a dream

I want to go here.

americans who tell the truth

One of my favorite (and recently rediscovered) websites/projects is Americans Who Tell the Truth. The project includes collections of portraits, quotes, and a traveling exhibit. The website includes a curriculum and education blog. Seriously - the lessongasms I had after reading them were quite intense.

Someday I hope to have a personal library/study with overstuffed chairs bathed in sunlight streaming through tall windows. On the walls will be portraits of these amazing people - and some blank spaces for those who come next.

Howard Zinn

The news that Howard Zinn died today saddens me beyond belief. Yes, he was 87, but he wasn't finished. His teaching was/is never finished. I just saw him a few months ago, and he was sharp and alive and smart...god, he was smart. I'll treasure the memory of sitting in the balcony overlooking him on the stage below...in the limelight, for sure, but seeking no power, no accolades. Interested only in the stories - of the people.

Here is the link to the article in the NY Times.

Update:

Here are a few more links of folks paying tribute to Zinn:

Socialist Worker
The Free Press
Democracy Now

These words (also quoted in Socialist Worker's tribute) are particularly meaningful to me as we struggle to determine our course in the face of such national and global destruction. We could always look to Zinn for inspiration - for tips on how to maintain hope and persevere through the darkness. We still can with these words:

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of the world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

a writer's heart is always breaking

Writer Alice Walker recently wrote this on her blog:

A writer’s heart, a poet’s heart, an artist’s heart, a musician’s heart, is always breaking. It is through that broken window that we see the world; more mysterious, beloved, insane and precious for the sparkling and jagged edges of the smaller enclosure we have escaped.

 It speaks to me. You?

a break from wading

My fairly new laptop crashed, and as such my blogging time has been sliced to pieces. Here are a few things I'm doing while I'm temporarily unplugged:

1. Reading Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster. So timely. And, it is making me relish the warmth (and innate goodness) of the human spirit - of our collective human spirit.

2. Cultivating as much joy as I can. Through yoga. In motherhood. In friendship. Lately, I'm trying to feel the sun rather than the dampness of the clouds. The sun is so much more powerful.

3. Making plans. Surprised, I'm sure. Not. The future is mine. It is all mine. It does not depend on a man - or on my relationship with a man - or on money or even circumstance. I am taking back my future, and I won't take no for an answer.

4. Liking and learning from myself. I have a lot to offer the people in my life. I am open to receiving what others have to give. For the first time in a long time, I am not stymied by my idealism and seeing only what I want to see but instead motivated by reality. It is sometimes murky on the surface, but the clarity once I wade through is astounding. I've been wading. Now I'm taking a break to just be in it.

Happy Friday, people. I hope you, too, have waded through the murk and can enjoy your peace.

we need a new sense of self

I just discovered Drew Dellinger and planetize the movement, and all I have to say initially is wow.

Here is a short clip titled A New Sense of Identity.

Thoughts?

Oh - he has a blog, too.

anew

Single moms. This past year, I've commented on their blogs, read their stories, and rallied around their causes all without feeling like one. From my insulated perch, I murmured in solidarity when someone broke their heart. I nodded at their tales of financial strain. I imaginary high-fived them on the rare days when everything, from parenting to dating to career, fell into place. But if I were urged to choose a group to join - an identity to own - the single mama moniker would not necessarily be the first one that entered my mind. Until maybe now.

I wonder if one cannot truly be a member of the single mama posse until her heart is ...well, shattered. Until the pieces that started splitting into fragments when that dream first died- whatever the dream might have been - become so broken themselves that all that remains is dust. I wonder if perhaps, for me, my heart splintered only partially when I was divorced last year, and over the course of this last year - through loss after loss -  it has finally cracked completely. And while that may sound alarming to one reading this, it needn't, because my hope now that I have little left is to (finally) build anew.

It was while I was on my little writing retreat (where I accomplished little writing) a few weeks ago that I crashed. For two days, battling high and chilly winds, I sat wrapped in a blanket and stared at the sea through a curtain of salty tears. In utter solitude, I sobbed with grief. Grief over the chasm between me and my big brother, and as an extension, my sweet little niece, for losing my uncle to cancer much too early, and over a man who turned out to be a sliver of a shadow of the man my idealism had created. And yes, daunting grief over being on my own. Alone with my daughter. Daunting grief indeed.

I left Florida wrung out - feeling physically waifish and emotionally depleted. I boarded the plane slowly but without looking back; honoring and releasing that which caused such distress was grueling, but ultimately it had to be less painful than harboring hope for something different - than believing in something or someone that doesn't exist. Acute pain rather than chronic destruction.

And now, here I am, back home waiting for the spring. And the sun. Hoping that out of all of the tears that fell, maybe a few are feeding new growth, building anew.

(stock photography from Dreamstime)

skinless

"You were skinless. There was nothing between you and the world - you let everything in and you let everything show."

from, The World Before Her by Deborah Weisgall

Sometimes I feel skinless. It's exhausting. And exhilarating. And everything in between. 

recess

I'm here for a little cottage-sitting, dog-watching while writing long weekend. Away from the freezing temperatures and blanket of snow covering the Midwest, I am instead submerged in sunshine with a sparkling ocean steps away. It feels decadent and naughty, and I intend to enjoy it.

Every.single.minute.

I have some writing I need to do: non-blog, people-may-actually-pay-for-it- writing (how exciting is THAT?!). So, I'll see you in a few days.

Here's to a sunny start of the year for you, too.