Landings

A friend whose mind dwells largely in the past often talks about the landing on the stairwell in her childhood home.  She gestures to me as if I can see the spot where the first set of stairs stops and the second takes a turn upwards in a new direction.  Every time she describes this scene, I can see and feel the landing in my Aunt Myrtle's house, a place I haven't been in years.

There's something comforting about landings, these spaces betwixt and between.  As a child I snuggled into the farthest corner and sat, hoping to be unobserved.  It was as if no one knew I were there, even though the living room was filled with family.

I think of landings when I read articles about new online courses and the possibility of getting college degrees from home.  There are advantages for sure, and yet I can't help but think that college is a landing for many of us, a place we climb to--and pause--and then journey upwards again.

Our fast-paced, acquisitive culture doesn't allow for many landings.  We're always on the ascent until, like my friend, we're forced into descent.  Maybe this is why the landing is so important to her now.  It's a safe place in her mind, a place where nothing really happened.  How reassuring in its own way.  Nothing--and yet, paradoxically, everything--happening in this simple square partway up the stairs.

Memorial Day

It's Memorial Day and I'm not sure what to write.  I've had an uneasy sense of this holiday for much of my life, seeing myself as a pacifist.  The two most recent American wars, those in Iraq and Afghanistan, have seemed so misguided to me.  And re-reading Margaret Mitchell's masterpiece Gone with the Wind has reminded me of the devastation that the Civil War wrought throughout the South, devastation that still reverberates today.

Yet I realize that those who fight in our wars, whether they're relatives or friends or strangers, fight on my behalf whether or not I agree with the cause.  They've given of themselves in ways that I would not.  On this holiday, then, I'm reminded every year to offer up thanks and remembrance for those who have served.

The Battle of Eurozone

Is the Eurozone about to unravel?  We turn to the old spiritual "Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho" for insight.

Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
Eurozone, Eurozone.
Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
And the walls came tumbling down!

You may talk about your Angela Merkel,
You may talk about Francois Hollande,
For the two can't come to proper terms
To keep those walls from atumbling down.

Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
Eurozone, Eurozone.
Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
And the walls came tumbling down!

Right up to a meeting in Brussels
They marched with opposing views.
"Austerity for Greece," Ms. Merkel cried,
"the Bundesbank won't bail you out."

Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
Eurozone, Eurozone.
Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
And the walls came tumbling down!

Then in Italy and Spain the debt began to rise,
And the banks lost cred again.
So Uncle Sam cried out, "Get your ducks in a row
'Cause if you fall, we'll tumble along."

Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
Eurozone, Eurozone.
Europe fought the Battle of Eurozone,
And the walls came tumbling down!

The Language of Love

Whenever I see daisies, I'm reminded of the game my friends and I used to play, familiar to most of us: "He loves me, he loves me not," we'd say as we peel off one petal after another, hoping to end on the right note.  I thought about this recently when Barack Obama's former girlfriend reported Barack's response to her declaration of love: "Thank you," he apparently said, which is consistent with my experience of men in their 20s.  Somehow I don't think this group plays "She loves me, she loves me not."  Probably, it's more likely that they play "She'll sleep with me, she'll sleep with me not."

But to continue with our original theme, this delicate flower from a Lamb's Ear looks like a topper for a wedding cake;

these flowers from the Abelia evoke wedding bells;

and here are the bridesmaids.

Now what to do with the dandelion?  Is he the spoiler?  The young man in his 20s sipping champagne and checking out the bridesmaids?  Whoever he is, a young Barack or a restless graduate student, he's not ready for the wedding.  But he will be someday.

On Mary Kennedy

For those of us who've been around for awhile, the news of another tragic, untimely Kennedy death was no surprise.  We know the drill: initial news reports of something awful, an explanatory family statement, a gathering of the family and other famous people at a New England church, and handsome children as pall bearers--bearing weight beyond their years.  What are we to make of this?

When something happens repeatedly, I believe we're meant to take notice.  Many of these deaths have been the direct result of mental illness and its twin sister substance abuse, or these have been implicated in the deceased's life story.  The so-called "Kennedy Curse" is the unspoken scourge in far too many American families.

Here we are in the 21st century with smart bombs and smart phones and smart boards to take your breath away.  Yet when it comes to treating severe mental illness, we are no farther along than our Elizabethan ancestors were.  Macbeth's lament for his wife's madness could be spoken by many today:

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from that memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?"

The answer in too many cases is still "no."

Perhaps if we addressed mental illness with the same intensity that we give warfare and technology, we could offer patients more hope.  Instead, the doctor's response in the play--"Therein the patient must minister to himself"--is still often what happens today.  And as Mary Kennedy reminds us, this is unacceptable.

America

Sing wistfully to the tune of "America," as if you were Paul Simon, but with a Wall Street edge:

Let us be bankers, we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some corp'rate debt here in my bag
So we traded with a mutual fund, and hoped to hedge our bets
And drove out to rip off America.

Jamie, I said, as we boarded our limo on Wall Street
Derivatives seem like a dream to me now
It took me four years to become a billionaire
I've come to rip off America.

