All affairs, day and night,
yours, ours, theirs,
are political affairs.
Like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin a political cast,
your eyes a political aspect.
What you say has a resonance;
what you are silent about is telling.
Either way, it’s political.
Even when you head for the hills
you’re taking political steps
on political ground.
Even apolitical poems are political,
and above us shines the moon,
by now no longer lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
Question? What question? Dear, here’s a suggestion:
a political question.
You don’t even have to be a human being
to gain political significance.
Crude oil will do,
or concentrated feed, or any raw material.
Or even a conference table whose shape
was disputed for months:
should we negotiate life and death
at a round table or a square one?
Meanwhile people were dying,
animals perishing,
houses burning,
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote
and less political.
Every time we learn a new tidbit of information about my father’s adoption, there is an emotional process that unplugs the present. It feels like a giant box of archived files has been spilled into your mental inbox. Forgotten and fuzzy memories have to be replayed with the new information added, like a newly discovered color that makes the picture both clear and vivid.
Seeing pictures of my father’s birth mother was hard. My father is the victim I know and understand. Now, the other victim has a face. A face that we all stare at and question what we think we see in it. Not a case number or emotionless forms, but a real person.
I knew how much effort went into my father’s efforts to get clearance to work with certain agencies. I remember my father’s phone calls, letters, and constant interactions with government officials. My parents talked about Lamar Alexander as though he was a friend, but I never realized why until now. It took my father reminding me that he would not have gotten the passport and clearance he needed for work if Lamar had not personally intervened multiple times. Georgia Tann’s paperwork declaring my father dead effectively replaced my father’s official records with a mishmash of half-truths, lies, and facts. Lamar Alexander went above and beyond to help my father.
I have often heard my father lament the fact that while everyone around him was drafted, he was not. Anyone who has heard him talk about it knows that every word is saturated with guilt. He sincerely feels like he cheated his friends. I never understood his inability to stop blaming himself.
When he talked about it again this week, I finally understood his pain. He was never included in the pool of eligible men for the draft. He did not clearly exist in government records, but he didn’t understand that until Lamar explained it to him. My father didn’t deliberately cheat, but he was cheated out of any responsibility. He can’t let go of that. The stories and memories are clearer, but instead of being long ago accepted, they are fresh emotions that are too raw to be willing to be returned to the archives.
Little things, like a picture, open wormholes that make the past part of the present.
Our tiny neighborhood’s hills, trees and creeks combine to create an acoustic oddity that peaks when the leaves have fallen and the air is crisp. Unlike the muted, echoed or separated tracks of noise that you hear in a city, everyday noises blend in our spoon shaped hood to create a perfectly mixed symphony.
It’s a phenomenon that is so noticeable, prior to the real estate crash, a local band rented a home on the next street for the sole purpose of practicing. On their practice nights, every household opened their windows to breathe the musical notes dancing in the air.
During the day, the delivery trucks loop through each cove, like a soloist who briefly stands at the main microphone, before sitting down and rejoining the singularity of the orchestra. Dogs howling at airplanes overhead slow the music down to a melancholy that is universal. The sounds of children in every direction, both calm and energize the collective soundtrack.
Sometimes, I have to sit motionless and silent on the front steps, to let my body absorb the magical sounds in the sweet spot that is my home.
Once upon a time, Doug declared that he could build Amy a playhouse in a single weekend. Since Doug is a perfectionist/artisan, that project continues more than a year later. Sunday afternoon, while Doug fretted over making the perfect cuts in a tiny scrap of red cedar, I said “be careful” and wandered off to work on the never-ending laundry pile. I almost made it in the front door when I heard the scream.
I sent boy teen in the house to get a hand towel. Boy teen, who regularly experiences Chevy Chase movie quality nosebleeds, retrieved a white washcloth. Hugging the increasingly red washcloth and a bag of ice, fake calm Doug hopped in the van shrieking at me to drive while a 6-y-o wept crocodile tears because, “Daddy has blood on his face. He’s got red on him!” An expressionless 9-y-o sat in the front window like a statue.
I drove to the ER while calling Aspie Caveman on the phone to alert him that he needed to leave the basement and help his youngest siblings. “Why? Did something happen?” The second I hung up the phone, the patient began a monologue critiquing and directing my driving. “Get in the other lane. Don’t take that road. Turn here. Why are you such a slow driver?” Clearly, I was enjoying our first moments alone in days so much that I didn’t care about the blood his shirt was absorbing to create the worst tye-dye design ever.
