9 11

Nine –eleven: two simple words, three numbers that represent one of the most horrific days in the history of our country. Eleven years later the images of the Towers coming down and the gaping hole in the Pentagon are still seared in the memories of many of us who watched on live TV that September day. And today the day was commemorated but the coverage was brief, the lengthy stories are now on the History Channel. As with other historical dates like Pearl Harbor, or the Kennedy assassination, each year that passes will fade the details, and the memories will become just a part of our story.

But more than just the events of that day, it is the aftermath that continues the story. Air travel will always be more difficult, we still have U.S. Troops in harm’s way, we have seen our privacy rights eroded. The damages inflicted that day linger in our national psyche and affect how we live our daily lives.

Whether those events hastened the economic downturn that happened; or made us more paranoid and insular; whether it made us stronger as a nation, may be determined by history, but some of the shockwaves are certainly continuing.

It was not an election year in 2001, so the autumn of mourning was one that gave us a brief respite of the more internal vitriolic political polemics. This eleventh anniversary comes in an election year and on the heels of the party conventions and there is no restraint being shown. Instead of building bridges to make our country strong, they are pitting us against each other. They are forgetting that the rules and principals for governing are found in the Constitution.

While it was the external impact of those planes crashing into the buildings that caused the fires and the initial damage, it was in the final analysis the damage to the interior core that caused them to collapse. We need leaders who will protect that core. Protect our freedoms, lead us in confidence not fear of not only those from the outside who would harm us, but fear of each other.

Aftermath

A plane flies low
It seems right above my head
It’s engines roar in my ears
I look up and stumble
Not watching where I step
The memories lay deep
Aroused by that noise
That causes a reflex
A flood of images
And a deep shared sorrow

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken…..”

First of all, if you are tenderhearted because of a recent loss, you might want to proceed with caution because I will be talking about grief and loss. The words in the title are from “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” from the musical play “Les Miserables”. as Marius mourns his comrades in arms. What has inspired this blog about grief and remembrance, well, several things: It is the season where there are reminders of the coming Mother’s Day everywhere and even after fifteen years this still reminds me of my loss, and I have a dear friend who recently lost her mother and I was thinking how this must resonant with her. We just lost Dick Clark, who was so much a part of my formative years. I have been listening to Miranda Lambert’s “Over You”, which so succinctly sums up the feelings of grief over a beloved so in just nine word of the chorus. “You went away, how dare you, I miss you.”

I come from a background that basically taught you to suck it up. Grief was a very private thing, you didn’t really talk about it once the funeral rites were over except to remember and share stories. You didn’t really share pain you still felt When I have lost people I have channeled a lot of it into my poetry. Lamentation is a staple of many poets..

The past couple of decades I have seen that the ready access to media has made mourning a very public and communal even for people we don’t really know. Princess Diana’s death I think was the apex of this, but it continues and is magnified with Facebook, Twitter, and so much non-scripted television. It sometimes seems over the top that people are so distraught when a famous person dies and how much media has made people feel that they “know” celebrities. But I think it also maybe reflective of the need to feel connected, to share with others. I remember vividly when Kennedy was assassinated, people came together in their mutual grief and shock and were riveted to the black and white images flashing on the TV screens. It ever so briefly united a nation that was facing a lot of change and dissention.

Grief isn’t really something that can be measured or easily defined, it is individual and although everyone experiences it, each person experiences it in his or her own way. And it doesn’t seem that we grieve the same for everyone we lose in our lives because each loss affects us in different ways. Sometimes it can be mixed with other emotions; relief if a loved one has been suffering acutely, guilt if there were unresolved issues, helplessness or a feeling that you could have somehow prevented the death, abandonment, anger, denial, fear, or a mixture of many emotions.

Our thoughts and feelings about our own mortality and spirituality or religiousness can be thrown into confusion. Memories become precious commodities, clung to, shared and sometimes fragile. Birthdays, holidays, certain place, meals, objects can stir the memories and the feelings of grief but also help us cope and eventually hopefully dull the pain and reinforce the happiness our loved ones gave us.

Innocence Lost

The assassin’s gun ended a dream
So we clung to one another
For comfort and tried to make sense
Of the unimaginable, the unknown
And my mind reached out
But couldn’t find you
So in his arms my fears were calmed
He was gentle and sweet
And couldn’t have known
That it should have been you
That it was doomed before it began
The memory of that night would
Ever be linked to loss
Of innocence
Of hope
Of the dream
That was you.

The Whiners

Is a blog that complains about whining actually whining? I hope not but let the reader judge. Everyone whines at one time or another it’s human nature. It starts when we are very young; four year olds usually have it down to a science. But the sort of whining I’m talking about is whining that has become so prevalent today. Have we really become that spoiled?

