A Lesson on the Eve of 9/11

We are all the same.

Have you ever had a day when you felt the warmth of another person sitting next to you and wondered about them? Did you wonder whether they were feeling your warmth? Did you wonder whether or not they loved their moms? Liked the color red? Thrilled at the first steamed windows of a cold-weather day? I have.

Have you ever walked the streets of your town and, in the course of whatever business you were carrying out, caught the eye of a stranger and smiled? Have you seen the same person in a crowded place more than once and wondered whether they noticed you as many times as you noticed them? I have.

Have you ever had moments, in any qualifiable way no different than the moment before or after, when you felt as blessed as a body could be? Or had same moments with the opposite flavor? When all seemed to fail and flounder? I have.

I've had days of heat and ardor, days of pure cool. I've spent time thoroughly spent and felt time fly away from me before I could grasp its intent. I've loved and hated. More the former, and most often I've regretted the latter. I've grown tired and worn and I've been uplifted.

I've made my mother proud and disappointed her deeply. Hopefully more of the first and less the other. I have worked so, so hard only to see something fall apart and I've barely tried and been successful beyond my wildest imagination. (Ongoing apologies to my high school mates who most suffered at this in my sophomore econ class.)

I've lived a full and rich life and I've not yet lived at all in some respects.

We are all the same.

Those who lost their lives on 9/11, and in the terrorist acts that preceded it, and in the life-wasting exercises since were just like me. They wore jeans that were too tight, squelched nervous stomachs on the first day of school, drank an icy cold glass of water on a hot day. Those who carried out those acts and all others also had days of soaking in sun, or hurt feet in too-tight shoes. We've all loved someone, lost someone, screwed something up.

We are all the same.

As we threaten to hurt one another, carry out acts of antagonization, or otherwise march toward the demise of our commonality we must return to this concept with great purpose and seriousness. We are all the same. When I injure you, I serve only my own chronic pain. When I heal you, I enrich my own peace and bring myself closer not just to you but to my true self. I am a real, breathing, living being, so much like you no matter my different choices.

Those lost on a path that meanders - sometimes races- away from this truth toward ugliness, fear and despair must not direct us away from our righteous end.

Find in me, as I find in you, all that we share and I know you will see. We are all the same.

The Danger of Democracy

There's a lot of talk right now about our democracy. I suppose that's not new. Americans have and inspire quite a bit of conversation on that topic. There's a lot of talk about racism and equality. That's not new either. It may never be new, I'm sorry to report. Despite the sensitivity of the subjects, these conversations are not inherently bad or inappropriate. They're uncomfortable, but not dangerous.

The impetus for the current discourse swirls in and around two topics: 1. the proposed Islamic center near the ruins of the 9/11 disaster in New York and 2. the proposed revocation or alteration of 14th amendment rights. Pundits and ponderers are batting the questions back and forth across cable news channels, over AM radio airwaves and throughout the paltry print that remains in any way relevant. No matter how elementary, these bluster-machines pretend their questions are massive, resounding elephants of truth tramping through the forest: 'Should the mosque be built there? In the shadows of the towers where Islamic extremists terrorized our country?' 'Should tourists be allowed to bring their pregnant women into the U.S.? Should Mexicans be allowed to do that?' No matter how unsavory or surreal the questions, our free society permits them - encourages them. There's no danger in the questions.

And as we've undressed the issues, we've had bad diagrams drawn and boring scholars expound and unfortunate theories traded. For a visual representation of the mess, picture the last day of a nominating convention when confetti makes its way maniacally up and around a vast arena, with no real direction, no purpose except to excite and distort. It's beautiful and chaotic and overdone. But not dangerous. Right?

Right. We're agreed until we get past the topic, beyond the questions and over the media-induced frenzy. Then we may part company. Because when I see injustice it's not just my moral self that reacts, it is my American self.

As an American I believe it is shameful and embarrassing that nine years after the fact we are still not properly caring for relief workers who rained down upon the disaster site in New York like angels from heaven. I am even more betrayed by the fact that we have not erected any meaningful replacement for the towers, the gape in the landscape serving as daily congratulations to the terrorists who created it. My American sensibility winces with real pain at the failure to remember our unity in the days that followed that disaster so that we could use that unity for strength against any challenge.

But nothing ruins me more as an American than the thought that we might prevent Muslims from building a place of worship and congregation near the site of the 9/11 attacks, simply because terrorists wearing masks of Islam participated in those attacks. Nothing could serve as a more polished symbol of ignorance about our own fundamental ideology than doing that. Except maybe revoking the birth-right citizenship of persons born in the U.S. without regard to parentage.

