katie

“This body is not me. I am not caught by this body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born. I will never die. Look at me. Look at the stars and the moon. All of them are me, are manifestations of me. So smile to me, take my hand, say goodbye that we will see each other right away after this. We will see each other in every walk of life. We will recognize each other again and again, everywhere.” “All in One, One in All” Thich Nhat Hanh

Someone much more learned, much wiser than me put this quote before me just a few days ago. Instantly, I was struck by the beauty, the freedom, the unlimited possibilities this belief gives to ones life. I have not been able to get the thought out of my head. Thich Nhat Hanh is a venerated Buddhist monk – I am just a southern woman. I am not sure of all that his teachings entail, but I mean to find out more. He is a poet as well I think because those words are certainly lovely – or is it that universal truths, with their simplicity are just beautiful? I’m not sure which.

Reading this just before Fathers Day made me start thinking. My own father is gone for more than a dozen years now. He loved Thoreau, I have a feeling he would have liked this quote as well. Perhaps it is because of him being gone and my own children being parents now that I started weaving thought about them in and out of and all around that quote.

I know that Thich Nhat Hanh is right – the older I get the less I believe in real death. Oh, we go all right – but it’s not as final or glum as folks make it out to be. Sure, I miss my own Pa – I would give the world to be able to wish him Happy Fathers Day in person or just have a chat with him. On the other hand, every time I see my son doing anything with his son – whether lifting him up on his shoulders to carry him about or having to correct him for doing something wrong – I see my Pa. When the boy I used to have to harp after to get up in the morning to get to school on time is up and at it and taking his son to summer camp in the morning – I see my Pa.

When one of my grandsons picks up a piece of wood and a hammer, I know who is right there with them, learning to drive a nail into a piece of wood. When one of the grandchildren is hurt or sick, I know who is holding us all up until the ambulance reaches the hospital and we get the news about how serious it is. When two of them graduated from pre-K and there were awards ceremonies for the two first graders, I was sure who was sitting there right on the front row – making pictures with memories and clapping louder than anyone else.

When my daughter picked fruit from a neighbor and put them in her truck, then drove to distribute her pickings in the poorest neighborhood she could find to children who didn’t have fresh fruit to eat, I know he put her up to it.

When she started a girl scout troop at a school where there was none because they could not find a leader – i knew he had a hand in that.

Not long ago, my son did some volunteerism for the American Cancer Society. One of the things he did was enter a contest to see who dressed up as the cutest ‘woman’. Of course, he went all out and won – a $100 gift card. When he turned around and handed it to a beautiful little girl fighting cancer to live, I know that his grandpa goes on and on and on. When my son is gone – there will be his son and the next and the next.

How can we miss this simple truth that Thich Nhat Hanh lays out? How can we try to balk because it doesn’t fit into the typical ‘heaven is in the sky and you float around on a white cloud’ mold?

Personally speaking – I can’t buy into that one! I much prefer the one espoused by Thich Nhat Hanh. I personally don’t have any intention of dying once and for all either – just because my body gives out on me. I, too believe that I will be everywhere – in the stars and the moon – all around and that if we have to say goodbye, we’ll see each other right afterwards – if our minds are open enough to look and really see all there is – and not just a piece of sky.

Happy Father’s Day –

Riding on The City of New Orleans

Back in the nineties, I rode the train made famous in the song ” The Train they Call the City of New Orleans” departing the Big Easy and all the way to the Windy City.

It all started innocently enough. I had a close friend and colleague in New Orleans who was skittish about flying. I never have suffered that fate – I figured if the plane I am on is going to go down – my number was just up and that was it. Most of my friends have questioned my sanity or suggested I might have a death wish, because I’ve hopped into a Cessna with pilots they distrusted and flown to different places – that seemed suicidal to them. As for my friend, Bea – she never flew – she was terrified. I was going to a professional conference that she was also attending. A few of my employees were going also and one of them was ‘chicken’ about flying as well. I don’t know who came up with the idea of riding the train – but I figured since I’d not been on a train since I was in kindergarten when the graduating class of Miss Irene’s Kindergarten got to board the train in Opelousas and ride to Eunice to eat ice cream and re-board to ride back to Opelousas again.

We decided it would be a hoot to ride the train. I remembered my Pa telling me about riding the Panama Limited across the country – how elegant the dining car was, how great the French toast was and how much fun they had in the club car. At night, they pulled out those funny little beds for you go to sleep. We tried to get one of those compartments, but they no longer had them on the train – so we figured we would be sleeping on those beds they pulled out. We were too excited about riding the train and too stupid to ask any questions.

