Tidings of Comfort and Joy

I have just finished writing our annual holiday letter to friends, and we will spend this snowy weekend getting our holiday cards addressed and mailed.  It's often the only contact we have with some friends, I'm ashamed to admit.  but after I finished the letter and printed it out it occurred to me that I have another set of friends, you - my virtual friends, whose real names and addresses I don't have.  So, I'm publishing the letter here in this journal.  I don't know if anyone ever visits, if this letter will get read by any of you for whom I will always keep a fond place in my heart.  So many of you were so kind during the immediate time of grief and pain of my sister's death, which I could share here in a way I really couldn't with friends at a distance.  Strange, but true.  Talking, either in person or by telephone was impossible, and letter or email writing was almost as hard.  Things are  better, as you will seefrom the letter, but though grief is no longer my constant companion, it is never far below the surface.  The baby I mention, and whose photo I have inserted, is my sister's grand-daughter, such a spark of grace and wonder in our lives.  In the letter I use our names:  I am Mary Ellen, and my partner is Gail. 

 

Dear Friends:

 

We are happy to begin by saying that 2007 was a far better year for us than its predecessor.  It was, in fact, a year of many enjoyable events.  The winter was a big surprise, as we had been led to believe that we would not experience serious snow here in the Rio Grande Valley.  As there is no longer any way to say “never” or “always” about weather anywhere, we will all have to get used to weather surprises, like our “fifty-year event” of multiple blizzards, snow piled on our flat roof, and us without a snow shovel! In which straits we were not alone…there was not asnow shovel to be found in the city.  We ordered one online from Vermont Country Store and felt quite smug.

           We had many delightful visits with both families throughout the spring and summer.  Then, in August Mary Ellen pulled herself together sufficiently to trot her resumé around the town, and as a result had two part-time ESL teaching positions during the fall semester.  She loved them both, but is taking on more work with UNM for the coming term, dropping the Catholic Charities class.  Gail continues to work for the Jewish Community Center’s childcare center, although in the new year she plans to cut down somewhat on her hours.

 We returned to the Mid-Atlantic in October, to attend a family wedding in PA, then for a week in Delaware visiting friends, as well as our favorite beaches, birding spots and seafood restaurants. In November we took another short saltwater vacation on the Texas Gulf coast, for more beachwalking, birding and seafood.  Gail wants you to know that our excursion in a boat called The Skimmer (birding by birders for birders) out into the waters off Aransas National Wildlife Refuge to see the whooping cranes (and many many other birds we never even expected) was the highlight of her year.  It was pretty close to the top for Mary Ellen also, but she’d have to assign highlight of the year to the birth of her niece Jessica’s daughter Penelope, a gift of hope and joy to the entire family.  From the Gulf Coast we drove up to Dallas for Thanksgiving with family and friends, and just two weeks ago Gail flew to Denver for Hanukkah with sons and grandchildren.  So, we are grateful for the gifts of family, friends and health, posole bubbling on the stove, piñon in the fireplace, and for the fact that the endof this administration is within sight.  May the force be with us all in the coming year, la lucha continua.  With love and hope,

The Emotional Heart of Global Warming

When I first read this, Climate Change More Extensive than thought, in Spiegel online last week, I began writing a post I could only, in my despair, title "Totally Fucked with Global Warming." The Spiegel article was the first place that the news from the second part of four IPCC reports, due to be published from Belgium sometime next month, was announced. The first section of the report was published from the international meeting of world scientists in Paris in January, and was scary enough.

This second part, however, will focus more on the results, the effects, of the fact of global climate change. and is so extremely scary that his morning we have the mainstream media, even unto the front page of AOL, getting down with this sort of headline: Climate Report Warns of Drought, Disease :

This report - considered by some scientists the "emotional heart" of climate change research - focuses on how global warming alters the planet and life here, as opposedto the more science-focused report by the same group last month.

"This is the story. This is the whole play. This is how it's going to affect people. The science is one thing. This is how it affects me, you and the person next door," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver

So, even though it's a beautiful early spring morning, and I've spent the last half-hour watching a ladderback woodpecker in the cottonwood outside the kitchen window, by now I would usually be contemplating swallowing ground glass after reading the above-linked news, I'm actually not having any such contemplation. No, I'm not, even despite other headlines I've collected over the past week, like this one: Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study, or this one: Bush Climate Report Shows U.S. Greenhouse Gases Skyrocketing, or my absolute favorite, showing as it does, the blind forces of denial that seem to be governing this debate in this country: US Urges Scientists to block out sun.

And why not, pray tell? The suicidal cynic has not suddenly become a cockeyed optimist, has she? Well, no. Probably not in the cards for this lifetime. What has happened is that for the past three days I've been attending a conference right here in Albuquerque, during which I have met, listened to, eaten lunch and drunk coffee, with like-minded everyday people, as well as big names in their fields. The focus of this conference was water, as it was held by the Xeriscape Council of NM, even more specifically the intersection of water and energy in our current world, and the world of our future. Global climate change entered the picture, or was often the main subject, with almost every speaker, every question from the audience, every article and report in our program book. Despite the enormous amount of doom and gloom in every speech, every report, every conversation among attendees, there was also an amazing spirit of positivity, nay optimism, about what can be done to change this horrible prognosis. . So, I'm deleting "Totally Fucked with Global Warming," and will be writing a series of posts from the information gleaned during the conference. Right now, however, this morning, I'm going to go out and work in my garden, turn over my compost heap, and qvell for a while in the glow of the main benefit gained from this conference: the feeling that I'm not alone, that there are many brave and determined souls out there thinking, working, actually DOING something positive and worthy because theybelieve in and care mightily about the future of this planet.

