Alecto's Ophelia

I Have A Dream (1963)

I can't even speak.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men - yes, black men as well as white men - would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that

America

has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,

America

has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and security of justice. We have also come to his hallowed spot to remind

America

of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end but a beginning. Those who hoped that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in

America

until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "for whites only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in

Mississippi

cannot vote and a Negro in

New York

believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. I say to you today my friends - so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of

Georgia

the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification - one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my father's died, land of the Pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!"

And if

America

is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of

New Hampshire

. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of

New York

. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of

California

.

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of

Mississippi

- from every mountainside.

Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring - when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children - black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics - will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

On the politics of politics

I don't know if it's age or time but with each presidential election the issues seem to become more blurred and the screaming louder. I would indicate the direction in which I dress (and for the love of god would somebody Puleeese pick up on that reference we could all USE a little humor these days) but regardless of the revelation I'm bound to take fire one way or another. So why bother? Just so I can add to the screaming? Pass.

OK, having written all that it's only fair to fess up and admit to being just as polarized as the majority. I am as freaked out over Sarah Palin as anybody on the right might be freaked out over Barack Obama and I can give you leventy-leven reasons why too. And at least leventy-ten of them would be fact checked and validated but that's hardly relevant because the idea of voting against versus for something is truly terrifying. In my decidedly humble, if a bit snark like, opinion. But that's the truth of it.

I personally have been voting against benchmarks my entire adult life. And that's not bragging, it's a confession. Of sorts. Yes, I do vote the party ticket even though I don't actually fit most of my party's ideals. Hell, I don't fit any party's ideals. My point being, I vote against the things I find most offensive. Anti-abortion laws, inclusion of church and state and censorship. Those are my big hairy boogies and I choose based on those issues even though the scary party in question may be more supportive of a large number of smaller and possibly less hairy boogies.

My point being that doesn't leave much room for a clear and positive agenda, does it? Might explain all the shouting.

I do not watch political events. I do not listen to political events. I don't watch state of the union addresses unless we've been blown up and or are going to war. I'll read just about anything but I will not actually watch or listen to the circus. Can't do it, makes my belly knot up and my eyes go crossed. Last night oldest daughter needed to watch one of those debatable news type shows that come on after the little kiddies have gone to bed. She needed to watch this for her American Government class and I wanted no part of it. She went off to watch on her own but came back ten minutes later because there was just this yelling and screaming and something about lipstick and pigs.

..................

So I sat down and watched the rest of it with her in an attempt to make some sense of the conversation.

...................

Horrifically painful. We watched four apparently well educated and intelligent people, two men and two women ostensibly one of each from one of each, behave like nine year olds with roid rage. Seriously.

So now I know just exactly why Sarah Palin is the queen of all evil and why Barack is a terrorist but I have no idea at all what either party actually sees in their candidates. None. OK, that's not true. I googled 'Why do Republicans like Sarah Palin' today because, like Amy, I do want to know because I do not understand and I don't want to hear words like maverick and change either unless you can get darned specific about what kind of change and how being a maverick will support that clearly defined change (because I'm a maverick and I can sure as shit make a mess of things when I get to being a bull in a china shop).  Anyway, the first site to pop up was the gay republican site and here's what I gleaned from two pages of text. Sarah Palin has awesome Audry Hepburn like hair and she backed a bill on same sex partner insurance. That's it folks.

So seriously. What is it? Or are we all so polarized by our own fears (me too) that we can only see through a red haze of rage? Have we become a nation of raving lunatics who feel so strongly about so many polarized beliefs that we are all, myself included, making complete asses of ourselves? And is Putin really licking his chops?

Nantucket

I was on Nantucket once about fourteen or fifteen years ago to visit a client on Main Street. This is when I sold software to insurance agents and nobody, but nobody would go out to visit this agency with the exception of my major competitor who probably had the deal anyway and I'm thinking they may just have asked me to come out to see if I would. Well I did. I got in my little Rx-7 and drove like the demon I was up I-95 North through Connecticut and into Rhode Island where I picked up the 195 beltway around Providence to Route 25 and then 6 which I followed right onto the Cape and out to Hyannis which I'd heard about but couldn't place because my political and local history was still a bit sketchy at that point. I parked my car, hopped on the ferry and rode across sitting on a bench on the outside of the boat for two and a half hours because this was before the high speed and I was hot because of the navy blue wool suit with a skirt that came down below my knees and those standard issue navy blue pumps with two and a quarter inch heals and panty hose and a helmet head of sprayed hair and a notebook computer and full size monitor on a post WWII wheelie with two bungee cords to keep it from falling into the gutter and I step off this ferry onto Main Street which is cobblestones the size and shape of regulation footballs. The sidewalk isn't much better.

