the strong protect the weak

Someone reposted my post about glue, and someone interpreted in a more literal vein than I intended.

Simply put, both extremes on both sides "can't go high" because they're blinded by the idea of what the "other side" is and wants.

The middle ground from both coalitions has a hard time understanding where the other side is coming from. Living in a liberal stronghold, I know that many people around me are dicks about rural America and truly what people are going through.

This article is by far the BEST article I read, it really resonates with me when I am home in rural Oregon, talking with my friends about the desperation and anger at the arrogance of the liberal elites. They are not fucking wrong about the arrogance and general asshole-ish behavior. And that article nails it - when people don't have a voice, they lash out. 

So, we hear you. But don't forget that many of us don't understand you back. Don't make the next four years as some sort of evening of the score type of new dawn. Don't be arrogant rural elites. Go high. Embrace the values of Jesus Christ, if he is your personal savior or not, because his teachings are fucking incredible.

For the past eight years, Obama and the Democrats have done everything in their power to do what they believe is right for all Americans. The GOP has fought hard to do what they believe is right for all Americans. But there is a bigger problem that, in general, most Americans don't understand or accept what politics is and how it works and how it has functioned as part of human history to keep a check on power. And when you simplify the rhetoric and sell it on the media in soundbites and make concepts that are complicated into hashtags, the anti-intellectualism grows and the train derails and the democracy gets sick.

Unfortunately, the particularly hate-filled rhetoric from the Trump campaign captured the headlines from the past year and continued to obscure from any meaningful policy discussions - but maybe lancing the wound and releasing the hate IS the message, as well. 

There is a significant faction within the GOP coalition that is racist and misogynistic (among other things), and I believe strongly that if you voted alongside them and turned a blind eye to those words and tweets and the "locker room talk" because of policy differences, then you did a great disservice to many Americans. 

The policy differences in a checks and balances system are, and will continue to be, negotiated ad nauseam. But, I believe that so many GOP voters allowed, by their silence on these issues and the unwillingness to say "That's RACIST" or "That is WRONG" or demand accountability or an actual sincere apology from the candidate, they allowed the worst among us to openly step forward, validated, in their limited perspectives on women and people of color and the LBGT community, among others, and now those people believe they have a mandate. 

And that is where we need to build bridges, be the glue, just know one another and share our common humanity. We need a purple movement, so we can become strong and push out the riotous tantrums from the left and the vitriol from the right. Set an example that neither extreme is welcome in our democracy. This leading Republican voice speaks to me. She is what I want in a GOP presidential candidate in 2020.  Or this man. 

Take back the GOP, friends. Take it back for what I remember it being when I was growing up in a ruby red stronghold, daughter of a card-holding union blue Democrat, and I was raised to respect and see both sides. 

In a way, it's good that this racism is out in the open. Now we can all be the glue - the blue and the red among us - and stand up and purge it from our nation. The GOP is where it lives right now, unfortunately, and there is no pressure from the outside that will correct that course. It must be driven out by the strong, compassionate conservatives that need to stand up and demand respect. 

What can we all do every day? 

I have a lovely friend, she's brilliant and she's 25 and she's "brown" and she has helped me learn about what it means to her to be a person of color and a woman in America. She said once that the most horrifying thing that happens on a day to day basis is that someone - anyone - will say something so obviously racist, in mixed company or in an all-white crowd, and no white person speaks out. It's like they feel that it's the minority person's obligation to do it (or no one if it's an all white group). That's bullshit. 

Defend those from bullies precisely because they are being victimized. If woman is being raped and a man walks by, he can't just do nothing because it's the "woman's responsibility to not be raped." Fuck that. People in positions of power and respect need to ALWAYS speak up on behalf of those who feel afraid to do so and because it's the right thing to do. You don't need to get into an hour-long argument about white privilege or even political correctness or a debate on whether a joke is a joke. If you know it's racist, just fucking say it. That's racist. That's sexist. That's hurtful. That's limited. That's unacceptable. That's not setting a good example for our children.