It is certainly an age of entitlement if you believe what you see in the media or if you just listen carefully to what is going on around you. There are so many people playing the blame game and refusing to take any responsibility to the bumps and hardships in their lives. The words need and want seem to have become synonymous. There seems to be great difficulty in understanding that wanting something does not necessarily mean that you truly need it.

I have found myself totally bemused observing people complaining about being broke spending with abandon. I recall a discussion with someone who was facing foreclosure on a home that they could not afford bemoaning the fact that the lender should have known that they didn’t make as much money as they said on the application. “It’s not fair” was the whine, the ubiquitous they should have stopped her from not being truthful, should have answered the questions she didn’t ask because she wanted what she wanted when she wanted it.

Watch any reality show and you will see contestants accusing people of “bullying” them while they are doing the same thing to someone else. Playing the victim/villain is the starring role. It demeans real victims of bullying; it trivializes a very serious problem.

I have observed people just starting out on a job being totally indignant that their beginning salary would not allow them to buy the same kind of house, or car that their parents had worked years to acquire. The whine is why do I have to wait? Anticipation and compromise have become archaic concepts.

Instant communication has heightened the desire for instant gratification in all areas. I see it, I want it – therefore I NEED it now is the mantra. It’s probably good for the economy in the short run, but we are still reeling from the fall out from the excesses of Wall Street and the housing debacles. Much of that brought on by the afore mentioned need for instant gratification.

I know it is difficult to not be seduced by the temptations we see everywhere. It is hard not to give in when there is so much pressure to have the latest styles, the newest car or computer. When we are bombarded by images of the rich and famous enjoying lives that seem out of our reach it is difficult not to resort to retail therapy, to imagine that material things will increase our self-esteem, make us happier if only for a moment.

What I Really Need

Tulips and daffodils in spring
Golden leaves in the autumn
Music floating through the air
While I read a good book
A walk through the park
A tour of a museum
This what I really need

The freedom to dream
And be who I want to be
The courage to face
Challenges and prevail
To choose my future
Not let it choose me
This is what I really need

The love and support
Of my family and friends
Sharing laughter and tears
The memories of loved ones
Who are no longer here
But still live in my heart
This is what I really need

MEAN

There’s a Taylor Swift song out called “Mean” which contains the line “why you gotta be so mean?” I find that an interesting question, and I find myself asking that a lot these days. Not just directed at a specific person, but at the “culture of meanness” that seems to be propagated in the media. It is the bread and butter of reality shows; the biggest stars of these “unscripted” programs are the meanest and loudest. (And it is usually adults behaving badly.) The pundits and people who call talk shows talk about political “debate”, but it’s not debate – it’s argument, usually loud, practically incoherent, and based on opinion rather than fact, full of little thought but much thunder. Issues are thusly clouded and compromise becomes next to impossible. The word compromise has come to be interpreted as – you must agree with me. Comedy has become increasingly mean spirited. Jokes are often the expense of the humiliation of another person. Cruelty is the main staple of drama and I’m not saying that we should bury our heads in the sand about the real cruelty that exists in the world, but I’m not sure that we are portraying it in a way that makes people think about it as the horror it is rather than curiosity and titillation. We are becoming inured to the violence we see.

I’m not innocent; I have always had what my grandmother referred to as a “sharp” tongue, because I get impatient easily. This is not a trait I am particularly proud of and I do try to watch it and sometimes I don’t recognize it, I just think I’m being blunt or direct. I am a work in progress as are most human beings in general. But my grandmother did call my attention to this, did not encourage it or laugh it off, she and others made me aware and called me to account for it. I guess that’s part of what I’m trying to say here. Don’t we all have to be accountable to what we put out in the world? Maybe we should not reward “mean”. Maybe we can all try to find a passion for compassion.

Two poems for today:

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

A bomb – dropped in the heart of a city
Blowing away life, splintering families
Buildings collapse, death in the rubble
Ashes, blood and tears for the living

A bullet – fired into tender flesh
Exploding through organs and bones
Blood escaping, flowing and staining
Life struggling then ebbing, then ceasing

A word – flung into the air
Perhaps carelessly, perhaps deliberate
Searing the soul, breaking a heart
Life continuing, but darker, diminished.