Cross-posted at The Blue Voice

New Year, New Hopes

So, we moved out of a big drafty Victorian farmhouse in Delaware to an far smaller adobe in New Mexico because we wanted to get away from the huge winter heating bills.  And in Delaware now it's in the seventies, no winter in sight.  In New Mexico, by contrast, we have had the worst snow storms in fifty years, along with some of the coldest temps we've experienced since we lived in Massachusetts.  (Where it's currently also springlike in temperature.)  Our heating bills for this winter promise to be world-class, as adobe walls produce an icecave effect in much of the house, unless we keep the heat at a far higher level than we are wont to, even in the drafty Delaware farmhouse.    The presence of over a foot of snow on the roof has revealed the fact that we're probably going to need a new roof.  This one has one spectacular leak from which we've spent much of the past weeks bailing water, as well as a smaller one we just discovered yesterday.  It's a high price to pay for Southwestern cuteness and charm, and we start right now looking for the neighborhood to which we will move in about a year and a half.  Not moving across the country this time, just across town...someplace far newer, less charming, and a good deal more watertight.  Global climate change  apparently means ferocious summer monsoons and winter blizzards for this part of the world.  We bought the first house that appealed to us and was affordable, buying long distance without time to really scope out neighborhoods and shop for a place that we could love longterm.  Now that we are here and have a home base, we can really shop for a living space that will make more sense.  There are so many areas we like better than the location of this house, with leisure to look and explore I know we'll find the right one for our retirement nest. 

Good news on the vision front...at my last doctor's visit she pronounced my corneas almost healed, and was able to refract me into a distance prescription.  With my new glasses I can see to drive, am not driven mad in grocery stores,  and feel much more confident outside the house, walking and so forth.  The next appointment is this coming Friday, when we hope to get me into a close vision prescription, making reading, writing, and computer  work no longer painful struggles.  This is all such cause for rejoicing,and I am.  I have been enjoying the landscapes of extraordinary beauty created by the snowstorms everywhere, as well as deeply welcome company:  

My sister from D.C. and her family were here for New Year's weekend, flying in on Friday night amidst great uncertainty, as they had a stopover in Denver.  It was touch and go whether they would be stuck in Denver, as both that airport and ours here in Albuquerque  were in danger of shutting down entirely.  As it was, they made it with long delays, but they made it.  And my ten year old niece is the person for whom snowstorms were invented.   She had a wonderful time making snow...balls, angels, and people, and tromping through snow up to her knees at the Rio Grande Nature Center on their last day here.  When she was not getting totally wet and snow-encrusted, she was sprawled on her bed reading a Harry Potter.  Oblivious to leaking roofs and the need to get to the grocery store in order to feed guests, she enjoyed every moment of what was a great inconvenience to most adults.  With my better eyes and new glasses, I was able to drive our guests to Santa Fe last Tuesday, where the streets and sidewalks were far worse than here.  They'd never been there, so even in its ice-encrusted form they had a great time.  And I never would have made it through "the holidays" without their visit.  I am trying to sound hopeful, trying to focus on what is improving in my life, but most of the time I just feel as if I have been flung from a high cliff onto jagged rocks:  broken, sad, and lost.  As soon as my close vision is taken care of I need to start looking for a job - something I both look forward to and a bhore.  I want to get out of this house, out of my own head and heart, but I really don't feel that I can function in any normal fashion.  Even though I'm not supposed to cry, because of the toxcicity of my tears and the possible damage to my eyes, it's all I really want to do,  and sometimes there is nothing else for it, I cry.

Now I am waiting for roofers to come offer diagnoses and estimates, while Gail goes off to work, and we move into a new year, with hope for much kinder and gentler times ahead.

Full Moon on the Rise

Robin states in a comment on a previous entry that there is nothing like looking at the blue New Mexico sky to lift one's spirits.  To which I'd like to add that watching the Full Cold Moon rise over the Sandias is pretty darned close.  The actual December full moon was on the fourth, but last night it was still immense, rising over the mountains, throwing its frosty light across the valley.  It's hard to concentrate on where the dog and I are going, because Ican't look at anything except that miraculous moonscape.  But last night, in the opposite direction, I discovered that the big Catholic church on the corner of Lomas and Tennessee was entirely adorned with luminarias...it's a truly huge church, built in the Mission style, lots of rooflines, porticos, strange little niches, all of which are now gleaming into the darkness with what must surely be electric luminarias.  So,there's much towards which to turn my vision, even after dark.  And today, for the first time since late October, I went for a good long walk all by myself.  I've been nervous and somewhat scared to do this, and our dog is too old, crippled and just plain goofy, to be of much practical value on a walk.  He can't see any better than I can, and he wouldn't scare a rabbit.  We are out of the deep freeze we were in for the past week and a half, so it was still warm in the sunshine, and I started at a small park in a beautiful residential area just below the mountains and walked for half an hour.  May not sound like much, but it's a big first step for me.  My eyes seem better to me, or else I'm just getting used to this level of vision.  I won't really know until next week, but I'm very hopeful.  I'm able to drive short distances, during the daylight also.  We are thinking of a day trip down to Bosque del Apache Wildlife Reserve near Socorro on Saturday, as the sandhill cranes have arrived for their winter sojourn.  Gail and I saw one on Sunday when we were walking at the Rio Grande Nature Center - it flew over the fields and headed towards the river.  Our friends who live not far from the Center in the North Valley say they saw them flying over their house all morning, in astounding numbers, crying as they went.