And that is all. Don't even say it with condescension. Literally, gently remind people that we can't accept racism and misogyny and hate speech, even if it's casually tossed about as a half joke. 

Privilege is real, but it doesn't have to be anything aside from acknowledged and used to help protect people who are marginalized and to stand up and help end hate. And that goes for "white trash." Fucking end that. It's rude and classist, if not racist, too. 

As for me, I am here in the most liberal place in the country, and people around me are afraid, truly afraid for their physical person. I am afraid for my daughter's African American classmates and their parents. I am afraid for my nanny and her husband, both from Mexico with gorgeous Mexican-American children. I am afraid for my neighbors who have adopted a beautiful baby boy and raising him in a loving, same-sex household. I am afraid for my daughter and her innocence and how her self confidence and physical being may be casually violated by another child who thinks "grabbing by the pussy" is just a thing we should try on the playground one day because the President of the United States said it on TV. 

There is NO ONE who can step up and protect women, people of color, LBGT families, children, persons with disabilities MORE than the people who step into the next four years with a mandate. 

I implore all of my conservative friends and family members, please, step up and show us that you are about love and hope and the glue, not about hate. 

Support your policy aims, and we will respectfully fight back when we disagree, but please protect me, my friends, my families, and the vulnerable and afraid. 

You have inherited a great responsibility with this victory. Let's make all of America great.

bonding

When something breaks, there needs to be glue. Our hearts are broken, and America is broken in half, and our friends who voted for the other party may not even know that they're broken because they don't feel a part of our whole.

We are the glue that brings us back together.

As I walked my daughter and her best friend through the warm rain to preschool this morning, I thought: "Maybe this happened because the they simply can't be the glue. Right now, they literally can't go high."

They can't see beyond their own justified despair at what has happened in rural and suburban America. They are suffering and sick and underemployed and living in little ghost towns. They're scared. And they have been led down a path by profit-driven media that stokes the fires of hate and rage and fear. At this point, they only have one another, and don't have the rich, colorful fabric of communities like ours. And today they feel strong, standing tall on the broken foundations of our Democracy, only seeing what divides us, as the other half weeps.

Let them feel strong today, and let us take this day to heal our broken hearts with our glue, together, as we can.

And tomorrow, let us get up and be the glue that America needs. If we would have come out victorious, the rift would only grow and the intensity of hate would have scorched us all. It's the gift of our love that will both allow them to have their voices heard, and allow us to step in the role of glue, so we can all heal together.

I don't know what it means, but I know that I want to understand how we can heal as a nation. Maybe we need to become modern day Freedom Riders. Buses full of pantsuits and men and women of color and children from our cities and suburbs, and we go out to our neighbors in the ruby red strongholds and hug them. Pray with them. Play on the same playgrounds as their children. Share our food with them. Our languages. Show them that we are broken, too, and, yet, we hear them. And we want to heal together.

Love must trump hate. I don't think they are ready to be the glue, so we must. It's a much harder job than being the one with the hammer.

We must do something to tie us together with bonds so tight that a rupture of this size, in this, the land of dreams, never, ever happens again.

a new day

Have you ever been to a full military burial at Arlington National Cemetery? Have you ever walked among our nation's fallen? Have you ever been honored enough to follow the caisson through the rolling lawns lined with endless white headstones and stood in a place - a magical, forever place - where you can see both the tip of the Washington Monument and the dome of the United States Capitol take turns dancing in the golden light of a sunburst under a mostly cloudy sky?

Have you been to the wedding, the baby shower, the funeral, and now - this day - to share another emotional memory with a woman you were so fortunate to cross paths with, as her two beautiful toddlers and her strong, incredible husband continue to share their love and their lives with you?

Have you seen the honor guard fold a flag and hand it to the family after checking, and checking, and checking the corners for perfection, because she deserves nothing less? Have you felt the power and heard the noise of four mighty Strike Eagles - with friends in the cockpits, friends in the sky - scream over your head above the orange, yellow, and red leaves of fall, their power a symbol for the strength we share when we unite?

