Soapbox

      I wonder if they know what's coming?
The birds still act the same, but riding the wind as they do, with existence depending on the ability to judge thermal lift and downdraft, I just think they must know.  But what can they do? What will come will come and they have no hatches to batten down.
    The robin on the fence eyes me, unworried.

    The day is hot with just enough breeze to ruffle my hair, sun shines placidly in a sky that has drifted from blue to pewter. If I could drag my nail across the metallic sky I think it would screech in protest. Makes me wonder what it's like, looking up at the underside of a hammer's head, poised to drop.
    It's going to be a rough night. And as the hours spool off the day my anxiety grows, but the dog still sniffs at that same spot as we round the corner. Surely he can smell the storm approaching but he doesn't whine or pace just lifts his head and enjoys the cool of the suddenly freshening breeze as the leaves turn, hiding their faces.
     The smiling weatherman, gesturing happily in front of his charts assures me that the word for today is 'severe'. 200 miles away still, but coming on fast: extreme winds, large hail, tornadoes.
      "Be prepared to take cover" he says, but with scenes of Oklahoma and Joplin like dioramas of desolation in my heart, I wonder how to shelter my garden, my car, my house. My tomorrow.

     With my blind human senses I would sniff the air and only think "huh… Bit of a storm this evening" But the trees must know. They wait, solid and accepting, still whispering their dreams of rock and water. I lay my hand on the bark of one trunk and wonder if this tree will still be standing tomorrow? Surely, like the birds, it tastes danger in the breeze better than any doppler weather radar, must know that their llifetime partner is about to turn their dance into an abusive relationship. But it waits quietly for what comes. It has no choice, Nowhere to hide.
    What is there for any of us to do with this curse of knowledge? the Derecho is coming: now what? There is no way to turn aside the locomotive, and we are tied to the railroad tracks by our jobs and our homes and our lives.
     And so we hunt for bugs, sniff the stone walls, do the laundry and cut the grass, keeping busy in the big red dot on a bullseye.
     I pause for a minute, standing in the yard wishing that worry had a purpose, could harden me like a protective carapace, like Iron man donning his suit, keeping me safe. I wish worry could keep us all safe, instead of only wasting this summer day.

    I bring in the lawn furniture and go to buy more batteries.

    We build walls around our certainty to protect our special sense of place, to guard against things that might threaten it- things like compassion, a recognition of common bonds and larger truths. Common bonds break down walls, and ours walls are what lets everyone know that we are special.
   We celebrate our small variations of color, language, cultural standards, shelter the perception of our vital uniqueness because too often we find our validation in superiority rather than in commonality.

    Like a rare and precious orchid we give our rituals sanctuary behind the hothouse glass of exclusion lest we be damaged by the cold, harsh winds of “other”, tainted by the mongrel of “them”.

    But the things we let divide us are not rare and exotic or worthy of protection. Intolerance and xenophobia are common as crabgrass,
as smothering  as kudzu, as toxic as poison ivy. They are parasitic, strangler vines that envelope the community, robbing it of life and light, choking off the ability to work for the common good, blocking our view of the future.
    When we put ourselves behind the glass walls of tradition and segregation, we exile ourselves from the universal constants of the quest for purpose: the need for  affection, a child’s smile, the very beating heart of life.

      Some times you meet somebody and you think you have a connection that will last forever.
     And sometimes you meet someone who will be your friend forever and you don't even know it, or recognize its worth.

     He calls me about once a week now, asks how my most recent holiday went, talks about those days  when we were at VCC together. He often reminds me of the day I asked him to come collect firewood with him, and the time he pointed out how the light reflected off the trees. Sometimes he talks about a TV show. One excruciating hour our conversation was about an episode of "Bonanza" and the day he went to the circus. But always he ends by telling me how knowing me has changed his life, and how he will never, ever let me go.

