The Unbearable Lightness of Sarah...

As a thinking female citizen in our society, I am cringing at the selection of Sarah Palin. We must remember that this is the first executive decision of the proposed next President, John McCain.

Sarah Palin, to me, presents the conflict between male libido and intellect, mixed in with the agendas of the extreme right. She's the perfect selection of a man who does rank women first by their attractiveness, and second by their 'pleaser-ism.'

All branding of the two Republican candidates as 'mavericks' aside, these two cannot win the election without Bush's Republican base buying into them, and without convincing the supposed 'swing voters' to pull their levers or push their chads or mark their electronic touch screens in their favor.

And so the supposed maverick John McCain has caved to Bush' base and has also elected the perfect running mate to confuse everyone about the 'progressiveness' of selecting a female nominee who also happens to be a very attractive loose cannon, however strongly she acts as his cheerleader.

Most of the men in my life have admitted that their first visceral reaction to Palin was positive. She's pretty, thin, energetic, enthusiastic, and speaks loudly (although they'd tire of this pretty quickly). They gave her a closer listen than they would have if she'd looked like Barbara Bush, and better than they did to Hillary Clinton's many stump speeches. This moment's hesitation, when their radical Left politics were suspended to give a pretty girl a look was exactly what McCain needed to create interest in his dull, grey, flagging campaign.

And, to a large extent, it worked. Many men (and Republican women) bought in to the notion that Palin energized the Republican cause and could lead McCain to the White House in a way that his own descending star could not. It reminds me of Anne Rice's vampires who need new blood to warm their own veins so they can act like the living.

Fortunately, the smart men in my life quickly righted themselves and shook off the mystique woven by Palin in her early days during the RNC and just afterward. Long before she stumbled in such obvious ways, these men had withdrawn their attention from her as a possible world leader. She just surprised them with her perkiness and gumption, served up in a feminine package. For a moment she was that dream girl: gorgeous and interested in 'male' interests; the little woman behind the great man; the cheerleader; and the prodigy. A Stepford Wife version of a national figure.

But I've heard from enough other supposedly smart men that they're still buying into this. And some women who are confused into thinking that she's the first progressive female option in a new millenium.

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I have a wonderful, progressive aunt down in Orlando. Her achievements are too numerous to to list here. She has been the 'first woman' many things. To my extreme pleasure, she's a great networker and she believes in Obama.

In her network, however, she includes many Republicans and I have been privy to their political comments in the past few weeks. It's alarming how low their IQs are on this issue. It is their hope for a continuance of the old status quo and the relief they feel that McCain shook things up with the selection of Palin that causes the positively giddy emails they generate.

They feel that a real forward-moving step has been achieved in adding a female to the V.P. ticket, without any concern for which female. Palin fits a "Legally Blonde" profile (yes, I know she's a brunette) that contradicts everyone's impression that only a staid old grey-haired politican can fill the role of V.P. candidate. She 'proves' that you can have a beehive, designer glasses, and a manicure and still hunt moose and serve as V.P. as long as you're feminine enough not to threaten the good ol' boys who still run things in the Republican party.

Her lack of resume for the job ahead (and if McCain wins, Palin is only a malignant melanoma away from the Presidency) is frightening. One bard has suggested that those who really run the decision making of the White House -- not always the President -- want Palin in office because they expect McCain to not make it through a first term, and they'll be able to control Palin as easily as they have George W.

This is deep, dark conspiracy theory, but since 9/11 anything seems possible. Palin in the White House should scare all Americans right down to their own manicures and beehives. This is a time in the world when the very best intellects and body politics will be necessary to dig us out of the multi-faceted miasma Bush has dug us into (also too numerous to list here) and bring us into to the thinking and technologies of the 21st Century. McCain looks too far back into mid-Twentieth Century ideas to carry us forward, down to his citing of Reagan as a source for inspiration.

My progressive aunt has suggested that everyone vote earlier than election day in case there are Republican shenanigans again on election day. That way, instead of standing in line to vote ourselves on that day, we can volunteer to watch polling places in dicey locations where shenanigans might occur. We might not be able to prevent them from occurring, but we can call police and the Supervisor of Elections on the spot, and act as 'fair witnesses' to what goes down.

Shenanigans during voting goes all the way back to the beginning of our nation. Political maneuvering is in our lifeblood. We need to get over the shock that it occurs and work pragmatically to see that it is minimized. Republicans pull no punches in doing anything it takes to win elections. They know it is a war between ideals and strategies, and they aim to win at any cost. Karl Rove is still in the mix, and they have old Republican warriors to pull out of mothballs should they find it necessary.

