FLYING: Confessions of a Free Woman

I was raised to be an independent woman; to be free and responsible for my own life and to achieve these things through my own work and study. Somehow, in the course of my pursuit of all these things, freedom became the most cherished value of all to me. It acquired several meanings throughout my life. It meant, first of all, to be able to discover the world, to meet different people, to experience different cultures, different things, to learn more, to hear, read, write or dance. It meant an incessant search for all things that were real and true.

Second, it meant being able to make my own choices, to be able to be the one setting the course I wanted to follow (even if, of course, support from others was needed much more often than not). It also meant being economically independent which this led me to invest heavily in my studies. I always believed this to be my way, the only way I could pursue my dreams and still be faithful to the things I believed in. It was the closest I could get to the way I felt as a woman and as a person. Hence, this pursuit of freedom deeply defined who I am today. It was both liberating and exhausting. Actually, I should say that it was liberating for many years and it becomes more and more exhausting as time goes by.  

There is something to be said about what freedom really represents.  (This is why and where Flying entered my life in such a wonderful and surprising way…) The pursuit of my dreams and my independence has led me to study and work in different European countries. What a wonderful experience this was and has been…. To get to know different cultures, traditions, people, languages, how to live with and in them; to find more about myself and about my own boundaries when facing different challenges or speaking different languages. Moving around can be extremely enlightening and fulfilling at so many levels, many more than I could have ever imagined.

However, what I did not foresee when I made these choices, is what freedom, in the sense I have experienced it, really means. It is a bittersweet thing. Indeed, while the thrill never really went way, many things became burdensome. Home became a rather undefined word to me and although I still believe Portugal to be it, I often feel at home at many different places and on the downside… nowhere at all.

Relationships also became difficult to take to the next level, what is the next level when I keep moving around, and what is the present if it almost always implies some distance? Work became a collection of challenging and interesting projects that are usually temporary and thus never see the light of a new year, that never see continuity or growth. I will not even mention the possibility of motherhood… 

The choice of freedom above all things, thus, has its perks and its burdens, as any choice has anyway. What I didn’t know when I made it was that there would be a day where it would be too late to choose to stop, to belong again and to come back to the place that I left behind and still find it and feel it as my home (and vice versa).

An article in The Economist last year about being a foreigner said it beautifully: “The funny thing is, with the passage of time, something does happen to long-term foreigners which makes them more like real exiles, and they do not like it at all. The homeland, which they left behind changes, the culture, the politics and their old friends all change, die, Forget them. They come to feel that they are foreigners even when visiting “home”. Jhumpa Lahiri, a British-born writer of Indian descent living in America, catches something of this in her novel, “The Namesake”. Ashima, who is an Indian émigré, compares the experience of foreignness to that of “a parenthesis in what had once been an ordinary life, only to discover that the previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding.  Beware, then: however well you carry it off, however much you enjoy it, there is a dangerous undertow to being a foreigner, even a genteel foreigner. Somewhere at the back of it all lurks homesickness, which metastasizes over time into its incurable variant, nostalgia. And nostalgia has much in common with the Freudian idea of melancholia—a continuing, debilitating sense of loss, somewhere within which lies anger at the thing lost. It is not the possibility of returning home which feeds nostalgia, but the impossibility of it. Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian-born intellectual resettled in France, has caught this sense of deprivation by comparing the experience of foreignness with the loss of a mother. But we cannot expect to have it all ways. Life is full of choices, and to choose one thing is to forgo another. The dilemma of foreignness comes down to one of liberty versus fraternity—the pleasures of freedom versus the pleasures of belonging. The homebody chooses the pleasures of belonging. The foreigner chooses the pleasures of freedom, and the pains that go with them.” [The Economist, 17.12.2009, “Being Foreign”]

What if I would have known what I know now back then (the old question…)? Well, that goes without saying… I would have chosen freedom anyway. After all, as a wise woman in the film says, being free is a luxury that many people don’t have.

            In my country, there is to the mentality that every family has to own the house where it’s living. That’s why, like a lot of other young families, after some years of living in rented flats, we couldn’t rest until we’ve bought a house.

            The “crises” arise during pregnancy. “We have to raise the baby in his home?” The feeling of not owning the house where we are raising our child, could lead to feeling like we did not ensure our child solid roots to develop properly. We are afraid that moving from one place to another (laws don’t protect the statute of tenant very much) could damage the child’s identity or something like that. So, like other families worldwide, we bought a house. But it’s a sweet illusion to be the “owner” because as long as we have a mortgage for 30 years, the bank is the owner. So we have to live with first contradiction; the ensure is in bank benefit. We are just administrators, until I’m 58 and my husband 64!

            I don’t know if it’s good to tie your life with possessions: for sure these material things won’t pass over. We make the mistake of putting pieces of our souls in these objects that keep us in one place; the garden, the trees we plant with our hands, the walls, fireplace, and so on. It is a nice, beautiful feeling to make long term plans regarding the design of your house or garden and all the investments, but isn’t this a trap to keep you stuck? We said, “At least my child won’t owe the bank, I’ll leave him this house”. But what if your child doesn’t want to live in his parent’s house? He will grow and he will move, maybe will leave the country, who knows? Another contradiction.

            Our case is like this. We moved outside Bucharest to a lake area with a half hour or forty minutes commute to work, it’s very nice. Everything is good, but sometimes we realize that we cannot adapt to locals habits. It’s much better to say that uneducated locals (there are a few families near us) cannot accept our “laws” of being quiet or not throwing garbage on the shore of the lake, common requests that could make all our lives nicer.

            After several conflicts and verbal threats from them, we understood that we couldn’t educate anyone here. The rural are too aggressive to keep up with. We thought, maybe before moving somewhere else, we could “check” the neighborhood much better. It’s a word in Romanian that says “boss, parents and neighbors are pre-assigned”. Besides, it’s difficult to move with this trail of mortgage behind us.

            We regret being owners. We try to build roots, and pay with our nerves. I think in economy of Time (with a capital T), to have a miserable life somewhere because of some stupid neighbors is pathetic and illogical. But we have to “thank” them for this cold shower of a situation we’re living in and the questions regarding the possibility of going to a completely different place, maybe another country, where we could find what we’re searching for and not be afraid to build again from almost nothing.

            This is the most I’ve felt of anything, other than anxiety and stress, in a long time. My dog passed away and I feel like my heart has been ripped out.

            Born on January 25th 1997 my little Toby had 13 years of a fantastic healthy life. He came into my life when I was in 7th grade, when everything in my body was changing and the toughest years of my life were ahead of me.

            Toby began as a fluffy happy go lucky toy and quickly became one of the most reliable companions I had in my life. Obviously, as a 7th grader, he taught me responsibility and made me aware that I was not the only person in the world and that it didn’t revolve around me like I once thought.

            As time passed, my love for the critter grew and grew. I went away to school and missed him so, but would always hear stories about him from my mom and dad. He was the baby of the family when I left.

            When I got sick with the eating disorder I left college and I spent time at home trying to get better. It was really hard. I didn’t realize how much Toby helped me through that time. He was the only one in the house I gave full access to my life of secrets and lies. He was the only one who could walk in on me and make me stop- he was like the little brother that kept me honest. Toby brought me peace and comfort during the most impossible moments in my life.

            My mom called me at 1:30am 2 days after he passed. We stayed on the phone for 45 minutes talking about him. Remembering his spirit and the joy he brought to us. He was so dedicated, obedient, and loving. He had so much respect for us, and as my family and I look back, we realize how much respect we had for him.

             Both my parents have been devastated by the loss as they were there for him on his last night here. He was sick and in so much pain they made the decision to put him to sleep. It was obviously difficult for them, but they couldn’t imagine having him feel like that any longer. My mom held his little body as they pushed the syringe. I can’t even imagine where her mind takes her when she remembers him.

            Unfortunately, for them, their memories are very painful, and for me, they are clear. Of our last walk together, down the same roads I played on with him during my childhood, but clouded by the pain of my parent’s suffering.

            It has all given us a chance to reflect on how we live and how grateful we are of life. My father has been feeling guilt for not having taken advantage of Toby’s peacefulness and joyful life. I assured him that whatever time he spent with Toby, Toby enjoyed and thought of nothing beyond that moment, as I did when I was a child.

             Even if my father was very busy making ends meet with his business all the time, I never noticed that he wasn’t there, but only when he was. The quality of our time together was so satisfying there was nothing left to desire.

            While I feel like I’ve lost a little brother, and my father feels regret for not spending more time with his son, I think my mother has been hurt most deeply.

As her 2 daughters left the house to live their own lives 3 years apart, she was left with her baby boy.

            She cared for him like no one else. She was so dedicated to him and spent so much time with him, it’s incalculable to even try to compare it to someone else.

She groomed him weekly, bathed him and trimmed him, spent one whole day of her 2 days off each week totally devoted to him and his needs.

            The respect between the two of them was immeasurable. True love, but with Toby gone, my mother will need to find new things to occupy her time with. She had a weeks vacation before Toby died to spend with him in which she began to exercise regularly, long walks with him. She lost her mother 2 years ago and, seemingly, lost the will to take care of herself. Now, with Toby gone, I feel like she will revive her strength and move on for both of them.

            Thankfully, my family and I were reminded of loosing a loved one with the passing of our 13-year-old shitzu who had a happy, satisfying life. My father, reminded to cherish every moment, my mother, to live each day with passion and strength and myself, to be grateful of everyone who has helped me conquer obstacles and get to where I am in my life, career and beyond.

“Meaning makes a great deal of things bearable—perhaps everything.” Jung

            Yes, this was a dog, but can you ever really say, “just a dog”? He was a companion with a slew of nicknames and stories. All that is gone is his little bark and soft fur. What remains are the powerful life lessons and hilarious memories that, when we are ready to share again, will never die, but only bring us closer together. Isn’t that what a family’s pets job really is?

To Toby:

The best “Investigator”, “Inspector”, “Protector”,

“Sock Thief”, “Little Brother” any family could have ever asked for.

You are completely and totally bonkers.But don’t worry. All the best people are.(From Disney’s Alice in Wonderland)Through the years I’ve been told that I am completely and totally bonkers. Why? Another quote from the Alice and Wonderland film (which I loved!) gives a clue. This, from Alice’s father, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” In Wonderland fashion, I have lived my life believing impossible things. For example

• I believe the human species is evolving—Homo Sapien on the path to becoming Homo Glorious!
• I believe we can heal the Earth.
• I believe I can become enlightened.
• I believe the Lion can lie down with the Lamb.
• I believe in Faeries.
• I believe in communicating with our Ancestors.

It feels good to say those things out loud. Speaking them gives them form, begins the transformation process from impossible to possible. It’s magic, really.But I’m not just bonkers. I’m also quite normal. I live in a sweet little house with three purring cats and an African tortoise. I have a job that supports me well and that I enjoy. I’m the middle child of three girls. My divorced parents are both living, although my Mom suffered a stroke three years ago and a bad fall last summer that resulted in a broken arm and hip. After two failed hip replacements, her life hung in the balance, so we decided the only option was to remove the replacements. Now she is “hipless, but not hopeless” and learning to walk again.I am excited to be part of the Flying Blog team. My posts will chronicle my journey–finding the balance between bonkers and normal as I make my way in the world as a woman, a mystic, an artist, a teacher, a daughter, sister, lover and friend. I hope, as this blog develops and deepens, that it might strike a chord of resonance with some of you and through the magic of the Internet we might connect as fellow travelers along the way.

I was on my way back home from Sandton yesterday.  We were coming from a Christmas party that the hospital organised for kids with cardiac failure.  We were in a taxi and everybody was tired from job interviews, so the taxi was very quiet except for the soothing music that the drive was playing.

When we reached the robots, a woman was standing there with her kids, one on her back the other on her hand.  She was askign for food or money.  I looked at her and the kids and you could see they haven’t had a decent meal, a bath, or washed and ironed clothes.  I took my left overs from the party and gave it to them.  I also gave them a ten rand note and the taxi took off.

Suddenly everyone was awake and talking.  They were saying all sorts of bad things about this woman:  How lazy she is and the fact that she was using the poor kids.  I didn’t believe it.  Deep down in my heart, I knew that something went terribly wrong and I know she tried to make it and stay strong for her kids.

But, hey life is tough.  It’s the jungle out there.  It’s a survival of the fittest.

I haven’t stopped thinking about her and praying for them to be safe.  I have also realised that I am so blessed to have a roof over my head and running water and clothes.  I can still afford to cook me and the kids a decent healthy meal.  I am also thankful that I can still afford to send my  kids to school and pack a lunch box for them.  Mostly that I have friends who care about me.  I pray that life works out for that lady.  Those kids don’t deserve this life.  They truly have to enjoy being kids, to be protected, loved cared for and to feel safe at all times.

And as for everyone in that taxi who thought all sort of rubbish about that woman, I have on thing to say to you.  Life is a game.  You win if you know how to play and if you are not a quitter.

Bitter? Moi?

Mais, non! I live in the greatest country in the world. Everything we touch turns to gold! Why, just look at all the great things we’ve accomplished in Afghanistan!

In today’s Guardian, we learn that Three Cups of Tea and The Kite Runner be damned, things are NOT better for women in Afghanistan.

Afghan women protest at the proposed new family law Photograph: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

(For more of my writing on this subject in the past, see When Will Women Matter; Faces; Will Women Pay for Peace in Afghanistan; and How Can I Bear It?.)

According to reporter Janine di Giovani:

Eight years later I returned, but the Afghanistan I found was far from jubilant. Despite the money poured into reconstruction and development, it is one of the five poorest countries in the world. There is 40% unemployment – nearly 80% in some parts of the country. A third of children under five are malnourished. Life expectancy is 43 – and it is one of only three countries in the world where women die earlier than men.

Did you read that statistic? LIFE EXPECTANCY IS 43 and women die earlier than men. 

You would think, given those miserable statistics, that perhaps the United States and the Afghan government would be looking at ways to improve the lives of its people, especially its women.

Yeah, right. When things aren’t going right in a society, what’s the first thing that gets blamed? Lax morality. And who is responsible for lax morality? Yep. Us. Those daughters of Eve.

I arrived to meet women before the presidential elections next month and to talk about a new law, which if brought in, could have drastic repercussions for women. The Shia Family Planning law was signed last March by President Hamid Karzai in an attempt, many believe, to appease powerful mullahs. The Afghan constitution allows Shias to have a separate family law from the Sunni majority based on traditional Shia jurisprudence, and some think the law is linked to the August elections and the Shia electorate who would have to abide by it (they could form up to 20% of the electorate).

The proposed law led to furious protests from women’s groups. It sanctioned marital rape and brought back Taliban-era restrictions on women by outlining when a woman could leave her house and the circumstances in which she has to have sex with her husband; Shia woman would be allowed to leave home alone “for a legitimate purpose” only which the law does not define, and could refuse sex with their husbands only when ill or menstruating.

You see? The best thing for a woman who is not going to live very long anyway is to just have sex with her husband whether she wants to or not; to stay in her house; and to keep her fucking pie-hole shut.

Following international outrage, Karzai backtracked and said the law would be reviewed. This month it was amended and re-signed by the president, but has not yet been ratified by parliament. Human rights groups say it is unclear how much the amendments have done to improve the law. And the law has already achieved its aim – instilling fear and insecurity among an already traumatised female population.

Soraya Sobhrang, a human rights activist I met in her Kabul office, says, “The law will affect all women if it goes through. It opens the door for other repressive laws to be passed, for Sunni Muslims as well as Shia.” A young doctor friend, Najeeb Shawal, says he is seeing more female patients who were depressed since news of the law emerged. “They have the kind of hopelessness that comes with knowing your life is incredibly repressed. And might become more so.”

Congratulations. The law is already working. We love it when women are depressed. That means we don’t need to worry about them going outside and making a ruckus. Instead, they’ll just stay inside, and, if we’re really lucky, they’ll stick their heads in gas ovens or set their burqas on fire. Everybody wins!

By the way. Karzai’s original excuse for signing the law? He didn’t read it before he signed it. 

There are bright spots in Afghanistan:

Bamiyan is the home of the Shia Hazara, the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. I am surprised by the “city’s” remoteness because there has been a huge outcry here from the women over the law: demonstrations, protests on the radio, grass roots organisations very quickly coming together. I meet one of the protest leaders in a small restaurant overlooking the holes in the mountain left when the Taliban blew up the ancient Buddha statues there in 2001. Batool Mohammadi is 27, black-robed, and heavily pregnant. “The law does not fit with humanitarian law,” she says. Batool, a Hazara, comes from the generation of Afghan women born after the Soviet invasion and raised during the Taliban era. She has only known war, conflict and repression. The small window of triumph after the fall of the Taliban – who brutally repressed the Hazaras – has given her a taste of freedom and she is not ready to give it up. “In an area as traditional as Bamiyan, one of the major problems with this law is that it will stop the trend towards modernisation.” As Batool leaves, she says that when her baby is born in June, she wants him or her to enter a world moving towards equality, not repression.

The governor, Habiba Sarabi, is the former Minister of Women and as a Shia will have to obey the law if it is passed. She meets us in her sparse office, a grim, Soviet-style building set on a windswept plain. There are plates of nuts and fruits and the governor, looking exhausted, nibbles dried apricot. At 53, Sarabi is no-nonsense. She is a chemist by trade and speaks good English. The daughter of an illiterate mother who encouraged her daughter to read and write, she tells me when she was young she was mocked as she walked to school alone. Having struggled so hard it was particularly hard to see her own daughter, now 24, denied education under the Taliban. The family escaped to Pakistan and Sarabi worked on human rights and women’s projects.

On the new law, she tries to be diplomatic, but I can tell she is concerned: “Fortunately, women raised their voice.” She is confident (perhaps overly so) that the law will not go through. But later, at her residence, when she curls her stockinged feet under her, she admits the wider crisis. Bamiyan is one of the few success stories in Afghanistan: it is poppy-free, the government functions well, and as she points out, “It is the safest place in Afghanistan. The rule of law is important here.” She has improved the education and health services (instigating midwife programmes, for example, in a province that has one major hospital). But can this last? If, following elections, Karzai succumbs to the mullahs (who exercise huge political power in Bamiyan and the rest of the country), for how long will it be safe for women? Even Sarabi finally admitted that if the law is ratified, it would affect her too.