The train pulls out of New Orleans, Louisiana and the ride is about twenty hours to Chicago. That didn’t seem too bad – we figured we would watch the sights, have drinks, laugh it up until they pulled out the cute little bed things and then go to sleep to be met in the morning with the wonderful French toast. Once you leave New Orleans, you are headed over Lake Pontchartrain towards Hammond, La. The train then heads northerly – through McComb, Hazelhurst, Brookhaven and Jackson Mississippi. The last three were names familiar to me because my forebears had come to Louisiana from Copiah Country – and we passed right through part of it when going through Hazelhurst and Brookhaven. I watched the rural countryside mostly – every once in a while we’d pass a town, but most of them were small. The train rocked – and more than gently – back and forth on the tracks. It felt like train’s rocking was governed by some overwound metronome trying desperately to keep up the pace – back and forth as we covered the miles eight beats to a bar.

From Jackson, Mississippi, you pass through Yazoo City and then Greenwood Mississippi before crossing the line over into Tennessee – then Kentucky and finally into Illinois on the last leg of the trip into Chicago.

We were able to get coffee in the Club Car – or what passed for it. There was a tiny bar – and down both sides of the car – little ‘booths’. The ‘bar’ served tiny bottles of liquor or mixed drinks in little bottles with plastic cups filled with ice. They had chips, mints, sandwiches and souvenirs . . what an assortment! You could get coffee in Styrofoam cups and soft drinks in plastic ones. We rationalized that things would be better in the diner. By the time lunch rolled around there was a terrible crowd to get into the dining car. There was a very long line and so we opted to go back to the club car and get sandwiches wrapped in plastic and chips. This was not so bad – we had not gotten tired of watching the scenery yet. When we did – not long after lunch, someone broke out a deck of cards and we began to play spades. Oh my, that was a lively game and I would be lying if I did not admit there were wagers being made. Every once in a while, the fellow in the little booth type bar looked at us with a jaded eye, but never said anything, so we continued. During the long afternoon, we took breaks from the game to walk up and down the cars, get another drink or just watch the countryside go by, but we always came back to the game.

Around 7:00, we made out way through the aisles and cars back to the dining car. Another huge line… Well, we had no choice but to wait – for almost an hour before hearing our name called to be seated in the dining car, then almost thirty minutes for the wait staff to appear. You ordered something – they were ‘out’ of it. Seems like the only thing left was some fish that was supposed to be stuffed with something or another – I can’t remember. The only other alternative was a sandwich. Okay – we ordered fish. When it arrived, it was on plates that had compartments on them – like ones from a school cafeteria. That did not seem to bode well with my sensibilities or ideas of it being ‘fine dining’. Oh yeah, well wait until you bit into the fish and there were ice crystals that crunched …ewwwww! Now, we hear the skinny – the real news – there is no kitchen on this train. The best they can do is heat things up in the microwave or cook something small like a burger on a burner thing they had. We took the burgers….the fish with the ice crystals just had lost its luster somehow.

When we left the dining car, we made tracks straight back for the club car to get a drink. Seems we got there just in the nick of time – it closed at 10:00 p.m. Jeeehosephat! This was another revolting development. I bought a bunch of those little bottles and put them in a paper bag. While I was there – I asked the man if they would be handing out blankets to sleep with like they did on the airlines – he said, “No”, but they sold “souvenir” blankets and so I proudly became the owner of the tackiest white blanket I’ve ever seen on which was silk-screened the logo of the Illinois Central Railroad and in smaller letters ” The City of New Orleans”. That blanket was later that evening to keep me warm -even if they didn’t tell you it would fall apart the first time it hit the wash. Considering the few creature comforts I was finding on this magical mystical train ride; however, the money spent for that blanket was a hell of a good investment. We had just been seated and I was opening a little bitty bottle of my old friend Jack Daniels and putting it to my lips, begging for peace when what to my disappointed eyes did I see! The biggest Black woman I ever saw in my life and she just came and sat down with us. Turned out she was a biker mamma. Yeah – you heard me right. She showed us pictures of them in various places. Interesting woman, I’ll tell you. She wanted in on the spades game. Okay – the more the merrier. We started the game again and she was more than a worthy opponent. I never thought of bikers as being big spades players, but she was something else. If you weren’t careful, she would clean you out. Around 11:00, a conductor came up and told us that the club car was closed.