But I walked several blocks up that sidewalk dragging my wheelie over the cracked bricks staring in wonder at the houses and shop fronts and the cobbles in the streets and tripping over my own feet because of it until I reached the agency at the top of the hill where I could go up the stairs and look through the gallery window at a painting of the ocean that made me think I'd fallen right over the edge.

I remember the sunlight streaming through the windows and thinking, around the thought buckets and angles of my two hour demo that I might have reached some coastal version of nirvana and it about took my breath away. In the end they packed me back up and sent me on down to the wharf the very same afternoon and I boarded the ferry, got back in my car, drove like a demon, spilled hot McDonalds coffee between my legs which caused more damage than I care to discuss and did not at any point in time consider a law suit. I listened to Sting singing Fields of Gold and tried not to think about a) how much it hurt and b) how I was probably never going to get back on that island in a million years and it made me very sad but I was happy to have seen it. Once. Briefly.

As it turns out I was only locked out by my own imagination. I found the key to that particular lock about a month ago while vaguely surfing the net and trying to remember why on earth we never went out to those islands and thinking something about crowds, traffic, cold water and the cost of living and all that mixed up with that odd flashback of sunlight on a painting and cobblestones and a phone call, some more searching and we had tickets booked on the high speed ferry there and back over Labor Day weekend. Who goes anywhere over Labor Day weekend? Apparently we do. That's the side door, up there, of the Anchor Inn on Centre Street where we, New Nanny, NoMans, Cletus and I, stayed for three nights.

We rented bikes and rode over a small portion of the island, maybe we could have covered more ground, but the crazy German tourist (New Nanny) stopped every twelve feet to 'make a picture please' and forced us to stop and actually look at the small moments that make up a life.

This is what my garden would look like if I did everything right, including, but not limited to, living on an island in the North Atlantic.

The water is very, VERY, cold even in August. We refer to it as 'bracing' and don't bother until we're too hot to stand it one second longer and then if you just jump right in it really is kind of cool, pun intended. Miss Cletus of the extra sensitive skin didn't even pack a bathing suit but spent an entire day fully clothed under a rented umbrella reading her birthday Kindle (which she's loving, by the way, and is saving an entire forest of trees because that girl's never spent a penny on anything other than books).

This beach is crowded but reasonably well behaved and you can walk a ways (and it really is just a little ways) either up or down this beach and find plenty of empty space. We didn't bother.

I would like to rent a house with a sign like this on the side just so I can say the name to as many people as possible.

Or I could just have a room with a view like this. And the traffic, it was not too terrible.

Insert cool picture here that I didn't bother to take because I was in too much of a hurry

Here's where I wish, on a final note, that I could insert picture here of me making my way through Audrey's vines in the garden darkness coming back with an armload of ripe tomatoes and whipping up a marinara that couldn't be beat to feed four hungry road warriors something other than pizza in a box.

Speaking the unspeakable

I have been asked if I'm going to blog this and I'm not sure I can. There are two things and the second is much easier to write so I'll write it first. Last night one of my six chickens was murdered savagely by what can only be raccoons. I'm not exaggerating the brutality of the death. She was dragged from the coop (I think they lifted it right off the ground), over the fence, across the lawn and into the swamp shrieking the entire way and leaving a swath of blood and feathers that will have to be cleaned up before Little Girl comes home this evening. I was afraid NoMans was going to sit out there in his bathrobe for the remainder of the night throwing rocks but we put the dog in the pen instead and despite his diminutive size (he weighs all of 22 pounds) he sure does have a deep and ferocious sounding bark. And before anyone gets up in my face about it, yes I do know what those raccoons might have done to my dog but they didn't and he won't have to stay out there again.  Tonight the remaining five girls will stay in Homer's old puppy crate in the shed (which is fort knox) and the new fort knox will be delivered by fork lift on Tuesday of next week. There. That's that and I just wish I wasn't so damn upset about it but I am because I should have known better.

Here's the other part. The first part. My son came home last night. I called him on Tuesday because it was Cletus's birthday and he actually answered the phone. I asked him to come to her party but he was working and I asked him to come to dinner last night and he said he would and he did and I kept my judgmental mother mouth firmly shut and it was lovely. 

Doesn't sound like such a hard thing to write does it? Well, unless you're me and you were beginning to believe you were never going to see or hear from him again (it's been 17 months) it wouldn't sound so hard at all.

I can barely breathe and if I start crying now I will probably never stop. So listen, any of you out there not speaking or being spoken to by someone you love maybe now would be a good time to get over it. Seriously. We are all any of us ever has. Good, bad or indifferent.

p.s. there are a boatload of little baby eggs. we are eating all of them as fast as we can.

On being kickass

Spartacus says I'm a kickass blogger. See?