Trashing Dodd-Frank rules, playing loose with our money
You said the man in the gaberdine suit was a spy
I said be careful, I think that he's really Paul Volcker.

Forget Glass-Steagall Act, we don't need more regulations
We zapped the last ones ten years ago
So I looked at my portfolio and smiled a sly smile
And the moon rose over two billionaires.

Jamie, we're lost, but I know that we've got them all hoodwinked
Those suckers in Washington give us a pass
Countin' the cash for their campaigning coffers
They've all come to rip off America
All come to rip off America
All come to rip off America.

Taking the Heat

Now that we've had a week of gay marriage hysteria, I wonder what cultural war we'll fight next.  We've lurched from one controversy to another these last several months.  Contraception, mommy wars, Planned Parenthood and the Komen Foundation, even American nuns have found themselves under an unfortunate spotlight.  Interesting, isn't it, that women and "women's issues" lie at the heart of so many of these storms.

I can't help but think that our financial crisis, largely managed by men, fuels this female feeding frenzy.  It reminds me of a family where the dad is having a hard time and takes out his anger on his wife or daughter or the sissy younger son.  Marginalized figures take the heat every time.

If our financial leaders--whether they're in Congress or at the White House or on Wall Street--would lead in a responsible way, perhaps we wouldn't descend into these debates with such ferocity.  The way they're fought becomes diversionary, taking everyone's eye off the central economic crisis before us.  And more often than not, they deteriorate into attacks on women.

But we don't get leadership.  Even President Obama reacted this week to the debacle at JPMorgan Chase by praising Jamie Dimon as "one of the smartest bankers we got."  (See Robert Reich, "The Dog That Didn't Bark: Obama on JPMorgan.")  One man winking at another man is what we got.

And when this happens, women get screwed.

A Dog's Life: "Dharma" by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her doghouse

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example

of a life without encumbrance--

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she

would be,

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.

Gay Sera, Sera

Here's to the dramatic events this week that led to President Obama's endorsement of marriage equality.  Pretend you're Doris Day and sing gaily (pun intended) to the tune of "Que Sera, Sera."

When Joe appeared on talk TV

Meet the Press asked him what did he feel

Could gays get married, were they allowed

To have the hetero deal?

Gay sera, sera

Whatever will be will be

The president said, you see

That gays can marry.

What will be will be.

Then Arne Duncan did a show

Morning Joe asked him what did he hold

Could gays get married, were they the same

As the old hetero mold?

Gay sera, sera

Whatever will be will be

The president said, you see

That gays can marry.

What will be will be.

White House staff thought they’d wait it out

Until the Pres’dent spoke on The View

Whoopi and Barbara they’d surely ask him

If gays could marry, too.

Gay sera, sera

Whatever will be will be

The president said, you see

That gays can marry.

What will be will be.

But then the voters in the South

Halted the progress that had occurred

Pressure was mounting, time to speak out

Obama must be heard.

Gay sera, sera

Whatever will be will be

The president said, you see

That gays can marry.

What will be will be

Gay sera, sera.

The Amendment, Part 2

What do you get when you cross Last Gaspers with Bible Bigots?  The passage of a repressive constitutional amendment.

Let's clarify the terms.  Last Gaspers are people who can't stand the idea of

a black president
a gay teacher
a Latino mayor
a female boss
and
an Asian doctor.

Bible Bigots are people who can't stand homosexuality.

These 2 groups joined forces on Tuesday in North Carolina to deny civil rights to fellow citizens.  They are precisely the people who Barack Obama accurately decried 4 years ago as voters who "cling to guns or religion or"--and this part isn't often quoted--"antipathy to people who aren't like them."

They're a dangerous combination, these Last Gaspers and Bible Bigots, and they'll leave destruction in their wake as they go down.  For go down they will, for they stand in the way of justice.

Magic

Was that really you. . .

last year at this time?  You, the child who once shared all my space, whose rhythms matched my own?

You've found a new place now, of course, and it's where you belong.

Still, I wonder how you and I came to be.

Some Enchanted Evening

In honor of Newt Gingrich, and his official departure this week from the presidential primary.  Sing to the tune of "Some Enchanted Evening" from South Pacific:

Some enchanted evening

You might meet Newt Gingrich,

You might meet Newt Gingrich

Inside a crowded room.

And somehow you know

You know even then,

You’ve met someone big with

An ego again.

Some enchanted evening

You will hear a lecture,

You will be reminded

That Newt knows everything.

He’s right about this

He’s right about that,

And if you dissent you will

Endure his wrath.

Who can explain Newt?

Who can say why?

Fools give you reasons,

Wise men never try.

Some enchanted evening

Newt will make a big speech,

Newt will tell us all how

We’ve lost our chance with him.

He could have been Prez

He should have been Prez,

Such talents as his have been wasted

He says.

Once you have lost Newt,

Better let him go.

Once you have lost Newt,

Better let him go!

"The Scream"

That "The Scream" sold for nearly $120 million last night at Sotheby's seems fitting.  It is the symbol of our time, after all, and only increases in relevance as life grows more bizarre.  All you need to do is read the front page of any American newspaper or listen to the evening news, and you'll feel exactly like the figure in Edvard Munch's pastel.