring in the bucks that enable contracts worth $400 million? Turns out there is a potentially long list. You can find some of them at </span><a href="http://www.topplebush.com/boycott_rush.shtml"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">www.topplebush.com/boycott_rush.shtml</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> including some of those past advertisers who reconsidered their folly. Apparently, and it may come as no shock to those of you who have dipped a toe into the online singles pool, eHarmony is one of the advertisers who contributes to Limbaugh’s wealth. Others vary from General Motors who have trouble enough supporting themselves let alone anyone else, On Star, Smithfield Food Products, Mission Pharmacal, makers of Citracel and Theragesic, and the list goes on and on. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Pat Robertson’s website contains ads for Regent University and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (E.C.F.A.) and Swiss America. The E.C.F.A. has on its board of directors and list of staff a number of people with clear affiliations to the broadcasting industry. Swiss America offers peace of mind after asking, “You do own gold, right?” They have numismatists, coin historians, on their staff and clearly aim their marketing sights at conservative retirees who are scared about their diminishing wealth. Who isn’t scared right now? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Regent University is the brain-child of none other than Pat Robertson. It received a great deal of help from Oral Roberts University, which donated the bulk of the Regent’s law library. They boast that contributors to its law journal include the likes of Justice Clarence Thomas and Bush administration Attorney General, John Ashcroft. More than 150 graduates of Regents were hired by the Bush administration.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There are no other advertisers on the web site. The </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">700 Club</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, the mouthpiece for Pat Robertson’s views on the world, is billed as an infomercial. When the Christian Broadcasting Network was sold to the ABC family and Fox network in the late 90’s for a reportedly enormous amount of money, the deal included a supposedly ironclad clause that will have the </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">700 Club</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> being broadcast in perpetuity. Robertson may seem like the voice of the darkest side of American religiosity but he is not stupid. He has manipulated the placement of a very large megaphone to carry his perverse messages and ensured that it remains on and loud for a long time to come.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Complaints about Robertson’s messages simply slide down the wall he has erected between himself and rational thought, compassionate action, and the hearts of the majority of the American people. He and Limbaugh epitomize the phrase found in Alcoholic’s Anonymous Big Book, “self will run riot.” </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Robertson and Limbaugh have found a niche in American culture and established themselves as the alpha dogs on the dark side. Full of hate, bombast, ego, deceit, delusion, and intolerance, they know exactly how to tap into the fears of those who will stand still long enough to listen to them. Unfortunately in America, the number of people who lack the ability for critical thought has blossomed under generations of an education system that strives for mediocrity. And now, the economic catastrophe that has visited this country makes us all afraid. Robertson and Limbaugh’s audiences are listening. So is Comcast. In response to numerous complaints about the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">700 Club</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, they have provided token credit on billing for those complaints.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">At this time , we may not be able to wrest the megaphones Robertson and Limbaugh hold from their hands but we can refuse to listen. We may not be able to avoid their messages, but we can use our higher faculties to question and debunk their messages. We cannot unspeak their hateful rhetoric but, as a people, we can make amends to the people of Haiti. We too may be afraid, we may be angry and we can appeal to the better part of our natures and endure these tough times with the same spirit of generosity that pitiful men like Limbaugh and Robertson do not seem fortunate enough to possess. </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-43667543484312919432010-01-01T19:21:00.000-08:002010-01-01T19:32:37.382-08:00Sliding into the New Year<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">“You might have to move straight into assisted living.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It was Harriett’s introductory line to the New Year.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It’s just as well I appreciate her sense of humor or I might sink deeper into my state of depressed frustration.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Though frustration, as my art teacher used to say, is a sign that we’re just starting to have fun.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I would throw him my dirtiest look of disgust in lieu of my sculpting tools.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Maybe what I have is <i>deprestation</i> or f<i>ruspression</i> because one thing is sure; frustration and depression certainly do not meld well together.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My New Year’s Eve was my usual exercise in solitude with good food and my tarot cards and rune stones.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It’s a sign of age or perhaps wisdom that I called most of the people I would want to wish a happy New Year well before the midnight hour.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The rest will be called or emailed on this not so auspicious beginning day of 2010.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I was in my red, plaid pajamas and fluffy blue bathrobe by 8:30pm.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I reheated left over crab imperial and stuffed flounder from John’s Broiled Seafood Platter from the night before and declared that my reconstitution of it was better than the original.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I had some lemon Italian soda to wash it down and a Harry and David’s dark chocolate truffle for afters.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">These are the good things about my New Year’s Eve.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The fact that I sat surrounded by piles of packing boxes and assorted debris from the past 15 years of my life was the not so good thing.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">In my world, and I was pretty sure it was not in my imagined world, I was going to move into a new to me townhouse just after Thanksgiving.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It didn’t happen.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I was not too perturbed, frustrated but not too ruffled, Christmas was coming and it would be the perfect time to move.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I would have the whole vacation to move out of one place and into another.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Christmas came and went, New Year came and is now yesterday and still I have not moved.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There is a whole cast of characters and back-story to this saga.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Gx is the buyer to be.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He owns the house next door, which burned down back in May and is now being rebuilt.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He and I use the same bank, which shall for a brief moment remain nameless.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This bank would not lend him any more money to buy my house so he has a relative, Jy,</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">who is the financial front for his investment.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She is somewhat ambivalent about the whole project because the deal has been an on and off affair since the beginning of October.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She went walk-about over Christmas and so it became a “what-the-hell-is-going-on?” affair.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This is where the depression started to set in. </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I know when it is depression because the mess around me starts to grow exponentially, dirty dishes seem to reproduce in the kitchen sink, dust balls sprout legs and wander the house looking for suitable places to develop new towns, I am unable to remember any of the sixty two things I have to do even though I have them written on four lists, and the chocolate stains on the fluffy, blue bathrobe begin to look like a polka dot pattern.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A small, dirty grey rain cloud hovers above my head like the proverbial Pig-Pen and I don’t want to contemplate the dark side of the what-ifs like what if this deal falls through and I lose the deal on the house I am buying?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Suicide by chocolate and a rusty butter-knife with a Santa handle. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Matt my realtor called several times between Christmas and New Year.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It’s a good news, bad news scenario.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Jy has been found.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She has signed the papers.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The extension is good until December 31</span><sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">st</span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Rick, my mortgage broker, calls.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He has been working on a new loan for me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It is going to save me thousands of dollars.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The delay is a good thing he assures me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I like Rick but the good news doesn’t feel all that good.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I provide him with yet another forest of papers the bank needs me to sign to assure them that I have not taken out new credit, bought a new car or wardrobe of clothes, will not default on my student loans or be late paying them or anyone else ever again, amen.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I like Rick, he works hard to save me money and even harder at trying to reassure me that all will be well but even he is not so sure any more when I mention Gx’s name.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We both know this is a sketchy sounding deal.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I light my Himalayan salt candle and waft the feel good ions around my face and spotted blue bathrobe.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I spread the white muslin cloth line with green beads over the fold away table I purchased after selling my beautiful dining table and chairs.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I have cleaned and polished my Lakshmi and Ganesh icons and set them to oversee this New Year’s ritual.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Themis is the Goddess card I choose. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">“Oh Lord no.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I turn over the Emperor card smack in the middle.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He’s pompous and rigid and the second to last card I want to see in my New Year’s throw.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">At least he is facing right – not quite so bad.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I go through the Mother Peace throw and the rune stones.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">“That’s pretty good,” I muse as I contemplate the Magician and the Moon and the Ace of Wands.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Lot’s of energy and indications of movement with just a few stumbles.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The stones are all about movement, new dwelling places, and more movement.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">“Could it be this propitious?”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Apparently not.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The last stone, Othila in reverse cautions me that I must wait for the Universe to act.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Didn’t mention Gx but that could be him there in the Emperor’s guise.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I’ve been waiting for the Universe to act since putting my house on the market more than a year ago, been waiting for this contract to come to fruition since the beginning of October and now we are in a new year.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">How much longer will I have to wait?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I am assured that the outcome will be certain but not predictable.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Maybe I will go straight into assisted living. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-47588399232817732182009-12-06T13:54:00.000-08:002010-01-01T19:37:37.561-08:00Small Matters of Life and Death: An American Euphemism<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfx2nBAOm07ZSlwFyfnCIPWHNsMULGk_8IKY_uL8i8izi6YvRIpxb_Oi6am7yusUHxCVu0v0b8zbsOWNkxMrk3xbZpv1KQi2ZslXA6-5maJsKCEUEf-CJgmCVnDYaigy9-_39D7ovkLh61/s1600-h/colonel+potter.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 159px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfx2nBAOm07ZSlwFyfnCIPWHNsMULGk_8IKY_uL8i8izi6YvRIpxb_Oi6am7yusUHxCVu0v0b8zbsOWNkxMrk3xbZpv1KQi2ZslXA6-5maJsKCEUEf-CJgmCVnDYaigy9-_39D7ovkLh61/s200/colonel+potter.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5412247387100249794" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The American Euphemism is an unnoticed art form except of course if, like me, you hail from a part of the world where blunt speech, unfettered sarcasm, and the art of the clever put down is as much practiced as the American Euphemism(AE).