And I'm going to post it on my sidebar just as soon as I can locate those specific brain cells that allow for content adjustments. Also, I received this award yesterday and I've been blushing furiously ever since (and I don't blush easy). So here are the rules associated with this particular award:

1. Select five Kick Ass Bloggers.
2. Leave a comment on the kick ass blogs so that they know they have an award.
3. Link back to the person who gave the award (in this case that's me) but also to MammaDawg.
4. Visit Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky and leave a comment (and if anyone can tell me where and how to leave a comment at the Mr. Linky site that would really help because I've failed miserably).

And there they are (drum rolls please)....

1. The Contrary Goddess - Life on the Farm - This is CG and she is my hero. This is a site worth mining for days. As a matter of fact I'd suggest starting at the beginning and working your way forward just to pick up the flavor and texture of the lifeline. This is an incredibly inspirational and educational diary of the ethics of living on this planet and the how and why we might want to  reconnect with the world we live in. You can learn everything from how to properly kill, clean and store a chicken to what it really means to live a free and unencumbered life.
2. Deliverance - This is Lewis. Lewis has a lot to say on many subjects ranging from our collective deep seated political beliefs to how dumbed down is America anyway. What I really love about Lewis is his unflappable ability to communicate directly and with a great deal of grace. I can be direct but it's not often that I can be direct about sensitive subjects and do it gracefully. Plus he's a Southern Gentleman and I do so have a thing for Southern Gentlemen...
3. Suburban Homestead - This is Wendy. Wendy is documenting her life on a quarter acre homestead. There are a lot of quarter acre homestead sites out there and they all seem to link to the bigger homestead sites, you know, the ones that seem to almost go commercial (I link to them too) but in that largeness that often occurs with these would be forerunners of the green movement (however you care to define that) the individuality is lost. Wendy documents her life with a level of frankness that leaves me feeling as if I'm sitting in her kitchen with my elbows on her table drinking in every word she's got to say - because it's so very real.
4. Fast Grow the Weeds - This is El. For me El is pure magic. I want to be El when I grow up but I suspect I'll just have to get used to being me (I still fantasize about a specific level or organization and order in my life). El speaks (I know, it's 'writes' but El speaks) of her relationship with the garden, herself and the world around her as if she and it exist in a state of grace. She once remarked in response to a question about complaining why she doesn't appear to complain and her answer was something along the lines of, 'if you choose this life then you don't have much to complain about do you?' And while I'm certain that El does not live a trouble free existence I am just as certain that she lives smack dab in the middle of her own self made poetry.
5. I Agree With Me - That ought to about sum it up, don't you think? This is Amy. Amy is just cool as hell and she's one of the nicest people I know. She's kind of the female version of Lewis even though culturally and geographically they are worlds apart. Amy documents a life so unlike my own I often read it like a novel and then I find myself recognizing the sameness in all of us and our ability to find a common ground where communication can occur. 'Listening' to Amy taught me a lot about getting over myself and just letting go.

I am braver than I used to be, and quite possibly the root of all evil

And older too.

Crowd behavior is funny. I wrote a piece awhile back on commuter traffic, the unspoken rules and regulations of any particular stretch of frequently traveled road and the punishment meted out for rule infringement.  Trains are the same way and it only took me this long to work it out.

The trains are getting crowded again ('again' you say? Yes, again. It was bad and then it got better because so many of us feel entitled to park our BMWs on I95 and crawl slowly into whatever city we happen to call a workplace). This is a good sign; means less cars on the road in theory.

We feel we are entitled to space and have developed a series of subtle and not so subtle maneuvers designed to insure that space. These maneuvers are hardly new but for awhile things were so bad that the bad manners went away out of desperation. And then we parked our cars on the freeway and the bad manners came back. There once was a guy (probably more than one guy) who devoted an entire blog to documenting passenger atrocities on the Metro North line. You can find him here if you're so inclined, although he hasn't posted since January 18, 2006, which saddens me because he wrote some great stuff.

On the other hand I do understand the natural inclination to have that lovely three feet of personal space but I'm not so willing to be rude to get it. I will, however, be rude as hell to get a seat (within reason, of course, always within reason. Um, my reason).

Here are the most obvious:

1. Sitting in a 2 seater on the outside leaving the inside seat empty.
2. Sitting in a 2 seater with your bag on the empty seat.
3. Sitting in both seats of a 2 seater (requires talent and balance but can be done, I've seen it).
4. Sitting on the outside of a 3 seater.
5. Sitting in a 4 seater with your feet on the seat across.
6. Sitting in a 4 seater on the inside seat with your feet across diagonally to the outside seat across.
7. Sitting in the middle of a 3 seater with bags on either side (the most heinous of all acts to date).
8. Sitting in the middle of a 3 seater passed out with your head between your legs (NOBODY is going to sit next to that)
9. Sitting anywhere and spewing vomit.
10. Dousing oneself in rancid perfume (just plain smelling bad would be preferable).

I could go on but 10 will suffice.

