I have held off writing about this frustrating and disturbing event in my home state for 21 days now. Tonight the muse moves and I cannot help myself.
An alternate title for this essay could be "An open letter to Ammon Bundy". I don't want to give his name any more press than it has already gotten since he and a gang of gun toting, highly delusional and selfish white men decided to take over a huge, very famous and well loved bird sanctuary. I don't include him in my title. If, however, I could sit down and relay my thoughts to him in person (not deluding my self for a minute that he has the ability to listen), these are some of them, censored.
Why do you think you are special? So far I have learned that your father owes 1 million dollars in BLM range fees, and you owe a loan for 500,000 to the government. As it stands right now the cost of your occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge is $133,000 per day. I was never too good at math, being an English major, but I can use a calculator and it seems that your family now owes our country (taxpayers of which I am one) $5,793,000.00.
Even after seeing the people of Burns, whom you purport to 'represent', beg you, in tears, to leave, you are unmoved. Is it the guns, the religion, or a combination which give you that stoic sense of power? People who need guns to advance their cause have no morals, and no real cause.
You reiterate how your 'way of life' has changed, affected like all occupations by the circumstances of our current times. To understand that everyone is affected by water shortages, land scarcity, outsourcing, corporatization of industries (like the raising and marketing of beef), and many other factors requires a broad perspective.
In case you were not sure, your pain in this is not relegated solely to ranchers and farmers. I have 2 stories to illustrate the economic challenges of working families in the west:
The first is the image I hold of my young husband falling into bed after a work day lifting a hoe-dad for 8 hours, dead asleep, dirty work clothes and all, before dinner. He was a tree planter west of Port Angeles in 1978. The logging jobs paid more, but the timber had been ravaged to where the Spotted Owl was merely an unfortunate poster child and the loggers were bemoaning their lost 'way of life'. Emotions ran high around the North Olympic Peninsula in those years, but we worked at what we could, raised our 2 children, and tried to improvise into an obviously evolving economy.
After my husband's death at 35, I worked for an independent bookstore on the Oregon Coast for 10 years. It was a beautiful store, well run and the recipient of continuous compliments. We watched the profit margin fall steadily every year as big corporate stores, then Amazon undercut our prices. People would come in and take notes on our carefully chosen titles, then go away and order them cheaper somewhere else. By 2003 the doors closed forever, and the owners left with nothing. The world is a mercenary place. Did your Mormon parents tell you that? My Catholic parents did not tell me that. It has a been a long, rude awakening all my idealistic life.
I have read that you have 6 children. I assume your wife has total responsibility for all of them during your male bonding hiatus away from real life. What are your children learning from all the laws you have broken in the past 21 days? Will you be surprised if they end up having no respect for the property of others? What about their school activities and the nurturing they are missing? And, while I am on the subject, why in the world did you have so many kids, especially if you see your calling as being somewhere else besides home? I call that irresponsible.
Given these facts, why do you consider yourself a leader, and why do others? Because you wear a cowboy hat? Because you consider yourself a Mormon patriarch? Because you were raised to 'know' you were destined for a life of privilege?
By this time you must have heard the refrain ... if your gang had a different skin color, or a religion other than Christian, you would have all been taken out by now. There is no way to end this missive, no way for me to go to sleep tonight and feel unworried about the birds I love at Malheur, and the damage you are doling every day. There is no way to address income inequality, corporate oligarchy, the apathy of affluence and the general unfairness of life. You have only made my sleep worse, my prayers multi-faceted : Please God, don't let people with guns rule our world.
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Evening Walk with a Baby
Let me not forget our hour long walk,
along the sidewalks and paths between
the houses on your hill
As the sun descended west and we
heard chick-a-dees in the tall firs
robins all a-twitter of a June eve.
Pink roses spilled out onto the sidewalk
we touched and smelled.
I kissed your head, your cheek and told you
"Grammy loves you, Grammy loves, loves, loves you."
From the side, looking down at you in the front pack
I could see a little smile-
you knew, your fingers holding my finger,
our arms together, held before us.
I carried you last night,
while your tired mom spent that hour in massage
When we arrived home she was smiling.
