Dusting the Cobwebs off My Blog

Do NOT adjust your screen. There is nothing wrong with your eyesight, either. This is a genuine actual blog post by Yours Truly. So where have I been, you ask? I’ve been Lucky. And Happy. And Healthy. And Honestly, life has been real good.

I’ve been right here, thinking that my little ‘ol life just isn’t that interesting right now. There has been Nothing To Write About. Election's over. No angst about that anymore. And since I don’t go to work “out there” any longer (although I have been very busy working right here from home thanks), and I don’t interact with dozens of people every day, I just don’t see much worth talking about. The view out my office window is of our curvy, hilly, nicely covered-in-snow street. It’s pretty. And quiet. And that’s it.

I don’t drive around town much these days, so I don’t see Bouncing Girls Fresh Off the Bus that I just have to write about. Even my family is disgustingly drama-free. D. is wonderful as mostly-always; mom and dad and my siblings are great. We’re all getting older and I worry about my 83- and 81-year-old parents, but they are quite the happy little octegenarian couple and for the most part, very healthy indeed.

See? I told you—my life is not interesting right now. And that’s just fine.

But the thing is, this blog was intended to be a place I can be creative on a regular basis—by writing, which means more to me than anything. Now I write for a living—a limited, sparse living so far, but hey, it’s a start. I write every day. And perhaps that little itch is being adequately scratched.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps I’ve just been lazy. Could it be? Uh, yeah, it so could. Maybe I need to stretch myself. Force myself to be creative. Find things to write about.

Well, let's get going, then.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Last week, I received my newsletter from our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. I scanned it for whatever tidbits of information I thought would still pertain to me—the fallen member who hasn’t attended a service in almost three years. (Being a fallen Catholic has its own issues, but a fallen UU?? Perish the thought.) As usual, I noticed the title of Sunday’s sermon: “Where Do We Go From Here?” Gee, I thought, I’d like to know that.

D. did too, so we walked down the street a mile or so and entered the building for the first time since the end of 2005. It looked much the same. Our nametags where just where we’d left them. There were lots of new faces, and enough familiar ones to make it feel homey. We struggled through an unfamiliar song or two, but remembered the words to our covenant. We settled in for the readings, which were poignant, and the sermon, which was amazing as always.

The congregation clapped and cheered loudly as our ultra-cool minister started by sharing his delight in the idea of a President Obama. His talk centered around the joy and challenges that have bubbled up in many (ok, all) of us in the congregation.

“Hold onto that joy,” he said, “even when reality and cynics try to take it from you. Hold onto it for a while.” He went on to describe a feeling that I share with him completely. A stone-like creature that has been sitting in my gut (or was it in my heart?) for, oh, about eight years now. A stone whose presence was such a familiar feeling that I forgot to notice it after awhile. Until it made me angry. Or made me sad. It sometimes made me tired. But mostly the stone made me feel hopeless—and my hopelessness grew.

It didn’t go away when I moved across the country in an attempt to escape it. It didn’t go away when I tried to surround myself with more people like me and fewer people like those in the administration. It didn’t go away when I positioned myself fifty miles from the Canadian border—just in case it got so bad that I had to leave.

The little stone in my heart didn’t go away, and I felt hopeless enough to stop trying. I stayed away from the Unitarian Fellowship. I stopped decorating my house for holidays. And we didn’t celebrate Christmas last year—not really. We were happy to have friends and family in our home, and we cooked and talked and ate and drank and laughed. But there was no usual holiday frenzy of excitement. There was no shopping for the perfect gift. There were no handmade, imperfect gifts, either.

But now I have joy. I have hope. I’m happy and proud again. I feel like being around people like me again—people who can now really, truly believe that our future will be better than our past. And I’m holding tight to all of it—the pride, the joy, the happy. With all of this, I know I can work toward the change I want to see.

I couldn’t do it without hope. But I can do it without that stone of hopelessness that was weighing me down. That stone that suddenly wasn’t there anymore as of 11:00 (Eastern time, because we were in Virginia) on November 4, 2008.