Little Alecto would not have approached any of those situations. Little Alecto would have chosen the outside of a 3 seater or just one of a 2 seater or just stood for however long it took to get to her destination (by the way, Little Alecto NEVER had any such qualms about the NYC subways, not sure what that's all about). Little Alecto would have been far more concerned with offending the offensive to even consider.

Little Alecto grew up. Or something.

I take great joy in selecting a seat. Isn't that awful? I work very hard to select a seat from the greediest SOB on the car I happen to step into. This morning was almost funny. Nomans and I took the train in together (at some point I'll probably get around to explaining that) and he, being the romantic that he is, wanted to sit together. Funny, I think, really, you can't do that on this train. The best you can hope for is two outer seat 2s one in front and one in back. I head for a pair of those and he points to a line backer in a suit sitting on the outside of a 3 seater with his 'stuff' on the middle seat. I walk up to him and say "I'll be needing those two seats." I should probably have said "We'll be needing those two seats" but I'm not sure he would have noticed or been willing to respond. He lifted his considerable and muscular bulk from the seat to let me in leaving his 'stuff' on the middle seat. "No" I said, "we'll be needing both of those.

He was nearly apoplectic. I stared him down. Probably Nomans was doing the same behind me; I didn't bother looking. He removed his 'stuff' and we sat down. He sulked through two more stops until he got off. I wished he'd been stuck with us for hours.

This evening I got on the Danbury line in Stamford heading for home and the train was more crowded than usual and there was a man guilty of performing sin #7 which I had yet to encounter, though I'd heard plenty about the audacity that leads weaselly little people to take the lion's share of the space while old ladies and pregnant people pass out between cars. OK, I exaggerate. But still.

I should mention that there were empty seats behind him.

I have no mercy.

I stood at the edge of the seat (he wouldn't look at me, that's how this works) and said without an excuse me or by your leave, "I need one of those seats". My tone clearly indicated that I was not moving.

He looked up, gathered his things and moved to the window seat leaving his 'stuff' securely filling the middle seat. I stuffed my backpack between my legs and pulled out my book (I'm re-reading _Still Life With Woodpecker_ at the moment) and proceeded to ignore him.

Once into South Norwalk the train empties greatly and there were many seats completely empty around us.

I did not move.

Small, unhappy grunts emanated from the window seat to my right but I would not meet his eye or turn my head or acknowledge that there was anyone on this train but me.

I read my book. I laughed out loud (who doesn't when reading TR?). I stayed there until thirty seconds from my stop and giggled all the way to the door.

I am 44. I ought to know better but I'd rather not. I'm having way too much fun. Next week I tackle the middle seats.

Finger tips

I got up nervous on Saturday morning, showered Little Girl, woke up Cletus and started packing food and making breakfast all at the same time. By the time I finished packing up the picnic there was a good 10 pounds of lunch and dinner for just the two of them all combined not counting the water and juice bottles and Cletus has got to carry this plus two duffel bags full of boots and clothing (they're wearing their flip flops and crocs) and her back pack which happens to have six books, four DVDs and a computer before I even thought of stuffing it with the juice bottles. Little Girl will carry her own back pack which is really a diaper pack with her name on it which is not the best idea in the world and it's full of ninety bazillion books and forty thousand crayons and a coloring book. My heart palpitations were going into over drive and we left the house precisely on time and I'm pretty sure I only snapped at Cletus twice and not at all at Nomans (he may correct me on that count) or Little Girl.

We arrived, as planned, good and early to the station I walk through twice a day. Today it was a different station full of non commuters and I've only been upstairs in the waiting room once in the last fifteen years and that was just last week to collect the Amtrak tickets. We sat in seats overlooking the tracks and I put Little Girl on my lap because she was starting to get antsy and worried. We went to the bathroom and she did OK right until we came back to the seats and her eyes welled up and she asked Nomans for some water so that she could 'calm myself down'. And she did. We talked about the trains and the number of cars and the engineers and the engines and which way is which and where is track 1 anyway? (it appears to be missing) And then she finally dropped the other shoe and said, 'Mommy, I'd be a lot happier if you came with me. At which point I asked if she'd done the math and considered I'd have to be on the train a total of sixteen hours each time just to do that. She knew. And still.

We sat upstairs until the train was announced on Track 4 and started for the stairs. I held her hand and on about step four she started to hyperventilate. She did this, making these heart breaking little gasping sounds, all the way the stairs and onto the platform and onto the train and oh crap! There don't appear to be any double seats left together and I'm going to be forced to make somebody move possibly by tormenting them with a wailing seven year old which is not fair to the girl, now is it? I spy a four seater with no leg room at all and one Au Pairish looking girl asleep with her feet on the seat across and I drop my girls and their bundles and apologize but she knows and picks up her feet.