</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The AE has become more than a form of speech, it has entered American culture and cloaks all manner of bad news, human foibles, bodily functions and mannerisms, not to mention life as it really is.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The AE is what enables military commanders to consider the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan to be collateral damage. It's what helps many Americans, particularly the congressional hawks, to overlook the 4327 deaths of soldiers in the wars in these countries. It is what allows health care panels to overlook the estimated 47,000 women who would die from breast cancer if they did not get a mammogram before the age of 50. It is what is killing the possibility of health care reform. The AE can be a deadly partner, it provides us all with a means for bypassing whatever we have determined to be ugly, unwanted, and terrifying. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The American Euphemism, however, gets unloosed from its deferential moorings with a rapid jerking motion when opportunity knocks - not necessarily opportunity for the greater good, but opportunity for self aggrandizement. When Terri Schiavo's husband wanted to end her life with some quiet dignity, all manner of euphemisms were ripped from hospital protocols, ethical conduct, political process, and especially from good manners. We were subjected to hellfire and brimstone rhetoric that seared the airwaves and the interiors of churches alike. There is no holding back when a political agenda is being waved alongside a flag. The AE is a resilient but high maintenance creature.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I find myself asking questions that challenge the AE simply because I can see through its veil of obscurity a little more easily given my no bullshit upbringing in New Zealand.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sitting in a new-to-me doctor’s office one Saturday morning recently I found myself asking questions that often appear in some form that contains the word man and a downturn of my mood.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Would a man put up with this?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Would a man even be asked to put up with this?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How long would a man wait?”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am sitting in the first of what would be many waiting rooms.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The chairs are the same as the chairs I see in doctors’ offices and banks.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They have been constructed so the back lines up exactly with the wall and the seat comes out at a right angle.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They take up the minimum amount of room and appear as if they would be comfortable.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But, the body does not recline well at ninety degree angles and it takes less than five minutes before the extreme discomfort of the chairs cracks through the façade of comfort.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There is only one other woman waiting in the small pleasantly nondescript room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I give my information to the receptionist and am given the inevitable forms-on-a-clipboard to complete as a first time patient.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By the time I have completed the forms a young couple have entered the waiting room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is carrying several large manila envelopes, one about the size of an x-ray.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is tall and blonde, dressed like a professional on his way to work on this Saturday morning.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She is of Asian heritage, unexpectedly tall, attractive, a pleasing open face.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They sit quietly not talking.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He looks at the nondescript wall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Perhaps he is trying to find a name for the orangey, mustard, tan, yellowish wall color.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another woman goes to the receptionist.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I pick up a magazine.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A woman bustles into the office.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She looks like a woman on a mission.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She is clearly bald under her pink headscarf.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She goes through a door to the left of the receptionist.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I remind myself that this is an obstetric oncology office.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The young couple are called through.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They disappear wordlessly through a door, manila envelopes clutched under the tall blonde man’s arm.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The other women in the office are called through.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I focus on “Everyday with Rachel Ray.” </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is the only magazine there of any interest to me any more.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My days of being interested in “Parenting” or “Family Fun” are gone.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I pass over “The Working Mother,” which I first remember encountering as no more than a two page pamphlet.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What mother isn’t working I wonder.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There was once a time when I wanted to write for “The Working Mother,” I thought I had plenty to tell them about being a single mother in America, but I was too busy. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A cheery looking woman appears from one of the doors.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She explains to me that they are not having people bump me from my turn for some reason or other that sounds convoluted and unnecessary.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The door closes.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A prim looking older woman enters the office.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She too is given the forms-on-a-clipboard.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She sits stiffly, well forward of the ninety degree angle, carefully completing the form, face pinched in concentration.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My name is called. </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">An elderly woman who rests her weight on the sturdy walking cane escorts me slowly to the scales and weighs and measures me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She escorts me to another waiting room and informs me that someone will be there soon to get me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The young couple sit on one side of the room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is staring at yet another wall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s a different color of nondescript.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There is a bookshelf with an assortment of brightly colored glass globes in one corner.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Beside it, firmly fastened to the wall is a double row of brochure holders.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The brochures are all soothing shades of blue and white with titles that no-one wants to open.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She smiles across the short space of the room at me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I smile back.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The stack of manila envelopes is on the table between us, on top of the few magazines.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">All “Parenting” and “Family Fun.” </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I make a quick exit back to the original waiting room to retrieve my “Everyday with Rachel Ray.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The young couple is collected by a cheery woman who leads them into the labyrinth of hallways, examining rooms, and waiting rooms.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He picks up the envelopes.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I wonder if perhaps they are his x-rays and results.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Do men go to see an obstetric oncologist?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I remember many years before when my husband took our nearly three-year old son to the obstetrician in Northern Cyprus where we lived.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My son had slipped in the bath and cracked his chin open.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The obstetrician was the only doctor available to stitch up his chin.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">In the process he sprayed the wound with a topical analgesic to which my son was apparently allergic.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By the time I arrived home several days later my son’s face was one enormous brown scab from beneath his chin to just under his eyes.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">More tender than a woman’s perineum.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cheery woman is back.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She escorts me to an office where I am informed that someone or other will be right with me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cheery woman number two, who is nearly indistinguishable from cheery woman number one, appears.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She doesn’t have what she needs so leaves me to inspect the very small office. </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The desk is huge.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It takes up most of the space.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The uncomfortable padded chairs with arms have been replaced by equally uncomfortable padded chairs without arms.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are three of them lined up against the wall mere inches from the edge of the huge desk.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">To the left of the desk there is a large door.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is a pleasant light smoky color and I wonder what kind of veneer it is, maple or sycamore.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I guess that it is the mandated handicapped accessible door to a bathroom.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I note that there is no way a wheelchair will make it to the door without removing the desk, the three uncomfortable chairs and probably part of the wall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cheery woman number one informs me that she needs to ask me questions about my medical history and that these are questions they ask all incoming patients.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am not to be alarmed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">These are questions difficult to couch in AE.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They have to ask if anyone in the family has ever had breast cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer – all big killers.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She takes a phone call part way through our question and answer session.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She informs me that an examining room is free so we are going to get through the remainder of the questions as quickly as possible.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When discussing the history of life and death matters on a leash shortened by time requirements, there is no room for AE.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This is where reality is unadorned by veneers and padding.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am led to an examining room with the inevitable table with clean paper and stirrups.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cheery woman takes my blood pressure.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It is unremarkable but I tell her it is high for me.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Probably the visit.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We tend to have that effect on people.” Somehow I am not reassured.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am given my instructions.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Everything off.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Gown on with the opening in front.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The doctor will be in in a minute.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I do as instructed and sit in the chair rather than the paper covered table.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are no magazines.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are no brochures.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There is no piped music.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There is no clock but I know that way more than a minute has passed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am left with my fears and morbid anticipation and the table with stirrups.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The minute stretches, pulls, and warps around my left ovary and its unwanted visitor.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Finally the door opens.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cheery woman enters and slides to the side.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A small middle- aged man in pale blue surgical scrubs enters.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He snaps a salute at me and announces his name.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He looks and sounds for all the world like Harry Morgan as Colonel Potter in M*A*S*H.