one more reason
to impeach...or perhaps I should say 750 more reasons...
Impeach him now. (a nod to Philocrites)
two great letters
that I was sent today...I was sent two great letters/essays today, one from my Dad, and one from my friend Melissa. they both speak to the issues of our day, and are well worth reading.
the first, by Bill Moyers, at the funeral of William Sloane Coffin :
and the second, by John Kerry, on the anniversary of his Senate testimony 35 years ago:
the sleeping giant is awakening.
a book
and a quote...I've just finished Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin, who is a favorite author of mine. it was a wonderful book, not fast, but with much depth. one section jumped out at me, so I thought I would quote it here. the character speaking is Orrec, a young man whose Mother has just died. he has spent the last several years blindfolded so that he is unable to use his "gift" of "unmaking", which he inherited from his father. Gry is the young woman whom he has grown up with.
Grieving, like being blind, is a strange business; you have to learn how to do it. We seek company in mourning, but after the early bursts of tears, after the praises have been spoken, and the good days remembered, and the lament cried, and the grave closed, there is no company in grief. It is a burden borne alone. How you bear it is up to you. Or so it seems to me. Maybe in saying so I'm ungrateful to Gry, and to the people of the house and domain, my companions, without whom I might not have carried my burden through the dark year.
So I call it in my mind: the dark year.
To try to tell it is like trying to tell the passage of a sleepless night. Nothing happens. One thinks and dreams briefly, and wakes again; fears loom and pass, and ideas won't come clear, and meaningless words haunt the mind, and the shudder of nightmare brushes by, and time seems not to move, and it's dark and nothing happens.
a relaxing
vacation...just going to say hi, and mention that there are probably many, many things to write about, but I'm not going to, tonight. just enjoying the vacation time, and time with the boys. we're all good here, and I'm glad to say that my family in Iowa City was spared the destruction that hit the city a couple of nights ago. my Mom did get hit with a good-sized hailstone as they traveled across the street to the shelter, but other than a headache which I hope is gone by now, she's ok. Carol helped some friends clean up their yard, including large portions of their roof that was blown off. she took some pictures that really show the mess that there is now. quite a storm. relieved that everyone is fine.
for a vacation Saturday, I was actually quite productive, so not a bad start to the week. I hope yours is a good one, too.
I've never thought of
myself as an atheistbut this is a compelling quote:
here's a link that tells a bit more about the quote: Stephen F. Roberts fixed the link"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."
...Stephen F Roberts
now I know that many people don't dismiss other people's gods, or at least say that they don't, but I think that this way of putting it gives pause. anyway, go at it.
what's a meta
phor?well, I was all set down to do some tax stuff for my attorney this afternoon, and discovered that I must have left some of the paperwork at his office last week, so, I'm out of luck until Monday. whew and rats, I guess. I really wanted to get it done, or at least started, but now I can't. oh well.
so, I've been thinking about metaphor lately, as it seems to be a need of mine, to understand things in my life by some metaphor or another. interestingly, or perhaps not, when I read, I'm very much a literalist, and often (usually?) miss the metaphors that are used. I'm not sure what that all means, and my therapist really didn't have much of an answer, either, but it did get us into some good territory. by the time the session was over, we had hit on five or six really good metaphors for what's going on in my life right now.
stop me if I go too far.
I have, for a long time, seen my life as a ride down a river. I'm on the raft, and just going wherever it takes me. usually by the easiest path. lately, of course, I have fallen off the raft, and have been working hard just to keep my head above water. but I'm managing, and the cold water is good for me. (you should know that I'm not much a fan of swimming. ask me about swimming lessons someday.)
secondly, I have a need to keep hold of anyone, or almost anything that has been important to me, and I've seen this as a large central hallway, full of doors. I've been trying to decide if I see the doors shut, keeping all those people inside, or open, allowing me to keep track of them, and imagine that all I had to do was walk into their room and all would be as it was. anyway, awhile back, I made a comment about shutting some of those doors, and what I meant was I need to let those people go. (no Moses jokes, please)
well, fast forward to the latest metaphor, an original one to me, I'm sure... I am struggling very hard to be born, and not to be born. I don't want to give up all my old ways, no matter how good or bad they were for me. I am angry, and sad, and even happy. and I suppose that makes me normal. but the me that wants to be born is fighting 44 years of entrenched behaviors and expectations.
anyway, I guess that's it, for now. I'll address guilt, and self-respect, and all that other good stuff another time.
it hit the mid-70s yesterday. I like Spring. it's a good metaphor.