You had fallen asleep to the sounds of the evening birds.
along the sidewalks and paths between
the houses on your hill
As the sun descended west and we
heard chick-a-dees in the tall firs
robins all a-twitter of a June eve.
Pink roses spilled out onto the sidewalk
we touched and smelled.
I kissed your head, your cheek and told you
"Grammy loves you, Grammy loves, loves, loves you."
From the side, looking down at you in the front pack
I could see a little smile-
you knew, your fingers holding my finger,
our arms together, held before us.
I carried you last night,
while your tired mom spent that hour in massage
When we arrived home she was smiling.
You had fallen asleep to the sounds of the evening birds.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
45 years Later
Dear Diane,
I am in one of my odd Saturday nights at the beginning of a new fixer house project. I am listening to Pandora on my computer, drinking wine and filling nail holes in the walls.
The station I have created is called "Aaron Neville". The songs this choice offers me as the night wears on begin to sound like our high school years: Bill Withers, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - I am transported to 9th grade, to knowing you and to my memories of your stories of the Maxie family and the cool Seattle connections you and your family had. It seemed your favorite extended family was a black family, and when you told of the parties and fun times I was entranced and a bit jealous. It sounded like there was so much life, laughter and music.
The songs are about overwhelming love, sadness, feeling uncertain and weak, about wanting to dance- \move the body to anything.
I remember how I admired and envied your experiences with another culture, one so close, and yet a lake and a bridge away. I am sure this admiration was one of the big reasons I joined the busing program to Garfield High School from the safe suburbs of Bellevue to the unknowns of the Central Area of Seattle.
Listening to soul music reminds me of the vapid white culture I was trying to slough off. The world was exploding around us with the War in Vietnam, John, Martin and Bobby killed while we were still in grade school. There was so much to process for a 15 year old kid who was paying attention.
We were hungry for the world, you, Lori and me. I don't know why or how it happened, but the 3 of us had this craving to break out, to find some answers, make some black friends and become renewed in the process. We sat on a bus for over an hour every morning to go to a completely unfamiliar school. What a bonding experience that was, and how difficult it became for me. I was petrified most of the time.
Soul music, what more perfect backdrop for those memories. The synthesis of pain and joy at once, affirming life. How much I suspected, but how little I knew then of what that music represented in our country's horrible history.
It is fitting that I am listening to 70's Soul Music in 2015, 47 years since we met. The times are just as confusing and uncertain as they were then. Now young black people are still being shot by police, and the world is still erupting in pockets of violence. Our country is still engaged in actions of 'war', and the chasm between the rich and the poor is worse than ever.
The details change, the power structures dividing and creating fear stay the same. The music, thankfully, is still there: "Lean on Me", "Stand By Me", ~ "Ain't no Sunshine When She's Gone".
I am in one of my odd Saturday nights at the beginning of a new fixer house project. I am listening to Pandora on my computer, drinking wine and filling nail holes in the walls.
The station I have created is called "Aaron Neville". The songs this choice offers me as the night wears on begin to sound like our high school years: Bill Withers, Ray Charles, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - I am transported to 9th grade, to knowing you and to my memories of your stories of the Maxie family and the cool Seattle connections you and your family had. It seemed your favorite extended family was a black family, and when you told of the parties and fun times I was entranced and a bit jealous. It sounded like there was so much life, laughter and music.
The songs are about overwhelming love, sadness, feeling uncertain and weak, about wanting to dance- \move the body to anything.
I remember how I admired and envied your experiences with another culture, one so close, and yet a lake and a bridge away. I am sure this admiration was one of the big reasons I joined the busing program to Garfield High School from the safe suburbs of Bellevue to the unknowns of the Central Area of Seattle.
Listening to soul music reminds me of the vapid white culture I was trying to slough off. The world was exploding around us with the War in Vietnam, John, Martin and Bobby killed while we were still in grade school. There was so much to process for a 15 year old kid who was paying attention.