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I smile and instantly like him.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is pleasant, brusquely efficient, and wastes no time with pleasantries.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This is not a man who deals in AE in the examining room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is clearly a man who has palpated thousands of women’s breasts, poked his fingers into their orifices, and searched for the fearful things lurking inside their bodies.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">His manner tells me one of two things; he has come to respect that women are far stronger than cultural propaganda and AE will admit or he doesn’t care about women’s strength and is there to find what is killing them.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Either way, I find myself becoming willing to accept him as my doctor.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The examination is brief.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am instructed to change back into my clothing and go to the waiting room at the end of the hallway.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">As usual after an internal examination, I want to take a shower.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I wonder again at the American lack of acceptance of such non-euphemistic appliances as bidets.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A bidet for every table with stirrups.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I adjust my clothing around my discomfort and open the door.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Which hall, which way?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am directed down the hall to my right.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The waiting room is not so much a room as a cul-de-sac at the confluence of two hallways.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Several women are seated in the area.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I recognize one woman from the first waiting room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Another is reading a book.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A third has the only magazine in the space.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are no brochures.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The lamp lighting reflects off the gray textured wall with barely distinguishable multi-colored flecks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We wait.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We wait with our thoughts and the Georgia O’Keefe print on the wall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Down the hall the door opens and the attractive Asian woman and her nervous husband appear with Colonel Potter.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He talks to her. She talks back, earnestly and carefully.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The husband says nothing.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He still carries the envelopes.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They leave and Colonel Potter approaches us.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“Who’s next?” He is cheerful, comfortable in his own skin and blue scrubs.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A man joins us in the waiting room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is clearly on his own.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Apparently a man would be asked to wait.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Apparently men do visit obstetric oncologists.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“ We just seem to go from one waiting room to the next.” </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is not complaining, just making an observation.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The conversation with the woman reading a book is brief.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The door opens again; the “next” woman was apparently in the wrong waiting room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Cheery woman is escorting her down the hall having a conversation over her shoulder with her.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Colonel Potter waits for us to determine who is next.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We know, he knows we know; he lets us choose.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The woman with the magazine gets up.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I put down my notes and pounce on the discarded magazine.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Underneath it I notice what looks like a cell phone on the side table.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I bury my head in the Family Journal.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The man and the woman with the book have begun a conversation about the new hospital being built behind the center.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I don’t live in the area.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have nothing to contribute to the conversation.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The tall blonde man with the manila envelopes hurries around the corner.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He stretches out a long arm</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">for the cell phone.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I smile at him.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“I wondered if that was someone’s phone left behind.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Could I be any more inane?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He looks at me directly.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">His eyes are the palest blue I have ever seen.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He is handsome in an incredibly blonde, chiseled, Scandinavian way.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">His serious face looks relieved just for an instant.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For this moment he is reaching for something he wants.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For this moment he doesn’t have to think about what is inside the manila envelopes or his wife.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He smiles back at me, scoops up the phone and leaves. The American Euphemism has its small moments of usefulness.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-19919350618580235842009-11-01T17:00:00.000-08:002009-11-03T19:44:20.443-08:00Solace<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWVe4XL6LNaPC_wIneOZa-NwZHhTZsSqheYj52fosKu4NWqGuDJcMEqkPaOpY-5T_r3Iv4wtIOyLPJHUx2LOGeihV3NL3B6JtaLw96DnFtMRMBKXhLk-4yRNhs9FUN-e5dami3oMlRTIi/s1600-h/guttenfelder48.sJPG_920_590_0_95_1_50_50.sJPG.jpeg"></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygJBqA48A6UAPGdy8R-5GvQOhQVJCRwz4jZxkGZNcZMGou2-hTLa8F9GtXy0wS64IBXbAovhRa_jBQBtA6z35Sf15hvIuLfg0_ZJe6bPme__1SgiBHZhoM1sTDhXS9heZ6vGpTYoun8U3/s1600-h/DSCF0023.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhygJBqA48A6UAPGdy8R-5GvQOhQVJCRwz4jZxkGZNcZMGou2-hTLa8F9GtXy0wS64IBXbAovhRa_jBQBtA6z35Sf15hvIuLfg0_ZJe6bPme__1SgiBHZhoM1sTDhXS9heZ6vGpTYoun8U3/s320/DSCF0023.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400085948379544434" /></a><br /><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">It was the flimsiest of excuses but it did the job as well as any finely honed paring knife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It cut away the last gasp of hope, peeling the flesh and tissue of anticipation away from the bone, exposing it raw, white, clean, and grotesque in its isolation from the supportive tissue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It wedged itself, sharp and choking into the narrow part of my throat as I sat by the side of the road in the waning light of the cool October evening.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“It’s her kids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They don’t want her to do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">I felt the anger billowing past the obstruction in my throat.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"></span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>“It’s going to cost her money to pull out of the deal.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">But he was gone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For the fourth or fifth time I was talking into the empty space of the universe through the small black plastic microphone in my hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I flipped it shut in disgust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The tears gathered somewhere in the pit of my stomach witnessing this parody of errors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">I had known all along that he wasn’t really suitable, that somehow this whole thing would just fall apart, that the dream I had nurtured and whispered into being was just that; a dream in locomotion, flitting through the ether to land for a brief moment on a piece of paper, looking real - and then to waft away as if this cursory visit into the second dimension was just not something it cared for.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">I could see it dancing on the ebbing waves of joyfulness out through the windshield into the light beam of the oncoming car without so much as a backward glance leaving me without words, without hope, without joy, feeling manifestly unloved. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">I contemplated the usefulness of violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My pacifist heart was wrenched open and I felt the solace of small savageries seep into my anger, saturating it into heavy expectancy. Like honey dripping from a fresh comb ripped from a hive, small, heavy drops of venom slipped down through the cracks in my non-violent philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They slid around the pouches and folds of decades of peace protests and humanist causes coating them with the sweet talk of force.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They gathered and pooled in the blackest and farthest outreaches of my being feeding into life the small dark, hairy, scratchy things that hibernate there.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">These tiny things, red-eyed and brittle, long clawed and curved back, fanged and fickle, envious, fearful, ignorant, and contemptuous wait for these moments - the moments when pain becomes violence, and violence becomes force, and force becomes greed, and greed consumes everything in sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In these moments wars begin, not with a shot, or an order that begins an invasion, or an explosion that tears apart thousands of lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Wars begin when pain finds a friend in anger, a conspirator in ignorance, and nourishment in the fresh blood of others.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">I want to believe that, like the Mahatma, there are causes for which I would die and none for which I would kill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I know that’s a lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I know that backed into a corner with my children’s lives on the line, I would kill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I know there have been many moments when pain has found that companion in anger leaving me murderous and full of the blood lust of those small, hairy things lurking in dark places. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">What recourse is there for these moments?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What rescues me from this seductive, sickly, sweet venom?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tears, tears from the bowels of hurt and anger, screams from the gut, from the place where we were joined to our mothers, and ultimately the solace of others, the admission of defeat and the confession of an encounter with violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><div><br /></div></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Verdana;color:#333333;">Would that wars were so easily avoided. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWVe4XL6LNaPC_wIneOZa-NwZHhTZsSqheYj52fosKu4NWqGuDJcMEqkPaOpY-5T_r3Iv4wtIOyLPJHUx2LOGeihV3NL3B6JtaLw96DnFtMRMBKXhLk-4yRNhs9FUN-e5dami3oMlRTIi/s200/guttenfelder48.sJPG_920_590_0_95_1_50_50.sJPG.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400088285250399218" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 134px; " /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Verdana, serif;color:#333333;"><br /></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-73160978744608078582009-09-27T13:32:00.000-07:002009-09-27T13:34:28.244-07:00Sculpting a Day.<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yesterday it rained.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was one of those days that you know, before you’re even fully conscious, that it is the perfect day to stay in the warmth and coziness of the bed nest.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, there are those of us for whom nature will not abide cool rainy mornings at the end of summer.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I had to get up and pee.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I had to get up because I had an appointment for a massage.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How hard can it be to get up and go for a massage on a Saturday morning?<br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I can make hard work of just about anything.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The reason I have so many unfinished projects littering my life is that I make all of them into something so vast with so many layers of complexity that I just cannot work up the energy to complete any of them.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Granted, I love nothing more than to get into one of my creative projects, the kind that has its intestinal parts strewn from the front door through the front room, into the living room and onto the large kitchen table.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">These are the projects that I love to live with for days and sometimes weeks on end.