Can We Bring Them Home, Please?

    Let me just start by saying this: in no way do I support any military action taken by the US since World War II.  We were on the receiving end of an attack by a specific nation, not bullies with superior organizational skills who could have been stopped by security agencies. McCarthy-era fear fueled entry into Korea and Vietnam. Human rights for Iraq Part I? For Kuwait, a country that doesn't allow women to drive? Please. Iraq Part II did nothing but destablize a country in the name of nonexistant weapons so George the Second could wreak revenge on Saddam Hussein.

    That being said, we have so many troops coming home from doing dirty, thankless, and unending jobs with the invisible scars seared into their souls and minds.  We need to get them home, and to get them proper mental health care so their healing can begin.

    Even if a soldier doesn't see any action, justified or not, it can still take a toll. Over half a life ago, I was engaged to an enlisted man (it was the Reagan era; convinced that I wasn't going to live to see age 22 because of the posturing with the then Soviet Union and wanting something to show for my life, I accepted his proposal despite his pressuring me to get married right after graduation despite plans made for a little down the road). He worked on electrical systems for fighter jets, and never left the states to the best of my knowledge. He served his country, but did his country serve him by getting him the help that he needed to prevent him from becoming another statistic? I don't know.

   I do know, however, that the night Timothy Mc Veigh was arrested for bombing the Murragh Federal Building in Oklahoma City, I had my glasses off when the footage of him being taken into custody rolled on TV. For one heart-stopping moment, I thought it was the ex-fiance--both blond, blue-eyed, all-American type boys. Putting my glasses on, I saw that it wasn't. 

   I still wouldn't put it past the ex to pull something like that. Charming one moment, manipulative the next, no impulse control or anger management skills to speak of, I would not be surprised if he pulled some comparable stunt. Shocked, yes. But not surprised.

   We don't need any more war, especially not for oil. The cost is just too high, not just in terms of lives, but in terms if lives that could have been.   

      

True Confession

I despise holidays. There. I said it, and it felt so good I'll say it again:

I DESPISE HOLIDAYS.

Thank you; I feel better now.

It's not just despair over the material exploitation of the season. I just never have had good ones.

Well, not quite that long. Since I was ten. 

The previous summer, my mother unexpectedly passed away.  Christmas had been her show. She loved the decorating, the music, the hiding of gifts, rising above the running battles between other family members to bring a better than Disney holiday to fruition. Now we reeled and staggered in a pale imitation of her effortless dance to pull the thousand tasks off by December 24. My father (posthumously diagnosed with Aspberger's syndrome) unsuccessfully cauterized his wounds with Scotch. A question about Santa lead to being dragged out to the kitchen by my forearms and reprimanded in a cloud of fumes. I stuck close to my sister the rest of the night.

As the youngest child and the last one at home, more and more of the responsibilities were dumped on me along with admonishments that Grandma would be so hurt and disappointed in me if I didn't have the decorations up and so on.  Couple that with ongoing quibbling between siblings and father, and the season lost any meaning or spark beyond a huge stress trigger.

So for years, I took on the task of dinner and gatherings. I tried to hold it together, I tried nontraditional menus and unconventional celebrations. I struggled to be a good hostess even though I lost too many Januarys to emotional exhaustion. I tried to keep going with it despite the siblings having the same fights they've had since my brother was conceived. I struggled to be a good hostess despite feeling as if our hospitality was never quite enough, despite the old friend of a feeling of not really being a part of things.

The breaking point came when my niece and nephew reached the same age I was when the holidays had been jettisoned into my lap. The usual round of never resolved fights and explosions swirled around our heads. They had fun, still. I watched and wondered why they didn't have to do what I'd had to do, and then I was jealous, and then I wanted to stand up and yell, "WAIT A GOD-BLESSED MINUTE! ENOUGH!" 

The Spouse and I went for a quiet trip the next year. Not perfect, but walking and watching movies does have therapeutic value. Another year I took Orion to visit at a nursing home where we volunteered, garnering a big hug and a "God bless you, honey," from one of the cleaning ladies on duty.  