But those women who have been unaffected by these new laws are rare. And a lot of women are frightened: who wouldn’t be?

Women who have managed to cross gender boundaries seem in a state of shock over the law. Jamila Barekzai is a police officer whose female colleague was killed by the Taliban last year in Kandahar for daring to do a mans’ job. When I go to meet her at the Central Afghan Police Headquarters on the edge of Kabul, next to one of the biggest Shia mosques in the city, she is wearing her olive uniform and heavy black eyeliner. She was transferred from Kandahar last year to Kabul when she thought she would be killed too. She takes out her mobile phone and plays a recording of an unnamed Taliban telling her to stop working, “or you will be taught the lesson we taught your friend”. She says she was mainly frightened for her children and touches the gun at her hip.

President Obama has committed more troops to Afghanistan, ostensibly for finding that guy (what was his name? the one who blew up the towers?) and gettting the increasing threat of terrorism from the Swot Valley in Pakistan under control.

But are women on President Obama’s radar? Are we going to be willing to trade stability in the area for the lives of millions of Afghani women who will once again be confined to their homes, illiterate, ill-considered, depressed, and basic sperm receptacles for their husbands? Is this the legacy that Obama wants to leave in Afghanistan?

Or can we start, right from the beginning, by saying to Karzai that yes, we know you have us by the gas hose right now because you have access to that pipeline we want, but hey, women are people, too.

Please, President Obama. If we are to go to war in Afghanistan, make it mean something. I do not want to have to write in five years that we have subdued the terrorists, but once again, we have paid for it with women’s lives.

President Obama, First Lady Obama, Secretary of State Clinton–anyone–everyone–who will listen: do not turn your backs on the women of Afghanistan. They are not collateral damage. We are not collateral damage of war. We are human beings. We have feelings. And bodies. And we hurt. And we ache. And we grieve. And if, once again, we are told that it is more important that we are treated like pieces of shit so that some problem may be solved, it may be that some of us may not be able to take that anymore.

So please.

I beg you.

On my knees.

For the women of Afghanistan.
Don’t. Forget. Us.

When I leave, someone tells me the Taliban spring offensive has begun, American troops are pouring in, and President Karzai is beginning his political campaign. I keep thinking of Batool, the pregnant activist in Bamiyan, and her baby, and her life in 20 years’ time. If the law does not pass and women continue rolling on, she has a chance. If not, she might still be wearing a burka and never learn how to drive.

—–

Governor David A. Paterson has directed that flags on New York State government buildings be flown at half-staff on Thursday,  July 16, 2009,  in honor of  a Fort Drum Soldier  killed in Afghanistan on July 9, 2009.
Spec. Joshua R. Farris of La Grange, Texas, died in Wardak Pronvince of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.  Spec. Farris was a member to the 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team of 10th Mountain Division.
” I speak for all New Yorkers when I say that we will forever honor the service this young soldier gave to our nation, ” said Governor Paterson.  “He was not a native New Yorker, but we consider all soldiers stationed at Fort Drum to be one of our own.  On behalf of the people of the State, I extend our deepest sympathy to the family, friends and fellow soldiers of Sepc. Farris.”
Governor Paterson has directed the flags on all State buildings to be lowered to half-staff in honor and tribute to our State’s service members who are killed in action.

And the beat goes on….

Poor Sonia Sotomayor. David Brooks writes a sympathetic piece about her this morning, focusing on the fact that she has worked hard her entire life, sacrificed relationships and family, all in chasing the comfort of work.

In Brooks’ picture of Sotomayor, her loss of her father at nine took something away from her, and she’s been on a quest to fill that hole ever since. She works. All the time. And has “failed” relationships and no children to show for it.

But let’s think about this for a moment, shall we? If I were reading this as a work of fiction, I would recognize all the tropes of a moral story. Ebenezer Scrooge perhaps, who loses his humanity, works too many hours chasing the almighty dollar, and then finally, at the end of his life, finds empathy and the company of his fellow humans…?

So, now, I’m really confused. Because aren’t we told that Sotomayor has “too much empathy for her fellow humans,”  that that quality will make her a terrible judge because she won’t rule by some “philosophical-historical construct of objectivity?”

Capitalism thrives on the emotionally “crippled,” on those who are unable to form relationships with their fellow people, who retreat to their work and work and work and contribute to capitalist growth. That’s one story. The other story is that capitalism thrives on those who are so dedicated to their work out of love and passion that they spend hours and hours doing it until they find what it is they’re chasing — and then bring home the bacon, long after their families have fallen asleep, to fund their subsistence.

But it seems those characteristics only apply to men. It’s easy to imagine a man being too busy to get married, or loving his work so much that he can never come home for dinner or be there before the kids go to bed. He has a wife who makes up the slack. But a woman who loves her work that much? “Sssssh. There’s something wrong with her.”

As Brooks quotes:

“As an adult, the profiles describe her as upbeat and social, leading walks to Brooklyn, hosting poker parties, serving as godmother to many children. Yet over the years, she has been remarkably honest about the costs of her workaholism.”

“Her marriage broke up after two years. She was quoted as saying, ‘I cannot attribute that divorce to work, but certainly the fact that I was leaving my home at 7 and getting back at 10 o’clock was not of assistance in recognizing the problems developing in my marriage.’ ”

“Later, during a swearing-in ceremony in 1998, she referred to her then-fiancé, ‘The professional success I had achieved before Peter did nothing to bring me genuine personal happiness.’ She addressed him, saying that he had filled ‘voids of emptiness that existed before you. … You have altered my life so profoundly that many of my closest friends forget just how emotionally withdrawn I was before I met you.’ ”

“That relationship ended after eight years, and her biographers paint a picture of a life now that is frantically busy, fulfilling and often aloof. ‘You make play dates with her months and months in advance because of her schedule,’ a friend of hers told The Times.”

“This isn’t the old story of a career woman trying to balance work and family. This is the story of pressures that affect men as well as women (men are just more likely to make fools of themselves in response, as the news of the last few years indicates). It’s the story of people in a meritocracy that gets more purified and competitive by the year, with the time demands growing more and more insistent.”

Okay. So Brooks backs off for a moment, and says there are plenty of men and women like Sotomayor–the elites, driven by their work (who, by the way, are not having babies)–whose relationships at work become a pale shadow of a real emotional relationship.

He continues:

“These profiles give an authentic glimpse of a style of life that hasn’t yet been captured by a novel or a movie — the subtle blend of high-achiever successes, trade-offs and deep commitments to others. In the profiles, you see the intoxicating lure of work, which provides an organizing purpose and identity. You see the web of mentor-mentee relationships — the courtship between the young and the middle-aged, and then the tensions as the mentees break off on their own. You see the strains of a multicultural establishment, in which people try to preserve their ethnic heritage as they ascend into the ranks of the elite. You see the way people not only choose a profession, it chooses them. It changes them in a way they probably didn’t anticipate at first.”

“My impression is that judges feel the strain between their social roles and their social lives more acutely than anybody. They are often outgoing people who, because of their jobs, cannot freely socialize with lawyers and others who share their deepest interests. But Sotomayor’s life also overlaps with a broader class of high achievers. You don’t succeed at that level without developing a single-minded focus, and struggling against its consequences. ”

Brooks is undercutting the whole notion that judges should be in positions to make decisions about “real” American life. After all, so many of them fail to live that life (unless they’re traditionalists like those male judges whose faithful wives stand next to them on the podium as they’re introduced.) Judges are disconnected from what real Americans feel, so how can they possibly judge us?

But it’s not just judges. I have two male friends who have both opted not to marry or have children because of their work. I know men in marriages who are workaholics and ignore their families. No one seems to pay much attention to them, until the day their wives walk out on them after the kids have been raised and gone and there’s no one there. My point is, many, many families are like this. This is more the real America than what Brooks somehow thinks. Many people are cut off from the most basic of human emotions.

No wonder the word “empathy” scares the crap out of so many of Sotomayor’s critics.

But life is not just about relationships. May Sarton has written poignantly about the life of “solititude,” not loneliness. Rainier Maria Rilke insists:

“What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours - that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child, when the grown-ups walked around involved with matters that seemed large and important because they looked so busy and because you didn’t understand a thing about what they were doing. ”

We cannot grow without being able to embrace our solitude. While most of us grow within “traditional” relationships, not all of us do. The construction of the family is meant to discipline us for civic life, as well as to comfort us. Yet, to the confusion of some, there are those of us who do not want to live within that discipline.

Finally. Brooks speaks of the “elite woman” once again, who has given up love for work. Never, never does he talk about the low-income women who are working three jobs and have no time for love. Or the middle class man or the homeless person. Forgoing love is not just for the elites. Sometimes, forgoing love is forced upon us.

I just wish sometimes that Brooks could walk among the real people, see that there is not this world of happy workers who love God, their spouses, and their (even unwanted) babies and their jobs versus a world of high-achieving over-educated miserable elites who complain about everything.

The world is just not that Manichean, David. These issues are not “black and white.” Or did you not learn that when you read Augustine–the original who struggled with the life of solitude (which he thought would bring him closer to God and to agape) versus the life of the family (which gave him sensual pleasure and human love)?