We were hungry for the world, you, Lori and me. I don't know why or how it happened, but the 3 of us had this craving to break out, to find some answers, make some black friends and become renewed in the process. We sat on a bus for over an hour every morning to go to a completely unfamiliar school. What a bonding experience that was, and how difficult it became for me. I was petrified most of the time.
Soul music, what more perfect backdrop for those memories. The synthesis of pain and joy at once, affirming life. How much I suspected, but how little I knew then of what that music represented in our country's horrible history.
It is fitting that I am listening to 70's Soul Music in 2015, 47 years since we met. The times are just as confusing and uncertain as they were then. Now young black people are still being shot by police, and the world is still erupting in pockets of violence. Our country is still engaged in actions of 'war', and the chasm between the rich and the poor is worse than ever.
The details change, the power structures dividing and creating fear stay the same. The music, thankfully, is still there: "Lean on Me", "Stand By Me", ~ "Ain't no Sunshine When She's Gone".
Saturday, September 12, 2015
Orange You Glad We have A New Train?
Today was the big celebration for the new "Orange Line" which is the latest Portland light rail line. On top of this that same new train crosses the "People's Bridge" - Tillikim. We rode our bikes with the first cyclists to cross this pedestrian, rail, bus and bicycle only bridge. It was so lovely and quiet!
Masses of humanity rode the trains all day. We crammed into trains later to see the route. What an experience to see thousands of people come out to celebrate a project which had received huge opposition while it was in the planning stages. My thought: naysayers to public transit are a loud minority. The majority was out partying on a sunny Portland late summer day, appreciating our city and the leaders who have vision.
Thank you to all who were part of bringing us the orange line. It is 4 blocks from my new home, so exciting!
Masses of humanity rode the trains all day. We crammed into trains later to see the route. What an experience to see thousands of people come out to celebrate a project which had received huge opposition while it was in the planning stages. My thought: naysayers to public transit are a loud minority. The majority was out partying on a sunny Portland late summer day, appreciating our city and the leaders who have vision.
Thank you to all who were part of bringing us the orange line. It is 4 blocks from my new home, so exciting!
Sunday, August 23, 2015
Gravenstien Apple Pancakes
Knowing where to get free windfall Gravenstien apples is my specialty. There is an amazing little saved orchard in Tacoma, not far from where the PGA Golf tounament was this summer. I don't do golf, but gleaning fruit will make me more excited than any game. It is a kind of game, to see how much food I can harvest that would otherwise rot lonely on the ground.
Recipe for pancakes:
1 med sized Gravenstien, red or green, slightly ripe, peeled and cut into small pieces
1/3 c. fresh Gravenstien applesauce
1/2 cup yogurt
water to consistency
1 1/2 c Bob's Red Mill whole wheat flour
1/3 c minced dates
2 tablespoons oil
3 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Mexican cinnamon
Mix the egg yolks and the oil, add the yogurt and dates. Mix salt, baking powder and cinnamon to flour, and add to the main batter with water to create the right consistency for pouring. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter with a spatula, keeping the mixture light and bubbly with a soft touch.
Cook over medium on a lightly oiled pan, sprinkle a few apples onto the pancake after you pour it.
Caution!
Use only real butter and real maple syrup when eating them warm off the stove.
My love to you in the season of gleaning and harvest.
Recipe for pancakes:
1 med sized Gravenstien, red or green, slightly ripe, peeled and cut into small pieces
1/3 c. fresh Gravenstien applesauce
1/2 cup yogurt
water to consistency
1 1/2 c Bob's Red Mill whole wheat flour
1/3 c minced dates
2 tablespoons oil
3 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Mexican cinnamon
Mix the egg yolks and the oil, add the yogurt and dates. Mix salt, baking powder and cinnamon to flour, and add to the main batter with water to create the right consistency for pouring. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter with a spatula, keeping the mixture light and bubbly with a soft touch.
Cook over medium on a lightly oiled pan, sprinkle a few apples onto the pancake after you pour it.
Caution!
Use only real butter and real maple syrup when eating them warm off the stove.
My love to you in the season of gleaning and harvest.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Looking Back
I started this blog 5 years ago this month, July. July is the month of my tragedy. It is the month of the big family reunion, the fireworks, the heat and the light.... and the center of summer.
