There is a revolutionary spirit in the air so instead of getting bummed out by the loss of control of your retirement, and the bleak outlook on the economy, think of this – be thankful that Obama won this presidential election – think of how bleak the world would look if Sarah Palin was the Vice President of the United States of America. Now that would make me take the poison pill.
You know that old saying, I wouldn’t want to belong to any group who would have me? Well, I was thinking about Obama and how he has picked a team of intelligent and diverse people to work with him over the next difficult four (hopefully eight) years. I love that about him. I’ve stood by and watched people I know structure their team – and seen most have a tendency to align themselves with the familiar, with the ones who will agree with their point of view, who will validate them. Like gays who only associate with gays or business leaders who prefer sycophants. You have to have a lot of self-esteem to tolerate dissenting opinion.
But the truth is you enrich your life by getting out of your own dirty bath water and swimming in the wide blue sea.
I was walking very briskly this morning as it has turned cold here in our lovely vacation isle of denial. It was 54° this morning – yikes! I saw the Great Blue Heron circling the small island in the lagoon in the park, and then the Great Egret tucked beside a tree.
A thought occurred to me – do you realize that 99% of the readers who have responded to my blog over the past five years are good? I divided them in my mind into three categories – the readers have either 1) cheered my successes, 2) identified with my failures, and/or 3) supported me when I’ve stumbled.
Since my respondents are from as far away as Korea and as close as around the corner – that is a pretty good measure of people in general in my book. I truly believe that if you proceed with the idea that people are mostly good, then you will meet mostly good people. And vice versa.
I always find wonderful poems on this site – and today did not disappoint:
from A Place of First Permission
AT a still point of the turning floor
there is a dancer you would know her
even across a crowded room
the way she sways is so familiar
She weaves with the easiness and grace
of someone so completely in
possession of her body the beat
she lays down with her hands and feet
is all that keeps the cosmos in its groove
She is a lash of flame
spiraled to fire-colored hair
Her hands unfold a flower out of the air
If you reached out to take it if you came
closer you would liquefy like wax
pooled in a candle’s crater you would spill
past possibility of shame
She says
Smoke me a bass line to go with that
thick as blackstrap molasses she says
Give me the buzz of oboe between your lips
the tingling tambourines the sweet
percussive patter of palm on palm she says
The whole world is poured into the deep bowl of my hips
Now get on up she says and shake
the creases out of your clothes she says
Your life is nothing but the thread
you spin behind you every step
a turn a loop a figure-eight
until the day that blind witch Fate
opens her scissors and snips you dead
****
it continues on the site
CRAIG ARNOLD
Made Flesh
Ausable Press
I am beginning to believe there is no one true experience for anyone, anywhere. I look at the fact that I was raised in the same environment, by the same people, and had the same experiences as my sister but in fact, we are polar opposites in how we view everything.
So when I read about adoption and how the experience might color a child’s outlook on life, it’s really from a point of ignorance and wanting to know. We had to write Dear Birth Mother letters to file at the attorney’s office. When I searched for examples on the web, many sites popped up claiming that Dear Birth Mother letters were all part of a large conspiracy to exploit poor mothers whose babies were going to be ripped away from them.
Then there is the international adoption where the birth mother is supposed to be out of sight, out of mind, these disembodied babies are handed over via an organization – except sometimes that is not the case and the adoptive parents are taking the child straight from the malnourished mother’s arms and whisking them away to a strange country.
All of this makes you wonder what you are doing?
I consider myself somewhat normal, with the desire to nurture a child, the resources and maturity to offer a child a loving home. One friend who grew up in an orphanage told me that children in orphanages are ruined and can never be adopted. A woman I admire who writes a lot about this topic wrote about the experience from the birth mother’s pov – it was harrowing. Another friend who was adopted tells me she learned her birth mother only got a glimpse of the back of her head as she was taken away in the hospital.
There are so many questions – how will the child feel about being adopted – thankful or resentful? Open adoption – is it right? For whom?
Will our adopted child feel like s/he got a bum deal? My sister feels like she missed out on something, but I don’t. A business associate of mine was adopted and went on to adopt three children himself because he had such a good experience in his adopted home. His children run pale to latte to espresso in color and in the family photo they all five look very happy.
Look up the definition of adoption – on one hand it is borrowing from another source, another is embracing, and the last is simply a legal definition of something that forever binds you to our destiny and ours to yours.
Daily Affirmation
December 4, 2008
I truly believe and know my good, and I choose to embody that feeling right here, right now!
Getting my hair cut the other day, I was talking about current events and the person I was speaking with said that he had invested his money wisely. “I should have never gotten this far,” he told me, having come from nothing. He had bought two houses, he had started saving for retirement early, he had spent the year plus investing in stocks – or so he thought it was wisely.
And yet, all of that wisdom has been collapsing upon itself in the wake of the current state of the economy. Interestingly enough, he does not lament his losses, instead he said, “I think this was needed, everything had gotten overvalued and everyone was focused on the wrong things in life.”
On this, I agree with him. In another hair scenario, I was speaking to a friend who said she had had a date but wasn’t sure if the guy was right for her because he is one of those Eco Greenie Save the World One Tadpole At a Time types. She said while she is somewhat that, she is not all that. And I said, hey it took me a year of therapy to get over owning this house because I was sure I didn’t deserve it not to mention I always considered myself somewhat bohemian.
Meanwhile, the other day I was driving around looking for a drugstore but I couldn’t remember if it was still there post-Katrina. Then I saw it and I thought – wow, Katrina – a little more than three years ago what hope did any of us have in New Orleans? And weren’t our lessons learned that nothing is certain, things are replaceable, and we have to take responsibility for ourselves because no one else will?
But I digress. Someone responded to my blog a few entries ago about more hours in the day – after responding back to his response, I worried if we did have more hours in the day that work would expand to fit the time allowed – but then I realize that I am responsible for not going to my grave a workaholic, I’m responsible for not taking quality time to enjoy my love ones, to listen to music, to dance, to read, to take a deep breath. In other words, I am responsible for my own chilling out. I only hope I can learn from myself.
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
We had a gathering of 21 college seniors at our house last night and the first thing that shook me was how young they all are! The next was how hopeful, aware, and interesting each one of them was. Their thoughts on Obama’s future and Bush’s legacy, about Health issues, and International relations, and their overall sense of responsibility and yet carefree view of tomorrow. Wow, youth. So different from sex, drugs, and rock n roll when I was their age. We were the lost generation.
Word up – chill out is the mantra of the day. It’s about not letting work sweep you away, not letting all the phone calls you haven’t returned to friends weigh you down, and about not being daunted because everything on your to do list is getting subsumed by new additions. Today, there was a Great Blue Heron that flew gracefully across the water. A lone pelican has worked his way down to our end of the bayou and likes to float around for our enjoyment. Time to contemplate fowl.
There wasn’t enough time to walk Loca as I had an early call to get on, so roll out of bed, make tea, eat oatmeal and hi ho, it’s off to work I go. So I thought I’d walk her sometime but the time never came and now, at the end of the day, I just wonder if there shouldn’t be more hours in the day. If the federal government can print more money when the country needs it – why can’t we add a few more hours to our day? I’d like more time to go hula hoop, walk Loca, READ – I haven’t read a book or at least finished a book in a month of Sundays, and who are these people who watch television – seriously, who has leisure time?