IMPROVEMENT TO REPORT

Once again I offer my gratitude for the kind comments left by friends on the previous entries.  They help more than you can know. 

I've been back home for about a month now, resting and healing.  This Tuesday was the first day I realized some real improvement in my vision.  And it occurs to me that I didn't previously mention that aspect of my disintegration...so, long story short:  Beginning in August when I returned from the first trip to RI, I experienced some loss of visual acuity.  I have terrible eyesight anyway, have been seriously nearsighted since I was seven years old, and have added difficulty with close vision as well as far, as I have grown older.  But this was something new.  A visit to the opthamologist brought the weird diagnosis of cornea damage due to copious crying of "toxic tears' in the weeks following my sister's death.  Apparently my tears of strong emotion are like bathing my eyes in acid, and I am an Olympic-level cryer at the best of times.  A second trip to the doctor earlier this month showed no improvement, not surprising, as I hadn't stopped crying at all.  After that visit, I realized I would have to find some other way of dealing with grief, crying myself blind was not an option I wanted to continue.  Thus, a month of meditation, Reiki healing, walks with my dog, cuddling on the couch with my cat, sleeping a lot, with a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday thrown in as a bonus.  Jamie and his family (Jamie is my partner's younger son) came from Denver, and grandchildren are the best therapy, I must say.  We also had friends andneighbors around the table, and the table was loaded with an amazing meal that I had spent the week before planning , shopping for, and cooking.  Cooking is also pretty good therapy.  Thanksgiving was the right holiday, as my Reiki practitioner advised me to do gratitude work, as part of my healing .

Right now we are in the throes of a winter storm that blew down from the Torthwest, yesterday bringing snow, wind and rapidly plunging temps.  The negative ions that acccompany a storm like this have raised my spirits enormously...it's the same feeling one gets walking by crashing waves at the shore - something I miss hugely, by the way.  But watching it snow on the mountains, the birds at my feeders, while I spent the day making turkey-tortilla soup with the carcass of the Thanksgiving bird, felt like such a great gift.  It was ELEVEN for a temperature just now when I walked the dog, but the precip is over, and the air smells clean and fresh, the New Mexico sun is back, shining on the snow, and both Honey (goofy old ocker spaniel) and I had a spring in our step.

So,  I have better days and worse days with my vision, but I am trying to look ahead, in every way, and to spend as much time looking at beauty as I can.  I think this may be what "I lift up my eyes to the mountains" may actually mean, and I am trying to do it whenever possible.  Next opthamology appointment is Dec. 13, two weeks to continue the healing.

Later, the same life

First of all I want to thank the friends who left comments on my last post;  It is so heartening to hear from you, to know you are still there, and to feel your sympathy and caring so strongly.  I am home now fromMy second stay in Rhode Island, which, though well-intentioned,  was a complete disaster, and ended up being much shorter than I had intended.  My mental health is fragile at the best of times, and two days of going through my sister's house with my niece was all it took for my sanity to unhook and sail away like an icefloe.If my darling sister Katy from Dallas hadn't come up and worked with us for the rest of that week and then practically carried me onto a plane, Lord knows what might have happened.   .  The grief, anguish, and guilt we all feel is so  magnified by our realization of the circumstances of Peggy's last years, the fact that she was living in such squalor and wretchedness without ever reaching out to us, even repudiating any of our efforts to reach in to her with love and aid is so unfathomable in every way.  My inability to stay on for the rest of the month and continue to help her kidswith the settling of things only adds to my guilt and disgust with myself.   Katy and I also both became physically very ill while we were there, in all probability from over a week spent in that mold-filled colddamp dreadful house, and it's going to take a good while to recover from the whole thing as best we can.   We actually managed to accomplish quite a lot in the short time we were there, and hopefully the kids will be able to carry on with only our long-distance help.  I hope it will be possible to get my niece and nephews out to either Texas or New Mexico to visit their aunts at some point during the winter holidays.  These are going to be very difficult months for all of us, and for me it is only being with my sisters and their kids, and our boys and their kids, that gives me any solace and comfort or peace. 

BRINGING YOU UP TO DATE

As usual, it's been a long long time between postings here.  And a very hard long long time it has been.  Early in August my niece in Rhode Island called me one night, and just from her "hello" I could tell she was calling with bad news.  She is the daughter of my sister Peggy, the third sister in my birth family of six siblings.  This sister was widowed quite young, with three very small children, whom she brought up alone, often in dire poverty, and increasingly in ill physical and mental health.  While I lived in New England I was able to stay close to her and the kids, helping them all out in any way I could.  When I left the area over eight years ago, she began to shut me out of her life, as she had her other siblings for some time. 

The kids, grown by this time, remained close to me, or at least two of them did.  One of my nephews is developmentally delayed, and it's hard to have much emotional closeness with him, especially from a distance.  The other two often visited us in Delaware, and my niece and I drove across the country to Texas together one summer several years ago. From time to time I would get word from them about disturbing developments in their mother's life, although I had to pry most information out of them.  She had tyrannized them into paranoid secrecy about everything concerning her life, and it was only when they felt at the end of their ropes dealing with it alone that they would tell me anything.  She was diagnosed with diabetes about twelve years ago, and last winter had a heart attack and a procedure to place shunts in her heart.  She had had half of one foot removed after serious infection, and had broken the knee on the other leg, and it never healed right, causing her to be in a wheel chair or on crutches, unable to continue the walking that had kept her semi-sane for many years.  During all this time, listening now to my niece and nephew talk about their childhoods and adolescences with her, I am convinced that she also suffered from bi-polar disease, increasingly more so as she got older. 