Have you watched the exacting ritual, the perfect uniforms, the steps in time, and, finally, had your heart break in two over the soulful sound of Taps on a perfectly warm and perfectly cool and perfectly breezy and simply spectacular November afternoon?

Have you done any of this on November 9, 2016, the day that it felt like our country shattered into a million pieces?

Here's what this incredible woman was telling me as the rain stopped and the sun came out and we all gathered, yet again, to be washed in her memory -- it's a new day to love and a new day to hope. Feel the sun and see the beauty.

Every day is a new day to love. Every day is a new day to hope. No matter what side of these invisible lines you fall on on November 8, on November 9, it's a new day to love. It's a new day to hope.

I woke up and I thought about fighting and next time and what it means to lose, and I almost forgot what it means to love and hope and be the glue and look at my diverse friendships and family members and remind myself that it's a new day to love.

Today, not only were we mourning a fierce woman, full of pink kisses and hope and love, but we were saying hello to where she will always be welcoming the sun on every new day in this great country.

We can mourn loss - and having this event today of all days allowed me to mourn much more than I thought I could. I can't thank this family enough for sharing their life with mine. I feel so grateful that she gave yet another gift.

But we also must start picking up all of these pieces. Realize there were no winners in this race and there were no losers among us, unless we don't wake up to a new day of love and a new day of hope.

I am so proud to be a part of my military family, my passionately liberal family, my diverse, honest, caring, and proud family, my fierce mama family, my whole world of people and relationships - you are all my family.

Let's respect the fallen. Respect the history and solemnity and weight of all that we have built and sacrificed for. Respect one another. And demand our elected officials respect all that we share and have built and carry and dream of.

And let's wake up tomorrow to our new day of love and our new day of hope.

the great lawn chair in the sky

whenever people ask me where i "got" my writing sensibilities from, i always attribute them to my grandad, Ol' Red Hunt.

grandad didn't even graduate the 7th grade. he had a rough childhood. poor as dirt.

poorer than that. picking cotton in west Texas as a boy was more important to the family than secondary school. he didn't learn to write.

who cares? writing isn't about grammar, it's about a message.

he wrote:

This man who comes and hunts with me from Arkansas got a 8-week old huntin' dog and asked me what I was telling [my dog] Sally when I told her"Chores, Sally, chores." 

I told them I was telling her to pottie. 

"Hey, that's Ok! I'll teach Luke that!" 

Well, the next morning they came by to go hunt and I was out front with Sally, and just as I told her "Chores, Sally," he turned to me and said, "Not so loud, Jim! I told Luke that last nite, and she shit all over the pickup afore we could get out!" 

somehow Grandad met and married my grandma, Lois Leola, a sweet, tough girl from Iowa, and they had a life together. they settled in Oregon after gramps' discharge from the Marine Corps during WWII. they had three children. they were both frugal and tough. kind, but tough. they had a marriage that lasted nearly 70 years, because they were tough.

as we say goodbye to grandad, we mourn. we mourn a person who was original beyond the cliche of originality. yes, we all are one-of-a-kind, but very few of us are memorable. we will remember James Wells Hunt.

a story:

At 0538 I took all three of the dogs for a potty run, they all knowing a reward was awaiting them when they were done. Now picture, if you will, where I take them. There is a three-foot hi berm that we must cross on our way. They all three need to go pretty bad. High-energy on Rico's part, and of course Sally wants to be close to her owner (old-age and seniority, etc) is straining to stay ahead of the other two.

Well it's frost every day now that it has rained a little and we have a big supply of leaves on top of the ground. Rico is one fast, energetic dude, strong. He don't know much about seniority and old age. He thinks evidently who gets there first and wet's down the area is the winner! 

They never consider the old owner for one second! So on down the side of the berm, Rico sees just the spot he has to piss on first, before Sally and Punkin can get there.

Zippo! Lunge, 75-lbs hits the leash and this old man was holding on to the other end for dear life!