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But, election day dirty tricks aside, we still have McCain's choice of a lightweight V.P. running mate on the ticket confusing the American public.

While she is not the right woman for the post at this time or any time, I want to be clear that it is not because she is a woman that she is unqualified. Hillary was more than qualified. Many other female politicians -- Republican and Democratic -- are qualified. In fact, we need female intellects at the highest levels of our society, guiding the way toward peace and safety, and toward the far horizon. Women, who bring in all new human life, have a huge stake in the decisions of when to war or not, how to spend or save, and which direction to point our world in, are completely necessary to the future of our nation.

And Sarah Palin, as a human being, has great value. She is just not the heavyweight that we need, not a player, and not really a leader. Maybe in the quirky state of Alaska with earmarks to spend on infrastructure. But for the nation and in the world we really face? I repeat the worlds of Gloria Steinem: "Not this woman. Not at this time."

The War on Drugs is War on Our Children...

I am terribly upset at the death of Rachel Hoffman, a young woman of Tallahassee, who was used by the Tallahassee Police Department to set up a sting operation with drug dealers.

I don’t care if she dealt light drugs, heavy drugs, or whatever. It was horribly inappropriate for older adult male cops to force her into a situation where she was put at risk in order for them to arrest more drug dealers. It resulted in her death, and guilt rests with the police.

I’ve heard from convenience store clerks that TPD officers are claiming that her death was her fault because she didn’t do exactly what they told her to do.

Look, she was 23 years old and scared. She’d had two recent arrests and had been given a few days of jail time, which scared her. She had plans for her life beyond Tallahassee. She was untrained for anything as technical as a sting operation out in the woods with drug dealers by herself.

I am 55 years old, and I could not pull off such a thing. I would be so afraid that I would broadcast my true mission to criminals, who are alert and wary of sting operations. I’m sure this was true for her.

The police need to take 100% blame for this disaster, not blame the young victim. They are trained in the machismo activities of police and military. Young girls, especially young girls with drug issues, are not trained for this highly dangerous and technical work.

Her parents didn’t know she was exposed to this. Her lawyer didn’t know. She was sent to buy drugs heavier than she dealt or used. She was sent to buy a handgun from the same criminals. She was abducted and killed. The cops knew exactly who to look for and found them shortly after they fled from the crime scene. If they knew this much about the two criminals, why did they need the young female decoy?

This war on drugs is war on our children. Whether black or white, middle class or poor, the crazy laws birthed by the Reagan Administration are the wrong approach to the drug situation. As with so many other regressive laws and customs in our prison and police systems, instead of treating the problem, they are amplified in the zeal to win more trophy arrests, to validate the system.

As a mother, an educator, a business owner, a member of the Tallahassee community, I am sick at heart and outraged at Rachel’s death. It was so unnecessary. We’ll never know all the facts, but we should. We should examine this custom of using small-time drug dealers to bring down bigger targets and decide to not allow the police to do this.

Today was Mother’s Day, and I thought of Rachel’s mother all day. I didn’t know Rachel and I don’t know her mother. But I feel the pain and sorrow of every mother who loses a child unnecessarily. Rachel was a beautiful young woman with life ahead of her. What was she doing in the woods with criminals? Was she more afraid of what the police would do to her than the criminals?

This war on our children, in the guise of the War on Drugs, must end. We must become rational in our dealings with drug criminals. We must treat those with drug problems, not expose them to dangerous criminals with harmful intent. Let trained police do their own undercover work. It’s never appropriate to ask our children to do it for them. The police were completely inadequate to protect Rachel once they had sent her into the arms of killers. Shame on them for demanding this terrible price from her.

It does not matter that she was a college graduate. Mature people everywhere understand how immature a 23-year-old still is. Just getting ready for life. Not that wise yet. When I think of a whole battery of older men demanding this from her, my heart goes cold with fear. All I can think is that they were willing to sacrifice her to this extent, to do whatever it takes to meet their own goals. They are sworn to protect the community, and she was a member of the community. Would they send their daughters, sisters, girlfriends, wives into such danger?

Being a marijuana dealer does not train you up for such police work. Sting operations even go wrong when trained police are doing them. Much less, unqualified young adults with no background or training.

There is no mistake she made in the situation that excuses the police from responsibility for her death. They owe all of us a huge admission of their own wrongdoing and a huge apology and a huge promise to not use our children this way again. And the family needs to win a civil lawsuit and receive some level of punitive compensation for the loss of their daughter. It's unfair to them and they will never experience closure. I'll keep them and Rachel in my prayers.

Dear Sister:

What can I say? It’s been too hard, these past nine months. Far harder than necessary or reasonable. We are both burned out and now find we don’t fit into one box where we must operate.