Closed- why – we are still sitting here! I was beginning to think the railroad didn’t much give a hoot about customer service. The fellow said that he had to cut the overhead lights out in the car because it was closed – that was the rules and he was not breaking them for us. He did agree not to attempt to roust us – probably because of the biker mamma…who was also very displeased at this small man trying to give us the boot. There were map like lights that shone just on the table – that’s what we had on to see the cards anyway. We decided to just continue like that, because we weren’t drunk enough or tired enough to go to our pull out bed things yet. Now, it was getting cold in the club car, so I pulled out the blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders like a shawl.

About this time, one of the others who was not imbibing or indulging in the card game came along. They all had been wondering where we were on the train. He reported that two of our co-workers had been seated in their reclining chair type seats when they fell apart under them. Yikes! How did that happen? Seems they had reported it to the conductor and he just came in a proceeded to rig the seats back together for them to sit in. There were no vacant seats.

“But why don’t you just go get in your little pull-out bed things”, I asked. They laughed at me and my heart sank. I knew before they spoke that I was saying bye-bye little pull out bed thing. “They don’t have that anymore” he answered. “So, where are we to sleep?” I foolishly asked. “In the same seat you were given on your ticket” he replied, grinning sheepishly.

Oh, great – either we sit in a darkened club car all night playing spades with my new best friend or risk falling asleep in a chair that might or might not fall apart under us in our sleep. That biker mamma was looking better by the minute to me. If I got too tired, I figured I was going to lay my head down on her shoulder and let the chips fall where they might. Any port in a storm, eh? Besides, it was getting really cold now and the Illinois Central did not seem to care if we were freezing or not -that’s how they were going to keep it. I took the blanket, unfurled it, draped part over my head and wrapped it about me. I kept thinking that sooner or later, Jack Daniels would warm me up and so I opened a couple more of those darlin’ little bottles, gave my ticketed seat to my friend and opted to stay put in the club car for the remainder of the night. As I poured my little bottles into my plastic cup – no more ice – she said …”let’s play” and I hoped she only meant cards.

When the sun came up in the morning, we were in Illinois. After my first cup of coffee, I thought I might feel better if I went into the bathroom, brushed my teeth, washed my face and freshened up. I was proud of my attempt at being cheerful. Have you ever seen the inside of train bathrooms? They have itty-bitty stainless steel washbowls – about the size of a salad bowl. And there was another line – mothers, sons, daughters – all that was missing was the family dog. By the time I got to the washbasins, they looked like the wreck of the Hesperus. Would the torture never stop?

We went straight to the dining car. Luckily, they were serving some kind of scrambled eggs – probably microwaved things as well, but we didn’t much care anymore. We were hungry and tired and wanted something warm to eat. I got an extra cup of coffee – in another Styrofoam cup. Somehow, this was beginning to feel more like camping in some kind of metal tent flying across the country than riding what we had believed would be the ‘elegant’ train.

I returned to my seat in the club car and was greeted by the queen of leather. She had opted to skip breakfast. I waited patiently for the little booth to open and quickly seized the opportunity to buy more of those little bottles in a paper bag. When I returned to my seat, they were promptly poured into our coffee. There was about another hour and half to go and neither leather nor lace saw the benefit of riding that distance stone sober.

It finally happened – we were pulling into Grand Central Station – Chicago, Illinois. That was an amazing sight – it’s huge! Believe me, as the tracks narrow down next to other tracks – that is an ‘Kodak’ moment. I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. Train tracks crossing one another and then pointing towards a big building – sort of like a spiderweb of tracks full of trains. You pull in to this large train shed – dozens of other trains – sort of like the concourses at airports. One difference – there’s no baggage conveyor belt bringing your luggage the distance for you. They take them off the train and you pick up your luggage and walk and walk and walk until you enter the lobby of the building from the train shed. I’d never have packed all that if I knew I was going to be toting luggage for several city blocks full of Jack Daniels and powdered eggs. Nobody told me there’d be days like these!

Once you get into the lobby – you just have to look around. It was built at the turn of the century and it’s gorgeous. That almost made up for being a pack animal. Well, until I saw the stairs that lead up, up, up and outside to the street. No porters – no escalators – no one to carry your luggage. Good luck, eh?

Well, we made it up and out and onto the sidewalk with our luggage. We began the process of flagging down a cab and loading it with our luggage – no one seemed to be of much help there. On to the Omni, where we were greeted by colleagues who had flown up the afternoon before and had showers, real food and a bed to sleep in! We were sleep-deprived, hungry, hung over and tired. All I wanted to do was check into the hotel, take a shower, call room service for a real breakfast, a Bloody Mary and hit the sack.