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I can visit them every morning in various states of undress while on my way to the kitchen.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We see each other in all our unadorned incompleteness.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are days I don’t make it to the kitchen for hours because of a conjugal visit with one of my projects.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This is not always a good thing – to commit to art before caffeine.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When I was sculpting my triptych of the three phases of a woman’s life, I spent many mornings working in my underwear in the living room.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Not having the luxury of a studio, I had the pieces arranged in the living room.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The piece I was working on at the time, The Maiden, was giving me all manner of psychological and spatial fits.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I wanted her emerging from the earth among the roots of the tree I used as a connecting force for the pieces.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">At first she was strangled by the roots, she was in completely the wrong place, even though she had a face Matisse would have loved.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I had to learn a serious lesson in art with this piece.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She had to be freed from the roots; she had to be moved.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My instructor, Ski, took one of my tools and made huge gashes through her beautiful face, her hands, the roots, through other sections of the piece.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“ You have to move her from here, to here.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You can whack or you can whittle.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I chose to whack.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Mainly because I couldn’t bear to live with those gash marks.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I moved her and in the process freed her from the root prison where I had placed her. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It hurt me to remove her beautiful innocent face piece by piece, scraping the grey Roma clay from her bones, pulling her hands apart and laying them piece by piece in a new location.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Like a forensic scientist, I reassembled her, centered her, and freed her all at once.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It seemed like an incredibly long process.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After a few hours, her face was almost completed; her bones were covered with the new skin of youth and she was emerging once again from the clay like a face emerging from the surface of still water.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Ski told me the process changed me from a woman with a project into an artist.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Artistry has its price as well as its process.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">You have to be willing to live with frustration and undergo regular visitations with pain.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s almost like living with cancer; the best you can hope for is survival.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The Maiden sat on the inclined artist table in the living room.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She beckoned to me each morning of that summer to come work on her, to finish the whacking job with the finesse of whittling.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The whack or whittle thing is really not a choice, regardless of which you choose, you still have to, or end up doing, both.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Many mornings, in the rising warmth of my old house I paused, picked up the tools and began to whittle.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I worked patiently on the hands.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I wanted them to evoke both softness and strength, a delicacy of self love and a fierceness of self protection.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I held up my own hands, inspected the photos I had taken of my daughter’s hands, I whittled into the heat of the summer mornings.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By the end of summer the hands embraced but barely whispered over the skin of the Maiden’s face, long slender neck, gently curving shoulder, and rising breast.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On my sleepy-eyed journey to the kitchen I would pause to inspect her.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I felt a mix of pleasure and uncertainty – there was something terribly wrong and I just couldn’t place it.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The face had matured under the plastic surgery of relocation; the hands became more real, free and loving rather than struggling out of the roots.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What was the problem?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some problems are hidden in plain sight; they await discovery with an abiding anticipation.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My hidden problems are often like those pictures hidden under a repeated graphic – no matter how long I stared, no matter how many different ways I scrunched up my eyes I could never manage to see the picture hidden in a plethora of small designs.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My children could not comprehend my particular form of blindness.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some problems are just sensed rather than seen.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They defy a full on stare; they flicker through the periphery of our consciousness until one day we realize there is something flying through wearing fuchsia pink tights, orange brocade shawl, and burgundy pumps.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It demands our immediate attention.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That’s how it happened.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">One morning on the way to the kitchen, I didn’t stop, but I saw it, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the full deformity of it all.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And, it stopped me in my tracks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There’s only so much you can do when faced with a self-created monstrosity.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">After staring for a long time in complete disbelief, after checking to make sure I was finally seeing things as they really were, I began to laugh.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">First it was an embarrassed behind the hand titter with a check to ensure that no one else was watching.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Who would be watching into the life in my living room?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Then it was a full on laugh, followed by exasperated sighs of frustration.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I picked up the tools and began to work.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How had I managed to do this?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">How did I miss seeing it?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Epiphanies are like that – surprising and simple.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I want to believe they are also timely but sometimes I wonder if the Gods simply want something to laugh at.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I had managed to sculpt two beautifully constructed right hands on my self-embracing Maiden.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have learned that it is easier to whack at mistakes rather than whittle away at them.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Even if they are resurrected in a new deformity, they provide the possibility for future learning.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And that, I guess, is what happens to some of my days, especially the cool rainy ones.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yesterday my body did not want to participate in the day but I dragged it to the luxury of a massage and ultimately it was grateful.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The day that remained rainy saw me in a chair, not doing a whole lot, allowing the massage to permeate every cell membrane, playing with my laptop, watching for a break in the rain over New York so the tennis could actually happen.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The rain didn’t stop.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I didn’t do anything creative the entire day.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I didn’t do anything that exerted brain or body the entire day.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I lazed and I dozed.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I read a book.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The only mistake was that somewhere along the line, I berated myself for doing nothing much of anything for the day.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I know better than to abuse myself that way.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There’s a large gash in the clay of yesterday.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My perception of it has to be moved.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It needs to be freed from the prison of my busy little internal “doer” who every now and again will arise to pee on my parade, usually the parade where I am well fed and cared for and carried on a lush litter through the day.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Written while awaiting the final of the U.S. Tennis Open.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-6559211287403124172009-09-26T18:37:00.000-07:002009-09-26T19:02:10.988-07:00The Zen of Whining<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www5.big.or.jp/~otake/hey/kanji/gifmoji/f1/zen.gif"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://icons.mysitemyway.com/wp-content/gallery/blue-white-pearls-icons-symbols-shapes/018202-blue-white-pearl-icon-symbols-shapes-check-mark.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 512px; height: 512px;" src="http://icons.mysitemyway.com/wp-content/gallery/blue-white-pearls-icons-symbols-shapes/018202-blue-white-pearl-icon-symbols-shapes-check-mark.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I feel like sitting here and filling my empty coffee cup with tears; tears of frustration and self-pity.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some Saturday mornings are like that – full of frustration and self pity accompanied by the smell of</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On What Grounds coffee, the clank, huff, and whistle of the espresso machine, the tramp of feet past my wrought iron perch, and a funky New Orlean’s style version of “You Can’t Take That Away From Me.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I feel as if everything has already gone – nothing left to take except the wanting.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The small hoped for things that aren’t really things but hang in the air like silver spoon wind chimes constantly tinkling in the wind reminding me over and over of the song I want to sing.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Not that I’m a singer, it’s some kind of Zen reference to finding your own note, your own unique note in the Universe and sounding it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Sometimes I just want to smack those Zen things but there’s nothing tangible there, nothing that will sound with a solid thwack.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They just hang around, sometimes in my peripheral vision and sometimes square center in the core of my being.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some of the time they give me a little more endurance to keep on hanging in with the wanting and the living life on life’s terms.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There’s a story that keeps regurgitating itself into my memory.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s the story about the artist student going to the Zen master who has her paint a blue check mark day after day, week after week, month after month until she finally complains more loudly and vehemently than usual.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So the Zen master takes her latest effort of a blue check mark painting away.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He comes back a little while later and beckons her to go with him.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now, this is the point where violins should start shrieking in the background; it is not a Hallmark moment about to happen.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The student has to make a choice whether to follow and receive the inevitable Zen slap upside the head or just walk away.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Of course it wouldn’t be a story if, despite the wailing violins and the inevitability of pain, the student victim didn’t walk into whole point of the story willing to be impaled on the whole Zenness of it all.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She follows the master into a room full of paintings of blue check marks.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">“Which one is yours?”</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On Saturday mornings like this one, I see the Zen master as just being too smug for Zen at this point.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I know he is full of compassionate light and all that happy love stuff but after months of painting blue check marks, if I was the artist student, I know exactly where I would want to be putting my next blue check mark.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Unable to discern her own unique check mark, the artist student is humbled, if not humiliated, and returns, full of insight and empty of complaint, to the process of bringing herself, her full self, out onto the canvas via a blue check mark.