(This story is a collaboration with rstiene.)

It’s funny what we’re drawn to. I was terrified of cemeteries when I was a kid. In one of our many houses (we moved frequently when I was a kid), our backyard abutted a cemetery, and never once, ever, did I cross the fence line and venture inside.

The local kids told tales, of course. Supposedly, one grave was illuminated at night by a lantern, hung by a grieving husband. I find that tale poignant now, but—back then—I was terrified by the thought of some old man keeping constant vigil at his wife’s grave. He might as well have been a ghost, for it was clear to us he certainly had a ghost story.

Things changed when I moved to the Finger Lakes. For one thing, the boneyards here, I discovered, resembled none I’d had seen in the Seattle area. There, cemeteries were evenly spaced rows of square granite—uniformly shaped. From the road, nothing appeared unusual, and no grave called attention to itself. Some cemeteries didn’t even permit above-ground monuments. They called themselves “parks,” and the markers were spare, metal rectangles noting only name, birth and death date.

But here in the East, my first rental house stood across the road from an ancient and none-well-too-kept graveyard which bore the name of the road upon which I lived. From my porch, I could see obelisks, and columns, and tablets, and other shapes I did not have words for. They all said “old.” The historian in me (I had come to Cornell to get a graduate degree in history) buzzed, surmised and inquired as I ventured across the road.

The names and dates were sobering. For the first time, I think, my inner historian saw the reality of what childhood diseases did to children in centuries past: they killed them. So many under the age of five; so many adolescents. Local accounts record that the flu and pneumonia and diphtheria and the measles and scarlet fever and smallpox and diarrhea carried them off. And carried off the women, too. In their 20s and 30s. Sometimes, buried with the infants whose birth had killed them.

Sometimes not.

There were stories told there, written in dates, carved in stone. And so, now, later yet, graveyards still call to me. I go there simply to get perspective. Sometimes, to do historical research. Sometimes, to admire the signs and designs. And sometimes, to simply read epitaphs. I usually go alone. This Memorial Day weekend, I went with Rob. We are both writers, and we were looking for stories among the plots.

—————

We’d gardened our own small backyard plot all the prior day—one of those scorching but soupy Saturdays that lets you know early summer is upon you, and that you’d better get those veggies and herbs planted. Appropriate for a Memorial Day weekend.

So Sunday morning, I broached over coffee the idea of finding a “slave burial ground” that, if memory served, was just up the road from our new apartment, in the Town of Caroline. For years I’d had passed a road marker pointing the way to this tidbit of history (in a state that abolished slavery in 1820), but had never had the occasion to stop.

We Googled what we were looking for. The photo showed a green hillside, and a note said that the slaves buried there had been owned by four families who had moved up from the South (I loved that bit of detail. Of course no real New Yorker would have owned slaves, don’t you know?) The burial ground was now on private property. Still, we wanted to see what we could see.

The road was flat—a rarity around here—and aptly named, “Level Green Road.” We drove to where our research said the cemetery was, but after driving a mile or two, it was clear we’d missed it. The sign I’d remembered being there for years was missing.

We turned the car around and crawled back down the road. On our left, we recognized the view from the photograph on the web. Around here, in early spring, so many shades of green surround you that you find yourself reaching for words like “chartreuse” or made up words like “viridescent,” to describe the hues that shade from tree to tree to bush to wildflower to vine to plant to field. Verdant maple trees bent toward a jade hill.

Seriously. And the sky really was cerulean.

We didn’t get out of the car. At the front of the property sat a mustard-yellow trailer; toys littered the front yard, and hanging baskets filled with purple petunias framed the doorway. People lived there, and it wouldn’t be right to tromp across their land to try to find the evidence of graves. Rob suggested we check out a secluded graveyard he’d spotted off Ellis Hollow Road while piloting the moving truck a couple of weeks before.

This time, we did inadvertently traipse across someone’s property, attracting a woman who helpfully stopped her gardening long enough to share a secret or two with us: how, all on their own, they’d gently tried to maintain the “Ellis Hollow Cemetery” while keeping it unobtrusive. In past years, teenagers had damaged some of the graves, and careless people had picnicked in the cemetery. “I know that the Ellises are buried there, and Ellis Hollow is named for them,” she said, “But that’s not how you behave in a graveyard.”

We agreed, then out-stepped her on the path to the cemetery, and she returned to her gardening.

“The Ellises are buried there,” Rob said. “Do you really think that people make a pilgrimage to see where Mr. Ellis is buried?”

It was clear someone took gentle care of this place. The grass was clipped, the iron-rail fences well-kempt, the graves cleared of all weeds and tree-fall. American flags marked perhaps a dozen of the stones.

Very East coast: the markers were a mosaic of styles, but mostly tall, skinny white granite obelisks mixed with thin, flat slate rectangles with carvings atop them. They reminded me of the carved wood you might see on top of a Victorian couch.

There’s a squared-off obelisk crowned with a draped urn. In the row beyond, some flat stones, each with a hand carved into their faces, each hand with an index finger pointed heavenward. Others featured cypress trees. Once again, I made a mental note to someday discover up the symbolism of gravestone design.

A great number of the graves bore birthdates from the 18th century. And, as usual, tiny stones marked the remains of infants and children. I saw again what I’ve never gotten used to: the name of a man, and below that, “his wife” and her name. Below that, “his wife” and her name. Sometimes, I’ve seen men who are buried with three wives; all married consecutively, of course. These were not polygamists. These were men who lost their wives in childbirth and then promptly married again. If the second wife was lucky, she outlived him. But I couldn’t help thinking what that must have felt like. To know that you were going to be buried with your husband—and his first wife—and to know that from the beginning of your marriage? Was that a comfort? Or would you forever feel like the “replacement” wife who couldn’t even get her own grave? There’s a story there.

The largest stones are usually “family” markers, often with the names of two or more marriage-related clans engraved (or embossed) upon them. These monuments boast many regionally familiar names (Ellis, Landon, Lounsbery, Middaugh); families who tended to marry into families whose names have also became “places.” And so—by tombstone matchmaking—we gathered a sense of not just which families had socialized with each other, but which have outlasted their secreted tombstones to become green street signs and town boundary markers. Not stories so much as sentinels.

And the personal names—what names they were. Rob called out the unusual ones, and I wrote them down in my notebook. Calvin Deputron. Sextus and Abbie Landon. Personeus (or Personius). Rhoode. Olive and Mienert Redenius.

“An excellent name,” called out Rob, later, from a gravesite on White Church Road: “Squire Crane!”

The problem with the thin slate markers is that the engravings fade. A 150 years’ worth of snow and wind and rain and sun will wear away the slate, which is a shame, because—frequently—those flat slate markers had the most eloquent epitaphs.

I found the grave of a five-month old infant. I neglected to write down the child’s name. But I was on my hands and knees to trying to read the epitaph. Finally, lying in the grass with my nose almost against the gravestone, I squinted to see what a grieving parent had chosen as an appropriate sentiment to put upon so tender a loss.

Rob joined me. This is what we were able to transcribe:

Happy infant earthly bless’d

Rest in peaceful slumber rest

Early rescued from the courres

Which increaseth with growth in years

I think courres (and we’re almost certain these were the letters) is “curse.” Dying as an infant let you escape Adam’s curse, and I wondered if a weeping mother had taken joy in knowing that her child was now with God. So there was a story.

———–

In the several cemeteries we visited, American flags had been placed by the local American Legion at the graves of veterans. And, as it turned out, many of the veterans were from the 19th century. Some indicated Civil War service. Others were less forthcoming.

We stood in front of this grave for a long time:

MAJ PELEG ELLIS

D 5/9/1859 on the 84th anniversary of his birth

The name “Ellis” appears a lot around here. Stories there for sure. But I wondered why his birth date wasn’t given. Problem was, Rob and I were both having brain farts, and couldn’t figure out what year he’d been born in. It was right there in the stone: 1859 minus 84, but damned if either one of us in a moment could do the simple math in our head, which made us both laugh, which made doing the math that much harder, which caused us to laugh even harder. If the private lady-caretaker next door was listening, I’m sure we sorely disappointed her. No way to behave in a graveyard.

Inevitably, silence overtook us again, and shadowed us the rest of that hot Sunday. Later, as we watered our new garden in the late afternoon sun’s lantern light, it seemed silly. 1775. Of course. Like I said, it was right there in the stone.

But by then what had become more obvious was that it wasn’t the number of years counted by one tombstone that’s important to remember. It’s the number of flags we saw on this Memorial Day. And, under each, a Memorial Day story.

And so we watered the garden.

Please don’t ask me to write a history of violence against doctors and clinics who provide reproductive medical care to women.

If you are at all aware, if you have read a newspaper in the past 25 years, you know. You just know.

The Wichita Eagle has a full page of reaction to Dr. George Tiller’s murder on its front page. Last night, mourners turned out to hold a vigil for Dr. Tiller. As usual, those who like to dance on others’ graves also turned out, with their hateful signs. These signs were similar to the hateful twitter messages that ChangeAgent has so masterfully documented over at her blog.

