Politicin'....

Tonight I drank black cherry floats with Haitian-Creole refugees. One woman with a red badanna over her grey braids proudly showed me how she can now count to ten. The last time I visited we each had tears in our ears because she wrote her name for the first time in her fifty some years of life. The students from Haaay-tee ( I love the way they say the name of their country, it makes me melt inside) wear their jackets in class, heavy winter ones, even on days like today when it was sunny out and 60 degrees. I think this is because the climate is so very different where they're from and many of these folks haven't acclimated yet. In Caroline County you're driving along the backroads: farmfields, woods, farmfields, woods and swamp, farmfields. The swamps smell like sulfur and in the spring the farms are covered in cow shit. It doesn't matter though when it's bright out like today it still makes you smile where your heart is.

You're driving along, and then in the middle of a farmfield you turn right and then next thing you know you drive up on some projects. Lots of little kids out front, screaming and laughing and playing on the lawns and speaking fine english in the street in front of the Community Center. And inside their parents are in heavy winter coats drinking floats and learning to write their names.

Last night Jason, a coworker, sent this over email:

I was doing intake & assessment in Federalsburg today and when I asked the question "Why is getting your high school diploma important to you?" This person responded that it was because of something President Barack Obama said during his address to Congress in February. This person quoted word for word the portion of the speech in bold below. I included more of the text from that portion of the speech just to be sure it was not out of context and I felt it evoked an even more powerful response.

"It is our responsibility as lawmakers and educators to make this system work. But it is the responsibility of every citizen to participate in it. And so tonight, I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself, it’s quitting on your country – and this country needs and values the talents of every American."

Jay goes on to point out that he is not a Democrat and didn't vote for Barrack. Which, though we've never discussed it I think I already knew from mild comments he's made before. Now politically I try to stay the hell out of it, part of this is because my politics would likely fall so left of radical that they’d circle back around again to the right and this sort of confuses people. But mostly because I think the system, so long as it is motivated by money, will never be based in integrity. So I consider it ethically, thus fundamentally, flawed, and find that debate usually is only ever about making oneself look mighty at the expense of debunking another's right to their own beliefs, and often never really about open-minded discourse. In fact, I find that once a person finds out a couple of my own beliefs they usually then assume they know me downright up and down, and so goes polarity and the lac of bridge-gapping. And in truth, most us humans want the same things, love and security, safety and wellness, to be treated kindly and with respect. I dont know it's all so sad to me sometimes, even though this pigeonholing, I do it, too, believe me!

I believe in deep and vigilant personal responsibility. Insofar as ethics go I believe this, if practiced, extends naturally in to social responsibility. Inner-principal-values walking, or ethos of matreo-centred agroegalitarian deep voodoo, (haha ooops there I go again confusing people.) But anyhow. Here is this guy, this buddy at work Jason, who openly admits he's not a democrat but who works vigilantly and committed and for stoopid piddly compensation as a student advocate. He is without question the number one resource in the county at least that I know of for social service referrals, and is this gentle easy-going teddy bear of a guy who is absolutely adored by his students and committed to what he does. But my favorite thing about him, now, would be his walking ability to totally bust my own extreme lines of political stereotyping and illusion just by being the change he wants to see. Card officially, though gentely, pulled. I am grateful. His walking fires in others the ability, the courage to do the same, as this email above states. And he's mellow as hell, too! Thank god for this, for people like him and our pal Kim, who keep it going and going. I can't say I'll do this forever, but so long as there's black cherry floats involved, and students who can quote their president, I'll get in the ring at least one more day.

And that my friends is as political as it gets.

The Mightiest Word

Praise Song for the Day
by Elizabeth Alexander

Each day
We go about our business
walking past each other
catching each other’s eyes,
or not,
about to speak or speaking.
All about us is noise,
thorn and din.
Each one of our ancestors on our tongues.

Someone is stitching up a hem,
darning a hole in an uniform,
patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere,
with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum
with cello,
boombox,
harmonica,
voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus,
a farmer considers the changing sky
a teacher says, “take out your pencils, begin."

We encounter each other in words,
words spiny or smooth,
words whispered or declaimed,
words to consider,reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways
that mark the will of someone
and then others that said,
“I need to see what’s on the other side.
I know there’s something better down the road.”
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain:
That many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
Who laid the train tracks,
raised the bridges,
picked the cotton and the lettuce
Built brick by brick
the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean
and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle
Praise song for the day
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring it out at kitchen tables

Some live by “love thy neighbor as thyself."
Others by, "first, do not harm,"
or "take no more than you need."

What if
the mightiest word is
Love.

Love beyond marital, filial, national
Love that casts a widening pool of light
Love with no need to preempt grievance

In today's sharp sparkle,
this winter air,
anything can be made
any sentence begun
On the brink...
On the brim...
On the cusp...

Praise song
for walking forward
in that light.


Amen. Amen amen amen.

Cogratulations Mr. President

So here I am, down here at the ocean with dad. He has TV. I dont. I'm sucking it up--laughing out loud, incredulous at this superstardom, at this 100% AMERICANA celebration going on at the Lincoln Monument today. Between this and the Eagles/Cardinals game--with a running commentary of self-talk yadayada this is just what's wrong with our country...the absolute over-processing of everything, taking the art out of artistry--this forced experience of partriotism they're trying to ramalamdingdonging down our throat--oh look there's Garth Brooks yadayada etc....

And then! The camera pans to him, eyes closed and getting down to the music...MyBama, and seriously the next thing that happens is my head goes totally quiet and my heart goes full....

And truly people, I Know no man is a superhero. I know he can't do it all. In fact, we all know what he's up against. And I of all people believe that the pillar of any experience is the actual walking-of, the hands-on demonstration of trying to live pricipals, the struggle of actually be-ing the ethics of something. And how this is at once the most challenging and shaping way to live--but maybe that is it, why I love him--how he walks. His nature truly enlivens in me the belief in being the change. And that is a lot to say about one person--that he inspires me--and SO MANY OTHERS! towards something higher. My hope is that this catalyctic thing he does to us, that it's not just to us as a people collectively, but in the way it matters most: as individuals, each inspired in our own lives to be the change.

O okay--and also, who am I fooling? I think he's dreamy. I mean I absoloutely love those bedroom eyes....

yuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm