Showing posts with label World. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World. Show all posts

Thursday, May 28, 2020

Sitting Witness

Although my dad is more likely to read the sports section of a newspaper than pick up a book of poetry, his school experience of the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati would get him so fired up that he'd declaim "Thani oru manithanakku unavu illayenil intha jagaththinai azhithiduvom" frequently. So I'm no stranger to Bharati's radical outrage, the threat/aspiration to burn the whole world down if even one person is harmed. 

 I can mourn the horrific murders in the midst of this pandemic of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd and don't find myself distracted by other actions a grieving people may undertake. But in case anyone hears it, thinks it, or needs it--here is a lovely primer of "How to respond to 'riots never solve anything.'"

And please donate, if you can. Every one of us with a credit card in this family (At, Big A, I) have donated independently of each other this time.

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

It's cruel



When your child can drag so many of your cultural heroes at the same time and loves it so much that they send you this pic on Twitter and family chat...

#JustinInBlackFace #OldSchoolKanye










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Saturday, August 10, 2019

One More


L gave me these mega hydrangeas from her garden when I walked her home after dinner with us.

Another green spot to keep me going this week...















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Friday, August 09, 2019

Off-Screen


It was too painful to be around my computer today. I have tons of stuff to do, but Facebook and Twitter are so tempting and enraging...

I spent hours sweeping (meditatively, without even music) until the whole driveway was clean. In contrast to every big project I've ever undertaken, I got more meticulous as I went on...

I did manage to connect with another mom and we're planning to do a teach-in on how to educate ourselves and resist ICE overreach.



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Sunday, August 04, 2019

Must Wake Up!

Dinner last night was to the breaking details of the El Paso shooting over the radio and today we're waking up to news of the Dayton shooting overnight. DAYTON. Dayton.

Checking on all my Yellow Springs people, but ten people have died, 26 are wounded--whether I personally knew them or not--there are grieving friends and family in a place I called home. Big A would have been taking care of them at Miami Valley Hospital if we still lived in YS.

Gun violence keeps getting closer. Every day feels like the beginning of a nightmare precipice...
#MSU #YesterdayThisSeemedFunny


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Friday, August 02, 2019

Bitter to Sweet


Big A lovingly linked me to that lovely Washington Post article about the horrific child labor in the chocolate industry globally, and killed my lifelong devotion to drugstore chocolate. The Cadbury's, Hershey's, Mars I grew up eating, the chocolate in my office, at home, everywhere I spent more than an hour...



It was easy to swear off those products of pain and child slavery. But none of the Fairtrade chocolate bars I began buying were to my taste. I mean I still like sweet and fat in my chocolate. I began melting down all the too-bitter bars and adding coconut oil and sugar.





But it still tasted pretty nope.

Then out of a grocery store that's not our regular place, some sweet news: The Green and Black and Divine MILK chocolates work!








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Sunday, July 07, 2019

The Telling




It's like we are hoarding
their journeys, songs, stories
their trauma alone, icy, burning

It is in the dripping of pain
from the empty sky, empty day,
the scrim of our red, weeping hearts

What rends us, is the vatic cry
of all the children calling, calling,
calling our names, even as we sleep

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Saturday, July 06, 2019

In the Light


















I mean there are things drowning in my EYEballs on the regular,
my skin circles me as I shed, my face turns toward me, expectantly
listening as my voice--out there--somewhere, fizzes like a walkie-talkie.

No one is sure where we are anymore, and if they are, we yell "fake! fake"
until they turn and blip away. It is an autumn morning inside a beautiful painting
drunk on beauty, high on drugs, wandering around in something someone made up.

Sometimes our laughter or tears escape us slowly, and we try to urge them on:
be free, be free of us! You can do it! Then life feels like a summer afternoon--so very
long, all about the waiting, words breathing themselves to life--trying to find their source.

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Friday, July 05, 2019

Reflections


L indulgently pauses on hikes to let me take pictures because I say I will need these beloved summer sights to get through winter. 

This week is all about basic simple accomplishments--like our movie hat trick--three movies in as many days. We saw Toy Story IV (awww!), SpiderMan: Far From Home (YAY!!), and--while Nu was at her sleepover--Midsommar (Bleccchh!)

I get to meet L again today for lunch when I get another chance to say goodbye to Y before she heads home to Cuba.

Also, I am behind on all the things I need to finish at work and I will need to at least start working on those things if I want to stop waking up in the dark filled with dread.

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Thursday, July 04, 2019

Electrifying


All electric, 
capable of getting me to work 
and back on a single charge.  

This morning, 
even before the first cup of tea, 
I went to peek at this hardworking baby.
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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

A Different View

Back to urban hiking with L, and here's another portrait of the Red Cedar River.

Also, when Big A and I were on our way home yesterday, the kids asked if they could go out for dinner before we got home. Since we're not paying a sitter anymore, the deal was that they would eat out and just put it on the credit card...  I was so charmed that they went out to a fancy Sushi restaurant by themselves.

#Red Cedar #MSU #Sansu



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Saturday, June 22, 2019

We are the world!


At the UNA's garden party. My babies are lovely, and At is wearing his "Abolish I.C.E." sweatshirt ahead of this weekend's planned raids.















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Tuesday, June 04, 2019

Overflowing


This doesn't even look like Michigan! I even thought that the the little log in the shadows looked like an alligator. All the rain has given the Red Cedar quite the overflow.

I'm having a tough time of it emotionally as well. At and I started watching When They See Us and my feelings are getting to a point where I feel very overwhelmed most of the day.

At DD's birthday lunch today, this came up (at the end after we properly celebrated) and she thought I might benefit from a coach rather than a therapist, because I have to get through this by figuring out what is within my control and learning strategies to cope with what I cannot control.

Anyway... onward, I guess.

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Sunday, March 24, 2019

“HARRY POTTER” & THE DEATHLY STATUS QUO

At is in New York for the Model U.N. competition, but his article from last month seemed really pertinent. Some weird typos and things, but I love his take. This is the article he wrote while I was on the Greece trip, mining Nu's help for HP lore.
"Consider, instead, that the wizard world of Harry Potter isn’t a status quo worth returning to. The “magical and perfect” wizard world is based on class, racism and segregation. In a society where magic can magically fix and duplicate things, somehow there are still wizard families living in poverty. "
And because I posted it proud-mama style on FB, there were some sweet reminiscences about his playwriting at seven, and him asking me a question at the SALA D.C. conference in 2004, when he was five.

So far, the only bright spots in a day where both Jordan Peele's Us and and Bobby Mueller's magnum opus disappointed.

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"I'm a weirdo/doofus/nerd/naif" (Part MXVIII)

I realized during my meditation this morning that my energy for contacting so many people yesterday (the "emotional labor" that St...