Little girl is on the inside seat where there just happens to be no window and I am sorry about this. The Au Pairish looking thing has the window. Little Girl has tears rolling down her cheeks and I mustn't, mustn't mustn't cry under any circumstances because she deserves more of me than that just now. I stroke her hand and remind her that she's got Cletus (who I made pick her up and comfort her on the train platform just to give them both the right idea while I was still there) and that this is all perfectly all right. It is time to get the hell off this train before we're all stuck until New Haven and the last thing I feel as I turn to go are the tips of her little girl fingers. They tremble and let go.

We leave the train and I stand at the window, through which I can barely see, and wave with my brave face to my girls until the train pulls away from the platform and I bury my face in my husband's chest and howl until the howling has taken the breath right out of me.

(it was a really great weekend and lots of amazing things occurred, of which I have taken good pictures, but this deserves a post of it's own)

Here is to Cardinal Puff, Puff, Puff, for the Third and Final Time.

Sometimes you can go home. Sometimes you can go home if you are willing to recognize that what's past is past and what's now is now and that both are happening, have happened, will happen and that nothing exists in a finite moment. I think that sometimes we have moments when we can put one foot in two places; kind of like having one foot on each of two train platforms. I stood in two places on Saturday and I am just now able to write about it (actually, I've been trying since Monday morning and it's just now coming).

Here in this photograph is a perfect moment. It is perfect because it is representative of a romantic and therefore perfect past and indicative of the here and now. It is perfect because it signifies a beginning but also tells the tale of an infinite series of endings that come flooding into the forefront of my mind like the banks of the Mississippi on a voluptuous day. Also, I think this photograph could conceivably sum up my entire childhood. Conceivably. Depending on how you wanted to look at it. Maybe Mom ought to stop reading now because I am going to romanticize it. It's real for me, go figure.

Here sits a glass of beer. Regulation maybe yes, maybe no. Budweiser definitely. A glass of sacred beer. A sacred glass of beer. Regardless of how you slice it, sacred to someone, primarily me at this moment, but most assuredly to the four people sitting behind the table in front of those regulation or not glasses of beer. I'll get around to explaining eventually but for now I'll leave you with the money shot.

On Saturday I packed up my family and headed to the drop zone. The drop zone is the airport where skydivers congregate to jump out of planes (note: I did not write the words 'perfectly good'). This is the drop zone in Ellington, CT where I grew up where much has changed and everything is as it has always been.

There were three events scheduled to occur on Saturday. The first was the Dads and Lads jump (skydivers are SERIOUSLY hokey) with four fathers and five sons. I am thinking that most of these sons are pushing if not at 40 which makes the dads pushing if not at 65. Not that there's anything wrong with 65 (or 69 DAD!!!), mind you, just that maybe some of these older gentlemen might not have been current and maybe things ought to have been kept a bit on the simple side, but I digress. No one died. Here they are dirt diving prior to the load (and I notice I only see one old man in this shot. I wonder where they could have been hiding the other three.) Also, my dad is the guy with duct tape on his butt. I'm just sayin'.:

And here they are getting on the big airplane that came down special from The Blue Sky Ranch which has a name but I've forgotten already (now who has missing brain cells?). Also, you can see more old men and have a little more faith that I'm not just making this part up.:

Like I said, nobody died but I'm not sure it turned out exactly as they might have envisioned. In any event, I think it was a last kind of thing. I don't think these Dads and Lads will be doing this again, not this set anyway. But there was a moment when all nine of them climbed up in that plane with a few other passengers where time folded up upon itself and nineteen sixty-nine kissed nineteen seventy-five kissed nineteen eighty-two kissed nineteen ninety-six kissing today finally folded over upon itself and guess what? The universe did not implode even though I thought it might.

Having written all that, Dads and Lads was a bonus. That's not why we're all here. We're all here to say good-bye to the Lion as well as Dick Barber and we've got two separate jumps scheduled because the families don't seem all that inclined to mix their metaphores, as it were. Despite the fact that these two dead men might as well have grown up together they spent so much of their lives in the very same space.

The culmination of these events brought all manner of people and animals out of the woodwork, myself and family included. I don't honestly think I've been on this drop zone in twenty-five years short of a quick midweek stop to lurk about when no one was around. I have been on other drop zones, just not this one. I have seen some of these people, just not in this place. This one place with these people which is and who are more home than I can call any other place and which I left so many years ago, forever refusing to look back as if I might turn to salt. And perhaps I might have.

The world does move on. Most of the time we aren't aware that it's moving, we're just along for the ride until one day the world up and smacks us in the face like a ten foot breaker and we're forced to take stock. It is one thing to attend a funeral or two off premises and quite another to visit those very same places with the remaining old guard along for the ride. It was a freak show of juxtapositions and I'm glad as hell I gave myself permission to be there.