     And I send him a card now and then and once for his birthday I made him his own VCC t-shirt, which left him almost speechess. (How did you know I wanted this? How indeed?) And while the phone often rings at inopportune times, I do enjoy his enthusiasm for so many small, mundane things, and I admit I sometimes imagine myself rather a kind, wise person for my benificence in being so generous with my time.
Yeah.
     Today's conversation began pretty much like usual, then drifted in to a recounting of times he spent with his maternal grandfather when he was a boy. His grandfather never really wanted to do anything with him or be with him, apparently because he was a 'rotten little character' as a child.
                  Because you were mentally handicapped, and it threatened him  I thought, but just made agreeing noises.
     Then he sighed. "Trace, how do you stop thinking about unpleasant things from your childhood? Last night I just thought and thought about how it was…"

     Well that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? But I knew it was a big deal for him and I wanted to say something comforting. I resorted to cliche and pop-psychology. I said that some hurts run deep, and thinking about them will probably always make you sad. You may not get over those things, but you must at least get past them, in order to have time for today.
     "Remember, all the time you spend being sad about yesterday is time you're aren't enjoying the small things of today". (Yes, I actually said that, Dr. Phil. But hell, if I knew how not to dwell on shit from the past… I would be flippin' Ghandi!)
   I offered the possibility that perhaps part of the reason he acted out around his grandfather was because he sensed the man didn't feel comfortable around him, because 'kids know this kind of thing, sometimes without realizing that they know" and so it may not have been his fault at all. And I said sometimes, it's ok to reflect and to be sad, but then you need to put that sadness in a box and move on. It's a part of you, but you don't have to look at it every day. Yada yada yada.

     Something I said- or maybe just the chance to talk about this- must have resonated, because he did something he has never done before on the phone: he cried. Then he blew his nose, said that there would be no wars if everyone went to a place like VCC in their youth, and thanked me.
    "If I didn't have a friend like you, I don't know what I would do".

     He has said it a dozen times before, but this time, it almost made me cry. Having just lost a woman who was supposed to be my actual BFF because of my big mouth, having realized that  there will probably never be a picnic at the cabin or parents' birthday where I will feel welcome, knowing that my very presence will cause others to refuse to attend… I was beginning to feel like I would forever be that same awkward, unpopular girl who never fit in… 53 years old and sitting on the floor in the corner at a poetry event because none of the 'cool kids' at the tables invited me to join them. Not quite good enough.
    But not to him. To him I am wise and kind and funny and someone he will call and talk to about that day I took him skip-rocking around the lake when no one else would until the day he dies. And no matter how many other people slam their door in your face- that's a pretty great thing.
    I thanked him for calling and said that he is a friend I will hang on to til forever. Sometimes, when you build a wall to keep the monsters out, you have to remember to leave a window open for the angels to come in. I forgot that, but my angel didn't…. dialed the phone and squeezed down the chimney. 
    I guess the important thing isn't who thinks you are funny and loving and special, just that someone truly does, and that there is such a thing as a forever friend.

     I believe that I would enjoy Christmas more if there weren't so many people involved.
 
   December is a difficult time, so dark and empty. Everything is going to sleep and you sometimes wonder if it will ever wake up again. It is the perfect time for a celebration of rebirth and light, for candles and greenery and the smell of spicy, sweet things baking to warm you and sustain you. Perfect for singing songs of hope and renewal, and all the elements that make solstice celebrations and the Christmas story so timely, and so sorely needed.
      But then people just muck it all up.
    There's so damn much hustle and bustle: shopping and parties and god-damned ho-ho-ho. So many expectations.
    God forbid you feel introspective and reflective and subdued as the earth slumbers toward spring. No – you have to be merry! And bright! You have to decorate your house, inside and out, and go to parties, and host parties, and shop and wrap; caroling, maybe, and sending cards— make sure you send one to everybody who sent you one last year, for goodness' sake! Bake cookies for the neighbors, don't be the last to get your tree up and listen to little Michael Jackson tattle on Mommy for kissing Santa Claus.
    As for Santa- that guy is selling cars and beer and women's lingere! He shops at Sears- no, Macys- no, Best Buy! Apparently all those elves got outsourced just like so many of us did.