Once in the ER, Doug’s brain switched to entertainer mode He concocted about three jokes out of the current situation and repeated them to every kind soul who inquired about his splattered and splashed bloody clothing ensemble. After running out of social media distractions and waiting room audience, he returned to the check-in desk to ask the exact same questions he asked them when we arrived. A nurse behind the desk glanced at the bag of melted ice and the finger that was no longer obscured. “Do you really think there’s a fingertip to sew back on that finger?” Doug missed the comment completely, but it was my cue to distract him from peeking at his mangled finger.
A friend called to check on Doug. “I stopped by the house to check on the children. Tommy said it couldn’t have been that bad since Doug unplugged the table saw before leaving for the hospital.” I called the house to check on the children. Boy teen was making the pancakes and sausage that he cooks on every Boy Scout camping trip. The 9-y-o spent the entire three hours we were gone drawing pictures of herself crying with the occasional Dad picture thrown in just for portfolio diversity. The 6-y-o forgot everything about the incident the minute his older brothers turned on Megamind.
Once we made it beyond the waiting room, the evening became a flurry of activity focused on adding insult to Doug’s injury. It started with the first nurse’s, “There’s nothing left to sew.” This was followed by a shot in the arm, a shot in the hip and three shots in the injured finger. There was some aggressive blotting to clean up the messed up finger during which I seriously contemplated vomiting. An x-ray resulted in, “Well, it’s broken, but the broken piece of bone must have been scooped right out of there by the table saw.” A phone call to the hand surgeon resulted in poking and peeking in the puncture wound to study the damaged finger bone. Somewhere in this violent assault on Doug’s body, Doug stopped joking and started to look like he might take an unwanted nap. He could have been trying not to vomit. Either would have been a perfectly acceptable response to the situation.
Doug perked up when the nurse bandaged his finger in some kind of sock condom, but only because the nurse applied the tape unevenly. We barely escaped the room without a major Monk incident. As soon as we made it to the car, Doug started sounding like himself again. “Why didn’t I have the video camera on the driveway? This would have made great footage.”
It wasn’t until the next day that I realized the 9-y-o was making videos with my phone at the time of the injury. I watched her video while every muscle in my body tensed up in fear of what might be on the video. What I didn’t prepare myself for, was the 9-y-o’s voice reacting to it.
1. Never ride a Greyhound bus or walk barefoot in downtown Nashville.
2. In an earthquake, Twitter is morefun and informative than Facebook.
3.Even the most physically and mentally active people are vulnerable, but they remain superheroes.
9:30 pm Aspie Caveman quote: “Was there an earthquake today?”
It’s time to end my self imposed holiday hiatus from blogging and end the chapter that is 2010. How do I wrap up an entire year and file it with other memories?
I witnessed several actual and metaphorical trainwrecks this year. Some were slow motion nightmares and others came from nowhere. Mistakes were made and lessons were learned. It will happen again and again.
In all my years of coalitions and committees, this year was the first time I experienced someone working AGAINST the group’s goals by colluding with a troll to make threats against others. I felt naive for allowing it to happen, but I don’t want to let it change my desire to trust, believe and hope.
I spent a lot of this year with family members in hospitals. It’s always a slap in the face that forces you to reconsider what is important. There’s also a kick in the pants to recognize what isn’t important.
This is the first year I can remember when families grew smaller faster than they grew larger. Marriages, births and adoptions were outnumbered by people lost to sickness, sadness and injury. There have been times when the air was so heavy with the suffering of those around me that I felt we might all suffocate. We didn’t.
I have read over and over again today of people kicking 2010 to the curb. “Good riddance.” “Won’t miss you.” “2011 will be better.” I can’t do that. The good, bad and ugly of 2010 is a part of me now. It gave me unwanted wrinkles, scars and weight. It also gave me clarity, strength and calm. I laughed out loud more this year than last year. I memorized moments. I sat still. I listened better. I lived more. I made memories. Thank you 2010.
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Cross posted 2010 Summary Tweets: Education – Raising standardized scores by practice testing instead of teaching independent thought and creativity. Politics – If I point out your racist comments, you call me a liberal. Old media – We can steal from you, but you can’t steal from us. Social Media – The year everyone declared themselves gurus while confusing fb with twitter.
While Buster sat and watched the cove with more devotion than most people watch their favorite reality shows, Betty did what women have always done. She multi-tasked. She kept one eye on the activity in the cove and one eye on her husband. She maintained the tidiest house I have ever seen. Until a fall last year, she stubbornly resisted any change in her daily routines. Betty wasn’t frail. She was delicate.