Connecticut Parachutists Incorporated in Ellington, CT was recognized by the State of Connecticut as a non-profit group in March of 1962, twenty-five months before I was born. According to one of the bios on Marge Bates, there were 32 Charter Members of which fewer than a dozen had ever made a parachute jump. Marge Bates was one of those members, by the way, and she had two static line jumps to her name. Vic Deveau and Dick Barber may very well have been, I just don't have the documentation to back it up. In any event, Marge's husband, Jim, certainly was and in the last year three of these old guard have died. I'm sure there were more than three, but three of mine, three of mine have died.

The world moves on.

So I took my girls and my husband (mostly my girls) to this drop zone where my brother and I ran through the tall grass shagging down chutes or tumbling mindlessly into the unknown or otherwise universe. They cut the grass these days I notice. We went to pay tribute, to be with, to steep at least myself in the memory of what was and perhaps to let go. I wasn't counting on time travel. I wasn't counting on being hit right in the face with the notion of 'is always'.

The first thing I did was look for my tree. Trees change. I couldn't find my tree but I was pretty sure, given the lack of gianormous stumps in the locale of the creek bank that my tree lives. I identified one or two with a crotch in just about the right shape that given the years might have been low enough for one scrappy little girl's reach. That done I moved onto the corn fields. The corn is still there despite the housing developments encroaching at an alarming rate. It's hard corn, not sweet. This much I remember. I also remember we stole a bit and cooked it up over grills made from cut up old oil barrels. Al Bailey did our grilling and I saw the man on Saturday for the first time since maybe 1972. I thought of nothing but cow corn and husk braiding. He taught me that.

After that the girls and I did just about nothing but sit and wait in the hot, hot sun. And we rolled in the dirt a bit until we were good and sweaty and covered in the stuff and suddenly I could smell the smell that was me at six or eight or twelve or sixteen with my face down in a packing mat and the smell of crab grass in the hot sun and the voices buzzing in and out of consciousness as I moved in and out of the dream space as if waking and the dream were one and the same.

The jump meant to dump Vic's ashes and then the one to dump Dick's never happened. At least not on Saturday. The weather came in just as the photo ops were being had and the whole thing got put on hold until somebody gave in and opened the first beer. The beer does not open until the last plane of the day takes off. That's the way it always was and perhaps the way it always will be. So the beer was opened and the festivities were ready to go but we had some things to do first.

My dad went to the pea gravel pit which no one ever uses anymore. He went there with someone. I want to say Billy but now I can't remember, it could have been Al Bailey, it could have been just about anyone over the age of fifty. He went there and dug a hole where no one lands anymore because now there is something called a tuffet and he buried a bit of The Lion at dead center where we used to anchor a margarine lid. I ran into the pea gravel and squatted down and must have created some kind of agreement because I took a double handful of The Lion and I ran into the corn and spun about with my face in the sky letting The Lion go into the corn. In these moments I was stunned at the viscosity of those ashes. They are not light and fluffy. They have weight, and grit and carry chunks and bits of this human being reduced to the sum of something that can be contained. At last. And I wondered, who from his own generation will carry my father's ashes to the sky and the pea gravel and to the corn?

So the jump did not go. Instead we had to do something with the Marines that came and the VA as well and so we had a small service in the rain which I missed because I was so entranced with photographing the old men from the VA and the Marine who played taps but it's OK because that was for the family and I can say my own words for The Lion anyway.

And still, I digress from my point. When the ceremony was done, and here, by the way is the photo op (all of those people, with the exception of the boys who are or are nearly forty, are adults from my childhood. My heart breaks and releases):

When the ceremony was done and the food was eaten and the sun was back out there was nothing left to do but drink and play games.

The game of Cardinal is an old game. Perhaps you have heard of a college version but unless you were in the military and played it there, you do not know Cardinal Puff.

I grew up with this.

Sir. How would you like to be addressed?

Sir, Supreme Cardinal X, may I have your permission to begin?

Here is to Cardinal Puff for the first time.

And the series of events begins and continues until the neophyte (defined as lower than whale shit) misses a beat and has to finish the glass of beer with the glass to his or her lip until it is empty.

It's a shell game of a sort. You see the Cardinal masters do the demos and they do it so well and so effortlessly that I think of Stephen King's Gunslingers, which in a way, they were. They say, 'it is just one glass of beer. If you fuck up you can quit once you've finished. If we fuck up we have to drink up and continue until we get it right.'

You know, none of us ever made Cardinal. None of us who grew up with it despite the fact that the lines and gestures were indelibly etched into the lizard brain ever even tried. None of us were willing to play the shell game. None of us. Not a one. Therefore, these lovely young people who were born THE YEAR I QUIT JUMPING (OK, I was only 18, but still) have no legacy before them. Meet Penelope and Doug. Doug is up first (hey, Mom, that's Lisa Hays (and Jean was there with Everet and Baby Gary and Baby Gary's Baby Gary but no Tony) in the background and Drew Lamb with Dennis Testoni and Mary Lou and Josh Wolf is just off to the left but you can't see him here):

Doug crashed and burned a number of times (exactly the way I would have) but Penelope got close, close, close in her intensity and intention. Here is Penelope with a man we call Jello who has been in that wheel chair from a sky diving incident since about 1972. Do you see the look of indulgence and love?