   Christmas used to arrive rather more quietly, like the crunch of a boot through new-fallen snow. Now it screams like a freight train, with the subtlety of a hurricane and just as disruptive to everyone's lives. It has become an orgy of noise and chaos, of traffic and bank balances, with glitter everywhere- even between your toes- and plastic snowflakes and everywhere is red, like the earth is bleeding.
    Lovely green trees, meant to be a symbol of continuing life are covered, every inch of them, with ribbons and bells, glitter and light-up angels and sequined nutcrackers and Jersey Shore ornaments… so burdened that you can't even see the green, can't smell that wonderful citrusy aroma…. because the damn thing isn't a tree anyway! It's plastic, made from the same god-damned oil that we're killing each other (and the planet) for.
   How's that for a symbol of life? But it's not even green anyway- it's silver, or pink, with glitter and fake snow. Ah yes, I feel so renewed and hopeful just thinking about it.

   Once before I die, I want a gentle christmas: a doe instead of a bull-elephant. A season of unforced cheerful greetings where no one fights over the script. I want wood smoke in crisp air, one gift, perfect in it's love and intention, a gift of warmth and comfort rather than convenience and 40% off.  I want the glittering eyes of children when that first flake of snow, like a crystalline dream, drifts into their outstretched hands.
   Until that perfect day comes I will try to create tiny moments that speak to the same spirit: early morning Christmas day, before the family gets up, sitting in the almost-dark by the tree we decorated with tradition and paper-crafted memories, sipping coffee, breathing the stillness and the peace, holding it in amber as talisman against the after-christmas sales looming on the horizon.

It started as a few muttered complaints the day after Barack Obama's election, but the foot-stomping tantrum chorus of  folks threatening to take their ball and go home if we don't agree to play by their rules keeps growing. 
     "This is not my America" you lament! "This is no longer the same country I know and love!"

Huh. You know what- you may be right.

Because frankly, if you believe that America in the 21st century should function under the same assumptions and with the same values that America did in the 18th century- then no, this actually isn't your America any more.

If you believe that "Freedom of religion" means that you have the right, based on your religious beliefs, to make decisions about health care, family planning, equal rights, evolution and education for people who do not even share your religion-  you're in the wrong place.
 
If you think you have the right to say who other people can love, this isn't that place.

If you believe that bullying and abuse is ok as long as you do it for Jesus, and that kids are better off in orphanages than with gay parents and that rape shouldn't be an 'excuse' for an abortion because hey, some girls rape easy… this is not your America.

If you believe that the working poor, pensioners and veterans in America just want 'free stuff' but of course the wealthy only demand their personal income tax cuts for the good of the nation- no, this is not your America.

If you believe that it was wrong for your Irish and Polish immigrant grandparents to be called 'dirty'and 'lazy'and 'stupid' 100 years ago but its ok to assume that Latino immigrants are all carrying Ebola, or that middle eastern immigrants are all terrorists (while you strut around the zoo with a gun strapped to your back)… I don't think so.

If you think that the reason there are so many single parent families today is a lack of shame attached to the mothers, and that the proper way to encourage better attendance at school is to take away the food stamps from the families of kids who miss school… you don't understand what that "beacon of hope" thing is supposed to mean.

If the idea of massive walls, and ID badges and internment camps for people who are different is a good thing- but that a gun license for you is government oppression… you probably would be happier somewhere else.

If you think that it is communism for a government that calls itself "By the people and For the people" to help take care OF the people and that "promote the general welfare" shouldn't include making sure citizens don't die from treatable illness just because they can't afford health insurance, you may have taken a wrong turn.

If you believe that black people only vote for a black man because of race but white people never vote for a white guy because of his race… if you believe that a 90 year old veteran who has been voting for 50 years should be denied a ballot because he no longer has a driver's license… then it's really not your America any more. If you believe that having your candidate criticized is abusive mud-slinging but it's ok for you to call the other candidate "The Antichrist" then yeah, you may be in the wrong place.