Want a free Obama sticker like the one at the top of this post? It's designed by Shepard Fairey, the artist who created the iconic HOPE poster. And MoveOn's giving them away totally free--even the shipping's free.
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Three Weeks Away

We have returned from our colossal, east coast trip-of-a-lifetime. It will take me awhile to process the changes I saw—in my parents, my siblings, our little godson, and my former city. I never thought this before, but I now know there are times when you should not go home again. This trip was a doozy.

Here's what I heard:

“It’s people like YOU who are the reason Obama won’t win.” (Because I’m one of those elistists, you know.)

“We have to talk to the stone-cold racists or he’ll never win Virginia.”

“Some people at church think he’s the anti-Christ. They hope he is, because he’ll bring on the End of Days.”

“How can anybody vote for that guy???” (Referring to McCain, with all manner of hand waving to accompany.)

But it wasn’t all politics. I also heard:

“I’m proud of you.”

“I love you.”

“You’re my best friend.”

I managed to stay with my in-laws and survive it. There was absolutely no mention of the election with the hateful email-sender. I ignored him as much as I could, and realized what a sad man he is.

We saw gobs of friends and family. We even attended an Obama rally, with 20,000 people of all races and ages. What a thrill! I screamed when I saw him like he was a rock star. But he was so much more; I didn’t scream when he was finished—I was too full of emotion and hope to do anything but smile.

We ate too much and exercised too little. We drove 2500 miles up and down the east coast, and paid as little as $1.95 per gallon for gas. We slept in six different houses and three motel rooms. We saw the autumn leaves change color in a wave from upstate New York to North Carolina; and we buried our toes in warm beach sand. We celebrated a new future for our country with some of our oldest and dearest friends, whom we miss so much.

And we are very, very happy to be home.

Ignorance

This morning, my husband received one of those “FW: FW: FW: FW:” emails, full of untruths. You know these emails: they are sent along whether or not the sender has actually read it through, much less verified the content. This one stated that perhaps we should be suspicious of all Muslims in our country because they cannot be “good” Muslims and “good” Americans simultaneously (although that particular big word was not used). The “reasoning” was that their religion requires allegiance to Allah, not God; to the Quran, not the Bible; to Mecca, not America. It stated that Muslims do not accept the US Constitution and that when we declare “one nation under God,” we’re referring to the Christian God, which is loving and kind, not Allah, because he is never referred to as the “heavenly father.”

I knew where the email was going next: Barack Hussein Obama. Of course. The email called on us to WAKE UP! Because Barack Obama—a Muslim—wants to be our President. It said that Barack Obama was sworn into his current office on the Quran, not the Bible—and that he has stated he will be sworn in as President on the Quran. And that he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Or to put his hand on his heart when the national anthem is played.

I so want to reply to this email like this:

Barack Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim, you ignorant asshole.

But I can’t, because the sender was a member of D’s family. And we have to visit them in a few short weeks. We’ll be there on Election Day. Talk about bad timing.

Reader, how does one reconcile one’s belief in equality, truth, and religious freedom with the need to respect one’s in-laws?

I am at a loss.

I Got Nuthin'

During this time of horrendous (and ridiculously costly) war, of genocide, disease and starvation, of economic failures each more serious than the last, with a side order of hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, and a political circus show to top it all off, I can offer no words.

Happy, lighthearted posts seem insignificant (not yours, lovely readers, just the ones at the dead end that is my brain).

I've had it up to here with political commentary (D. has become an absolute addict!) and I can't take another sarcastic, vicious, ludicrous, or even thoughtful opinion. Therefore, I will give none.

And, despite two recent back-to-back surgeries for my precious D. (nothing too serious or life-threatening), I have not one complaint or concern to share.

I think I'm just numb.

And you?

We Interrupt Your Fun to Bring You This Environmental Message (Please Don't Yawn)

If you’re like me, you have eschewed bottle water of late and are doing your green Girl Scout best to refill your own bottles. I used to think that as long as my plastic bottles were being recycled, there was no harm in it. Now I know better. Our to-be-recycled bottles end up on slow boats to China, where who knows what happens. Maybe they’re actually recycled, but in the end, we’re still making our waste someone else’s problem.


Besides, lots and lots and LOTS of bottles still end up in landfills:




The above photo is by Chris Jordan, a Seattle photographer. It "Depicts two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes." Perhaps you’ve seen his other pieces, each focusing on visually arresting images of ubiquitous items we often waste, like paper cups, cell phones, and paper bags, that show at a glance how quickly our junk adds up. In this collection of his work, called Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, mundane objects are presented in ways that set my jaw to dropping—and my mind to thinking.