Of course, those well rested, well fed and happy souls had not shared with us the privilege with of riding the Illinois Central’s pride and joy – the train they call the City of New Orleans for the last twenty hours! I reckon that no matter how rough it seemed at the time, I wouldn’t have passed up the opportunity either! We rode a train that was part of history…right up through the Mississippi Delta and smack dab through the heart of America. It had been immortalized in the song made famous by Arlo Guthrie “The Train They Call the City of New Orleans”. Looking back and hearing the song, I am ashamed. I grumbled and carped while riding one of America’s beauties – ‘the magic carpet made of steel’ – right through the heartland. Without having realized it, we played cards – though not for a penny a point – just like in the song and passed the bag that held the liquor. I saw fields of crops that would clothe and feed us all and yeah – graveyards full of old Black men and rusted automobiles, just like the song describes. I’d gone most of that distance seated next to someone who was what seemed the polar opposite of me and found out we were more like sisters than either of us realized at hello. I think perhaps that train was magic because remembering it now brings a warm feeling to my heart and a smile to my lips. I wonder what happened to my leather-clad friend? If I close my eyes and sit back in my chair, I can feel the rhythm of the rails as surely as when we went down the tracks – and I’m sad to know that something as wonderful as a train they call “The City of New Orleans” truly has the ‘disappearing railroad blues’. One day ‘fore long, it will just be a memory, and all people will know about it was what they read or hear in the song – they’ll miss the experience. I was one of the lucky ones. I had a ticket to ride.

Last edited by katie on June 19, 2009, 10:42 am

Some cheeky person just made this story come to mind. Has that ever happened to you? Thinking or talking about something else and poof…up pops a story that is not really related. Anyway – I guess that’s how the glorious, sleep-deprived, slightly aging mind works, eh? This is just a little story – but I think it’s worth telling.

When I left ‘ole # 2 (the sadist) I was working at the Department of Labor. There was a Black girl who worked with me named Edwina – she was from around Franklin, I believe. Well, little by little, as I regained my sensibilities, and people would ask me what happened, I started talking about it. Before then, I kept ‘the secret’ all inside – it was too shameful to tell.

One day, I was talking to a kind, older lady who had befriended me – her name was Dot. In her own kind way, she had asked me about his treatment of me and I was telling her – not the worse things, but just some of his abuse. I’ve told more since then – just not all. I think it has to come a little at a time. Edwina overheard and joined the conversation. She told me that it was just too bad that I had not confided in her about what he was doing, because her mother had taught her the way to handle such things.

I’ll confess – I was curious. Did Black mothers know something that my mother did not tell me? Was it Southern mothers versus Yankee ones, like I had? What in the world do you teach your daughter to keep her from falling through the looking glass into the dark, dark world of abuse? I replied to her “How?” and was just waiting to hear this – that which might have spared me these years of horror.

Edwina began by saying in her matter-of-fact, always practical voice that her Father was a big drinker at one time – most probably an alcoholic. She said that when he took to drinking, he would also go gambling and lose a lot of his pay check, leaving her mother to have to scrape and scratch to make ends meet. Oh, I thought – how did that woman have the answer – sounds to me like she was ‘done in’ as well?

Edwin continued by saying that if her mother tried to quiet him when he came in wild and drunk or did anything to irk him, he would raise his hand to her. One night, it seems he raised it and let it fly for the first time and struck her. She took the blow and just kept her mouth shut. She waited for him to fall asleep in the bed – sleeping all soundly from the liquor. Then, she went into the kitchen and put a large pot of water to boiling and took out a box of grits.

I didn’t understand this – how was eating grits in the middle of the night going to solve anyone’s problem?
Edwin continued her story and said that her mother cooked up the largest saucepan she had full of grits. Then, she took a dishtowel and wrapped it around the handle and carried the grits in the semi-dark into the bedroom. She used her foot to poke and prod at Edwina’s father to awaken him. By then she was holding the grits right over his – well, you know – his family jewels. That is what he awoke from his drunken stupor to see – his wife holding a large saucepan of grits right over his pride and joy and saying “Oh, I know. You’re thinking I won’t do it….wanna bet? And then, you’re thinking you might can jump up and escape and beat and thrash me – wanna try? Because what you are not thinking is what will do you in – that you have to sleep sometimes, you sumbitch and if I don’t get you this time, there is a next time and a next time, until you learn to quit coming in drunk and making the mistake of hitting me. Do you know what the heat of these grits will do to your flesh? Cook it, blister it and when you – in your wild, anguished pain – try to scrape away the grits to stop the burning – your flesh is going to come with them and you will be scarred for life! Now – I’ll only ask you once – are you ever going to come home drunk and hit me again?”