When President Obama said that he wanted to meet in the middle on the abortion issue a few weeks ago, I wrote then that I felt as if he had just thrown women under the bus. There is no middle with anti-abortion extremists. They are not interested in meeting in the middle. They are only interested in one thing: eradicating all abortion, all access to abortion. In many cases, they want to eliminate access to certain forms of birth control, (some–all forms of birth control), and, if they can’t get what they want by legal means, they practice terrorism.

Thus, yesterday was inevitable.

The anti-abortion violence of the 1980’s and 1990’s, when clinics and OB-GYNs were slaughtered–some in their own homes, as Dr. Slepian was, were horrible times. They have left us now, with the experience of going to Planned Parenthood and having to pass through metal detectors and bullet proof glass. If you are going into a clinic where abortions are performed, you have to pass by people who feel it is their job to judge you, no matter why you might be going to the clinic.

These people have no compassion. You may be having to go in for a D&C because your fetus has died inside you–you’re still a babykiller in their eyes. You may be the victim of rape. Babykiller. You may simply be too young, or too poor, or not able to care for a child–you’re a babykiller.

Funny, but I don’t see those same people outside urologists’ offices screaming at men that getting a vasectomy constitutes being a sperm-killer or a potential baby killer.

I wish I could write something eloquent, something full of compassion for those who oppose abortion so violently and ask, “can’t we all get along?”

But I don’t have that in me today.

I am mourning Dr. Tiller. I am mourning the women who decided today that they are too frightened to take care of their medical needs. I am mourning the areas of the country that will lose access to adequate medical care for women. I am mourning the messages that are being sent out–once again–to women that their bodies don’t matter. The only thing that counts about a woman’s body is that she can produce babies. And if she wants to not produce babies, well, if we can’t stop you legally, we’ll close the clinics, kill the doctors, tighten the noose so that you will have to travel thousands of miles to find help.

I grieve. Please don’t ask me to be rational or make sense.

I grieve. And I’m angry.

I grieve, but I will not hurt someone in return.

I grieve, but you will not silence me.

I will grieve, and then I will do whatever I can to fight for reproductive rights.

I repeat the pledge I made a few weeks ago: I will purchase Plan B contraception for any woman who needs it.

To the hate-mongers on television who equate abortion with murder: you condoned this, you encourage those who are unhinged to carry out your dirty work. You should be held accountable. I will not hurt you with violence. But I will write to your advertisers, and I will encourage those who advertise with you, to withdraw their advertising or ask them why they support terrorist sympathizers.

For this is what this is. Terrorism. Plain and Simple. Not done by “foreigners.” But by “Americans.”

There is no excuse for it. None.

And we will fight you. Peacefully. But relentlessly. We will not go back to the days of coat hangers and illegal abortions. We will not sneak around to maintain sovereignty OVER OUR OWN BODIES.

We are here. We are not going away. And you will not frighten us.

I got that feeling again last night. It swelled again this morning, when I read Nicholas Kristof’s piece (about how rape is not treated as a priority crime) in the New York Times. It’s that “it’s not your turn,” feeling. That “don’t be so pushy,” feeling. That “you’re being selfish; don’t you realize that there are much more important things going on in the world than you?”

As a woman, I’ve heard that argument more times than there are members of Congress. I heard it first as a little girl, when it was made clear to me that I need to wait my turn, to not ask for too much, to stop thinking that everything is about me.

The question last night was to President Obama, who was asked about his campaign promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act in his first 100 days. FOCA has not been signed, and last night, listening closely made me uneasy. Yes. The Obama administration has lifted the international gag rule. And yes, the courts have ruled that the Bush administration used politics over science to decide who could have access to the Morning After pill.

But President Obama, when questioned about FOCA last night, sounded suddenly like a man who was brushing off a question he no longer found all that important. Here is the full transcript of the exchange between him and the reporter:

REPORTER: As a candidate, you vowed that one of the very things you wanted to do was sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which, as you know, would eliminate federal, state and local restrictions on abortion. And at one point in the campaign when asked about abortion and life, you said that it was above — quote, ‘above my pay grade.’

Now that you’ve been president for 100 days, obviously, your pay grade is a little higher than when you were a senator.

Do you still hope that Congress quickly sends you the Freedom of Choice Act so you can sign it?

OBAMA: You know, the — my view on — on abortion, I think, has been very consistent. I think abortion is a moral issue and an ethical issue.

I think that those who are pro-choice make a mistake when they — if they suggest — and I don’t want to create straw men here, but I think there are some who suggest that this is simply an issue about women’s freedom and that there’s no other considerations. I think, look, this is an issue that people have to wrestle with and families and individual women have to wrestle with.

OBAMA: The reason I’m pro-choice is because I don’t think women take that — that position casually. I think that they struggle with these decisions each and every day. And I think they are in a better position to make these decisions ultimately than members of Congress or a president of the United States, in consultation with their families, with their doctors, with their clergy.

So — so that has been my consistent position. The other thing that I said consistently during the campaign is I would like to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies that result in women feeling compelled to get an abortion, or at least considering getting an abortion, particularly if we can reduce the number of teen pregnancies, which has started to spike up again.

And so I’ve got a task force within the Domestic Policy Council in the West Wing of the White House that is working with groups both in the pro-choice camp and in the pro-life camp, to see if we can arrive at some consensus on that.

Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest legislative priority. I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that’s — that’s where I’m going to focus.

I’m sorry, Mr. President. I don’t care about the Right’s ANGER on this issue. I care about the fact that there are millions of women in this country who cannot get access to abortion because of the myriad restrictions that have been placed upon the medical procedure by legislators who have no business telling women what they can or cannot do with their reproductive capabilities.

I used to be a lot more moderate in my views. I used to be a lot more willing to listen to the other side’s arguments about what’s involved in abortion. But not anymore. Women die every day in childbirth. Women die every day from botched abortions. Women die every day in Africa from injuries, caused by rape, that are exacerbated by pregnancy. THIS IS NOT A MORAL ISSUE. THIS IS A PUBLIC HEALTH ISSUE.

Mr. President, this is also an economic issue. If you do indeed care for the working class and middle class who are suddenly struggling to put food on the table, don’t you think you should be worried about the women out there who can’t put food in one more child’s mouth? And don’t tell me she should be using birth control. EVEN WITH INSURANCE, insurance companies manage to get away with charging outrageous co-pays for birth control pills and other devices. (One pack of pills is $25 a month co-pay. That’s a lot of money when you’re struggling.)

If we were talking about any other health issue out there, would we be having this argument? Why, when it comes to women’s bodies and their rights to control their fertility, do these issues suddenly become about morals? Why are you, President Obama, backing away from a promise that you made so that you might spend some time trying to appease those people who do not want women to have abortions at any time for any reason? They are not to be reasoned with.

You cannot make them happy. You cannot make them like you on this issue.

Please stop. Please just do what you said you were going to do. Lift the restrictions on a woman’s health options.

PLEASE.

Maureen Dowd is mystified as to why Elizabeth Edwards felt it necessary to pen her memoir, Resilience.

John told her a little about Rielle a few days after he announced in 2006, and she told him to drop out to “protect our family from this woman, from his act,” she writes.

She said she cried, screamed and threw up when she found out. But she ended up going along, helping sell the voters on her husband’s character as a truth teller and charm as a loving husband and father. She had put so many quarters in the shiny slot machine of their mutual ambition. It was hard to walk away.

Just as it’s hard to walk away from her desire to prosecute her husband and his former girlfriend now in public, while still taking the marriage “month by month.”

Ms. Edwards also mentions how frustrating it was to be married to a man who appeared much younger than she, and she blames his charming, good looks for the pass that was made at him by Rielle. If she hadn’t made the pass, Edwards would have been a good boy. Like Dowd, I call bullshit.

I don’t know John Edwards personally. (And as a point of disclosure, he was the person I supported early in the primaries, until he fired Amanda Marcotte as part of his staff because of the feminist stuff she wrote on her blog.) But I’ve known the John Edwards of the world. Young, handsome men who marry women who are ambitious, maternal, nurturing, smart as hell, and someone who, in another life, might have been their mother. In such a marriage, a man like Edwards gets to remain the child, always being taken care of by his wife.

In the case in my extended family, the man in question let his wife work menial jobs to put him through law school, and then a year later, after she should have been enjoying the good life with him, he impregnated his legal secretary, walked out on his family, and refused to accept responsibility for the children he had had with his first wife. And he’s still a charming, handsome man who has hit on me in the past. I just saw through him.

But, back to Maureen Dowd. I know she’s a smart woman. But I don’t understand why she doesn’t understand why someone needs to write about their pain. Maybe Ms. Edwards is trying to embarrass her husband–it’s not as if he doesn’t deserve it–but perhaps she’s trying to exorcise her own pain.

We’re writers here. Many of us deal with the most painful things you can imagine by writing about them. And we don’t just write them in our journals and forget about them. We post them, because we need someone, anyone, out there, to get why we’re hurting.

It’s part of being human. We don’t have the extended families and communities where such matters might have been resolved by many nights of tears and friends and their comfort. Now, what many of us have is this need to reach out to strangers. To say, “this happened to me.” And to know that someone will read the essay/book/poem who has been through the same thing, and somewhere in this universe, a connection will have been made.

Dowd is smart, but when she writes something like this:

Asked by Oprah in a taping for Thursday’s show whether she’s still in love with her husband, she replied, “You know, that’s a complicated question.”