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">What if all the check marks were hers?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">If we are all One, wouldn’t all the check marks be hers?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I’m sure there’s a Zen sequel to this facetious response but I haven’t yet come across it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some days you just have to be allowed to snivel into your empty coffee cup and act as if the Zen masters of the world are in fact recalcitrant sadists with severe detachment disorders.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">So, back to my self-pity and it’s current resistance to Zen.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Just what do I have to be sorry about?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Let’s start with the fact that it’s Saturday and it’s raining.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">All week the weather has been close to perfect, warm sunny days perched on cool morning air.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">These are the days where I am shut into the dark prison of my job.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I am grateful that I have a job; I am not obsessively ungrateful, my whining has its limits. Each morning I enter the lower level of the school where I work at my desk, at my computer, in my windowless classroom.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It feels like a prison where the guards come by every now and again to run their nightsticks across the bars and yell and holler their frustration at me.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When you’re the low person on the totem pole, the yelling and hollering all ends up like so many sharp pointy barbs hanging out of your flesh.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This is the place where there is a need for a Zen shield, some kind of protective device that bounces all the sharp pointy barbs off into the stratosphere.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Maybe it needs a blue check mark, a very definitive blue check mark painted on it for it to work.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Someone told me this week that my students were fortunate to have me in their lives, that I made a difference.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">That day I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I laughed and told them I would inform my students of their good fortune.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I didn’t of course.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Maybe that was the point where I allowed the sharp pointy things to enter my flesh, to feel the barbs tearing away at the places that are vulnerable.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">No matter how confidently I enter my prison, no matter how Zen like I am about embracing freedom as an inside job, no matter how many prayers of gratitude I send into the stratosphere, I usually crawl from my day broken and dispirited, exhausted and bleeding, with more left undone than completed. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It’s been this way for a while, a long while.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I want to be able to crawl home to a home that feels like my blue check mark home.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have found it, close by and in a community where I would feel comfortable.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This week I put in yet another bid on yet another townhouse that I just love.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have to sell my house, my old falling down house, to make the whole thing happen.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The last people who looked at my house said they were “in awe of the beauty and care” on the inside of my house.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They haven’t made an offer.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They haven’t come back.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I called my realtor this rainy Saturday morning hoping he would lasso them into some kind of deal – any kind of deal.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">This crazy “I want, I want, I think it’s happening, the door is open, oh no</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- it closed again, I can’t have” journey has been going on for more than a year.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The "now you see it, now you don’t" peek-a-boo game of serendipity gone awry challenges all my levels of acceptance and humor.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It slashes through the flesh of the psyche with razor sharp precision.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It exposes all my vulnerable places and I end up in sitting in On What Grounds on a rainy Saturday morning oozing into my empty coffee cup, not the ceramic coffee cup that Lori forgot to give me this morning, but a paper cup.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">She said she was sorry; it didn’t make me feel any better.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I will have to endure this rainy Saturday, this frustration with my current life events, my falling down house, the ingratitude of my job.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">But, because it’s Saturday, I can choose whether or not to be happy about it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><img src="http://www5.big.or.jp/~otake/hey/kanji/gifmoji/f1/zen.gif" border="0" alt="" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 379px; height: 379px; " /><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-41909650473397408222009-09-14T18:39:00.000-07:002009-09-20T07:51:22.506-07:00Between a Rock and a Hard Place<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">There are few things more satisfying than a sound night’s sleep.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Last night I slept deeply on a futon bed in Susan’s guest bedroom.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My arms and shoulders were aching from the serious weed whacking I had done the evening before.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">My body was protesting every move that didn’t involve the prone position.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The futon bed wrapped itself around me, the light-weight duvet warmed me in the cool of an end of summer night and after a few pages of a new book, I fell into a deep, complete sleep.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Even the barking of the dogs in the early morning hours did not bother me.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I heard them, rolled over and went straight back to sleep.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Usually I don’t sleep well the first night I spend in a strange bed.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I learned to carry my pillow with me when spending the night somewhere different.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Like a security “blankie” my pillow helps me rest easily in strange surroundings.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Not that there is anything strange about the places I choose to spend the night, not any more.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I have noticed that as my body ages it has developed a preference for stability, for dependability, for sameness.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">When I ask it, as I have so many times in the past, to indulge my latest concept of adventure, it protests, dragging itself reluctantly behind the excitement of my mind, or perhaps it is my ego.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Without some smidgen of familiarity, like my own not-too-soft, not-too-thick, just-right pillow, my body just flat out refuses to go.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Yesterday I forgot my pillow.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">By the time yesterday was done, I was so tired I would have happily slept on a rock.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I did once - sleep on a rock out of choice.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was a long time ago in the space of my life but I can see that evening from here more clearly than I can see yesterday.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We were in Pakistan.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We stopped late into the evening.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The youth hostel we had planned to stay in was no longer in existence. Our guides kept the truck rolling until we found a reasonably secluded spot. We stopped on the roadside where the grass grew full and green down a rolling slope.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">No-one bothered to pitch a tent.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We ate our usual meal of tomatoes, cucumbers and flat bread along with some re-constituted dried meal from the rations on the truck.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Karen and I surveyed the terrain, walking and circling it like a pair of dogs looking for a spot to sleep.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We decided the grassy slope was bumpy, uneven, and probably swarming with insects just waiting to dine on our unsuspecting flesh.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We chose the concrete slab that once held a picnic table.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">It was flat for starters.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The rocks and pebbles embedded in the concrete were nowhere near as lumpy as the mounds of earth under the lush grass.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And, more importantly, it was far from the snores of our companions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Choosing the hard place to sleep doesn’t necessarily make that much difference.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We lay on top of our sleeping bags.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I wrapped myself in the yellow cotton sarong I had purchased in an Indian bazaar.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I had learned that the soft cotton allowed a greater degree of comfort in the steamy nights we slept through in India and Pakistan.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I packed my towel and a sweater into my pillowcase forming a solid thin square. I fell asleep as quickly and as soundly as I slept last night on Susan’s futon bed.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Pakistan has probably never been a place for sleepy westerners on the side of the road.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We were awakened during the night.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Karen and I further from the truck than our companions could hear the shouts and see the beams of flashlights.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Bodies appeared to be moving in all directions.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The shouts were not friendly – from either side.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Lying on the relative obscurity of the concrete slab, I immediately became pre-occupied with what was happening in my sarong.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Something had found its way between the layers of soft yellow cloth and was heaving up and down on my chest protesting the accommodations.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Perhaps because I was in that non-thinking place of sleepiness and panic, I leapt up and tore at the sarong, pulling it off my body until the frog, angry and probably panicked, fled from my body, leaving me nearly naked staring into the turmoil of the night.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The light was shone inches from my blinking eyes by a thoroughly entertained Pakistani soldier.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He grinned beneath his red beret and thick moustache.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">He and his companion</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">herded Karen and I at gunpoint towards the others.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Some of our companions were protesting noisily at their sleep being disturbed.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Even then I knew better than to argue with a man with a gun, no matter how antiquated that gun appeared.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The soldiers were conspicuously armed at every seam with knives, scimitars, hand-grenades, and guns.</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Who knew what they had beneath the folds of their khaki uniforms, tucked in their socks or beneath their cummerbunds or their red berets?</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They were very clear.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We could not litter the side of their road with our sleeping bodies.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We had to go to a hostel.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The hostel, as it turned out, was incredibly close to their barracks where they were heading on foot.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">And so, on a relatively cool night in Pakistan, we shared the back of our Bedford truck with a small troop of delighted soldiers.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">They grinned most of the way.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We glowered back at them. </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I remained quiet and simply followed along passively until my heart began to beat at something that resembled a normal rate. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We all survived that trip through the Pakistan night.