Back to the night in early August and my niece Jessica's phone call - she was calling to tell me that she and her brother Tom had found their mother in a glycemic coma (an event that had happened numerous times over the years, though usually they were able to revive her or call the EMTs who either revived her or took her to the ER where she was revived) from which they could not wake her.  She was taken to RI Hospital, and continued in a coma - by this time it had been four or five days - from which she could not be woken.  The doctors could not figure out why she remained in the coma, and insisted that it was just a waiting game, and soon she would surely wake up.  I flew to Baltimore, then drove up to RI with my youngest sister who lives in DC and her 8 year old daughter.  We were joined in RI after a few days by another sister, from Dallas.

After a week of watching at her bedside, talking to doctors (who appeared to be completely mystified by her case), my nephew suddenly remembered that maybe she had made a living will back in the winter when she'd had the heart procedure.  We trooped in for a meeting with her lawyer, to find that indeed she had done a medical POA as well as a durable POA.  She had a very specific DNR order written, which had already been extremely countermanded by the presence of breathing and feeding tubes, though by the time we found it she was breathing on her own.  Evidence of neurological damage was growing, and though the doctors still seemed utterly baffled, they acknowledged that they were not acting according to her wishes.  She had told her kids many times not to revive her, not to call for an ambulance, just to let her die, every time she had previously had such an episode.  After another week of waiting, watching her grow more and more agitated, though still not fully conscious or able to speak or see, the doctors agreed that her orders should be obeyed.  Once the IV insulin and the feeding tube were discontinued, and she was on only a morphine and atavan drip, she relaxed into a deep sleep, and died in ten hours (instead of the three days the medical staff had warned us it might take) holding Jessica's hand.  Her son Tom had been there with her all night, and my sister Rosie and I had been there the afternoon before he came in.  They had brought my other nephew, Charles, in to say goodbye that afternoon as well, once the tubes were removed and she was peaceful. 

I have always dreaded the loss of a sibling, and now it has come to pass.  This sister had estranged herself from the rest of us for many years, she was lost to us long before she actually died.  I did see her four years ago, but have had little contact after that.  Her life was a tragedy, and her death was the tragic outcome of it. 

All of us are now filled with not just the grief of losing a sister, or a mother, but the guilt of wondering how we could have helped her want to live, to take care of herself, how we could have reached her through the layers of depression and illness.  I stayed on to help the kids (I say kids, although they are really adults in their late twenties, early thirties) with her final arrangements and some other practical things.  There is so much that will have to be done to clean up the mess she left behind, in so many ways.  I'll be going back to RI probably the end of this month to help with it all. 

This will be very hard for me, as the past month has been.  Leaving our new home and life here, so soon after such a big move, with all its attendant stress and exhaustion.  My DC sister will help out financially, if I can help with time, and amongst us all we'll get it figured out.  Hopefully as quickly as possible, for the sakes of my niece and nephews.  I haven't been posting at The Blue Voice, either, and don't know if I even will return there.  I just can't find it in me to write about political and environmental subjects, while my family is in such grief and turmoil.  Of course I know it all still matters, but it will all go on without me.

Right now, since getting back from RI last week, I've been working as a paid staffer on Bill Richardson's re-election campaign, and Gail has been working for ACORN on voter registration.  It  will bring in a few dollars, to help with all the dollars that have flowed out in the past month while I've been away from home, travel expenses, motels, eating out, paying for groceries for my niece's household, and so on.  Those kids live on the thin edge financially, and my sister's estate is more bills than anything else - so these part-time jobs of a defined duration are a godsend. 

I just wanted to bring my online friends up to date on the events of my life, and let you know where I've been while I've not been online.  I don't read your journals or blogs, haven't for a long time,  for which I ask your forgiveness and patience.  Perhaps some day I will be back to a normal life - it seems like a very long time since it's been normal - and able to catch up with all of you.  I hope you are well, that your lives are "normal," and that for you "normal" means wonderful, or simply...good.  Thank you for all the love and friendship you have brought into my life.  At a time like this friends take on a whole new meaning.  I couldn't function without them, without you.  May the force be with you all.      Mary Ellen

LAVENDER HEALS BODY AND SOUL, THEY SAY

Very validating to have old friends respond to my previous post, and to know that the windmills are still turning, even if not very often. 

We've stopped trying to get everything on this house done here overnight, and have started to spend some time enjoying ourselves.  Last weekend both of Gail's sons and their families came from Denver for a visit.  It was exhausting, but delightful, to have those four little urchins around the house.  I hope to get some pictures into this entry later. 

Then, today - a gorgeous perfect day, washed by last night's furious rain, cool but sunny, blue skies with heaps of white clouds around the edges, the mountains clear and crisp in the distance -  we went out to The Village of Los Ranchos for the Lavender Festival.  We spend most of the day out there, going from venue to venue on the provided shuttle.  Arts and crafts (Gail bought me a beautiful silver bead as an early birthday present), plants galore, great food, lavender lavender lavender.  Lavender soap, cookies, lemonade, sangria, cookbooks, lotion, essential oil, ad infinitum. At Los Poblanos Ranch we were able to cut our own bunch of lavandula grosso and bring it home.  I would have loved to cut lavender all day, it was so heavenly out there among the plants - the smells, the bees and butterflies. Los Poblanos is a place that merits a post all its own, and maybe someday I'll do one.  Suffice it for now to say that I think it may just possibly be heaven. Having so much fun today has worn me slap out, and I think a tall glass of iced tea and a long nap are what comes next here.

(And, Paulette, I just want you to know there was a group of Red Hat ladies at the festival, often in the same place at the same time as we were - and they were having an absolutely illegal amount of fun!  No wonder you are into this!)