Well, you can guess where the old man is by this time, eating frosty leaves BEFORE breakfast, and thankful to the good Lord that he doesn't have a broken leg (like Jackie, Klutz!), now trying to find three dogs in the dark.  

he was a tyrant at times. bullheaded. angry. close-minded at times. a red-hot temper that cooled as he aged into grandfather-hood. he was a man of conviction and faith. he made hard workers look lazy. he was disciplined. he didn't drink. he liked to lecture and preach. he studied the bible every night. he didn't understand affection, but he loved us. his voice would crack. his hugs were few, yet emotional, meaningful.

he showered us with insults, but it was a way of invitation. he scolded us for sending vacation postcards, but it was a way of showing pride that we were enjoying life. 

• he warned us about becoming like Lennie Smith, an obese old man, when we packed away too much at Sunday dinner, but he always filled up our plates three-times over. he always had dessert.
• he built his home out of salvaged materials from old military barracks in the mid-1950s, the home he lived in until the day he died. 

  

  Are those dead frogs?

• he drank buttermilk. often. he cooked in bacon grease. always. in his 70s, as his his cholesterol neared 300, the doctor remarked he had the stamina of a man in his 40s. bypass surgeries came and went, but he still walked 3-6 miles a day hunting in the rough Arizona mountain terrain until his legs just wore out.
• he gave me a sex talk before i got married. "a man has needs...."
• he taught me how to shoot a pistol, but it was a pre-owned broken pistol with a crooked sight, that he "bought off a fella who didn't have two nickels to rub together" and he was even more pleased when i actually hit the target
• he lived off $500 a month, had the lowest utility bill in the neighborhood because he wouldn't turn his hot water heater on. i once had to return a plumbing fixture for him to WalMart. it came to $2.19. he had kept the receipt. 
• he saved everything. our wedding gift was a giant coffee can full of nuts, washers, bolts, screws, clamps, wire and assorted hardware that he found on his long walks - with a duct tape wrapping paper.
• he repaired everything. our $50 croquet set became ultimate woodsman croquet as he replaced the mallet handles and/or ends with tree logs. he even learned to sew. it was a mess.
• he recycled everything. i have a letter he sent written on the cover sheet of a 150-pack of lined paper. you know, the piece on top under the shrink wrap that says "college rule" and has the UPC code? yeah, he put that letter in a return envelope he got from the IRS and crossed out "IRS" and put my name in. 

  

  How did this get to me?

• he gathered everything. if it was on the side of the road, in a ditch, under an overpass, or otherwise "free," it was likely picked up and repurposed. he made $1,500 one year in aluminum can deposit money. he sat outside an entire weekend shooting birds with a pellet gun as they came near his (salvaged from old screen doors) sun-drying racks where he was carefully tending to the dehydration of 50 lbs. of "found" plums.
• when he couldn't climb into his truck as he got older, instead of get a smaller truck, he welded a towing ball to the side as a handle to hoist himself in. he only owned two trucks in 35 years.

• My '84 Datsun was unpredictable, so I took her to the auto saw-bones! Well that old gal must have smelled the embalming fluid at that place...the day of the examination she stopped her contentiousness and ran so good, I decided to take her to Texas, pretty near 2000 miles! Oh, but not without some last words on her part! Coming back she blew the oil cap off and sprayed hot oil all over the engine, so that every time I get the engine hot, that last word from her reminds me that she is a FEMALE. But, I have never had a better car in all my life.

• he told you to do things, and you did them. even if you absolutely couldn't do them - like lifting something heavy, like a boat or a freezer or a box of bees. you just did it. and you always wore gloves (mostly both the right hand because none of the sets actually matched...he just had a box of gloves he picked up on the side of the road somewhere) 
• his hobbies were a type of work: beekeeping, mushroom hunting, drying fruit, squeezing citrus, canning quail, fishing

• Now just because you might notice that the date of this writing, you might be thinkin' all I have to do is what I am doing! Well let me tell you! I got chores that have NEVER been done! I just felt this letter of yours has been laying on top of my kitchen table since about the 10th, and to be truthful, I need that space on the table it is taking up!