We each have dreams, responsibilities and duties. I’m leaving too much to you right now. I don’t feel good about it, but now the busy month has come and I must march through the processes which lie there. I promise, at the other end of the month, to find my way back to the responsibilities I share with you.

There has always been something fundamentally askew, akimbo, out-of-kilter in our family. Some cruel streak that makes us fight hard and not find our way back to each other. This has caused us all trouble in the world: Mom, in her disastrous relations with everyone; you, in your serial dysfunctional work situations; me, in my mixing it up with some I should be natural allies with. A family curse handed down generationally.

What I don’t share is the cognitive disorder piece. I do share the emotional fragility piece, and the skill and willingness to fight for a little while when I find myself in dicey situations. But I no longer have the stomach for it. The first whiff of conflict and I want to flee. No winners and losers, just flight. I make the decision again and again to take flight; to lick my wounds; to try to find my way back to strength and clarity. To avoid opportunities for fresh hurt.

I think it’s the 20 years of RC I churned through. I think it’s two decades of discharge on all the pain. I no longer participate in the practice of RC, but I love that it’s stamped me, changed me, permanently. I don’t quite go back to the time before.

The time before... where I see my family members... When I was on the RC journey, I tried so hard to share the good I was getting from it. It was seen as more of my flakery. In truth, I see the connections between things others try not to see and call flakey. But RC and other practices were wise stuff. I never wanted the religiosity, the ceremony... but I wanted to change. And so my perspective is no longer what my family wanted it to be. I escaped.

I walk through a war-torn territory that is my family’s history. They are rooted to it and function out of it. They so carefully set up their controlled territories. Some want deathly quiet and mucho television to numb on. Some want to be entertained. Some want to feign independence while forcing others to do their bidding.

Yi yi yi... and I am nowhere near perfection, myself. But I am a little happier and a little closer to living my dreams. And, coming from where I come from, that’s something.

Supernova

The last years before my father's stroke, he burned so brightly we could hardly look at him. He expanded, increased velocity, heated up, inflamed the landscape. He lost his radar for how he affected others, in his zeal to share all the things that were churning through him.

He was always a spiritual being and he read deeply on Christianity and spirit. Never a fundamentalist, nor a biblical literalist, he was nevertheless full of love and energy for the message of Christ. Eager to see God when this life was over.

His invisible stroke a year ago, disappeared the man we knew. He morphed into a new form, one absent of spiritual questing and intellectual curiosity. A man who always had at least five books going at once now does not read. He read his last book, a Christmas present from my sister, Treasure Island, in January. Then he watched the movie. And he was done.

I try to offer him his beloved poetry and opera, offer to acquire any artistic/cultural thing he might enjoy. He tells me he's 'content.' I ask him what that means and he says, 'a simple existence.' And when I ask him what that means, he says, 'I cannot express it.'

I pray this means he's reached nirvana, a state of zen. The state of grace the religions promise, but which we never really see on earth. He's been stripped of most of the human things: the trouble-making, the provocative. Sometimes he has a day when he's playful. My mother insists he's improving.

But sometimes to me he is the living dead, so far from the man I've been close to my whole life that I don't know him. Just a nursing home patient I help to take care of. I cart him to doctors. Sometimes out to dinner. I wonder when to start pushing for a wheelchair, as I pushed for the walker. He quit falling when he got that.

Every day I have to remember to say goodbye. In my memories, there's a huge population of those I've said goodbye to. All my childhood homes have been torn down. My grandparents gone. Uncles gone. What I have is today. Just today.

On Turning 55...

In a few weeks, I will hit what my husband calls 'double nickels,' an age I have suddenly realized is no longer my 'early 50's.' I always feel so asleep at the wheel re: things like this. I just do not know I am not 22 or 35 or even 45, for god's sake! 55! This cannot be true.

Even as I care for my elderly parents, and see evidence of everyone else I know moving up in age, it seems surreal. But, true it is.

I think one of the things that is confusing is that, no matter how old we all get, we still struggle with each other as if we were decades younger.

I complained to an old communal housemate of mine how the cooperative household we'd shared in the '70s had spoiled me for working with other households or community groups. We were so egalitarian and got so very many things right! It's been long comedown to deal with the ordinary world again. The co-op house I lived in and the co-op air I breathed in the '70s, when I was in my 20s were not without their struggles, too. But there was the sense that we were moving toward a common good; that the struggles were worth the effort because we were giving birth to a new world -- or at least new lives for ourselves.

Now, it seems that the struggles are redundant and draining of our life force. Do we really get anywhere at all?