Unable to commit to the full-time job of having a dog of their own, Buster and Betty adopted our dog Molly as their part-time pet. Molly would peek in the windows several times a day to see her part-time parents and on more than one occasion, she let herself in their house. We knew Molly was treated to an entire hot dog daily. It wasn’t until Molly’s weight began to tip the scale that we learned she was being treated to large amounts of daily meat scraps. Buster and Betty spoiled Molly, but Molly would have loved them the same without the treats. Molly is an excellent judge of character.
While Buster gruffly spoke his mind, Betty rarely spoke a stern word about others. Instead, she furrowed her brow to express disapproval. Her eyes couldn’t hide worry. Her shoulders rose and fell to communicate daily stresses. When Betty smiled at you, you smiled back.
Buster and Betty were childhood sweethearts who shared 61 years of marriage before illness took him from her on June 9th of this year. While Buster left this Earth slowly, Betty left abruptly. Just four months after Buster, complications from an injury were insurmountable for Betty. Betty returned to her husband’s side this week. I choose to believe that Betty’s body would have stubbornly lingered if she hadn’t been confident that her children had the strength to endure losing both parents so very close together. I will still cry every time Molly walks circles around the empty house trying to find Buster and Betty.
I drive children all over town. This school, that school, scouts, meetings and activities are the dots that I connect day after day. With all that driving, you would think that the gas station is a regular stop on my routes, but it isn’t. My car is magic. It never needs gasoline. Every few days, the gas tank in my car is magically full again. I think it happens at night. I guess the car could be autogenic and generating its’ own fuel. It’s possible that there is another explanation for my bottomless gas tank. Maybe the shoemaker’s elves have branched out into fuel delivery. Perhaps unicorns, leprechauns or mogwai are responsible for keeping my car’s fuel tank full. Regardless of how it happens, the magic never fails to make my day a little easier. Thank you magic car.
I spend enormous amounts of time sitting in the car, waiting to shuffle children from one activity to another activity. It’s peaceful time that I spend writing, reading, chatting and (occasionally) killing zombies without the distraction of laundry and dishes. Unless the air is so funky that my breathing sounds like Wheezy, I roll down the windows, turn off the engine and settle in with my stack of paperwork and electronics. Since most of the other cars around me keep their windows rolled up to fend off the suffocating heat, the resulting quiet prevents me from constantly shouting, “Squirrel!” Regardless of my productivity level, the time is well spent.
Last week, I sat in the car line at the elementary school and updated meetings and activities in my planner. The stillness was broken by the appearance of the carpool volunteers whose shouts and gestures control the movement of cars and children. The “move forward” signal from the volunteer jarred me into action. My left hand rolled up the car windows while my right hand started the engine. I started to pull the lever from P to D and out of nowhere, a butterfly attacked me. I’m not joking. A large butterfly was determined to land on my nose and no amount of my arms waving it away would deter it from its’ goal. Maybe it wanted to go inside my nose and eat the pollen. I like butterflies as much as the next person, but I don’t want to try driving with a butterfly on my face. Or in my nose. The carpool volunteer motioned again with an additional bit of urgency. I had one hand rolling down windows and one hand shoving at the air to defend myself against the brutal attack by the evil butterfly. As I am not an incarnation of Lakshmi, I had no free hands to actually drive the car.
With the completely frustrated carpool volunteer marching toward me and what I am certain was every driver behind me scratching their heads in confusion, the butterfly danced in the air and flitted out the car window in search of a new nose. I scooted the car forward and apologized profusely. The butterfly incident could have been a random coincidence. The butterfly incident could have been attributed to the rise in the butterfly population to counter the bee population disappearing. Pollination, or umm, life finds a way. I think I’ll consider the butterfly incident a genius marketing plan for tonight’s episode of Venture Brothers. Random failed attacks by butterflies shouldn’t cause nearly the trouble that Mooninites caused Adult Swim. Well . . . unless you try driving a car during the butterfly attack.
Are you a teen or twenty-something who blinks your eyes, sticks out your bottom lip or whatever to get someone else to fix life’s little annoyances for you? Stop it. If you don’t, you will someday be a middle-aged incompetent, whining in the auto parts store aisle because the do-it-yourself wiper blade reference machine is broken. Trust me when I say that it’s not a good feeling to be too old to have someone else offering to help, but lack the skills to fend for yourself.