Traveling so far from our well-reasoned principles to a place where fear and extreme reaction control our policies would be a terrific step backward in the evolution of the American democracy. How? Please take a moment to think about what it means to tell a Muslim, a New Yorker, and a natural-born citizen of the U.S. that his place of worship is offensive or impermissible. Replace Muslim with Jewish. Tell a Jew, born and raised in New York, that his proposed temple near a German-American museum insults the nation. Replace Jewish with black. You get the idea.

And while you're at it tell my grandparents, who entered through Ellis Island and on make-shift boats from Cuba with nothing but hope in their pockets , that their U.S. citizen children, U.S.-born grandchildren and God knows how many American great grandchildren might not deserve citizenship here. Need to check their brownness... er their patriotism... uh, I mean... we'll get back to you on that. In the meantime, just tell your fellow Americans that American ideals work for us but not for them. There's equality under the law for me but not for you. No danger there, right? Wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

There is frightful danger. The power of democracy is its truth - it's freedom and justice - it's acknowledgement of the self-evident. The danger is the lie - the contraint and corruption - the suppression of the inherent right.

It is a lie that an Islamic cultural center near the 9/11 site insults the nation. The truth is it upholds and uplifts the fundamental ideals of the nation because in the United States who you are is as wanted and respected as who I am. It is a lie that those born here do not deserve the right of citizenship. The truth is, the coming together of my Italian-American mother and my Cuban father to create me here in this unique place on earth is what inherently makes me American. If my dad didn't have his papers in order would I be any less so? No.

I understand the fear that others might perceive us as foolish and weak. We must overcome that fear. Our very existence is proof that, once experienced, freedom, justice and truth have no competition. Terror cannot replace them. Bigotry cannot deny their potency. Fear is no match. The danger of our democracy is not that we might make ourselves vulnerable by offering too much liberty or fairness. The danger is that we may not use the power of our majority to ensure that the truth speaks louder than the lie.

The Anniversary Post

It's not my anniversary today. Thursday. Thursday, August 5th, 2010 will mark 15 years since I fluttered nervously at the back of that church, eyes blurry, waiting to step across the threshold of my individual self in order to enter the domain of my shared self. Those who know me may think that moment was a challenging one for me. It was not.

I walked down that aisle with great confidence and my heart as completely full as it could be, on the arm of the man who raised me - to the extent that any man did - to reach the man who lifted me up. He still does. As I approached him I was beyond words - well past describable emotion and so alive in the moment of my dreams I could barely contain myself. He was too, although he'll swear until we're sharing the story in heaven that he did not cry. He did.

Our families were there, the friends who had brought us to that moment were there, God was there - no doubt - and outside, cheering crowds were there. Nothing like having your wedding at a lakefront church on the first day of the Air and Water Show to add a little background noise to your ceremony! It had been grey and dreary in the days leading up to our wedding day. We exchanged our vows with the gold and green of ancient stained glass played along the walls as the sun emerged full and throaty. I took some credit for that, as I had prayed most fiercely that God would welcome my marriage with a little sunshine. Early evidence in my adult life that with all His more important tasks, God hears every prayer. It was lovely, sweet, perfect - then and in my memory.

Despite its glow, the day was not without it's fits and starts, nor were the preparations, and certainly the days after have held their challenges. I'll greet my anniversary with fifteen years of experience, some of it magical, some of it most desperate. Days of dull, dishes and dirty socks together with moments of incredible splendor, discovery and communion have filled a life together that for me is always new and worthwhile and ready. I am not love without my husband. I submit because I choose (not often, but I do...). I am strong because he needs me. I am a mother because of His grace, but also his grace. I go forward because he holds my hand and I don't have to be alone, or fearful. He protects me and my children and makes us safe, no matter the danger. He is my best friend, my only champion, my truth, even when it hurts. My heart still flutters when I see him, and for whatever length of time we are apart - even now in this tiny little moment - I long for him.

I knew all of that would be true fifteen years ago when I took his hand on that day with that promise before God and familly. I knew it. I know it now. And if I can love him for all eternity, it may not be enough. Now, as then, when we sang softly (and completely off-key) to one another we show each other the world, shining, shimmering, splendid, taking each other wonder by wonder, over, sideways and under, on a magic carpet ride.

Keeping It Real? Uh. No.