A VOICE FROM OUTER SPACE

At least that's how I feel.  Lost in space perhaps.  A friend just emailed me that this journal was gone, no longer available.  And I found that broke my heart... so I came to see if it was true.  Is it?  Is there anyone anywhere who can still access it?  Besides me?

Re the previous entry about putting my books on halfbooks.com, it happened and then it was over.  I only sold five or six books that way, then we had a book sale, as part of the six yard sales we had before moving.  The books that didn't sell that way were donated to the Lewes Library, and they were very happy to have them.   So, that felt good.

We've made the move, the hellacious drive across the country in two vehicles, me driving a twenty-six foot Penske truck, Gail in the Toyota Matrix with all three animals.  I'm just glad we didn't decide to move to California!  New Mexico was quite far enough.  Maybe a little too far.  The last day's driving was done on sheer willpower.  We've been here almost three weeks now, unpacking, looking at replacement furniture for that which we sold pre leaving Delaware, having work done on the house in order to make it our house, just trying to adjust to such a new altitude and climate.

To add Scylla to Charibdis, yesterday I had the first serious car accident of my long life.  A woman ran her stop sign and broadsided me on my side of the car, the driver's side.  I was fortunate to emerge with only shock, cracked ribs and chest contusions, as well as wildly elevated blood pressure and fury.  But it adds another layer of crap to deal with, insurance and car rental, collision people dragging the car away - and in all probability, looking for and buying a new car.  The poor little Matrix looks like it's totalled to me, thought we'll have to wait for the official opinion.

I don't have the time for much researched posting on The Blue Voice right now, so perhaps I'll be back here, just writing from my life, for a while.  If anyone reads, that's good.  If not, it's still an outlet. 

MARIGOLDS GOES COMMERCIAL! SORT OF.

In the extremely unlikely event that anyone out there is still reading this journal, I salute thee.  And want to let any journal friends (former journal friends?) know that we are in the throes of sorting and reaming and packing out this big old Delaware farmhouse, in preparation for moving to a slightly-less-old adobe house in the East Valley, in Albuquerque, NM.  In order not to have the 79 boxes of books we moved here from Massachusetts eight years ago, I am putting some that we can bear to part with on eBay, for sale.  As AOL has already turned Journals into advertising space, I thought I'd just play right along.  If you'd like to see what we have for sale, come visit my "shop" on eBay:  Maisie743. 

Selling books is really hard for me, and selling them to friends would make it all easier.  I will be listing more as we go through them; it's an ongoing process, so check back in from time to time.

 

BEAUTY IS NOT OPTIONAL

Hello Journal, hello any readers who still might meander by this abandoned mine of a journal.  I sent a link to this post of mine on The Blue Voice, and she loved it so much I thought I'd put it here in the hopes others might see it.  I've been posting heavily over there on the issue of the Refuge and the budget bills in both House and Senate.  The House's dropping drilling in the Refuge was a big step, but the battle is far from over.  It's still in the Senate bill, and once the House gets a bill together in some form, there will have to be a reconciliation between the two.  Keep up the pressure on your members of Congress, let's defeat this proposal entirely.  And I thank you.

Post from The Blue Voice

Beauty is Not Optional
“The eyes of the future are looking back at us and they are praying for us to see beyond our own time. They are kneeling with clasped hands that we might act with restraint, leaving room for the life that is destined to come.”
Terry Tempest Williams

This is a photo from a spectacular photgraphic collection on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by Subhankar Banerjee. Please look at these photos; send them to your friends. Send them to your members of Congress. They are sublimely beautiful glimpses of the place that Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska (an oil drilling enthusiast) calls empty and barren. Mountains, tundra, caribou herds, snow geese, lakes, autumn color, delicate spring flowers in the snow, native people and their age-old ways of life.
This beauty speaks for itself. Banerjee has brought things I will most likely never see close enough to deeply touch my soul. We cannot let this place be ruined. No amount of oil is worth this. The areas of oil extraction on the North Slope have had some 500 oil spills since that area was opened. Let's leave this one untouched.

Start here, World Without Borders, to read about Banerjee, then click on the photograph to go to the ANWR page. Many resources to access there, or if you are in a hurry, you can go directly to the photos here, Arctic Refuge Series.
"The Arctic Refuge belongs not to the multinational corporations and their minions in public office but in public trust for our inheritors; indeed, for all mankind around the world." --Peter Matthiessen, from "In the Great Country," in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land

ONE DAMNED THING AFTER ANOTHER

Because I want this to get the widest possible reading, I'm cross-posting this from The Blue Voice to this journal.  After I'd written the piece I discovered another site, The Coming Influenza Pandemic, a blog devoted entirely to news and information on this subject.

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WHAT THE HECK IS A PANDEMIC?

Probably everyone else knew this, but I'm just finding out that this has been "Pandemic Flu Awareness Week" in the blogosphere - Oct. 3 to 9, so I'm not quite too late. This is probably the reason for all the recent news coverage on the avian flu. I've certainly become aware, thanks to the daily headlines - "pandemic" is a pretty scary word. So, I had decided I needed to get down to some serious research on the subject. And just about the first thing I found had everything I needed. Everything we all need.

The site is the Flu Wiki. And your first question may be: What the heck is a "wiki?" From the site, their answer:

A Wiki is a form of collaborative web page that allows anyone (including you) to edit any page on the site. Wikis offer collaborative problem-solving, and allow diverse, decentralized participation. The open nature of the wiki format has shown itself able to develop surprisingly effective and sophisticated products, such as the Wikipedia. Whether it will work to fashion new solutions to a complex public health problem remains to be seen. This is in the nature of a grand experiment. We hope you will join us in it.