Turns out that Edwina’s mother never had to use the grits. Edwina’s father saw the ‘light’ miraculously and stopped coming home drunk. He never raised a hand to Edwina’s mother again.

“Yes,” I said, “Yes – that might have worked!” I vowed to keep that remedy in my head just in case any other man ever got the idea that he could hurt me or whip up on me again. I won’t even bother to add that it would be against my will because no one wants to be hit and no one wants to be hurt. That’s just a male myth that goes floating around bars and the likes.

Lucky for me, I never had to use that kind of remedy on anyone. It sounded so terrible – shooting seemed less awful that that one. But I never had to shoot anyone either. After I left ‘ole # 2 there was only one fellow who ever made the mistake of slapping my face again – but that is another story.

Years later, I learned of another remedy for abusive husbands that was closer to the one that entered my head while I was still living with ‘ole # 2 – it was in a song by some girls called the Dixie Chicks and they were singing about a sumbitch named Earl. Funny thing, there were loads of women and girls standing up and singing and dancing triumphantly to that song in the way that only those who have suffered (or watched someone they love suffer) the whippings, the name callings and the humiliations can do – and then I knew for sure that I was not alone. Later, another woman named Martina McBride wrote yet another song with the same theme – and I wondered then – how many, how many – how many of us are there who have been hurt and told the story and still it goes on? Every time I hear of another woman beaten and killed – or sent to the hospital – I want to go back in time and tell her Edwina’s mother’s remedy and say “Do it, Do it” before he hurts or kills you. I want us all to tell our sons and daughters Edwina’s mother’s hateful, mean, torturous remedy for something equally as hateful, mean and torturous and say – “When will it ever end….when will it ever end?”

After all these years, I’m still waiting for an answer to that question.

Last edited by katie on June 23, 2009, 1:12 pm

Nesse Godin is just a woman who personifies the best of what is in us all. She is a survivor of the Holocaust – but even more pertinently, she was at the desk to speak to children in the Holocaust Museum when the attack began. Once more, Nesse survived.

I just got through watching a videotaped interview with her and she is just a beautiful woman. She says that she survived ‘by the grace of God above, and by the kindness and care given to her by Jewish women. She was in the ghetto, the labor camps, the concentration camps and on a forced death march – but she is not bitter. She says all the kind Jewish women who saved her asked was that she remember – she never let people forget what happened to them and that she tell others so that it never happens again. Nesse Godin has kept that promise, made when she was a child, separated from her family and she tells and retells her story – not to aggrandize herself, not to solicit pity or arouse hatred for others – she knows its too late to ease their pain or change the outcome. She tells the story so that we know what happened to a child – to millions of children and adults, that we might prevent it from ever happening again. She also is active in efforts to stop what is happening in Darfur and in making sure that children never go hungry.

She tells that when she was liberated at the age of 17- she weighed only 69 pounds, her face swollen from being beaten – she cried because she did not know where she was to go or what she was to do, since she thought she was alone. Fortunately, she was reunited with her mother in Poland after the war.

Now she volunteers regularly at the Holocaust Museum to talk to children who visit the museum, share her story – she is still making good her promise to tell the story and teach others so that it won’t happened again. She was sitting at the donor desk with another lady, American born, when she heard the first shots. She thought it was an explosion and just froze. The other lady pushed her under the desk and shoved the chairs aside from where they were going to hide so it would appear no one was there. Then, she said the other lady, who knew her history whispered to her not to worry – to get up further under the desk and she would lay over her to shelter her – that she would take the shot. Later, when they heard people crying to evacuate, she lost track of the lady who had pushed her under the desk. She says it was some time before they were reunited. She knew the security guard who was killed – she says he always gave her a hug and kiss when she came in to volunteer and he had done so that morning. She related being fearful at the time – wondering if this man had a group behind him – was it starting again?

No, Nesse – not this time. This time you are safe. Here’s to you, the beautiful woman who lost her name during the war to be called 54015 instead. Here’s to you, the beautiful woman who does not know how to cry because tears would never have stopped the unspeakable things that happened to you. Here’s to you, the beautiful woman who lived through so much to marry and raise her own children and has volunteered so much of her life and given so much of her time to make good on a promise that she made to those kind and caring Jewish women who helped a little girl to survive – that they would not be forgotten and that what happened to them would not happen again.