Been having tantrums in my head for the past several weeks. "It's not fair!" I've stormed petulantly in my head. "I don't waaannnna," I've whined. "How come it's always meeee?" I mourn. Now, it could just be that I'm channeling the thoughts expressed around me all day long, as I juggle my not-in-camp-for-the-summer children, along with (Thank God!) enough work to keep us busy and the usual melange of stuff.

But it's not that. If I'm being really honest with myself it's not mimic tantruming. It's original. I own it.

Of course, if I were being really honest with you I'd say it's not that easy to be really honest with myself. It's easier to assert that I've scraped off enough levels of the protective ice coating (inside joke with myself - have you ever seen the move "Mother" with Debbie Reynolds? hysterical) to say that I'm being really honest. But that's bull. Real honesty is painful and leaves you raw and too open to attack.

Real honesty would include admitting that I'm addicted to things that are bad for me - take it easy slugger, I'm talking about food and coffee and things that come over the counter - because somewhere in there I don't think I deserve all the good things I have in my life. I'm afraid someone will tap me on the shoulder and tell me I've been standing in the wrong line and need to get my unqualified butt into the longer line with the misfit toys from that horrible Christmas cartoon. So I damage myself as punishment for my perceived crime. That's some crazy business, isn't it?

Real honesty would be saying that I write what I feel because no matter how vocal I am in real life, the fact is I hold back. I'm too chicken to fully express my less rehearsed self in 3-D. And I don't think people should listen to me because maybe I don't know what the heck I'm saying. So I put it on paper (even virtual paper) so it can be expressed but quietly so it can be ignored. Except I don't want to be ignored. I want to be noticed. But not really. And that's crazy too, isn't it?

Real honesty would be to finally cast my line, even if I don't catch my dream, just because telling my kids to do it isn't enough, I have to show them. I have to be fearless and confident so they can see that the pursuit is just as valuable as the catch. I have to do that but I don't. I am afraid, so I don't.

Yeah. So. That real honest thing? I'm not there yet.

So let's say, even at the qasi-honest level I know the tantrums are my own. The mom in me is also on a loop reprimanding me for my poor behavior, making the whole thing a sitcom in my head. It's no wonder my hair is curly. The follicles must be running in circles looking for an exit.

I can't say what I'm tantrumming about because part of my mission going forward on this subject is to show some restraint. I'm not off to a terrific start, but I am a strong believer in the pick yourself up, dust yourself off, etc. method of making progress. So I won't blather on and on about what it is. Suffice to say I'm so dang tired of the subject I've long run out of patience and diplomacy and willingness to have meaningful dialogue. I'd like everyone to just do what I say and agree that everything I think is totally perfect and great. In fact, I'd like everyone to just move over and let me handle it. I know I can't move things like global economies and governments at the wave of a hand, but I'd really like to. A lot. And my immobility and incapacity for making others move out of their obstructionist stances is making me dang cranky!

And I don't want to wait!

And I don't want to act my age!

I want what I want right NOW!

Maybe, if I'm being really honest, what I need is a nap. Does anyone have a blanky?

Da Daddada Dadda Dadda Da

That title's my ode to the Blackhawks. I've no idea how to spell that little ditty, but I'm hoping the best for them as some Chicago team has got to win something some time, as per that law of averages I've heard about. I wouldn't know for sure, because as a Cubs fan, the averages never seem to turn out the way I think they will. I've said before, I stink at math.

So I feel I've been away from this page for too long and, Chicago sports fan-dom aside, my ire has built up beyond capacity. Where to begin? A tasting menu, should do it:

For those who are concerned with privacy and Facebook, I have this: you are idiots. Facebook is on the internet. The internet is a global publishing device. It's a place where you've agreed to be public, not private. If you are trying to be private, don't blast your inane interests and fuzzy photos and unnecessary diatribes disguised as blogs all over your FB page. Stop whining and get on with your glitter charms or farm animals or whatever else it is you're doing instead of being private. On second thought, maybe you should be hiding some of that stuff. Yeesh.

For the CEO of FB: you're a twit. Your successful business model, which has made you into a lauded boy-genius and a mega-millionaire, failed to include one small detail - payment. I don't know how that one got past you, but if advertisers on your site don't make money from being there, they will leave. The way to keep them there is not to make your users, their audience, leave. That's one of those if A=B and B=C then don't mess with A or B or C because they'll get together and kick your behind. Maybe you should have thought it through a bit more.