</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Now, more than thirty years later I can barely survive a night on Susan’s futon bed without my own pillow or unless I am incredibly tired, so tired that I think I could sleep on a rock if I had too. </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-44276067378684752452009-09-14T18:26:00.000-07:002009-09-26T19:09:22.425-07:00These are Things a Woman Notices<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">These are things a woman notices:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Whether or not she is appreciated</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Art that is about something</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Death in art,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">a ruptured thing, decapitated by a streak of green</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">handless arms dressed in bright orange</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">knitted by missing hands.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A flower dying gracefully in the presence of acid rain</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Discards from a world too hurried</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to see the patterns of life in each cast-off.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The land already filled with itself</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">in no need of our refuse</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The purple tinged toes, barren of life </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">hanging above the crumpled earth</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The earth ground colors of soil</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-after rain</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- after too much sun</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.0in;text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- after a hanging.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Personal politics;</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The defiance of a naked form </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">seen through the eyes of a woman, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The places where courage has seeped through</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">the cracks of patriarchal strongholds</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to explode onto canvas in bright, harlot lipstick, red</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">leaving some places completely untouched, raw and wild.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Fabric, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">yarn, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">thread,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">things that curl and coil onto one another</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- fall into one another</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- hold one another</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">separate from one another – at the seams</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">bringing together burlapsack beings</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">in communion.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The rising bald black spheres of the unconscious</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">shiny with their secrets.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Pink plastic rose-strewn chairs</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">among standing room only men.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The pale, pink, flush of a child’s cheek about to </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">feel the first sharpness of teeth</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The soft dewy redness of raspberries fresh from the field</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The round heft of a melon</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A small swish of bright yellow chiffon hem brushing</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">through a child’s world </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .75in"><span style="mso-font-width:0%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-</span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">as she rises </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .75in"><span style="mso-font-width:0%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-</span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">imperceptibly </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to feel the passing waft of an angel robe.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The solid warmth of polished stone</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Shoes</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Pain</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Skin</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The way skin stretches and folds over pain</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- and age</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The wistful froth of lace</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">at the neck</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">covering the rising breastplate</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Eyebrows opening</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Windows viewing</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">the places where bodies break and </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">wings fall to earth.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The way a hand rests upon an open page </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- waiting</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">For words to turn the page, to reveal</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .75in"><span style="mso-font-width:0%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-</span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to astonish.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The power of words to break</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .75in"><span style="mso-font-width:0%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-</span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to inspire</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .75in"><span style="mso-font-width:0%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-</span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to heal</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The bright round moon luminescence of pearls</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Fear</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.75in;text-indent:-.25in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;tab-stops:list .75in"><span style="mso-font-width:0%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">-</span><span style="font:7.0pt "Times New Roman""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">released, unable to stop</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">a woman burning with desire </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to paint, to mold, to sculpt, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">to create.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Hope</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- enacted</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The fragility of bold ideas</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt;text-indent:33.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- who considered the purple star underside of open crocus petals?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The need for luck</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">- and monofilament line</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The color of light</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The diaspora of art</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The brevity of beauty</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The line of orange against grey</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The crumble of white polystyrene against solid bronze</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">The crease of hair against skin</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Shoulders, clavicles, bone and tendon, flesh and tissue that hold </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">the weight of breasts.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">These things are sign of Woman</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">walking through a world </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">where She sees herself</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">into Being.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Written in the National Museum for Women in the Arts</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:3.0pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">September 5, 2009</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-2349454680270987212009-09-14T18:13:00.000-07:002009-09-20T07:45:07.703-07:00Sofas, Bridges, and Trucks –Oh My!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs7I468zBIFTkWGoiKoPQm2B9b9NViId-d1PPwu1v6zJ_OlKmZVhVMAPH5GEMDNwO_MeY3dy-a2X2VS6Eg2WDYywHTIV_aHnN9XIwXaLD7_2N7HOpDzKTuK0FKSEHV65CTH4ucAZ__1VgC/s1600-h/DSCF0195.JPG"></a><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs7I468zBIFTkWGoiKoPQm2B9b9NViId-d1PPwu1v6zJ_OlKmZVhVMAPH5GEMDNwO_MeY3dy-a2X2VS6Eg2WDYywHTIV_aHnN9XIwXaLD7_2N7HOpDzKTuK0FKSEHV65CTH4ucAZ__1VgC/s320/DSCF0195.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383559980000113330" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCUTAyv8pV9lwx4muQMugdirUsGe81fmESP6nHV0nNH1fBwh4gPWgomfARUXWbXqwpnSHs_MIXeiVrPOTxPtsjYHUfyVpxIhYVMsI-KBEJtxhYUXTuzps1ETSNexk9761MXcIwM28oOoxv/s1600-h/Photo+25.jpg"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It seemed simple enough.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But, simple enough turned out to be a little more complex than any of us had imagined.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The basic premise served everybody; well-to-do couple discards good quality living room furniture; poor working class mom who needs new furniture accepts donation.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There were a few obstacles to be overcome so plans were developed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The plan developers were women of a certain age who had navigated life’s obstacle courses with some degree of success.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Women who have dealt with single parent-hood and a working life in the education system, could reasonably be expected to come up with something simple and effective.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">These are the kind of women who should really be In-Charge-Of-Everything. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Life is tricky.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Life is often complicated by unforeseen forces that want to intrude on simple plans as much as they do on grandiose plans.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">These forces cannot always be placated by prayer or manifold supplication –they simply have to be endured.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The first obstacle was distance.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The furniture was in Bethany Beach, Delaware.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It’s new home is in Chambersburg, PA (still pronounced pee-ay).</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">That, according to the odometer in the yellow Penske truck, is a distance of 238 miles.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">However, I’m no longer sure of the trustworthiness of the Penske truck or it’s supporting company.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">However, I shall get to that. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The simple plan conjured up by my friend, Greta, in Bethany Beach was to collect the truck, the furniture, and drive it to her side of the Bay Bridge.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I would drive, with a friend, to meet her at a delightful restaurant, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Fisherman’s Inn</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">, on her side of the Bay Bridge, buy Greta and her friend lunch, collect the truck and furniture and drive it back to Chambersburg, PA.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This is as simple as a relay race in slow motion.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Slow motion means you have plenty of time to pass the baton and are therefore unlikely to drop it. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The second obstacle was getting the furniture into my house after the old furniture had been removed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This was a twofold obstacle; old out, new in and could not be accomplished with a gaudy dropping ball and a down-count from ten to zero.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It required some careful forethought and the assistance of a number of friends and the same unforeseen forces that can complicate matters.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Removing old furniture from my house is also not as simple as it sounds.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I live in a very old house that once served as home for railway workers.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It was moved to its present site by an enterprising railway company that moved houses for its employees to where they were most needed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The railway station in Chambersburg was once situated on the highline almost directly opposite my house.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">During the century or more in its current location, the house had a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom added onto it; the placement of the back door was changed, and subsequent owners added all manner of interesting little quirks to it.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The result is an interesting mélange of old.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">In the middle of the house is a relatively narrow but long room that connects the kitchen to the hallway.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I use it as a living room; it has the TV and my Pilates machine in it.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The TV receives considerably more attention than the Pilates machine.