Since relinquishing Christmas, I haven't lost days crying after New Year's. The sky didn't fall down; in fact, only one relative acknowledged my absence. When it's just me and The Spouse, we go shopping on Amazon for each others' gifts (we've been married long enough to have no secrets),we eat a simple but festive dinner, and watch movies quietly. I go out in the yard with Orion at dusk as daylight starts to dig in its toes, providing a couple of more minutes of sun. 

As the shadows grow across the yard, if  I can still my heart and mind enough, I can hear my mother whispering across the veil, "Good job, honey; good job."

It's Not a Moslem Thing, Darling

    I'm not watching the news today. 

    The story about the Army psychiatrist shooting up the graduation ceremony at Fort Hood yesterday hurts on so many levels. We have the families of the ones who lost their lives.  It's heartbreaking to see the footage of the spouses unable to reach their loved ones on the base because of the lockdown. The images will spill before our eyes repeatedly until the story loses its luster of newness.

     It hurts that the good people of Fort Hood face deployment to one of two wars the US had no business starting in the first place. They're mostly kids, aren't they? Just kids lured by promises of financial aid and adventure and job skills that don't translate that well to the civilian world. 

    Once again, we have the unbalanced person expressing his pain through an incomprehensible act of violence. How did he fall through the cracks, especially when the signals (giving away most of his possessions, and comments made during a presentation that had nothing to do with the assigned topic, for example) were as loud and clear as the sirens and PA announcements of his actions rang through the base? 

    Making matters worse, the alleged gunman is Moslem. The communities prepare for the backlash. He did no one any favors by choosing this method to protest his upcoming deployment, least of all his brothers and sisters around the world.

    "Islamic terrorist." "Moslem terrorist." To some, the modifier and the object are melded into  one longer word. Luckily, others realize that the violence has nothing to do with the religion. The conflicts and customs in the Middle East have much more to do with tribal politics than with the actual religion, not unlike how verses from the Bible were and in some instances still are to justify subjugation of women, slavery, and child abuse.

   Terrorism's logic dictates that the perceived enemy can be coerced into accepting their viewpoint by inciting fear of the consequences. Why, then, have those who have harassed women seeking health care services at Planned Parenthood clinics or shooting doctors who believe in the basic right to choose not been called "right-wing fundamentalist terrorists?" What about participants in the Spanish Inquisition? How about Adolf Hitler and his buddies? Or the kids who, like yesterday's alleged shooter, have some switch break in their brains and make them think it's fine and dandy to shoot up an entire school because of popular cronies snubbing them.

   Let's not forget Timothy McVeigh, a disgruntled Gulf War veteran who somehow thought the government was the cause  of all his troubles? Some fifteen years ago, he parked a literal truckload of explosives in front of a federal office building. When it exploded, it took out the intended target and a day care center. I don't recall him being called a "terrorist"

with any modifiers attached.    

     If we step back an objectively look at world history, every culture is guilty of violence against another, or within its own boundaries. Every culture also has members who are disturbed enough to think it's a viable solution. We may not be able to stop things on a global scale, but could we individually take stands by being part of the solution?

Questions for the Manifestation Movement

It doesn't work. Sorry, darlings, it just doesn't work. Putting vast amounts of mental energy into creating one's desires doesn't work. Spending a little time mentally rehearsing is good, but the vision needs to be backed up with some work on this plane.

The theory is that your thoughts create your reality, so one must keep eternal vigil over them to avoid drawing negativity into your life. You must think clear and positive thoughts all the time, and think about yourself as nothing less that worthy and deserving of the very best. My experience is that if this worked in real life, the Cubs would've won the World Series and Sting should be calling to beg me to do a duet version of "We'll Be Together."

Does this mean that someone who follows this philosophy gets punished if they're having PMS or some other physiological problem that might life seem a little less than rosy? Does this mean that the people of Darfur and the women of Afghanistan brought their misery on themselves? It's hard to be positive on a chronically empty stomach with gunfire going off in the background or when you can't leave your home unescorted for fear of beatings.

I'm sure they don't sit around questioning what they are doing wrong to block their highest good. No one has that kind of power, darlings.  