I hardly recognize my life anymore. My original family has moved closer than they've been to me in decades. My child is a grown man. My stepchild is nearly grown. My husband's career has changed again. I've opened a new brick-and-mortar business, and I'm on the elder-care team for my parents.

I find myself wanting to do something very exotic for my 55th b'day. I want to see the aurora borealis in Alaska! I want to feel real winter and stand on the edge of the known universe and watch that waving curtain of greenish light overhead. I want to see if I'm one of the ones who can hear it! I want to see the arctic winter night. And feel the pioneering spirit of Alaska. I think that if I could do that, I could enter the next phase of my life in fine shape and ready for whatever lies ahead. Maybe I should give that to myself as a present.

Updates...

Let's see... After many annoying tests, it was determined that my father had a stroke awhile back, before his move to my town, and the possibility of an aneurysm. He continues to do fairly well, but still not animated or social. He obsesses a bit with worry. My mother's health has improved and she's healed from her bad fall when she first moved here. Most of her pain was a bad sprain and once that healed, she was much better.

The gallery continues to develop. Businesses teach you the market. Our toughest challenge is our hidden location. It's hard to keep overcoming that. But we think our advertising is working and that word is getting out that we're there.

My suddenly-widowed friend has survived past quite a few anniversaries and reports that while she still has tough days, she also has good days again, too.

I had a meeting with myself last night. I'd noticed that I was spiraling downward with worry and misery, which isn't my usual attitude. I made the decision to improve my attitude and face my challenges more positively. I had a much better day today.

I really don't love travel that much anymore because it's so disruptive. I have a hard enough time keeping my activities linear enough to get to everything I need and want to do. But I had a lovely time away for two days with my husband.

Tomorrow, as God is my witness, I will work long hours in my studio and keep my linear ideas flowing. It's late, and I must accomplish much!

My dear Irish friend sent me a really nice Starbucks gift card! Spiritual fuel to keep me going. Thanks for the good thoughts.

Brokeback Ma...

My mother fell backward in her new garage the other day, creating a compression fracture in her lumbar spine. It was horribly traumatic to watch my mother falling against her car, down onto concrete while I was helpless to reach for her.

There is small stoop in the garage and my sister and I hired a friend to install a safety rail. But she stepped onto the stoop 90 degress to the rail and so grabbed air as she fell. Bad as it was, thank God the car was there and its door was shut. She bounced against the springy-ness of the metal door rather than clonking her head onto the concrete.

But the small of her back folded and then went down. I had to struggle to get around my father on his walker to get to her. I remember him saying, "We need help; we need help." And me saying, "Who is there to help?" just before I got to her and tried to keep her on the ground. For, like an injured wild animal, her instinct was to rise up and get away. I went to her and held her in place and told her to wait a bit before rising so we could take an inventory on her injuries and determine whether she should rise. I could only hold her back a little while. When she could not rise up directly, she crawled to the safety rail and pulled herself up. I asked her to wait there until we reassessed her in that position. At that point, a neighbor came running into the garage. Dad had called him.

Ever since that day, Mom's whole life has changed. Because they are new to town, we are still figuring out doctors. This is a whole long story I don't want to dwell on here. But, suffice to say, that we finally got her to first a walk-in clinic for xrays and then to an orthopedist.

She's now in a back brace whenever she's out of bed. It was nightmarish to leave her x 3 days to help in my sister's move up here. Family members worked shifts to make sure my parents had help, but it's infinitely better now that my sis and her husband are living in the house.

When Labor Day finally passes, I will be able to call the ortho again and request a home evaluation from a physical therapist. My sister is bolder about getting Mom up from bed to walk a bit. And, after being really "on" for six weeks, I am able to step back a bit and let my sister lead in many things.

This is not to say I'm abandoning anyone. I still plan to do many important things. But, perhaps racing back and forth across town continuously is coming to an end. They'll be cooking food there at last and the many small ministrations will come naturally from those in the home. Soon, my sister and I will discuss how to split some of the responsibility. I have some ideas, but will be happy to hear hers, too.

Meanwhile, my own life and business have been languishing a bit. I need to return to them. I'm extraordinarily tired. My sister has a month "off," to get established here and get many things done. But it's shake-and-bake time for me. The gallery opens this Friday. There's a bank account to open, lots of pricing to be done. It's a bit surreal. Staying human in the midst of all of this has meant just finding a way to flow.

My own art is on the back burner for now. I'm an elder caregiver and gallery owner. Art from my hands will return later. When I do get the chance to make jewelry, it goes well. So I'm reassured that I'm not forgetting how to do things.

Progress is occurring on all fronts, and I'm grateful.
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