The first generation is watching the third generation, who have already invented themselves from nearly whole cloth, trying on the shoes of their fathers. Because they can.

Sometimes you can go home. If you are willing to accept...

The following are gratuitous shots of people I have not seen in more years than I want to count. There's more on Flickr if you can find me. Gary Hays and Al Bailey:

Butch Auden:

Marge Bates (who had a chihuahua in her lap the whole time she demo'd Cardinal):

Al Bailey (who no longer drinks) looking on while Gary Hays, John Jefferies (my Dad), Butch Auden and Marge Bates give one of the final demos to Cardinal Puff:

Here is to Cardinal Puff, for the first time.

Amen.

Putting my money where my mouth is

(note: I am going to use the F bomb in here. It is merited.)

When I was sixteen years old (no, that is not me, I always had my eyes closed and that's not a 180 or 182 but it was as good a shot as I could get that wasn't a tandem) I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane (not that there's really any such thing as a perfectly good airplane but don't get me started). Yes, I really did. This part, however, is not so amazing. What is amazing is that my parents allowed this. Hell, they encouraged and paid for it. First jump course was my sixteenth birthday present.

During my mis-spent youth I did a lot of things that most of my contemporaries dropped their jaws over. As a matter of fact, I so got off on freaking people out I about made a small career of it until I hit thirty and sort of kind of came to my senses. Sort of. While my adventures are hardly irrelevant they are not my point this evening.

My point is I turned into exactly the pansy-assed parent I swore I'd never be. Now, to some of you reading this may not ring even remotely true given the fact that I did indeed remove my then 20 year old son from my household lock, stock and barrel but I didn't do that until the shit hit the fan so bad it was either that or watch the kid self-destruct in front of my eyes (he had anyway, I just wanted him to avoid jail time if at all possible and he has to the best of my knowledge so I feel as if I've actually accomplished something as a parent. Or he has, as a human being, or something like that, which may have been the point in the first place).

We are very concerned about our children. We want the very best for them. We want them to win even if we don't know for sure what winning really means (I know, we THINK we do). Most of all, we do not want them to be hurt.

When I was twenty-two years old I stood in a supermarket parking lot holding my nine day old infant son against my breast listening to some god awful song by Bread resurrected from where it ought to have been left buried and I cried my fool head off because all I could think was how I'd do fucking ANYTHING to protect this boy. Any. Thing. At. All. And, based on current results, I might have fouled it up royally. Maybe.

In any event, I was too careful. I protected and sheltered and did for and paid for and forgave and in the end I pulled the entire rug out from under the boy so bad he still doesn't know what hit him. He may never forgive me but I can live with that so long as he lives. And I do mean LIVES. That's what I want for my children; to be alive and conscious, to choose from their centers and desires, not from their fears.

So, this brings me to the latest choice point. I need to get my kids up to Vermont the weekend of the 21st to spend a week with my dad. In the past we've driven them most of the way, made the hand off and then driven back. That's a lot of miles and a butt load of fossil fuel. This is no longer an issue of whether or not we can afford the fuel. It's an issue of whether or not we are willing to when there are, actually, alternatives that do not involve an airplane.

There is, for example, the train. Gulp. An 8 hour train ride with multiple stops that crosses three state lines and does not include the TSA on either end searching baggage or a friendly flight attendant held responsible for the fate of my children (like that was ever real anyway but it sounded good at the time).

I wouldn't think twice about putting sixteen and a half year old Cletus on that train. But Little Girl? Put my seven year old daughter in the care of my sixteen year old daughter for eight hours on a train with strangers and god knows what else? WHAT!? ARE YOU NUTS?!

After I got done wetting myself and called my dad, who laughed and reminded me that he'd put my sorry ass out of a perfectly good airplane (no such thing) at sixteen I booked the tickets.

They will be fine. The point is that I will have to adjust after all these years of believing that what I have been doing is protecting. I have not been protecting anything but my own sorry heart and parenting is not about me.

Cletus and Little Girl, by the way, are not afraid. No. Not at all. Go figure.

p.s. you know what's really bizarre? As soon as Cletus comes home on that train I'm going to turn right around and hand her over to a bunch of perfect strangers who are going to haul her coddled Yankee ass off to deepest darkest Maine where she will live out of her sleeping bag in the middle of the forest  eating lord knows what and deciding whether or not to drown herself in a canoe, die from black flies, or fall off a cliff. And that doesn't bother me one little bit. It's that illusion of safety that gets us every time.

Who wants to live? Raise your hand.