L’chaim, Nesse, L’chaim!

Last edited by katie on June 13, 2009, 3:11 pm

I cannot begin to tell you how troubled I am about this most recent ‘hate crime’ – the shooting in the Holocaust museum. Of course, I can’t tell you that it is any worse or better than the others – just more of the same. Walk into a church and murder in cold blood a doctor who performs abortions – and feel justified? An extremist murders two soldiers because his religion justifies this and promises him glory? Now this – a man who has steeped his heart in hate for so long that he has lost contact with reality and thinks his Social Security check is being cut because of his white supremicist rantings and ravings.

It would be bad enough to read about these events if everyone decried and condemned them – but ohhhhh, noooooo! People are actually making comments right and left to vindicate their acts and make them out as martyrs and their victims as criminals who deserved the executions they suffered. Does this not make anyone else want to scream and stand up and say “Stop, stop, stop! “. Don’t come at me with any notions that I am so naive about things such as this – I’ve seen my share of horror, cruelty to people, intolerance and hate before. I’ve seen people who supposedly have everything a person could want try to deny anything to one who has nothing or take away the widow’s mite from the widow – just because they could – just because they were that greedy or so insecure that they felt the need to boost themselves up just that little bit more.

It’s like an addiction for folk like that – the demeaning, denying, the ostrasizing of others. Never let them have a crumb – they might get ‘uppity’ and forget their ‘place’, eh? Yes, I have see all that.

I see in the media they are trying to lob blame upon the new administration for this – and although I don’t agree with this new president, I’m not sure he rightfully deserves all the blame for this. I think we had better look closer to home – at those around us and at ourselves. There is plenty of blame to go around. Everyone is so busy defending their little plot of ground – white, black, red, yellow…….male, female, gay or straight……Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist. etc…..young, old, in-between….ignorant, learned and all those who fall somewhere between the two. Each so convinced that their little ‘sect’ is not only the right, but the righteous one. My goodness – how can ya be so sure? I’m not sure of anything much except that I need to keep learning and trying to understand. I don’t want to defend any tiny little plot of ground – some little prison of phoney righteousness. In fact, I don’t want to be ‘like’ or ‘unlike’ anyone else – I want to be “Me. “

The children of this world are growing up with precious little love – even less unconditional love. Consequently, they look for what they think will make them happy in the all the wrong places – popularity, success, cyberspace. They don’t much have feelings for others – because no one has ever given them enough feelings. You cannot use what you don’t know about. Instead of any type of religious or moral upbrings, the neon God of this generation is the ipod, the blackberry and cyberspace. That’s where they are getting their ‘feelings’ from and its not more than cheap thrills. Not enough are teaching them to love themselves – much less love one another.

They get seduced into hate groups because of the status and affinity it gives them – a sense of family – just what so many are lacking. Once you start to hate like that – you lose all sight of reason. They’re not bothering to check anywhere to see if what they are told is true or not – they accept it. That’s the example that’s been set for them, isn’t it? The one that they see in the forums when people say the abortion doctor deserved to be slaughtered in his church in front of his family because he ‘murdered’ so many souls. No – I don’t believe in wholesale abortion…but I don’t believe in wholesale murder either. Every time there is another religious article here where Catholics are bashed – I cringe. Or when people act as if all Muslims are the spawn of the devil. That’s bull – and people know that – they just won’t have the chutzpah to stand up and buck the popular voices in saying it. Now, a man who has lived and breathed hate for so long that he thinks there were no concentration camps – no holocaust – it was just a myth pushed off on us all by Jews – he walks into the Holocaust Museum in Washington and opens fire. Ironically, it is a Black security guard that is killed. You see – no one is safe from hate. If you see someone attacking a Black person because of their color and say nothing – you are no longer safe. Remember, once before I metioned this – Pastor Martin Neimoller’s poem, “First they came for the Jews “. He wrote it to make the same point to German intellectuals who remained silent as the Nazis visited violence on their victims:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Communist;

Then they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If anyone tries to make you believe there was no holocaust – in the name of G_d – go to this website:

http://college.usc.edu/vhi/]

This is the website for USC – who is in control of all the recorded footage from the SHOA Project. For those of you who don’t know – this was Steven Spielberg’s project. He recorded the testimony of tens of thousands of persons who were in the camps during the holocaust – of war criminals – of liberating forces – anyone who had knoweldge of or witness to any of the Holocaust. The reason for doing this was not to make people hate those who did this – it was to warn everyone in future generations what led up to the holocaust, how it came about, to enlighten our hearts about prejudice, intolerance, bigotry and not being forgiving. If you can watch even five of those testimonies with a dry eye, my friend – get help – you either are no longer human or you have died.