Please check this out. All I have read indicates that we are as unready for an epidemic of this flu (or, okay, a pandemic) as we were for a hurricane like Katrina. This wiki is full of answers to our questions, scientific information, things you can do.

The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies. Our goal is to be:

• a reliable source of information, as neutral as possible,
• about important facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
• a venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if a pandemic does occur
• a venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable problems.

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BACK TO THE FRIENDLY POSSE AT AOL

And now it is September, and glorious halcyon weather, with blue skies and warm breezes all day, cool nights that are prefect for sleeping.  I'm finishing up my third week back at work, teaching every day, all my classes full to the brim.  We're having a surge in our ESOL student numbers, mostly due to Korean families coming in increasing numbers.  They are at once a difficult and an easy group to teach - very willing and anxious to learn (easy), already very educated (easy) but shy and unwilling to open their mouths (difficult), trained in their country not to ask questions or "bother" a teacher (for me ultra-difficult, I thrive on questions - it's how I know they're thinking, learning), afraid to make mistakes (again, very difficult). 

But these are the loveliest of people.  Before South Koreans started coming to Delaware in large numbers, as they are now, I had no aquaintence with this nationality.  Now I am in love with every one of them.  Darling people with big hearts, willing to help and share, devoted to family and to higher education for their children, hard-working, and amazingly loving.  They don't stay in this area long, is the only problem.  After their time of indentured servitude to the chicken processing plants is over, they move on to Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston, large urban areas with Korean communities and good jobs.  As soon as I get to know a student, or a whole student family and become really close to them - they move on.  My heart keeps getting broken. 

The past two weeks have been full of so much sorrow and anguish about the effects of the hurricane on the Gulf Coast.  It has been a time of pain for everyone, I know.  If you knew and loved the city of NOLA, you surely mourn for its devastation.  My sister in Dallas is helping with the refugees who have gone to that city, filling her car with bottled water and Pampers to take to Reunion Arena.  This is a crisis that will not be quickly finished or forgotten.  Those who have been displaced may never be able to go home, or at least not for several years.  I've written at The Blue Voice about my thoughts on this, you can read some of them here:  Of Refugees, Pampers and Beer.   I've also been writing on the connection between this violent hurricane and unnatural causes, namely climate change as a result of our pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, this is one of those pieces, The Semi-Random Nature of Weather.

My heart is tired of contumely, why don't we have an adminstration that can bravely and manfully accept and acknowledge their faults and failings and pledge to make things better - instead of this bunch of whiny beaureaucrats (that can't possibly be how you spell that, can it?  oh well, I'll check later.)  who can only duck and cover? 

So, I've been missing my AOL posse pretty badly, and am determined to spend more time here where it feels warmer and safer than out there in the big blog world.  I need a little down time from all the hollering and yelling.  I love The Blue Voice, love my fellow bloggers, and most of the commenters.  Not all of them, however, that's for sure.  I've learned to simply ignore the raving right wingnut voices when they make their wacko comments and be grateful for the thoughtful comment posts of many others.  I do miss the friendly spirit here, and the way I can just ramble on about nothing or anything.  As in this post.  And more to come.  Hugs and kisses to all. 

PLEASE DO COME BACK!

Here we already are in August, the month of crape myrtles in flamboyant pink/fuschia/deepred bloom, cicada music rising and falling in the heat, the Perseid meteor showers, family company and birthdays.  It took the summer so long to get here, it's hard to believe it's almost over.  Teaching summer classes made it all go by in a haze of lesson planning, paper reading, lots of iced coffee and not much fun.

I seem to have all but abandoned this journal, as well as my other AOL journals.  Again, with teaching two summer intensives I only had time to blog at The Blue Voice.  I hadn't thought it would be like this, that I'd have to make such a hard choice.  Being part of a group presses my Responsibility button, and I have felt the need to keep my end up.  I thought that readers who cared about the environment would come and read my posts at the Voice, but with only a couple of exceptions, that does not seem to have happened.  If you are reading this, but not coming to TBV and reading my posts, I'd love to have you explain why - what is keeping you away?  We have a new format, the posts are no longer strung out to their full size on the front page - you don't have to plow through the entire length of posts you may not care to read (though of course I would hope you'd want to read them all!) to find one you are interested in.

Anyway, there are several series I have done there that I want to link to, make it easy for AOL readers to just come read those entries - because they are things that I think are important.  I will begin with the two Exxon entries, fervently hoping that I have not completely lost those readers who used to come here for environmental news.

Exxpose Exxon, Exxpose Them!

A Tiger in Your Think Tank

 

THE UNBEARABLE BURDEN OF BEING

This piece is cross-posted from my entry at The Blue Voice today.  It is so important that I want it disseminated as widely as possible

The Environmental Working Group today released the results of a study on the "body burden" of pollutants found in the umbilical cord blood of newborns. I have written before, in my AOL Journal, of the burden of industrial pollutants we all carry in our blood, tissues, nerves, brains. It was previously thought that a blood barrier protected babies in utero from the toxic substances we all bear. This study shows how untrue that assumption is.

In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.

This study represents the first reported cord blood tests for 261 of the targeted chemicals and the first reported detections in cord blood for 209 compounds. Among them are eight perfluorochemicals used as stain and oil repellants in fast food packaging, clothes and textiles - including the Teflon chemical PFOA, recently characterized as a likely human carcinogen by the EPA's Science Advisory Board - dozens of widely used brominated flame retardants and their toxic by-products; and numerous pesticides.

Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied.

Results of the study, a chart of the toxins and their possible effects on a developing fetus, implications for the future of our children and our children's children, are all laid out in these pages on the EWG's site, as is the unescapable conclusion that many increasing childhood problems: autism, asthma, leukemia, childhood brain cancer, ADD and ADHD, are the results of these embryonic toxcicities.

Those who have obsessed so diligently over the legality of abortion need to sit up, read this report, think about the fact that the chemical industry largely depends on "voluntary" regulation, rather than seriously regulated federal standards - and call upon the usual villains in environmental disasters: industry and government, to immediately pay attention to the millions of pounds of chemical materials liberally used in so much that we come in contact with in daily life (including, incidentally, the burning of coal, gas and oil, these carbon emissions are part of this infantile body burden too). What can be wrong with us as human beings that we have allowed such a situation to happen? Why are people worrying about birth control and pregnancy termination when we are well on our way to creating generations of young humans who will have the options of never reaching adulthood, living a damaged life, or developing problems early in their adult life resulting from events in their embryonic development?

This report has overwhelmed me with grief and fury. A commenter on previous posts of mine tells me that the environmental movement has been "hijacked by modern day socialists," that it is a cover for those wanting to destroy our capitalist society. What I have to say to that is - good. (Not that I put the slightest credence in such nonsense.) The sooner I can see the collapse of a society that values financial profit for the chemical and energy industries over healthy life for both unborn and born babies and children, the happier I will be. Please read this entire article, I beg of anyone who visits this blog. Please become an activist in any way open to you. Write your congresspeople, write the heads of industry, avoid as many of these products as you possibly can - most of them are entirely unnecessary anyway. Within this story lurks the Teflon story, which may or may not have surfaced to common awareness. A story for another day. This is enough for now.

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

It feels as if I've moved out of the AOL journal community, since The Blue Voice started.  Much of my time has been spent researching and posting over there, the rest is being spent teaching and trying to learn how to use the equipment in the new language lab at school.  Not to mention gardening, and family visits.  But I miss my AOL family, I miss writing here.  It's too non-fiction over at The Blue Voice, and I'm a storybook loving person.

Last week one of the boys, his wife and their two darling children flew in from Denver.  They spent a day in D.C. sightseeing, then drove to Chincoteague, where we met them on Thursday afternoon.  I only stayed that one night and the next morning, then came home to shop for something to put in the fridge, mow the lawn, make the beds - in general get the place ready for guests.  They came here on Saturday evening, left Monday morning to return home.  It was a lovely time for all of us.  I haven't seen these kids for over two years, and it was high time I did.  G has flown out to Denver several times since we were West together, but I, for one reason or another, have stayed here.

I love Chincoteague, but am worried about all the condo building that seems to be going on there.  It is the last of the sleepy little beach places in the area  (Rehoboth Beach once was a sleepy little beach town, now it's a nightmare), unspoiled, quiet, peaceful, real.  Okracoke has that too, unlike Nag's Head and other Outer Banks areas.  Many shops and restaurants in Chincoteague have closed, yet at the same time there's all this condo/townhouse building going on.  Hard to tell which way things are going.

Here's a few photos from the weekend, these are at the beach up here.  I have some from Chincoteague, but not downloaded.

Rachel and Daddy

Rach and Sam, beach enchiladas..

Sam putting on his shoes.

Rachel the artist.

Pretty cute, huh?  All of them.  I may do one of the whole family (Mom isn't in any of these.) when I get the Chincoteague pix ready to put into posts. 

EYES WIDE OPEN

I posted this in The Blue Voice several days ago, but I really want people in the area to be aware of it, so I'm posting it here too.  I know there are windmills readers who live close enough to Philadelphia to trek in and see this exhibit next weekend.  I'll be there volunteering on Sunday, so come see me too!

Eyes Wide Open

Here's an announcement for anyone living within a reasonable drive of Philadelphia. Of course, this is being held on the July 4th weekend, so no drive anywhere in the whole country will be reasonable. Anyway, on this weekend, from the first of July through the fourth, the Eyes Wide Open Exhibit will be back in Philly. It was there last July 4th also.

This exhibit is a project of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization committed to social justice and human service. I will be going, with two friends, to volunteer to help the organizers with the exhibit on Sunday, July 3rd. Please visit the site, there is much information there. The exhibit has been traveling since January 2004, at which time there were 504 pairs of boots. I can't imagine how the necessary number of empty boots will fit on the Mall two weeks from now. Information on future travel for the exhibit is on the site. You can see photos from previous places it's been, as well as read notes and comments in the journal.

This is the exhibit information:

About Eyes Wide Open
Eyes Wide Open, the American Friends Service Committee's widely acclaimed exhibition on the human cost of the Iraq war, commemorates all the lives lost.

The exhibit includes a pair of boots honoring each U.S. military casualty; a field of shoes and a wall of remembrance to memorialize the Iraqis killed in the conflict; and a multimedia display exploring the history, cost and consequences of the war.

Exhibit Location:
Independence Mall and Visitor Center
Market Street between 5th & 6th Sts.

THE SPIRAL DANCE

It is the Summer Solstice.  The longest day of the year, the shortest night.  I have never entered into the spirit of festivity surrounding this seasonal celebration in the way I have the Winter Solstice.  Summer is always so full and busy, bursting with life and activity, visits from family, work in the garden - yet this day is the high point.  From here on, the light diminishes, the darkness gains on us, imperceptibly at first, until it culminates in the shortest day, longest night, in December.  It's a lovely rhythm, really, the turning of a wheel, over and over again. 