• except the motorcycle. that was just joy and the road and the wind. i started going when i was four. we all went a few times, i think. 

  

  How did my parents approve this?

• no worky // no eaty 
• he always asked me how long it took to boil and egg. i still have no idea. i have to look it up every time. 
• he loved camping in the trailer house. often, he would just stop on the sides of roads instead of pay the steep campsite rates... you know, like $20 a night....
• his hat was never on straight. 
• he could kill anyone at croquet. anyone, any time. he would run the table and be done with the field before you had gone through the third wicket. and he liked to cheat, just to get you to pay attention. 
• he said things like, "sonofagun" and "darn near" and "goodfornothin'old..." he rarely cursed.
• "Fatherwethankyoutodayforthisfood, forthosethatjoinsusheretodayforthismeal, weaskyoutoblessittoourbodies, ifitfitsyourwill, wethankyouforthegoodhealthyouhavebestoweduponus, pleaseforgiveusofoursins, weaskforyourmercy, intheLordJesusChristwepray, amen." 

and he was unflappable. he had money. quite a bit actually, thanks to grandma's investment plan, but he didn't give a crap if you teased him about the hot water or questioned whether the lawn chair was going to collapse if you sat down on it, it being repaired several lifetimes over by using other broken lawn chairs. 

he lived this way because it gave him purpose. he had faith, and part of that faith was frugality and hard work. he was truly unimpressed with material things, other than their utility today and their durability (and how that good ol' boy was a complete idiot for paying that much for something). he could be too hard on us, too hard on strangers, too hard on himself, but he loved us.

• I am glad of you grandchildren. Gee I have enjoyed u so much. I just think of the times we have shared with one another

the surety he had of his meeting the heavenly father as he approached the end was something i can't quite understand personally, but his own peace with this trip to the promised land brought such peace to me as i spent a weekend with him last month. he was not afraid. he was not sad. he was ready.

he was tired, but he was ready.

he wrote:

I hurt so much for your grandmother. It is hard to enjoy anything. But one cannot stop living, life must go on!

we hurt so much for you now, gramps. we love you. 

Walking on the surface of the sun

I read this [http://www.scarymommy.com/being-everything/] and it resonated. 

M, too, looks at me as if I paint the sky.  

She's almost 2 1/2, so I wonder how much longer I can count on the snuggle nest and the cuddle couch, the tears at school drop off, and the stretching-reaching arms begging me for bedtime stories. 

She is a girl full of love. She loves her daddy and her Vicky and her Grammy. She loves her friends and her kitty. She loves her baby dolls (Holly and Dan, obviously). But so far, she reserves the most exhausting love for me. 

It's the "crawl back into the womb" sort of love. She wants me to hold her. She wants me to wear her. She wants me to be her furniture. She wants me to pretend and build and color and sing and hide with her. 

Mostly, she wants me to see her.

Seeing her is scary. 

It's like seeing everything you've ever known about the world destroyed in a second and finding a new, unfamiliar world in the next. Seeing her is looking at the past and the future at the same time. Seeing her is knowing that you've given something very important away, and you can never get it back. 

Seeing her is hot, bright and blinding. It's so blinding, that I can't even write about it unless I am 2,000 miles away where it's quiet and dark. 

So much of parenting is isolating or frenetic or boring or frustrating - or all of those things in one minute. I live in that world, too. But just one look reminds me that I created this person, yet I don't own her. Somehow, she owns me. 

Being a parent takes so much bravery as you give away to the world what you hold most precious and dear. And you don't give it away all at once, but a little bit every minute. It's a weight. I am so afraid I can't be as brave as she needs me to be. 

I am here to help make her strong. I am here to protect her. I am here, and I am afraid, and full of hope, and...I am just here, and she is just there. And I wonder what I've done. And then she looks at me.  

When she looks at me, it's a broad, warm, innocent true love. 

When I look at her, really put down my distractions and see her, my eyes burn. She is everything.