I started to write about things in the title - yoga, food and love - yet instead I believe I've wandered a great deal. It is an exercise, this writing for the public, ( all 10 of you....:). It is not like keeping a journal in the sense of just writing whatever, which is why I have written so few entries in the past 6 months. It takes clarity of thought, a time set aside, nothing pressing me with obligation. John Lennon best captured the dilemma of the writer/artist :
"I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping - Still my guitar gently weeps."
It is a challenge to ignore that dirty floor for the frivolous pursuit of writing just because.
I look back on my 5 years of offerings both wistfully and critically. It is a review of a specific time frame in my life. I am continually amazed that when I read old work I feel like I am reading something by another woman. She is a person I remember well, yet one who I no longer resemble in quite distinct ways.
When I was a child and the adults asked me what I wanted to "be" when I grew up, I wish I had known. I wish I had known that we reinvent ourselves every day and that "being" is fluid, evolving, sidetracking and relatively unpredictable.
I will continue this blog, with thanks to google and you, dear reader, who venture to share my wanderings. One day it will be an archive.
"Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection,
The lovers the dreamers
and me."
I started to write about things in the title - yoga, food and love - yet instead I believe I've wandered a great deal. It is an exercise, this writing for the public, ( all 10 of you....:). It is not like keeping a journal in the sense of just writing whatever, which is why I have written so few entries in the past 6 months. It takes clarity of thought, a time set aside, nothing pressing me with obligation. John Lennon best captured the dilemma of the writer/artist :
"I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping - Still my guitar gently weeps."
It is a challenge to ignore that dirty floor for the frivolous pursuit of writing just because.
I look back on my 5 years of offerings both wistfully and critically. It is a review of a specific time frame in my life. I am continually amazed that when I read old work I feel like I am reading something by another woman. She is a person I remember well, yet one who I no longer resemble in quite distinct ways.
When I was a child and the adults asked me what I wanted to "be" when I grew up, I wish I had known. I wish I had known that we reinvent ourselves every day and that "being" is fluid, evolving, sidetracking and relatively unpredictable.
I will continue this blog, with thanks to google and you, dear reader, who venture to share my wanderings. One day it will be an archive.
"Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection,
The lovers the dreamers
and me."
Friday, July 10, 2015
Rat - Ratero
Besieged this week, by invaders, me in my little home in the city.
Country girl, I leave my windows open because it is 95 degrees outside, and I opted out of an Air Conditioning system to be energy conscious.
A ratereo, (perfect Spanish word for "thief") entered my home while I was spending the July 4 holiday with my family up on Chehalem Mountain. I returned home to an open door, swinging in the hot breeze. I live on the Springwater Trail which attracts many homeless people. I refuse to believe it was a purely homeless person. I think it was a drug addicted, heartless thief well practiced.
My cabinets and drawers were ransacked, my little outdated Microsoft Notebook and speakers gone. That small bit represented four years of photos and my method for playing music when I care for my grand daughter so we can dance. She calls it "moosic". Today when I began to sing she asked for moosic. I tried to explain that is was gone, and that soon I hope to find it again.
I had thought my outward presentation to the world was of a person with nothing to steal, a person with a simple life.
They took my cheap but essentially useful watches, earrings that are worth nothing, my wooden beaded peace bracelet... if you see someone on the street with that, you might think of me.
My passport and social security card are in the hands of this/these cretins. I have gone about the business of reporting and changing numbers. There is nothing to use, and I suspect it will mostly end up in the garbage somewhere I will never find it.
I spent this week trying a Zen attitude. I tried to forgive, and to move on. I have a good life, and I know it is better than the life of the heartless cretin thief who left the contents of my underwear drawer strewn across my bedroom. The person who by-passed my Dali Lama mantra :
"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain -
May I, too, abide, to dispel the misery of the world."
then mercilessly dumped out my bags and files but, expediently, left my bicycle.
That and the photos of my baby grand daughter along with the obvious fact of simple furniture, sparse and well used makes me wonder how a person can do this. Ah, what do I know? Maybe it is exciting to be cold and angry, merciless, even as you steal ice cream from my freezer to cool you on a hot night.