The really complicated question is what she hopes to gain from this book.

I want to ask her the question. WHY do you write. Is it a purely intellectual exercise? Do you not hope to make a connection with someone out there?

The way to our hearts is not always through our brains. If Elizabeth Edwards needs to write out her pain, regardless of whether anyone buys the book, who am I–or Maureen Dowd–to tell her not to do it?

The only thing I wish for Ms. Edwards is peace. If the book helps her get there, than more power to her.

This post could simply comprise links to work I’ve done in the past three years, in which I’ve documented, over and over again, that women matter less than men in the world. Not just in “Third World” countries, where women die at extraordinary rates in childbirth or as victims of “rape as tactic of war” epidemics that wipe out swathes of women in a marauding army’s path.

Perhaps, I could talk, again, about what’s going on in Afghanistan, a nation that we swore we were going to help restore democracy to, but which, since Barack Obama has become president, we have seen the ceding of control of parts of Pakistan to the Taliban, and new laws in Afghanistan designed to soften up Talibani members so they’ll consider coming back to the Afghan government. Those laws, as you should all know by now, legalize rape in marriage. You should also know that girls attending school in Kandahar had acid thrown on their faces—for the simple crime of attending school. Or that Safia Amajan, an Afghan women’s rights advocate, was gunned down for advocating women’s rights.

Yesterday, on the OP-ED pages of the NY TIMES, Afghan women wrote the following:

That is why President Obama’s Afghanistan-Pakistan policy speech last month and his administration’s related white paper are worrisome: both avoided any reference to democracy in Afghanistan, while pointedly pushing democratic reforms in Pakistan. The new policy represents critical shifts — such as a new emphasis on civilian work, and recognizing the regional nature of the problem and the inadequacy and abuse of resources. But a faltering commitment to the democratization of Afghanistan and ambiguous statements from Washington on an exit strategy have left us Afghans scratching our heads

…there is a temptation among some in Washington to believe that if the zeal for democratic reform or women’s and minority rights in Afghanistan were relaxed, Taliban insurgents would find “reconciliation” more attractive and the war would end more quickly.

This belief is encouraged by the radically conservative forces that have increased their influence since 2005 over the Kabul government, which has been backtracking on its commitment to rights like freedom of the press and equality under the law. This was exemplified by two events last month: the upholding of a 20-year jail sentence given to a young journalist for printing a controversial article from the Internet that was critical of the role traditionally assigned to women in Islam; and President Hamid Karzai’s signing of a law affecting the country’s Shiite minority that places restrictions on when a woman can leave her house and states the circumstances in which she is obliged to have sex with her husband. That law prompted the protests this week in Kabul.

Before anyone objects that the mistreatment of women is the “Afghan way” in which we must not interfere, let me further quote the article:

As for women’s rights, the troubles that brewed in Afghanistan during the 1990s — civil war, followed by the Taliban’s totalitarianism and harboring of Al Qaeda — were in great part the result of the female half of our population being deprived of social and political participation. Like everyone else, Afghans crave security, justice, accountability, educational and employment opportunities, and a promise of a future.

Democracy and progress are not products to be packaged and exported to Afghanistan. Afghans have to fight for them. Last month, the two of us helped organize “Afghanistan: Ensuring Success,” a conference led by Zalmay Khalilzad, the Afghan-born former United States ambassador to the United Nations. Speakers included Afghans from all walks of life and there was broad agreement that, in the words of President Obama, it was time to “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off” and strive for genuine democratic progress and self-reliance.

But as we approach Afghanistan’s second democratic elections, in August, we cannot afford to have our allies falter — through rhetoric or policy — in supporting our nascent democratic forces. Those brave and burned young women of Kandahar did not give up. How could we?

I find myself wondering what would happen if, in our commitment to “human rights,” we were insistent that “women’s rights” were part of the word “human.”

Even in our own country, over and over again when the Democrats were struggling to come back to power, I found calls to soften our commitment to abortion rights, gay rights, women’s equality—the so-called “culture war” issues—in order to attract the “swing voter.”  I even watched as gay activists asked women to throw themselves under the bus in order to help gays get rid of a reprehensible U.S. Senator.  “As I wrote then, you could only ask women for so long to put their rights on the back burner before they would turn around and tell you to go piss up a rope.

So. Again. I ask. When, when will defending the rights of women be as important in foreign policy decisions as is considering strategic oil reserves, or the mistreatment of ethnic minorities, or the threat of “Communism” in certain Latin American countries? When will we cut off diplomatic relations with a country that stones its women for adultery or forces them to stay in their homes?

When will we stop with this idea that a woman’s right to control her own fertility, to choose what enters and lodges in her flesh, that her right to own her own body are “culture war” issues, and are instead, human rights issues. Basic issues? Non-negotiable demands that all humans are entitled to make?

Please tell me when women will matter. All women. Not just those who have risen to positions of authority in their country.  All women. Perhaps when we care as much about the schoolgirls in Kandahar as we do about the men of Cuba, I might finally believe that human rights matters to us.

My bona fides in writing about these issues:

http://open.salon.com/blog/fingerlakeswanderer/2009/03/31/will_women_pay_for_peace_in_afghanistan

http://open.salon.com/blog/fingerlakeswanderer/2008/11/25/faces–updated

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=24109

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=24084

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=14583

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=13396

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=13160

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=12387

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10976

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6879

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6705

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=5340

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=11981

Late fall I was standing in front of the printer reading a freshly printed document when suddenly my uncle burst through the door shouting in his hard of hearing monotone, “You’re gonna have to call the cops or the coroner. She’s as dead as a door nail.”

A man given to drama, I quickly wondered, was this another scene? As I then fearfully thought, could he be speaking of my 80-year-old aunt he lives with?

Calmly turning my attention away from the papers I asked, “Who…who’s dead?”

The door wide open behind him letting in the crisp autumn air, he annoyingly shouted, “Cat!” as if I should know.

Shocked, I dropped the papers to my side, turned my body completely towards him and said, “Do you mean Cathy…” a radiant 39-year-old Shoshone woman with attentive unusual green eyes, breath taking in compliment to her wide bright smile, dark skin, and long black hair.

His pitch black eyes piercing, “Yes, Cathy,” again like what other Cathy is there?

My daughters over hearing the commotion moved from interior rooms towards us. Standing near the doorway, he directed his attention between them and me, “I just went over to her house. They said she was still sleeping. I said, ‘it’s afternoon…it’s time for her to get up.’ So I went into her bedroom to wake her and she was dead. Dead as a door nail.”

Two major causes of death here on the reservation, alcohol and suicide, he went on, “Her uncle said she’d been sick a couple of days before.” Wanting desperately to give other reasons for the cause of her death, “Still feelin’ kinda sick, she went to bed early last night.” But it was common knowledge among those who knew Cathy well; for several months she had quit eating and had been drinking instead.

Indians and liquor like two peas in a pod, so the American stereotype goes, I felt terrible. It was not right. Cathy was a bright, bright star. Not only because of her physical beauty and intelligence, but because of an innate radiance where in a crowd she held a force field that spoke of life—making life for those that knew her more meaningful.  

Dialing 911 I thought, why didn’t she know how valuable she was? A person who affirmed life, what made her life so unbearable that she wanted to die?

Of course, here in Indian country I was well versed with the answer to this last question. The answer in a loss of hope and the reason three teenage girls were found dead in an abandoned house a few months ago. Their deaths mysterious, authorities not knowing whether it was homicide, suicide, accidental death from drugs and alcohol—and not caring since after all, they were just Indians. Or… the 8-year-old boy who was found hanging in his closet this fall barely on the edge of life who had to be life flighted to Denver. Or…the promising 18-year-old boy while walking down the road the other month was killed in a hit and run. Or…the man who recently froze to death when below zero temperatures came early and he didn’t have any heat. Or… the young father raising three kids on his own who was beat to death last summer by two teenagers. Or…the girl who recently said, “It’s not a matter of if…it’s a matter of when,” when asked by a counselor about rape.

Not much to look forward when unemployment on this reserve is 67%. With death rates the highest and youngest (at 47-years-old) among American Indians due to suicide, murder, drugs, alcohol and health issues such as heart disease and diabetes as a result of the deadly colonized diet made deadlier by poverty. This of course does not even address the extremely high rate of domestic violence and violence, incest, and rape where 1 out of every 3 males can expect to be incarcerated in their life time.

Visibly upset, my uncle kept talking as I said to the operator, “I need to report a death.” Having difficulty hearing her, I turned to my uncle, lifted my finger across my lips to tell him to quiet down. He didn’t. He kept rambling about how he found her as he then tried to yell over me, instructing the operator how he’d be at the edge of Cathy’s driveway in a “blueish-green Ford Taurus” so the “cops” would know how to find her since there was no phone at her house to call in case they got lost.

Leaving the house with the same gust of energy as his arrival, without him it was deathly quiet as my daughters and I kept saying “Damnit,” deeply feeling a great loss.