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Here is where I wished to place the smaller of the two sofas I was about to receive.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Here is where I had a large faux leather, double recliner sofa with a drop down table top that I didn’t discover until I tried to pri the whole thing apart.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I inherited this sofa from a co-worker for a mere $25.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">In order to get the sofa into the house, it had to be completely dismantled and then reassembled once all the parts had been squeezed through the 28 inch wide hallway opening; an opening that cannot be angled around as it also happens to be about 30 inches long and barely six foot tall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The hallway wall has been repainted numerous times after each furniture departure and arrival.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The friend who originally squeezed the faux leather double recliner sofa into the living room was unavailable.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I had to resort to my companions of creativity.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Mark is an unexpected lead singer in a rock band.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I say unexpected because he has a calm and sweet personality that does not seem to fit the presumed angst of the rock band singer.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Mark arrived with friend-with-tools and within 10 minutes the faux leather double recliner sofa was dismantled and on the sidewalk alongside a springless chair from another room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Both now wore “Free” signs.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And, there were no holes or scrapings on the wall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Mark would return on Saturday to help carry in the new furniture.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">So far, so simple.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">That was Tuesday. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">On Monday and Wednesday I spoke with Candy, a young lady employed by Penske.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I had already spoken with Michael after my online booking for the truck that would carry the furniture from Delaware to PA.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michael assured me of the cost, the after hours drop off availability, the lack of probable problems.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">All would surely be well.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Candy required that I send a permission note for my friend to pick up the truck plus a copy of my driver’s license.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I faxed, I called, I forwarded e-mail information, I ensured all was done as it should be.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It still seemed like a reasonable and simple plan.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Now here’s where everything starts to stretch out, like a never ending bridge that seems to disappear over the horizon to hoped for dry land.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Presumptions are dangerous and tricky things.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They lurk in the coyote brain of life waiting to surprise, infuriate, distort, and change the shape of things to come.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They ride on the conniving back of things known, which often turn out to be just more presumptions. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">On Wednesday, I returned home late in the evening after a hot and tiring day of work and commitments and tasks that all had to be accomplished before the first day of in-service training.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The furniture was no longer on the sidewalk.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My neighbor rang my doorbell as I was putting away groceries and contemplating a well-deserved plate of Edy’s Butterfinger Overload ice-cream.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She had been told, and didn’t know if it was true or not, but her brother saw it happen, and so she knew that the furniture had been dragged up the high-line by some neighborhood kids and put on the railway tracks.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I contemplated this news through filters of incredulity and frustration.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It definitely had an adverse effect on the ice-cream. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The highline is steep and thickly wooded with a good measure of underbrush.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">You would have to be crazy to even think of carrying that faux-leather double recliner sofa up there.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Who would be crazy enough to do that?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The answer was simple, the neighborhood kids.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I called the police on the non-emergency number.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I have it on speed dial.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They had the good grace not to laugh.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The last time I called them was to inform them that the neighborhood kids had backed a white van over my car and it was inserted at a dangerous angle into the car’s hood.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I was concerned about the possible effect on a train driver of hitting a large faux-leather double recliner sofa at speed.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They would send an officer up to take a look.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I didn’t hear back from them. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Friday was a hot day at work.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The downstairs air conditioner broke when they finally turned it on.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My windowless room is downstairs.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I arrived home about 5:30 to find a message from Candy on my home phone, despite the fact that I had called her on my cell phone and faxed her the number.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She wanted to give me directions to pick up the truck.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">This, despite the fact that we had three conversations about my friend, Greta, picking up the truck and I had faxed her a permission note for my friend to perform this task.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A small pimple of doubt erupted and I called Candy, who had of course departed for the day.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I spoke to a pleasant man, explained my frustration and asked him to call my friend with the pick-up details, which he did.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I know he did because I checked.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">On Saturday morning I was greeted by a clear blue sky.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I collected two frozen caramel coffees from Panera and waited for my friend Michelle to collect me.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The coffees were sitting on the roof of my car when I noticed the neighborhood pitbull and an unknown person over by the basketball court.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The man was talking to the pitbull, a noisy, untrained dog starved for affection as well as food.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He asked if it was my dog.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I headed down the street toward the large house two doors down where the pitbull is usually tethered with a car chain under a desolate tree. </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I banged on the front door.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">No answer.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I went to the side door all the while telling the stranger and Michelle where the dog is usually kept.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michelle loves animals.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The pitbull is instantly in love with her and will do anything she wants including following her back to his prison with cooler full of green water and fly-infested surroundings </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">As we walked back down the side of the house, I noticed the faux-leather, double recliner sofa and springless chair from the sidewalk on their front porch.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The sofa is still in pieces but it is arranged well.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There is some consolation in knowing that no train driver was traumatized by an unexpected meeting with my furniture.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I wonder, briefly, what the police response will be to my next call.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michelle and I head out towards the Bay Bridge.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We left on time.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We allowed three hours for the trip, plenty of time.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We presumed that most people heading to the beach for the weekend would already be there and that those returning would be on the other side of the road or not returning until the following day.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The frozen caramel coffees were wonderful, the sky was blue, the traffic was moderate.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">What could go wrong?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">About an hour and half into our journey I checked my phone (maybe I will one day blog about my hate-hate relationship with AT&T) .</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Suffice it to say, the phone tells me nothing.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Later, it would tell me there were two missed calls and two new messages.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I listened to them.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I heard Candy tell me that she would need my credit card number, then I heard Greta’s voice say it could be put on her card.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I was puzzled.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">My credit card information was all inserted in the online booking.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I listened to a message from Greta.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I couldn't hear all of it but I understood that they were running late.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I called Candy and I was not feeling in my most pleasant disposition.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I made a few determinations about Candy and none of them were positive.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It seems that the unforeseen forces at work in all our lives had crept into the Penske building and departed with the computer, coffee pot, vacuum cleaner, tools and other undeternined, assorted stuff.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Candy was apologetic but said my friend was very nice about it all and they put the truck rental on her card.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I aspire to be as understanding as Greta. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I called Greta who told me that not only was Penske burgled, but they decided to give me a bigger truck and change the front tires before departure.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The result was a need to stop at all weigh stations en route and at least an hour’s delay.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Greta told me that Candy didn’t know what to do without her computer.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Greta has the opposite problem.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She stepped Candy through the process of using a credit card without having a computer.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She waited while they changed the tires.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">She noticed the Penske building was located next to the police barracks.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Greta was in the midst of horrendous traffic.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">They were leaving about the time we had anticipated arriving at the Fisherman’s Inn. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michelle and I approached the Bay Bridge.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The lines were long and sedentary. A haze of carbon emissions and heat rose into the morning brightness.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The cars snaked out across the broad expanse of the toll-booths weaving in and out of lines only to crawl with mind-numbing slowness towards their destination.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We hit the EZ pass lane with relief and a smidgen of gratitude that we had circled around the block to retrieve my pass before leaving Chambersburg and the pitbull. </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Within minutes we were through and heading across the bridge.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">More calls to Greta indicated they could be even further away than expected.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We decided to while away the time at a nearby outlet mall.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">There are some places I should not go.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The first time I tasted a Harry and David’s chocolate truffle, I knew I should never, ever set foot inside one of their stores.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I have to admit after that first bite, I did check out the locations of their stores.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">But, I managed to resist any movement toward one of those stores.