It's All Small Right Now

It seems that every time I open the newspaper or turn on the television there's fodder for my blog.  Police shooting citizens, a mall taken over by terrorists, a mass shooting in the Navy Yard.  Rachel Maddow shares some statistics about the uptick in mass shootings over the past few years and it's alarming.  Really alarming. Starbucks comes out with a watered-down policy about gun-toting coffee drinkers, putting profits before the safety of their patrons.  To tell you the truth, right now I only want to look away.

This past weekend we spent time with family and new friends.  We were in a small Massachusetts town. There were children and babies and soon-to-be borns in the crowd and I kept thinking, "What is the world like for those six, seven and eight year old children?  What is it going to be like?" I wondered how the parents will handle the internet and the questions they are bound to have about a world blown wide apart by violence and too much openness, about access to all the information in the world at their fingertips. In one very touching moment, two of the children talked about being bullied and comforted each other.

Late one afternoon, I sat on the front porch of our rental house and watched the sun go down.  I was alone for the first time in two days and I felt this deep sadness for the turmoil that families face from within and without.

I again came back to my questions about what is causing this surge in violence in our world.  The possible answers were all the same: guns, media, lack of quality mental health care, stress over jobs andmoney, insecurity and feelings of unworthiness in our young people. One of them or all of them.  I don't know.

As I hugged my girls goodbye, I said the usual things:  Call me when you get home.  I love you.  See you soon. And today I'm unwilling to think about the violence that I see in the paper and on television, choosing instead to think only of home, my love for my family, and the anticipation of seeing them again. It's all small, and it doesn't begin to address the violence in the world in the way I first hoped when I promised you readers to talk about it, but it's all I'm capable of looking at right now.

Where I'm From

As I mentioned in an earlier post,  Carol Henderson did a workshop a few weeks ago on "Those Who Shape Us."   We wrote for ten minutes using as a prompt a poem by George Ella Lyon entitled, "Where I'm From."  

I'd like to share what I wrote and invite you to write a few lines in the comment section about where you're from.

            I am from the neighborhood that had the bomb shelter.  It was concrete with shelves full of cardboard pictures of food.  It was a place where the family who bought it would go when the rest of us got nuked by the Cubans and their missiles.  Our crisis.

            I am from the warehouse family where there were cardboard figures—the Jolly Green Giant and Tony the Tiger—figures that we would beg to take home when my dad took us to his office on Saturdays so my mom wouldn’t end up in “Dix Hill.” 

            I am from wood: wooden boats that my great-grandfather gave his fingers for; frames with dogwoods carved by my grandfather; the woods too—way back in the filtered sunlight where we crossed over dead wood, careful of snakes.  Stepped on the log not over it. I still do that today.

            I am from women, three generations of women with only a man or two thrown in for good measure.  I am from mother and aunts and sisters and daughters. Weak women who died early and strong women who could take me out with a look.  Granny.  That look.

            I am from cities with an innate longing for country, for woods and for food not in cardboard boxes and for porches that overlook ponds black as ink where frogs belch into the night and birds make their morning song. I am from a time when I lived in the country and missed the city conveniences.

            I am from walking to school with friends, riding the bus with sixteen-year-old bus drivers, drinking and smoking on the country club golf course, home-made prom dresses, and the Sears Employee Store.

            I am from Christmases with five children who woke up at dawn, from tiny bedrooms and a big basement, from 6:00 dinner and 11:00 curfews. Our house was “Grand Central Station” my mom would say, which meant nothing to me then.

            I am from a time when we all felt safe except from Cubans and their missiles and snakes.