My heart knotted, I wanted to cry. I needed to cry. Changing into my biking clothes, I grabbed my helmet and jumped on my bike. When I rode those 15 some odd miles on stark high plains roads, my whole mind and body would release, and I’d empty as the sense of the sky moved timelessly through and around me. Hoping for this kind of grace, I stood up and pumped up the hill. Turning onto Washakie
Park, my chest began to break open. Anger with sorrow bubbled to the surface and I gave myself over to them. In my mind, I made an appeal—an appeal to those unknowing who were responsible for Cathy’s death. No, not directly, but by not taking responsibility for the past, she, like many other American Indian people are lost in history. The genocide against them not forgotten, but worst, not even acknowledged. And, as a result, continuing. Her precious life lost testament of it.

With hot tears stinging my nose, I pumped harder, feeling that I…I needed to speak for Cathy, for those three beautiful teenage girls, for the 8-year-old boy, for my cousin who hung himself in jail, for my uncle who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome, for…

For all those who are silenced and forgotten, who never got a chance to speak, who in loss of dignity never got a chance to live their lives long enough, free enough to discover and be who they really are.

Crying uncontrollably now, I remembered Leonard Peltier’s poem. Like Nelson Mandela, an American Indian martyr who has been in prison for 30-some-odd years for a crime he never committed. For being considered a threat to the American fiction as he refused to be silenced, he continues to write from prison. In his poem An Eagle’s Cry he speaks: “I am the Indian voice.”

“Hear me,” I continued his words, hoping the winds carried them to someone who cared, to people with open hearts who listened.

“Hear me crying out of the wind. Hear me crying out of the silence. I am the Indian voice.

“I speak for our ancestors. They cry out to you from the unstill grave.

“I speak for the children not yet born. They cry out to you from the unspoken silence.

“I am the Indian voice,” I begged, “Listen to me.”

Tears blurring the road ahead, “The Indian you think you see is not who the Indian is. He is a construction.”

Trying desperately to illicit understanding to whomever it was I was speaking to, “Imagine…” I said. Believing I saw understanding faces forming in the clouds, “…now imagine this…

“Imagine this to be you…

“You—believe you are connected to the spirit of all things. This makes you sensitive to the beauty and truth of life. This informs your every decision—from the way you treat your partner and family and tribe—to the earth. You know, what is good is what gives, supports and protects life. Your government and society reflect this belief.”

The sun glittering in the golden fall wheat topped grass I wailed as the urgency of my sorrow gained force. The prairie dogs hearing me came out from their underground homes, stood on their two hind feet, stretched their long bodies and necks to see me—as if to ask, to say, what’s wrong? You okay?

Calmed by their generosity, I wiped the snot that had rolled to my upper lip on the back of my arm and quietly continued, “And…then…as you are living this rich and plentiful life, a very different kind of people move in. People who are oddly different in the way they worship a man in the sky that tells them men are better than women. This same god who tells them they are better than any other kind of person who is not like them. A man,” I stress, “that tells them the earth and people who do not believe or look like them are there for their use, are there for their personal gain.

“But because of your honor for life, you think—‘well, not every body is the same. There is an eagle, and a hawk, and a… We are all different. And each of us are to be valued for that difference.’ So you say to this new people, ‘Welcome. You live there, and we will live over here.

“You know this works, as this is how you have lived with other tribes who are unlike you for millennia.

“But, unfortunately,” I cautioned my listener as I coasted, “this is not how these new people think. They believe their way is the only way. They define you by their standards. They write about you so they become the supreme authority on you.  Controlling your destiny through their language and words, in their literature you are savages and wildmen, ruthless with no soul, you are illiterate and stupid, you are…

“By making you subhuman they justify the swallowing up of your land, your resources, your beliefs, your wealth, your identity, your spirit in the same way they swallowed Africa, Asia and other peoples and countries. Then, they spit you up in various versions of themselves calling it ‘colonization’ then, calling it ‘globalization’ now.

Watching a herd of paints, sorrels, blacks and bays run across the ridge line, earnestly I continued, “You quickly discover the only thing that is sacred to these new people is acquisition. To you this is evil—as the idea of appropriation in any form is the antithesis to the freedom inherent in the right of life and living.  

 “Outrageous to your way, whenever they capture one of your women, she will be raped. You believe women to be culture, to be life—and so, you know the meaning of this act. Used to warfare as skirmishes where at the most 1 or 2 people will be killed in a year of battle, when they attack your village everything will be destroyed. Women and children will not be spared. With women and children gone, so is the ability of your people to survive.  When you make any agreement with them, it will not be honored by them.

The smell of wild sage cleared my mind and heart as I continued to speak, “Totally unprepared for the brutality for what is considered the largest holocaust in world history, 18 million of you will die within the United States territory alone. Another 130 million will die in Central, South, and far North America. You will die from disease, from warfare, and out and out genocide. What is left of you will be herded like cattle far away from your home land, placed on a small piece of land without the means of survival, given germ invested blankets to keep warm and traded food for your children. A plan of genocide that is so successful, a 20^th century admirer with the name of Hitler will emulate your oppressor.

“When you refuse to hand your children over, you will either be killed or sent to prison.

“For several generations your children are taken to boarding schools far from you. There, they learn to hate themselves as Indian and their traditional ways. Pitted against one another, your children learn the deviousness of survival. Without your protection, your children are raped nightly, rented to pedophiles. sold as cheap labor, used for medical experiments, sterilized, die to starvation and untreated minor diseases, on and on.

“Only one half of your children will return to you. The others who don’t, you are told ran away. But you know this is not true, because they never came home. Those that do come home are completely unfamiliar to you. Not only have they lost their traditional ways of life and family, they have lost themselves.

“With your children’s hearts on the ground, they try to kill the oppressor they have internalized through self destructive behaviors. Or, in over identifying with the oppressor, they try to kill the disgusting Indian they see in the face of their brothers and sisters.

“Your oppressors’ children call your children, ‘deviants, rapists, blanket ass worthless drunks, violent thieves, murderers, untrustworthy dirty savages, greasy stupid Indians…’ Those that read and listen to these descriptions of your children, having the privilege of race and culture to reject what is written and said, do not. Having the power to release you from being locked in this historical nightmare, they choose to avoid looking deeper into the face of truth, and taking responsibility by standing up and speaking for truth.”

Nearing the road Cathy lived on I slowed down and stopped at the end. Straddling the bar with my feet flat against the tarmac, I looked towards her house. Envisioning her young children and extended family grieving in the small living room as she lay still in her bedroom, I asked in my heart, what will it take?

Knowing that when we do nothing, not only are we condemned to a life of meaninglessness, but so too is the whole human race, never rising to the greatness we are meant to be.

Watching the coroner and police arrive, with my right hand I reached down and touched the earth as I put one foot on the pedal, and with the other, slowly pushed off. As I coasted down the hill toward my house, in a prayer to Cathy and all those helping her make the journey, I lifted my hand above my head and circled four times in honor of the people in the east, west, north, and south; then raised it higher to touch the sky, then back to my heart as I whispered, “To all my relations, A’ho.” 

Can equality ever really exist any any relationship or partnership? Does the balance of power shift, however slightly, in each and every situation…? Is every interaction a negotiation or a blow stricken in the interest of making things proportionate…? Perhaps because as I am certain we’ve all been told life is so unfair, our interactions within our chosen relationships, partnerships, friendships are struggles to achieve or to maintain balance and justice.

I do not understand how it is that one relationship can be compared to another, even if the comparisons are made by someone that is in or has been in both relationships… People are capable of change, circumstances change - what is there to compare, really?

On occasion, my husband likens our relationship to the relationships or marriages of others whom he knows. The fact that he does this makes no sense to me. I do not compare him to other husbands and I certainly do not wish to be compared to other wives. Sure, from a distance, we may judge that the circumstances of someone else’s relationship are not right for us, but we really have no place to judge whether or not they are happy or whether or not their relationships are healthy or right for them… Only the people in the relationship can make those decisions for themselves.

I can’t help but wonder if relationships are, essentially, a constant power struggle. Not just “romantic” relationships - friendships, business acquaintanceships, partnerships of any nature (particularly those between people of the opposite sex). Certainly, every act cannot be a compromise or a metaphor for the control that one person has over another, can it…?

After five or so years together in some capacity or another, my husband and I seem to be arriving separately and almost daily at the same seemingly inevitable conclusion: we prefer to do things so, so differently from one another. One might think that after so much time together, people would have already realized such things about each other and probably managed to accept it or let it go. However, we seem to take more opportunities each day to point out to each other just how we would have done things differently and why, in our respective opinions, the other’s way of doing something is wrong. This makes me kind of sad, mostly because I was so excited when I first began dating my husband because there was nothing I wanted to change about him and that was a rare thing for me. I have often taken up with people as either friends or as lovers who had visible cracks and flaws - I wanted nothing more than to be used as a life vest or repair person. Those situations never worked, and likewise it never worked for me when people attempted to repair or shape or mold me - I always felt somewhat powerless in those situations - as though I was being looked after and cared for and parented rather than cared about. 

For a very long time, my husband and I did not argue. We had heated debates about a great many things, but we did not have arguments. When we finally did have an argument, it was over something silly (laundry, I believe) but it was a welcome relief to me that the argument was actually about laundry. I had become used to utilizing passive-aggressive communication in past relationships that would then escalate into a seemingly never-ending series of volatile arguments. It was a pleasant surprise to me that my husband was able to talk just about the subject at hand and that he did not attempt to bring up irrelevant things or things from the past.