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">As we pulled into the mall, I noticed from my unaccustomed spot in the passenger seat that there is a Harry and David’s store off to our left.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">“I’ve never been in one them.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">“You are not serious.....”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michelle flipped the car around the one way system and slotted it neatly into the parking lot directly in front of Harry and David’s.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The gods have a way of tempting the weak; first of all they provide the best parking spot, then they make sure that the greatest number of samples are present in the smallest possible space.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I had no intention of spending any money above and beyond the cost of the Penske truck, gas, lunch, and a few dollars to recompense people for their time and energy.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">That was as far as my meager budget would spread.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Somehow I managed to stretch it even further to cover two boxes of the maltballs on special –they were the first sample hit just inside the door, a jar of asiago cheese spread, another jar of mango salsa and one bag of dark chocolate truffles for those dark days ahead.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">At least, that’s what I told Michelle.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Two hours and numerous calls later, calls that AT&T saw fit not to deliver to my cell phone, we finally made the rendevous with Greta at the Fisherman’s Inn.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Lunch was at 2:30 and it was wonderful.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Another trip back across the Bay Bridge at a speed no EZ pass could expedite.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> I</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">t just had to be endured as I fiddled with the air-conditioning, the mirrors, the seats, the placement of my cell phone, chocolate maltballs, and water bottle, all the things that the long distance driver needs at hand.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The trip was singularly uneventful.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">All the weigh stops were closed so it is still a mystery to me what happens in those little pull-over strips.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Penske truck performed its job well as long as I did not require it to go over 65 miles per hour.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">At that point it began to shudder and sway and scare me.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Chambersburg dragged itself closer and closer and once again that relationship with AT&T failed me yet again.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Finally as I was pulling into my street I learned that Mark would be there with a friend.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And sure enough he arrived within minutes on his bicycle with his former girlfriend, AJ.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">He was already hauling stuff out of the truck by the time I answered the door.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Some summer days in Chambersburg the humidity is sufficient to make breathing an iron-man exercise.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> Saturday</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> was one of those days.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">We were all covered in sweat as we quickly realized the sofas at their smallest point were not going to pass through the 28 inch doorframe.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">A great shuffling of big things and cushions and chairs and tables occurred.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Eventually the small sofa and chair adorned my built in front porch, the large sofa was in the front room with fireplace and computer and the papason and spare chair were in the television room.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">All was well.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">And best of all, AJ decided she wanted to buy my house.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Michelle retured and the Penske truck was dropped off in its unlikely spot shared with a tombstone distribution center.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">Some alliances just should not be questioned.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCUTAyv8pV9lwx4muQMugdirUsGe81fmESP6nHV0nNH1fBwh4gPWgomfARUXWbXqwpnSHs_MIXeiVrPOTxPtsjYHUfyVpxIhYVMsI-KBEJtxhYUXTuzps1ETSNexk9761MXcIwM28oOoxv/s1600-h/Photo+25.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCUTAyv8pV9lwx4muQMugdirUsGe81fmESP6nHV0nNH1fBwh4gPWgomfARUXWbXqwpnSHs_MIXeiVrPOTxPtsjYHUfyVpxIhYVMsI-KBEJtxhYUXTuzps1ETSNexk9761MXcIwM28oOoxv/s320/Photo+25.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5383545643608985410" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">When I walk into my home these days, I am instantly reminded of the beach.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> Against the first edict of </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">The Art ManofEsto,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">he green and pink furniture matches the art and also the color scheme of the front porch.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I wait with the endurance and patience for the time when I can place the furniture in the living room of the townhouse I have picked out – just as soon as I sell this old house in a falling down neighborhood.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">It’s a perfect investment, a great fixer upper, a home for the inspired creativity and energy of the young.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">When I reflect on this small adventure with obstacles, I know there are some things that reach beyond the sphere of presumptions whether or not they are about presumed knowledge. I know that given an EZ pass and a sunny day, there is nothing that women of a certain age cannot make happen.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I know that everyone needs at least one comfortable chair to sit in at the end of a long, hard day.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I know that dark chocolate truffles help make the troubles of a long, hard day seem less important or oppressive. I know that bridges cross impassable spaces.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I know that friends help weave together the fabric of a life helping to bridge the difficult and painful spaces, the spaces filled with obstacles.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">I know that laughing along with the unseen forces at our efforts to control the uncontrollable makes the chair more comfortable and the chocolate smoother, creamier, and far richer than I dared to dream.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;"> </span></p>Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4115778081231808697.post-22208877263994278842009-08-11T09:12:00.000-07:002009-08-16T07:22:39.870-07:00It's My Birthday and What Have I Done?<p class="MsoNormal">“And so this is Christmas and what have you done? Another year older and a new one just begun..” or something like that as the lyrics go exhorting us to reflection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My son went to the Paul McCartney concert at Fenway Park last week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He called so I could listen to a crackly version of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Eleanor Rigby</span> in real time and save them to my messages for perpetuity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A small moment of wow in my life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">My son is my youngest child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He turned 23 last month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That arranges me somewhere on the spectrum of life and death, a little closer to the latter than the former.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My mom called me last night to wish me happy birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was ready to go out and do her grocery shopping before the winter day grew dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My mother lives in New Zealand; she is 82.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>More arranging of the spectrums.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was already in the day of my birthday and her package had arrived all the way from Oamaru, New Zealand to Chambersburg, PA (pronounced pee-ay), from one small town to another small town with remarkable precision on the eve of my birthday.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I have never really understood how people are able to do things on time, to get things done, completed, packaged, and mailed to the past in their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I did not inherit my mother’s efficiency, her perpetual preparedness for the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is a mystery to me how this happens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My life is littered with neglected intentions; fabric, thread, and jee-jaws from a thousand beautification projects; wood, screws, wire, and tools from a hundred fix-it-up gaps; cards purchased and never sent; paint never applied to canvas, pens not drawn across paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>My future looks as messy as my past.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">My intention for this summer’s writing was to start a blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is now the last day of my summer vacation and I am writing this as an intended first entry in my blog to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Three things have inspired me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I write with a partner, Harriett.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Harriett gets things done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She started her blog earlier in the year, (<a href="http://www.welcometomyyardshow.blogspot.com/">www.welcometomyyardshow.blogspot.com</a>) and has mastered the art of inserting photos into her funny, wise, observations of her life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Harriett is very creative and she gets things done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Earlier this summer I adopted a "What Would Harriett Do" antidote to my procrastination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It serves as a forward push into my creative intentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Each day when we meet over the summer, I can account, or not, for what I have done, or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Without recrimination or judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It helps.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I started a time journal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I made a spreadsheet, set it out in blocks so I could record what I did and when.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wanted to see where I wasted time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I didn’t need a spreadsheet; I already knew.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I spend too much time in the evening sitting watching TV.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s a complete waste of time especially in the summer when there’s nothing but re-runs and hopeful but often pathetic pilots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I mean,<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> Dating in the Dark</span> has it’s very brief moments of social commentary, but how many episodes do you need to watch to reinforce any and all heretofore suspended indictments of the superficiality and unreality of reality television?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">So, to ensure that my time journal does not show how much time I waste in front of TV, I do other things in the evening while the TV just might happen to be on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s one of the few delusional aspects of defensive denial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have a friend with a beach house on the Delaware shore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Calories from ice cream, she assures us, do not count in Delaware.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I believe her because I want to and I want to eat ice cream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And, I do not set foot on the scales until after I return home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Delusional spreadsheets also help.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Last night I went to see the movie <i>Julia & Julie</i><span style="FONT-STYLE: normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I so understand Julie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was right there with her in her frustration with her life and her attempts to fulfill a mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I completely understood Julia’s frustration and angst in her attempts to get her book published.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have a day job that supports my attempts to write into my future, dragging my desire from my nine-year-old inner child into my present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Like three and a half million other writers I am inspired to start my blog after watching the movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s the population of New Zealand, or at least it was the last time I checked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">When I left New Zealand in June of 1976, I was just weeks shy of my 25<sup>th</sup> birthday, a bit younger than Julie, a bit older than my youngest child and the same age as my daughter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And today is my birthday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Time to clean up one small path into my future.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><!--EndFragment-->Alison Melotti-Cormackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13261632536171921188noreply@blogger.com0