The Belmont starts in 24 minutes. I don't usually watch these things, I find it painful in a way that is nearly mind altering. I will, however, watch Big Brown today. I will watch Big Brown six inches from the television screen (OK, not six, but you get my point), glass of wine clenched in my hand, breath of air clenched in my lungs and I will be crying, tears and snot running down my face before it is even over.

It does this to me. A visceral reaction I suppose, to my lizard brain's memory of me and the horse.

It is 92 degrees in the shade and humid as all get out. I am making tamales in the kitchen, how freaking hilarious is that? That's why I'm out here on the porch under the fan hoping to catch a little fresh air before I go back in the house. We closed all the windows and pulled the shades this morning and managed to keep the house in reasonably good form until I got home with a load of groceries and proceeded to tear the kitchen down, as it were.

To make tamales you need two days unless you have more energy than me and that's substantial. You start out slow cooking in water (you need that stock for the mesa) about 7 pounds of pork and 5 pounds of chicken. This takes hours and hours at about 275 but in the end, when all is said and done, you have some darn near miraculous pulled pork and chicken from which to work your tamale magic. You can also mix it up with a mess of sauce and just eat it too and we might do that with some. Just some. If I'm going to suffer through tamale production in this heat I'm going to end up with about 90 of those suckers in the freezer when I'm done.

On the way home I was listening to an interview with the surviving owner of Affirmed, the last horse to take the triple crown in 1978. She was asked why triple crowns didn't seem to happen anymore and what she said boiled down to 'we are just too careful'. Think about that. Our horses aren't tough enough to make it.

And at some point Affirmed's jockey was interviewed. I missed the context, all I caught was, "I was just sick, so sick at the idea of not making it and in the end I let the horse go."

He let the horse go and the horse went. Imagine that.

Watch this if you have better than a dial up (CG, try anyway):

Velka Pardubicka - Grand Steeplechase in Pardubice, 2006

My mother sent me the link. Here were my comments:

1. Good God.
2. Ouch.
3. Those riderless horses cheat.
4. Does it count if they go around?
5. We are big babies around here.
6. I do believe that riderless horse is going to win and it isn't going to count because he a) failed to go back and retrieve his lifeless rider and b) cheated and went around on more than one occasion (but he NEVER crossed his line).

This is extreme as extreme is extreme. Have I made my point? Watch the clip. All of it. We, today, now, here in this place, are extreme only in our aversion to risk. It's why we keep on keeping on the way we do; we don't want to take a chance on the unknown even if it means dying with our heads in the sand. Some days it feels as if we are barely alive.

I remembered the Belmont because I was driving home today and passed that big and nearly famous barn the next town over (where I will never in a million years be able to do anything but window shop and they are tearing down 200 year old architectural wonders to erect mcmansions on quarter acre lots even now in this plunge into the abyss...)

(and D'Tara runs away with it, Big Brown has refused to run and it's over, one more time and WHY do I always cry through these things?!)

And I'm watching the gorgeously turned out little girls on their gorgeously turned out 30 - 50k ponies and I pull over for once in what can only be referred to as my ghetto mobile (it's a five year old Mazda6, don't go over in Beamer land), roll down my window, turn off my engine and prepare to be wowed.

I am not wowed. I am stunned, I'll give you that. I am so not wowed I have to check and see where I am. Yep, it's this town, this barn, these little girls and these ponies and I am not dreaming. They cannot ride worth a damn. No, really. They can't. I can't figure it out either. They have everything. Absolutely everything I never had except the horse and the time and even my horses were just horses, right?  The best barn, the best trainers, the best horses and for crying out loud, the bestest little monkey suits you ever did see, these girls look fabulous! Sitting still.

When they move they become stiff upright sacks of potatoes. Didn't think that was possible, did you? Neither did I. To the pony's credit, most of them did all right with this bouncy bouncy bouncy bang bang bang yank yank yank happening to their backs, sides and mouths. That there would be one $30,000 pony with one seriously hardened mouth. Sigh.

Watching is making my stomach hurt and I so don't understand. I want to get out of my car, climb up over the stone wall, grab a bridle and haul little girl and horse across the street to a big open field, slap that pony on the rump and yell, go girl, go!

Here's my theory. These girls have NEVER been out of the ring. Never. They have no idea what this beast is between their legs except it's big and it's scary and they've been told it might kill them (really, no penis is so big it will kill you. You get my point).

Learning, of any kind is 90 to 100% doing (and I'm betting there are a bunch of you out there going to tell me stick to that 100 number, not the 90). Immersion. That's it. Instruction is nice and CG will tell you she's been having some lovely instruction but it wouldn't mean a damn if she hadn't spent a million hours on the back of a beast losing the boundaries between he and me until we are just we. These girls have never been out of the ring and therefore do not know that they might not die.

And so not knowing,  no matter how much money you throw at it, all is lost but the picture, which is flat and meaningless.

Go Big Brown, Go. Or not.