On the issue of BP and the oil spill: America, wake up, we are to blame. BP is a sideshow to our epic performance of GREED RULES. If we weren't so desperate to guzzle oil and make tons of money and have more crap than a body should know what to do with, all sold at some remote Wal-Mart that we have to constantly drive to and from, none of this would be happening. We are spend-a-holic, drive-a-holic, future-mortgaging, instant-gratification junkies. It is our fault. Our fault. Own it first, then you can fix it.

On the issue of BP and the oil spill plus Fox News: (and here I'm borrowing from my good friend Jon Stewart) GO F&*K yourself! Are you out of your cotton-picking minds? The oil spill is the result of environmentalists efforts to improve safety in drilling practices? That's funny. I thought it was a consequence of the systemic deregulation of drilling practices and the oversight carte-blanche the industry was given to monitor itself during the Bush-Cheney administration. To be clear, you employ someone as a consultant who not only espouses the 'environmentalists are to blame' theory, but also says BP is not to be trusted because it is a foreign company. Uh, seriously folks, you need to check your microphones because I think you have the perverse cousin of autotune messing with your sound - autoidiot. Microphone check? Check.

A bit further into the wild: Israel and Palestine are at it again. There's a shocker. To my Israeli friends, when you are wrong, you defeat your own cause by insisting you are right. To my Palestinian friends, seriously? You know you're standing in a puddle of gasoline - why light a cigarette? You are both looking like volitile, unstable ex-boyfriends who need to be properly diagnosed and put on a med regimen. I believe this is why we broke up in the first place.

For my beloved Barack Obama, President of the United States: not as easy as it looks, huh? Don't let that break you. You're a smart man with a good team of people behind you and a willing citizenry to support you. Now gitcher considerable butt in gear and get to that spill. I know you've been doing a lot of great stuff, and I love you for it, but being President is like being a parent, except with more diapers. You can't rest for a minute because if you do the smell will take over the house and while you're trying to clean that up your next door neighbor will start a fight over the height of the hedge between his house and Fred's next to him. You need to keep on it. Sleeping is for sissies. (By the way, the grey makes you look even sexier and I dig that you and your wife are still making time for one another and your children. Keeps you relatable.) Now get back to work!

I have more, but apparently, the bottom has not dropped out of the buying market and I have work to do. Sing it with me: Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelu oooh oooh oooh oooh oooh jah!

So Hot

On the one hand, if you get the Mother's Day thing right, you are the hottest man on the planet. On the other hand, juggling the possibilities - and not just for your wife but for your mother-in-law and your own mother - can feel like a real-life version of hot potato. Chances of getting burned? Pretty high.

It starts about a week out. You start assessing the options. Take them out one at a time and give them your full attention. Yes. Wait, no. Then you have to leave two of them alone while you take the other one out - bad idea. Hot potato.

Take them all out at once! Yes! NO-Jeez, what were you thinking?? Hot potato.

Have them all over to the house. You can set the whole thing up. It'll be cheaper and they'll appreciate the personal attention. Wait - wha? Who let a tornado through this house? Do we usually keep a stock of legos in the bathroom? Uh, never mind, nothing here. Hot potato.

AHA! (Light bulb!) Ask them what they want to do and then do that! Wait, no. No, no, no. Fallen into this trap before. Then they think you can't think of anything and can't plan anything for them the way they ALWAYS plan EVERYTHING. Definitely not asking them a damn thing. Hot potato.

Mental pacing back and forth, back and forth. What to do. What to do. What to do.

In the meantime, it's gotten to be Saturday. Kids have prepared loving homemade gifts and original pieces of art, wife has assembled series of small gifts for friends and family, neighbors have dropped off little somethings that make your wife tear up, your mom has dropped hints the weight of the average anvil, your mother-in-law is flushed and excited about the 'big day'. Everyone's ready except you.

'For the love of GAAAAAHD,' you think to yourself, 'why do they invent these torturous holidays?!?'

In a mad dash you pack the kids into the car, mumble something about AutoZone to make sure your wife tunes out (not realizing that your wife knows damn well you're not going to AutoZone with three kids dressed for a party) and rush to the nearest department store in a full sweat and increasing panic. You bluster from predictable display to predictable display, not wanting to be that guy who buys his wife the green apple bath set because he doesn't know what to get. The kids pant behind you as you rush up and down escalators, across lobbies, through carpeted odes to tack and glam. Then it happens! You remember your wife said something about socks yesterday and there before you, rising out of the 2nd floor atheltic wear department like a Vegas-style water display, is the glorious socks-on-sale pyramid. God loves you! It'll be thoughtful, it'll be practical (how many times has she said, 'But I don't even need a wrench set'?) and it's on SALE! Wooo hoooo!