My week progresses and by Thursday evening I have a neighbor come to my door to ask if I would like to help in the project to paint our intersection in the style of City Repair, to slow traffic, build community and give the neighborhood cohesiveness. Cosmically, her name is "Angel". This makes me think of my Mom, who always recited the angel prayer before we went on a trip, even a little drive to the store. Despite icky slimey rateros, there are also Angels in this realm. This is the dichotomy of existence in a complicated world. Divine Mother sends me an Angel, after the heartless people world has sent a ratero.
Later in the week, as I enjoyed a quiet dinner in the fresh evening air, a rat walked through my yard, plain as day. It has been rummaging through my compost. I go the next day to buy a trap. During my babysitting day with my nieta, the rat found its way to my trap.
On this Friday evening I buried the intruding rat with ceremony, as I bury my fears and uncertainties that humans are a crummy lot who mimick the most dirty of animals, the worst of whom are very rich and live a life infinitely far removed from my modest home and little fenced yard. I read again the mantra of The Dalai Lama, and vow, even as I secure my windows and doors, to not be closed of heart.
Country girl, I leave my windows open because it is 95 degrees outside, and I opted out of an Air Conditioning system to be energy conscious.
A ratereo, (perfect Spanish word for "thief") entered my home while I was spending the July 4 holiday with my family up on Chehalem Mountain. I returned home to an open door, swinging in the hot breeze. I live on the Springwater Trail which attracts many homeless people. I refuse to believe it was a purely homeless person. I think it was a drug addicted, heartless thief well practiced.
My cabinets and drawers were ransacked, my little outdated Microsoft Notebook and speakers gone. That small bit represented four years of photos and my method for playing music when I care for my grand daughter so we can dance. She calls it "moosic". Today when I began to sing she asked for moosic. I tried to explain that is was gone, and that soon I hope to find it again.
I had thought my outward presentation to the world was of a person with nothing to steal, a person with a simple life.
They took my cheap but essentially useful watches, earrings that are worth nothing, my wooden beaded peace bracelet... if you see someone on the street with that, you might think of me.
My passport and social security card are in the hands of this/these cretins. I have gone about the business of reporting and changing numbers. There is nothing to use, and I suspect it will mostly end up in the garbage somewhere I will never find it.
I spent this week trying a Zen attitude. I tried to forgive, and to move on. I have a good life, and I know it is better than the life of the heartless cretin thief who left the contents of my underwear drawer strewn across my bedroom. The person who by-passed my Dali Lama mantra :
"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain -
May I, too, abide, to dispel the misery of the world."
then mercilessly dumped out my bags and files but, expediently, left my bicycle.
That and the photos of my baby grand daughter along with the obvious fact of simple furniture, sparse and well used makes me wonder how a person can do this. Ah, what do I know? Maybe it is exciting to be cold and angry, merciless, even as you steal ice cream from my freezer to cool you on a hot night.
My week progresses and by Thursday evening I have a neighbor come to my door to ask if I would like to help in the project to paint our intersection in the style of City Repair, to slow traffic, build community and give the neighborhood cohesiveness. Cosmically, her name is "Angel". This makes me think of my Mom, who always recited the angel prayer before we went on a trip, even a little drive to the store. Despite icky slimey rateros, there are also Angels in this realm. This is the dichotomy of existence in a complicated world. Divine Mother sends me an Angel, after the heartless people world has sent a ratero.
Later in the week, as I enjoyed a quiet dinner in the fresh evening air, a rat walked through my yard, plain as day. It has been rummaging through my compost. I go the next day to buy a trap. During my babysitting day with my nieta, the rat found its way to my trap.
On this Friday evening I buried the intruding rat with ceremony, as I bury my fears and uncertainties that humans are a crummy lot who mimick the most dirty of animals, the worst of whom are very rich and live a life infinitely far removed from my modest home and little fenced yard. I read again the mantra of The Dalai Lama, and vow, even as I secure my windows and doors, to not be closed of heart.
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