Sometimes I think one reason we have let the earth get into such a mess is that as industrial society took hold, we moved further and further from contact with Nature and her rhythms and revolutions.  How many of us keep track of the phases of the moon, the constellations visible in different seasons, the timing of the tides, the amount of rainfall in a given time?  Perhaps farmers and fisherpeople still keep in touch with these cycles.  The rest of us are just trying to rush from urban setting to urban setting, in the confines of our cars.  Using my bike as transportation is helping me get out of this to some degree, gardening is also a way of moving closer to natural cycles of growth and ripening.

Once upon a time this was a day of great festivity, it's the fabled "midsummer" of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Magical things can happen!  It was celebrated with bonfires, dancing, feasting.  It is a time for marriages and pledging of troths - this full moon is called the "honey moon," and from this comes the post-wedding tradition called by the same name.  With the advent of Christianity this day became the feast of St. John the Baptist, and the bonfires were incorporated.

I think we have lost a lot in losing touch with these ancient days that brought together so many elements, celebrating the fact that our lives, too, are part of Nature and her cycles.  To learn more lovely lore about Midsummer's Day, the Summer Solstice, go to The School of the Seasons.  This BBC site also has loads of interesting information.  Sadly, on this the longest day, I am so tired I'm thinking of going to bed soon after I eat dinner.  But perhaps next year I'll get into the spirit of things, harken back to my Celtic roots, and arrange a bonfire on the beach, add my energy to the sun's energy, and hope we can return to a life in synch with Nature.

CALLING HOME

Poor windmills journal, you must feel so left-out and abandoned.  This week of beginning The Blue Voice has been so hectic - adding the beginning of summer school and a flying trip to Washington has only made it crazier.  I have neglected everything else in my life while we've been getting TBV up and flying:  the garden, the animals, reading anything but political stuff.  This really can't continue.  The deal was, there are eight of us on this group blog, so we could each post one day a week.  At a minimum.  Well, I have posted nine entries so far this week, and everyone else has done at least that many, I think.  If not more. 

I'm going to refer you to my post on TBV for my impressions from the Conyers hearing and rally.  There are actually two posts, the second is about the letter Conyers wrote to the editor of the Washington Post yesterday.  The coverage was abysmal, at least in the major papers. 

We made it through the ten days or so of heat wave without putting on the AC at all, and I feel very proud of us for this accomplishment.  The weather broke sometime on Thursday, and is now as pleasant as one could wish.  My lettuce is starting to  bolt; we can't eat it as fast as it is ready.  The tomato and cucumber plants have blossoms, the peppers are trailing behind. 

I have done several articles on TBV about global warming, and will be doing more soon.  It is wonderful to see comments from AOL journal friends over there, but I am missing reading and writing here.  Shall I put links here to my articles on that blog?  Those looking for environmental postings might want them, I don't know.

RALLY ROUND THE RESOLUTION

June 15 - This is actually a P.S. to the post that follows.  There are changes in time and location for the D.C. hearing tomorrow.  As follows:

On Thursday June 16, 2005, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. in Room HC-9 of the U.S. Capitol, Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.The hearings had been planned for the Democratic National Committee offices because the Republicans controlling the House Judiciary Committee had refused to permit the ranking Democratic Member to use a large room on the Hill.  However, the Democrats did have access to a small room in the Capitol, and Congressman Conyers has decided to move the hearings there.  This does not indicate any change in position from the Republicans.

 

Members of the media will be welcome, but citizens in town for the 5 p.m. rally at the White House will have difficulty getting into the 2:30 hearings.  The DNC will serve as an overflow room, so people can still go there: theWasserman Room at 430 S. Capitol St. SE.

 

AfterDowningStreet.org encourages people, instead, to spend the afternoon lobbying their Congress Member and two Senators, and paying special visits to the offices of Congressmen John Conyers and Maurice Hinchey, Congresswomen Barbara Lee and Lynn Woolsey, and Senators John Kerry and Ted Kennedy to thank them for their leadership.  Recommended talking points can be found in a one-page document at the top of After Downing Street.org.

 

Original Post from yesterday:

From After Downing Street, a very current Need to Know site, please note this announcement:

"On Thursday June 16, 2005, from 1:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Wasserman Room at 430 S Capitol St. SE, Washington, D.C., Rep. John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and other Congress Members will hold a hearing on the Downing Street Minutes and related evidence of efforts to cook the books on pre-war intelligence.

Later on the same day at 5:00 p.m. ET in Lafayette Square Park, in front of the White House, a large rally will support Congressman Conyers who plans to deliver to the White House a letter addressed to President Bush and signed by over 500,000 Americans and at least 94 Congress Members. The letter asks the President to respond to questions raised by the Downing Street Minutes. On May 1, 2005 a Sunday London Times article disclosed the details of a classified memo, also known as the Downing Street Minutes, recounting the minutes of a July 2002 meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair that describes an American President already committed to going to war in the summer of 2002, despite contrary assertions to the public and the Congress. The minutes also describe apparent efforts by the Administration to manipulate intelligence data to justify the war. The June 16th hearing will attempt to answer the serious constitutional questions raised by these revelations and will further investigate the Administration's actions in the lead up to war with new documents that further corroborate the Downing Street memo."

I really will be there, going to drive in to D.C. after teaching my first summer school class on Thursday. I can hope for this to be an historic occasion, and furthermore, an old friend from university days will be one of the speakers.

If you live anywhere within driving distance of D.C., please come support Rep. Conyers and his efforts.  If you live elsewhere in the country, check on the After Downing Street site for rallies to be held in other cities to back up this one in the Capital.