You are done, brother. Forget the mother-in-law, your wife has that covered. Forget your own mom - she loves you anyway. You have scored the big TD. Add some flowers and a card to this puppy and you've just rung the bell, son. You may very well get some personal attention of your own later if this all goes according to plan. Home you go, barely able to contain the grin. You prance around the house all Saturday night feeling just so good about yourself. Of course she's getting excited too. Anticipation is key, as our friends at the Heinz company well know.

Sunday arrives - the big moment is here - she opens the lovely card - sniffs the lovely flowers - and then gently peels back pastel tissue paper from a floral gift bag to reveal.... socks! Yesssss. You're smiling ear-to-ear. But wait, she's got a face - not the right face - the completely wrong face. God Bless Moses, you got it wrong. You got it all wrong. It's the wrong face. She's trying not to make the kids feel bad so she smiles and giggles and says 'thank you' but it's wrong, wrong wrong. You have not been favored with the tear-and-pressed-gift-to-chest. Instead, you have been relegated to the set-aside-gift-bag-and-return-to-kids'-cards. Loser. Again.

The rest of the day goes on with a fog over it. You check to see if maybe you misjudged - hand on the small of the back as you walk through the door - extra long laugh when she laughs at a child's joke - but you're getting no eye contact, no hand snuck under yours to squeeze. You know the face, there was no misjudging. You blew it, blew it blew it. And the next chance you get to do this again, you'll be starting with the deficit of this disaster. The sky is black.

But guess what. You didn't blow it at all. If your wife is brand-spanking new at this whole married thing, then maybe she doesn't see it that way. But us gals who've been at it for a while see the whole thing and love you for it. Love you for the fretting and wanting to get it right, love you for the strain of going outside your area of expertise to do something you'd otherwise avoid like poison ivy, love you for giving us a reason to celebrate this most glorious of holidays. We love you and appreciate you and are glad for you every day and especially this day.

As for me personally? I awoke to the scent of a delicious cup of coffee - bedside - the Sunday paper (my fave), fresh roses, and the sound of my husband vacuuming. I made a brunch at home with my daughters and my mom while my husband and son tended the garden and planted all our flowers. I went shopping a bit in the afternoon, came home to a gorgeous yard and clean house, freshened up and went to my mother-in-law's house for a dinner of delicious homemade tamales. It was lovely and wonderful and my husband made it happen.

And that was so hot.

Status Line Blinking

What's on my mind? What's on my mind is that our state is failing to fund education because it's trying to plug its budget deficit with my kids' future. Of course, what the what the well-paid club members in Springfield don't realize or don't care about is that public schools anchor neighborhoods and directly affect property values. Property values control economic stability and serve as the stream of tax revenue we need to cure our financial ails.

Further, consistently strong property values create stable neighborhoods. Stable neighorhoods translate to healthy local economies and boost consumer confidence. Consumer confidence drives consumption. Consumption equals more tax revenue. Therefore, in the short term, damaging schools is a direct hit to our revenue, something we clearly cannot afford.

In the long term, an uneducated generation of children, followed by another and yet another is not likely to create the type of local or broader economic health and stability that we need to sustain our preferred way of life. Uneducated people become dependents and subordinates, not independent thinkers and leaders. Is school the only place to become educated? No, I'm living proof of that. But is it necessary to give our children a collective kick in the shin on that lifelong race to success? No.

And if I were a kid and I were at all paying attention, I might think that all the pompous grown-ups going around telling me how to behave were a bunch of hypocrites and liars. 'School is very important,' we all tell our children. 'I'm the education fill-in-the-political-office-blank,' we hear candidates intone over and over again. When the truth is, we not only don't put our money where our big fat mouths are, we don't even get off the damn couch to complain in person when given the opportunity. If it's more than a click that's requried from us, we're just too damn lazy to care.

That's fine for us. We're as smart as we're going to get. I'm just wondering how we feel about our kids bumping into walls for the rest of their lives because we couldn't be bothered with giving them a sense of direction. I suppose we care as much about that as we care that a state in our country is racially discriminating against people in order to comply with a law or as much as we care that there is an entire industry - with it's own street in New York, no less - robbing us blind every day. The fact is we don't care. We don't care and that's why we're in the mess we're in. Maybe we're the ones that need to go back to school.

Too bad we can't afford that.