I think of Mr. Jordan’s work each time I walk down the water aisle at my beloved Trader Joe's. (Only 89 cents for 1-liter Spring Water, such a deal!) I had been buying them occasionally and then refilling them for weeks, but each one eventually ended up in the recycle bin. So I stopped myself and returned to refilling my Nalgene-esque water bottles. Now I hear they leach harmful chemicals into our bodies, so we’re not supposed to be using them, either. Aluminum is the latest craze for refillables, but I’m not about to fork over $18 bucks for a water bottle when I have so many already, purchased when Nalgenes were okay and I had more money a job.

So there I am, cheerfully humming and dutifully refilling my green, red, and blue cancer-delivery systems bottles with nice, filtered water from my Brita pitcher when I receive an email alert that pretty much ruins my morning. Said that my plastic Brita filter was not recyclable. Guess I knew that. In our house, D. is the one who always changes the filters (he’s a prince), so I was not really conscious about (ok, ignoring) where they went. But of course it’s not the recycle bin. In the garbage they go, where they’re gathered up and dumped in the landfill. And what about all that chlorine and lead and whatever else they’re filtering out? Leaches into the ground. Perfect.

In the UK, Brita has a take-them-back recycling program for their filters. Not so here in the US of A. So if you use Brita filters—and you’d like to recycle instead of tossing them, consider signing this online petition and see if Clorox (yes, CLOROX) will do the right thing—and help us do the same.

That’s all. Carry on.

Brita filter photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Eight Things I Want to do Before I Die (the semi-achievable version)

The lovely Krissa of HalfAsstic.com visited with a meme challenge. How appropriate that she picked my birthday week. My forty-effin'-sixth birthday week. (Can you hear the screaming?) As always, this time of year brings me pause. . . sets me to thinking about. . . myself, of course. I’m a Leo. And it’s my birthday month. Sheesh. Only thing is, the questions I ask myself: they are a-changin’. Now it’s not so much the what am I going to do with my life? question, but the how much of it is left? question. And the how have I done so far? question. And the how will I look in twenty years when I'm sixty-six holy mother of god? question.

Looking ahead is difficult for a non-planner like me. I am a dyed-in-the-wool, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants (and clichéd out the wazoo) kind of gal.

Looking back is even scarier. Maybe things would have been better, had I actually made a plan or two along the way. I’ll never know. It doesn’t matter anyway. But I wonder—does it not matter because I choose not to feel regret over the past? Or am I choosing not to feel regret about the past because I don’t want to admit that I could have done it better, accomplished something really significant, or caused myself less pain?

I don’t think it’s the latter. Going through my life without every one of its hardships would have made it different, certainly. But better? What if I had actually thought through the consequences before making some of my bigger (and dumber) decisions? Or, here’s a novel idea: how would this little life have turned out if I had always, always put myself first? I know that doing any of it differently would have yielded a different me. Everything, in its time, occurred because I made it happen that way. And even with all my shortcomings, and all I’ve been through, I’m pretty happy living in this skin.

Which leads us to the meme, (thank god she's stopped philosophizing, you're saying) and some of the things I’ll do from here on out. This is the “actually possible” list. Next post will be the “when monkeys fly out of my butt*” list.

Eight Things I Want To Do Before I Die

1. Write novels—many of them, whether they are published or not.
   
2. Learn to speak Spanish.
   
3. Start an animal sanctuary like she did.
   
4. Take art classes: drawing, painting, pottery—any or all.
   
5. Get together with my parents and all ten siblings at least once more while we’re all still here. And when we do, I'll be scared that it's the last time. Until the next time.
   
6. Do a bicycle tour of Ireland.
   
7. Get over my fear of needles (but not through repeated exposure).
   
8. Read as many of these books as I can. Only 970 to go!

Thanks for getting me to think about this, Krissa! I saw the movie but haven't thought about the things I haven't done yet. Now I have. I'm not going to formally tag any of you, my friends, but I would LOVE to hear what's on your bucket list!

*Wayne’s World, 1992. “It might happen. Cha! And monkeys might fly out of my butt!"