We can delude ourselves to an extent, and we can choose to see the glass as half-full or half-empty. But when all is said and done, isn't this just another expression of fear? Fear that we won't have our needs met (needs, for wants are not necessarily in one's best interest), fear of relinquishing perceived control over the flow of life. 

A workshop that I heard of taught participants that using words such as "can't" or "don't" as in "I don't know" would block their good from coming to them.  I tried crafting spoken sentences using the guidelines. That lasted about two minutes. I didn't like feeling as if I were damming and stilting the flow of my life in the name of something that will never be.

You Can Only Speak For Yourself

The faint scent of ginger still hangs in the air. I made a quasi-Asian soup with shrimp, cabbage, carrot and ginger for dinner tonight. The Spouse watches a dark mystery from Sweden.

My own mind mulls over tonight's "60 Minutes" interview with Tyler Perry, my newest creative hero. His independent studio near Atlanta brings his TV shows and movies to the world. He's written several plays as well as helping his alter ego Madea hit the best seller list. Instead of the extremes of the socioeconomic spectrum, Tyler's vision was to bring the stories of working class African Americans to the screen and stage. After being rejected by Hollywood and lambasted by some as setting the stereotypes back to the Amos and Andy era, he financed his projects with his own money and the rest is history.

Granted, I'm Caucasian, and I don't tote a gun as does Madea in the clips that I've seen. But there are times when faith and your own inner strength are about all you have to go on. That I can relate to. Caregiving for crazy relatives? Been there, done that, have the T-shirt in several colors. 

I thought tonight of the times when I sat through movies or abandoned books that were "should" reads because of telling women's stories, and feeling an utter lack of resonance with them, such as the movie version of "Under the Tuscan Sun," which had been dumbed down into a syrupy mess bearing little resemblance to the book whatsoever. "Sex and the City?" I am not into shoes; I have been married to The Spouse for over 20 years. It had nothing to do with my life. Well, the episode where a boyfriend's Brittany demolished a $300 shoe, I found that entertaining. And the movie "American Psycho" being described as "feminist?" No, I don't think describing a serial killer's mental processes has anything to do with the reality of a woman's life.  I think it's called male bashing, which is divisive and not very helpful.

The more personal a writer or an artist gets, the more he or she touches on the heart of human experience. The more a writer or artist acts as if they give voice to other members of their demographic group, the more his or her arrogance separates them.

Gloria Steinem once said that the personal is political. Maybe if we spoke for ourselves, spoke out about our own stories without presuming to tell someone else's story, the voices would blend into the soundtrack for the revolution.

Why Are We Giving Balloon Dad What He Wants?

Unless you've been in a cave the last week, you, too have been bombarded with the over coverage of the Balloon Family. You know, the family who wants to have a reality show so badly that they are willing to risk their kids' lives? The father who cooked up a stunt that culminated in launching several aircraft and damaging a farmer's wheat crop? Yeah, them.

As speculation and conjecture flew about like the extraterrestrials Mr. Heene believes in flew about, the question of what constitutes justice in this case came up. A fellow dog walker I chat with at our park probably came up with the best idea yet: slap a lien on the house for the cost of the air search and rescue, have him pay restitution to the farmer for damage done to the wheat,  

and move on.

He's right. Not just because of his background in aviation, but because it's just common sense. No one would concoct something like this unless they wanted the publicity. That's exactly what Balloon Dad's received: attention. Ignoring him would be a greater punishment than the six years in prison and half-million dollar fines he's facing right now. 

Pick Myself Up, Dust Myself Off, And Start All Over Again

What is my purpose? What gives my life meaning? What gets me up in the morning, other than Orion banging his head on my side of the bed to tell me he wants breakfast? Those questions rooted in existential angst found their way into many morning walks this summer. 

The answer, for now, is resurrecting a newsletter that I used to do called Swan and Iris. Its mission: to support readers in creating authentic lives of spirit, substance and serenity. We'll be looking at topics from a spiritually progressive, solution-oriented, tolerant point of view.

It won't be all serious, though. We'll be celebrating alternative and indie arts, pets, encouraging creativity, and cooking. 

Now, Gentle Readers, if you'll excuse me, I have to climb back on the horse.