While he and I were only dating and prior to us deciding that we were seeing each other exclusively, he did his best to respect my privacy (it didn’t seem to take him any effort at all) and never asked me questions to which he did not want to know the answers. I, however, have probably volunteered more information to my husband than he ever wanted or needed to know. Then, I made the mistake of expecting him be more similar to me and to communicate in the same manner that I did, so I asked him a great many questions, regardless of whether or not I wanted to know the answers to them. I sometimes got angry or insecure for reasons not his fault, and accused him of withholding information from me or not being completely honest with me. I managed somehow, in my attempts to communicate clearly, to not make it clear to him at all what it was that I actually wanted (or didn’t want to, as the case sometimes was) to know.

My husband has been an incredible understanding and tolerant man, throughout the course of our relationship and our marriage and I have taken this for granted and pushed tested the boundaries of his patience and tolerance on more than one occasion. He has done a very good job of never holding my past against me, regardless of what information it was that I shared with him. I, on the other hand, have had a very difficult time not holding my past against him.

I notice a lot of inequalities in my marriage, and most of them I feel responsible for. I allow my husband to take care of financial matters - to pay bills, to budget and to generally be accountable for how our collective income is distributed, used and invested. I imagine that this can be overwhelming for him, but when I have offered help, he has not seemed interested in accepting it.  I sometimes feel as though I should have more of a say in the handling of our money, but I suppose that it is not very fair for me to express my qualms with that when I am more than happy to let him take responsibility for all of our debts and when I take no action to do so myself.

My husband has been very supportive of me when I have been between jobs or when I have been terminated or when I have chosen to look for other work because I was miserable in a position or, sometimes, for no better reason than the fact that I was restless. I have never expected him to take care of me, not financially certainly, but he has done so and been willing to do so more often than I ever would have expected (or asked - I have a lot of difficulty requesting help - I guess that in the past I generally preferred to manipulate and to feel as though I was using people because that made me feel like I was in control and taking charge of my destiny and not a victim or a charity case).

I have somewhat recently begun to resent the characteristics of tolerance and patience that my husband possesses because they inspire me to question whether or not these are personality traits that I require in a mate. I fear that a less patient and less tolerant person would have told me to shove off by now. I am almost certain that this is the case. I know that I am not an easy person to deal with or to live with. I fear that I have the kind of personality that begs for some to be patient with me and to tolerate me.

In my marital relationship, I have noticed a general lack of impartiality and some imbalances across the board. If my marriage were the scales of justice, for instance, I guess my side of the scale would be holding more weight. Neither my husband or myself go out too terribly often without the other, but I definitely spend more time away from him and from home than he does. I have more male friends than he has female friends and he is perfectly alright with me spending time with them alone. I have encouraged him to go out to do things without me, but he has this sense of accountability that I think I must lack. I have encouraged my husband on at least an occasion or two to go spend time time with one of his female friends, albeit this may have been after some hesitation or on my part or possibly after an argument that I may have initiated.

While I like to think that I am self aware, it probably wears on my husbands nerves that I am honest with him and myself about my insecurities but that I refuse to part with them when he’s given me no reason not to trust him and when he’s given me all of the verbal and non-verbal reassurances that he can think to provide. Surely he finds my tendency to run away from situations that I do not like, my tendencies to avoid confrontation, to step aside and allow others to take the reigns and to complain about the decisions that they make, to turn my back on things that do not immediately come easily to me and my tendency to project my anger towards men onto him and to take things not his fault out on him and to generally be unreasonable aggravate him. Certainly, my often misguided or misdirected rage and temper are difficult for him to deal with.

Recently, we’ve found ourselves in an unfamiliar position - one in which I am the primary wage earner and provider for our family. This is a stressful situation for both of us. I have recently received a promotion (this is the first time in my life when I have managed to move up in a company where I have been employed) and I feel myself getting restless in my new position already, after only 6 months. I imagine he feels somewhat emasculated by the situation - whether he is willing to admit it out loud or not, he has some beliefs that I find somewhat old fashioned. One of those beliefs is that a man should support his family (and probably be the primary wage earner).

I admire this man for a variety of different reasons and one of them is that I know he has been willing and at least mentally prepared on more than one occasion to provide for my daughter and I. I do not know if he intrinsically thinks that this should be his role as the male in the relationship or if it is more a sense of obligation, but I appreciate it. I have not ever asked for it or expected it or taken advantage of the fact that he would fill this role, but I have been appreciative of his willingness to do so. I wish that I were able (willing?) to be as supportive of him finding & mapping out his own career path as he has been of me.

I know that it is not  a situation that he finds ideal, either - one in which he was not only the primary bread-winner but the only one earning a wage and bringing in money to support our family. I once brought up to him, after he made one of those comparisons that I so despise between our relationship and the relationships of others that we know, that I knew at least two women whose husbands were willing to go out and work two jobs so that their wives would not have to work, so that they could stay home with their children rather than have them raised by some anonymous third party.

I am not certain why I even said it. As much as I enjoy being a mother even though it was not planned and were I to do it again, I would go about things differently, I have never pictured myself as someone who could tolerate being expected to be only a mother. I would likely feel trapped and I would probably have quite a few complaints were I expected to stay home and keep house and look after the children. I would probably feel quite lonely and under appreciated. Besides, even with feminism and womens’ lib, how many men realistically have an expectation to by financially supported by their wives or female partners? In all fairness, why don’t we expect some men to have similar expectations of their female counterparts by now?

I think I hurt him a little when I said told him that in response to him stating that he expected me to contribute and to provide for our family as well. It is only fair for him to expect such a thing. I think his statement was a reply to my question of whether or not he’d be supportive of me trying to make a living as a writer.  I know that he wishes he made enough money so that neither of us really had to work to earn a living. I’ve also seen him work towards achieving this goal. I just have not seen him put as much work into it as I would expect someone to if they wanted to realize such a dream and make it a reality. It has, on occasion, been frustrating to watch. I imagine that when I voice this frustration, he finds it discouraging. I just do not know how to motivate him to make of himself what he wants to make from where I am at - I have tried different approaches - I have tried to be encouraging only to be resentful of offering encouragement later and I have tried to tell him to step back and to look at things more realistically only to have him resent my negative tone.

While waiting for my daughter’s ballet class to end one Saturday morning, I recall overhearing a conversation that echoed so many complaints I’d heard before, countless times from numerous other women. I leaned against the wall and watched my daughter practice pirouettes and listened as a woman beside me described to her friend her frustration with her male partner. She was talking about the few household chores for which he took responsibility and how disappointed he became when she failed to notice him doing something that she considered small and something that she expected from him when she herself kept a job and took responsibility for the vast majority of housework and never expected strokes or received recognition for it and while she looked after their children, as well, so that he could work. I laughed to myself not because the situation was amusing, but because from most of my female friends who have children and who live with men, this is a nearly universal complaint (even regardless of whether or not she works outside of the home because, as most mothers will tell you, motherhood itself is more demanding and more of a full time position than most other roles one could possibly tackle).

It makes me wonder if fatherhood is. I imagine that it is, to a degree. But probably not in the same way. I think that intrinsically, women have a more maternal nature when it comes to their children because of the umbilical chord. I imagine the physical acts as a metaphor and contributes to the way that each sex parents. I have this theory that a lot of biological factors figure into male/female relationships. I don’t know that it makes me any more accepting of certain behaviors and I think that it these biological factors may themselves be kind of lame excuses for such behavior, but I like to investigate and to research the possible reasoning behind things and to, eventually, feel as though I’ve arrived at my own informed conclusions about such things.

My mother, who is about to turn 80 years old, asked all of her children to spend the holidays with her and my father in Florida for her birthday. Three of her five children could come, along with children and partners. My parents rented a house near the beach and we spent five days together, swimming, talking, eating, and playing. Something seems to be happening in my family that I suspect happens in many families: all my life I thought my father ran our family, he was the power, he bossed and told and was the final word, but now as they both age, it is clear that the power is shifting and my mother is blossoming. I am not quite sure why this is happening or when it began, but it could be that my mother is still energetically engaged in her career, while my father is semi-retired, mostly doing consulting jobs. But perhaps it is something subtler than that. Maybe I am just noticing again, that mothers are the center of families, like the center of a wheel. Father’s flex their muscles, come and go, assert and demand, and keep the law — but everyone, including Dad, competes for Mom’s attention.

As we gathered last night for her unofficial birthday party — her real 80th will be in January - it dawned on me how jealous we all are of her love, how we all want to be her favorite, the one she talks to the most. I couldn’t have said this when I was younger. I was too busy running away from her and refusing to compete with my brothers and sister. But last night I was left wondering, wasn’t this flight, a symptom of my voracious need of her that could not be satisfied? Something like, ‘Better to leave if you cannot win…?’ Of course, I am one of five children, which is a lot of competition, but I wonder if all families don’t make constellations around the mother? Because after all the mother is the one your life depends on from conception, fathers are needed later.

It is strange to see my Mom gaining strength with age, and my Dad fading, not physically, but in his ability to steal the light… But somehow it all makes sense, as if the sun had been eclipsed by the moon temporarily, only to come out of the shadows again.