NOT HERE

In the sand and in the cities
Children are crying
Looking for parents who
Are looking for them
Afraid they won’t find them
More afraid they will
In the morgues or the ruins
Smoke from smoldering
Remains of homes and villages
Blocks the sun and the light
As they wander searching
Among the sea of faces
For a certain face, the right face
To end the wondering and wandering
Haunted eyes, silent cries
From those who can
No longer give voice
To their pain and their fear
Pleading eyes, frail hands
Reaching for strangers
To answer the unanswerable

The images flash across our screens
And we watch with full bellies
In our comfortable homes and
We wonder to each other how
This could happen, how this cruelty
And senseless violence exists
And why no one stops it
We will write a check
Tomorrow or next week
We will go to meetings and
Over expensive coffee or wine
Berate those who let this happen
Who didn’t stand up and we
Won’t recognize who “they” are

Haunted eyes, silent cries
They are there, not here
There’s no war here
Not here on our streets or
Under the bridges and overpasses
Or behind the closed doors of
Our homes, our churches, our schools
They couldn’t be here
We would see them, wouldn’t we?

The War on Women

I am afraid that this blog will be more ranting than musing. Watching and hearing the news lately has really set my mind whirling. When the economy is in the tank, nations are saber rattling, atrocities are going on all over the world, people are starving and homeless, children are being abused and dying and the planet is sick; the jackanapes in Washington D.C. and the dithering pundits in the media are focusing on denying women’s reproductive rights and attempting to keep women out of the discussion with parliamentary tricks and derision.

The most recent furor over insurance companies being able to have contraception as a part of their plans is mind-boggling. These close-minded and archaic blathers try to cite the cost to tax payers as their stalking horse, obviously totally unfamiliar with the cost to tax payers of raising children who are born to women and/or families who cannot afford them. There are people out there who want to be responsible parents and need to limit the number of children they can afford emotionally and financially. Because one of the women who dared to speak to their hypocrisy was a student, she is immediately branded a slut who shouldn’t be having sex, never mind that she wants to be responsible and complete her education. (By the way, Rush and dunderheads in congress, the need for contraception isn’t because a woman has sex by herself. Some where one of your male cohorts is involved, sometimes aided by his insurance protected Erectile Dysfunction drugs because when a man wants to have sex and has difficulty it’s a “medical problem” and needs to be covered by insurance.)

This is about more than insurance coverage and contraception. This is a tip of the iceberg issue about women and their rights.

I spent much of my 20’s actively working for social causes and women’s issues. I had grown up in the 50’s when the role of women in American society was pretty strictly constrained. The women who had gone to work during WW2 to when the male work force was depleted were expected to go back home to their “place”. The main goal for a woman was to make a good marriage and have children, like your parents and grandparents. Never mind that some of those storybook marriages were more nightmare than fantasy. Any marriage was better than none. Single women were to be pitied or looked down on. Independence was “cute” as long as it didn’t go too far. There were bad girls and good girls and a reputation was very easy to ruin, and recovery difficult if not impossible.

In the 60’s things began to change, women were beginning to value their BA’s as much as a “MRS”. Contraception (that bad word again) freed them to have families of a size consistent with their financial and emotional means. Women were “allowed” to express their sexuality and admit that they had sexual desires and needs. They were becoming a larger part of the workforce and not just on the assembly line or behind a typewriter. Women were making choices for themselves and whether it was to work, or be a stay at home mother or some combination of both, it was their choice. There were still inequalities, but inroads were being made, a few women were making it into the halls of the State Houses and Congress and into board rooms. But one of the memories that comes back to be loudly recently, is the voice of a sixty something woman who was active in the same political causes I was as she warned me that the gains being made would have to be guarded diligently. She had felt the same euphoria that I and some of my female friends were feeling over the gains she had experienced in the 30’s and 40’s, only to see slow erosion.

And now I see the erosion. I also see the apathy from people who have forgotten the past and the fight that it took to bring women to where they are today, to have the choice they have. Freedom is a muscle that needs to be exercised.

I want my government to go back to the business of the nation. I want them to spend time trying to figure out how to lower gas prices, clean up pollution, worry as much about the born as the unborn, figure out a way to keep us out of another costly war, make sure all of the children already here have an adequate, no a superior, education so that we can compete in the world market place, make taxes equitable, run the government efficiently, worry about the State Houses, not our houses, spend as much time peering into boardrooms as they do into our bedrooms, in other words, do their jobs! I want action plans not platitudes.

And as for the media, get your heads on straight. A sound bite is not a news story. Give us balance, facts, research rather than take the easy way out. Ask the follow up questions, again and again until you get an answer. Hyperbole breeds irrationality and clouds issues. Learn the difference between propaganda and real news.

And the rest of us? We need to keep their feet to the fire, we need to demand more of the people we elect to represent us, of the people who give us our information. We need to stand up for what we believe. We need to be active citizens.