When I think of the holocaust, I always remember Anne Frank. I think her diary was for many of us – the first we knew of this horrible event. Remeber, that poor little girl, who had to live in hiding – away from the light – in the dark much of the time? Her simple, little girl idealisms…ones that she lived by until she died in the camps. “The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands. I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains. Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is! ” Finally, the most moving of all her words . . . “in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. “

If that child could believe in the dignity, the hope of mankind under those conditions – how can we do less? We’ve much more than she ever had a chance for – how can we begrudge others understanding, tolerance, the milk of human kindness? I wonder how many of us would have hid Anne and her family – would we have had the gumption – or would we have felt that it was “just the jews’ problem? “

Would we have had the fortitude, the daring to do what Schindler did – to lie and scrape and lose his fortune to save almost 1200 Schindlerjuden ? Schindler was a man who was not a Jew, but a Catholic. The Talmud says, [b] “Whoever destroys the life of a single human being [nefesh a`hat mi-bnei adam] … it is as if he had destroyed an entire world; and whoever preserves the life of a single human being … it is as if he had preserved an entire world “. [/b]Aren’t we, in a way ‘preserving life’ by being good and kind and understanding and tolerant of one another? Can’t that be the little that we can all do every day of the year to promote peace and light in the world? We’ll never be without wars, I don’t think – but we could live in peace despite them if we only could learn to see what is alike in all of us and appreciate that instead of focusing on what is different and using it as an excuse to hate.

Would any of us live for one day in Krakow wearing the yellow Star of David? Would we be willing for just one day to be Black – or Native American – or Asian or Hispanic? Would we want to live in a world where our only child faced daily condemnation because he was a homosexual? Would we want our daughters treated as less-than? I didn’t think so. Conversely, can we forgive those who have trespassed against us and make them our brothers and sisters??? We still have miles to go before we sleep, my friends.

In memory of the countless people of all races, religions, ethnicities, and sexual orientations who have died at the hands of racism, bigotry, hatred and intolerance and who continue to die… We ALL. . need to remember . . and to forgive.

Last edited by katie on June 11, 2009, 10:47 pm

Damn. I just found out that my wonderful, dedicated, hard-working and lovely friend Carmen died Saturday from cancer. Well, that just takes the wind out of my sails for the day, I’ll tell you. This is the second time I’ve lost someone who I truly cared for and respected in the last couple of years – and none of them were old by any standard.

Carmen was a hoot – she and Edna over at her place and me at mine. We pinched pennies, shared windfalls and traded okra for medicines if times were hard in the state and sometimes – if you know Louisiana – times were hard. We did what we had to do to care for our folks. Along the way, there were some really good times, but there were some tragedies and then we felt as if someone had knocked the stuffing right out of us. I felt that way today when I found out about Carmen.

Aside from everything, we always had humor and that is how I am going to remember you as well, old friend. With humor and gentleness in my heart. I know you busted it for so many years to do everything you could to help folks addicted to any kind of substance. You were there more than twelve hours a day most times. No one could have done what you did better and so many lives are all the better for you having been on the face of this earth. You never sought fame or fortune – just personal satisfaction at having been ‘of use’. As far as I am concerned on that score – you deserved plenty of medals that I know you never got.

What I’ll remember about you more than anything was what we did when the stress was just grating us down to powder. We made magic – just like little girls playing mud pies outside in the sun – we made magic. Cookie and the Cupcakes – remember? Singing our little swamp pop or doo wop song with hand movements and choreography to boot! That’s what we called the three of us when we were being ‘simply foolish’ for a little while so that we could carry on under fire. Those ‘little whiles’ are ones that I will cherish as long as I live, Carmen.

So, one more time for old times sake. Line up and get ready – where’s Edna? Here we go…. It’s showtime!

Last edited by katie on June 11, 2009, 10:13 pm

It’s finally happened. I’ve come to the place in my life where I just have to be me for me. Before, I had responsibilities – obligations – things that had to be done. I put ‘me’ on the shelf – and only came out briefly to recharge my batteries.

Early in my life, I made a mistake when I ran off to get married. I was young and impetuous and it seemed like the right thing to do. Well – it didn’t work out. Instead of taking some time to learn from mistakes, stepping back and really learning what it was in me that missed knowing that – so I would not repeat the error, I fumbled the ball again. It’s just like when you see the receiver catch the ball so tenuously – it’s bouncing around on their fingertips and then, and then…..

I fumbled again – but this time was much more serious and that one act profoundly changed my life. I married a man who was a sadist – he lived for power and to control people and he controlled me so well, I became lost. Not just lost – like I cannot find my way back from the store – I mean utterly and abysmally lost….in the dark – in space somewhere that was totally alien to me – away from family, friends, people who loved me. I forgot what it was like to be loved – I thought I was un-loved and forever unlovable by everyone. He made me believe that. There are places in life that someone can take you to – well, you can ‘come back’, but in a way, part of you will always be back there – in the dark. When you ‘tear free’, you leave some of you behind on the razor wire…. Some experiences just change you so deeply inside that you will never be the same person again. Part of me was already dead before I got the courage to leave. Only a part of who I was survived. It took me almost ten years and finally realizing that he was surely going to kill me – or I was going to kill him – to make me move from the tiny, tiny prison cell he put me in. And then, I just ran and ran and ran. First to safety and then just still running….because I was terrified to look back – to think about it too much, to make it too real. I couldn’t afford to lose any more of me.

Without looking, someone fell into my life and then I carved out bits and pieces of time to be with him. Before he died of cancer, I had grown to love him. Let me just tell you, two failed marriages – one to a sadist who beats you and rapes you, and then love finds you in the strangest places and you lose the one you love – all before you are thirty years old – well it stinks. Take my word for it. I’d never wish it for another – never. At the same time, like they say, ” Freedom is a conquered state of mind. ” I don’t want your pity and I take full responsibility for everything that happened in my life.

After that – I just had nothing left to give to anyone else – all of me was committed except for the part that was still grieving my lost love. Well – it took a while to get over that and my solution – the way I figured to insulate myself from any more pain was to live like men do – with their rules of engagement. It seemed to work for them – they weren’t the one’s getting hurt, at least not in my book. ” If I’d have know then what I know now… “

Okay – so I’m not perfect. I’m flawed, I’m scarred and I’m slightly jaded. But I’ve never missed a deadline or let anyone down. I raised two kids alone without help from their father. I ran a business and did lots of volunteer work. It wasn’t easy, but I made a new life and as Dr. Larch said in “The Ciderhouse Rules ” – I was ‘of use’. Yes, I may be opinionated – I might not have lived my life by the same standards you did. As I said before, I wasn’t Sadie, Sadie married lady with 2.4 kids and a dog. I was me. Just me.

It took me a long time to realize the truth of these words of Anais Nin , “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. “

Re-birth is as painful as giving birth. It means you have to become vulnerable – to be defenseless for a period of time while you examine everything about yourself and see what you are keeping, what you are discarding and what you are changing. Once the process is begun, there is no turning back – it’s too late, you see, for you have already become changed…. I’ve undergone that process more than once in my lifetime. I have even come to accept it as ‘just a part of life’.

Now – I have learned that “Freedom is a conquered state of mind. ” You must not know that yet, because if you did – you would know that you are not going to break me, make me cry or whine, you are not going to back me down and you are not going to defeat me. You would go on and live your life and stop this foolishness.

If I choose to write honestly and passionately about my life – what of it? How is that your concern…and who are you to judge me? Have YOU the courage or the gumption to do the same? You hide in anonymity to hurl insults and condemnations – to mock who and what I am. I have to pause and wonder – why are you following me from one web site to another – why are you reading all this about me – why are you following me around like my new shadow if I disgust you so much? Why do you spend so much of your time on me? You are not going to succeed in making me feel badly about my life. Get that through your head! Would you have been more content if I stayed a emotional wreck? If my story had been that I lived off the dole for these many years? That I was Sadie, Sadie married lady – who felt so unfulfilled and empty that I had to run through cyberspace looking for someone to taunt and mock because they lived the life I wanted for myself?

So get off your voyeuristic knees. Quit peeking through the keyhole of life! Just think – if spying on my life ‘titillates you’ – what might real experience be like? There may still be time and hope for you. If it’s action and a real life you want – get some gumption and go live it -your life – because this one is mine and I am telling you sister, you haven’t got it in you to make me ashamed of it or want to change one thing about my life or who I am.

Now, I think we need a great finale…a big production number to say “Hey World, I am what I am! ”

Not a drag queen (fooled you?) – just a woman although the principle still applies. I love to dress up – so I want those stilletos – the boa – the whole colorful, spangled nine yards of my life!

Last edited by katie on June 10, 2009, 11:29 pm