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June 27, 2014 by

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Where are you at this moment, how does your skin feel

I hear your voice in my soul, as you ask questions

My heart sputters to a standstill when I consider you

I am humbled by your first ‘I love you’

I am your rib, prideful in my stature beside you

Fearful of all love entails as we touch spirits

In dreams I reach for you dancing in light

Bright fortunes lived day-by-day and by choice

Bedazzled by peaks of diamond brilliance

Sparkling distantly across moonlit waters

These are the landmarks of my dreamscape

As you call, come BabyGirl, join me

Walk through doors without fear

I am startled by you, your presence overwhelms

My reticence, natural and unnatural barriers fall

Laughter spills over and out, carried by the wind

Whispered secrets rustle grass as we watch shooting stars

Secret love names Honey Girl, Cara roll off your lips

I melt each time you whisper my eyes closing, sleep claiming me

As if the words themselves were warm honey on my soul

Your lips pressed against skin chilled by years of neglect

Leaves trails, melting crystal icicles into puddles at our feet

Where we stand beneath canopies of rainbows

You tell me, I will live for you I choose too

Mine My Heart, Choose

Valentine, 27-June-2014

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: ,

I Choose

June 22, 2014 by

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt has been a strange year for me a year full of lessons learned and introspection. I have taken time to look what I wanted from life and what I have been doing with life to now, whether because I thought it was the right thing, out of obligation or because it was simply my nature. I suspect some choices we make will always be born out of our inherent natural instincts, others will be our history combined with our natural instincts; that is how we have inhabited the world through our history. If we have had trauma in our lives and who hasn’t, we will be changed and thus how we interact with the world.

One thing I know after this past several months, anger and bitterness is counter-productive. I made real choices in December of last year, they were scary as Hell but they were right for me and without them, I don’t believe I could have found peace for myself or been open to the opportunities that have been laid at my feet.

When my husband left without word, at first I was devastated, crushed by the blow. In retrospect, what I found was not a broken heart but fear and fury. Fear for myself, that I would be bitter, that I would not find a way through my anger to a loving heart, that I did not know how to love or be loved and so many other terrible fears, mostly fear that all he had said to me would manifest and I truly wasn’t worthy of being loved.

Fury that I could be convinced or convince myself that doing what was right equaled happiness or that life could be lived without joy. I was wrong, thankfully and happily I was wrong.

The next decision I made was not to work for toxic people who made me miserable. I have worked as an independent IT Project Manager in one of the most competitive markets for twenty-three years. In December I made the decision I no longer wanted live the life of a Road Warrior. I love my work, but 100% travel was killing my body and soul. I wanted the chance at a real life, with friends and maybe someday in the future at love. Being gone four to five days a week didn’t lend itself to this. I quit the job I was working and took a hiatus, I will grant you I didn’t intend it to be a six-month hiatus, but that is simply how it turned out.

Monday morning I start a new job with a great company (good reputation) that has promised 30% travel or less doing work I am good at and enjoy. This will certainly be a change, no more lazing about doing whatever the hell I feel like doing!

Cowgirls have To-Do Lists

Cowgirls have To-Do Lists

Now, let’s get to what I really want to say. I decided I am worthy of love. This one didn’t come quite so quickly, in fact it snuck up on me. I decided I have value and I can reach out and claim love when it is offered, I don’t have to be afraid, I don’t have to run and I don’t have slam doors. I decided not every single person wants to devalue me or my history, some of them simply want me just as I am. Sometimes people can be taken at face value, what they show you is what they are you can choose or not to accept them into your heart just as they can choose to accept you.

There are times I can be surprised, by myself and by others. I would guess most of you who read me regularly would be shocked to know I am still in many ways very naïve, sometimes shy and quite often a bit restrained. Though I have told much of my story here, there are many parts of my world and my life I have never told, a history that makes me what I am a history that created the complete me. Breaking down my many walls can be hard work, laying claim to a heart stilled by years of ‘doing the right thing’ rather than the joyful thing, this can be heroic work.

For many months a hero has been giving me lessons on what it means to be a grown assed man or for that matter a grown woman and to fully realize just how worthy of love I was. It began to dawn on me what I was missing as we talked through email, when he first told me this in response to an answer I gave about recognizing love:

You’d better get educated to what love is, and teach yourself to alertly recognize love when it does eventually come ringing your front doorbell ……….

As we continued to talk over many months, I knew I had found someone who did know me and was patiently helping me to discover myself through our discussions.

I know you. You and I have met and loved before. I know your soul and your heart. I know you and sometimes I remember.

There is more to these, more between these small statements, why they are important is they were the pein hammer knocking against a frozen heart, causing cracks to let light in and a few real blushes now and then. Through thousands of lines in e-mail, through longer and longer phone calls in the early mornings and late at night, through storytelling, through banter in various forums both private and public I was learning to be joyful, self-forgiving and more importantly self-accepting.

I was learning to claim myself, my whole and complete self and doing this I was learning I had the right to expect love, to claim it for myself. I was learning to choose for myself what I wanted and what I needed from love and for love. I was also learning to speak up, to say clearly “I choose” and “Mine” without stepping back from those statements afraid of being forward or pushing too hard.

Is this lesson complete? Not by any stretch of any imagination, I have a very long ways to go I think. I was caught unaware and am still stunned by the depth of emotions, yet and still, ‘Mine I choose’.

Some might say, too soon. Even I might say that using my pragmatic brain instead of a heart frozen and in stasis for far too long; yet and still I would say, ‘Mine I choose’.

I choose, because it is the only thing I am able to do with an unfrozen heart turned toward life and that wants love for as long as it is offered to me. I choose, because it is far better to live with joy than to live without it. I choose, because as he said we have met and loved before, I am his rib and he does indeed know my heart and soul.

So now you know my secret and you know my muse. Well you don’t know my muse, only that there has been one for the past few months as I write some of my musings, especially my poetry. Life has been interesting; it has offered me choices, different paths. I could have chosen anything and I chose, we will I think see where it leads.

 

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Tell Me, Claim Me

June 16, 2014 by

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Bereft of touch left with only devices of imagination

Mind’s eye building on pictures we frame

Between us whispered words of want and desire

In language we have created to sooth or excite

Written amid public lines others read unknowing

Privately we inflame and engulf each other

Saying too little or too much, wrapping ourselves

In secrecy to keep our  thoughts tangible, tangled on the surface

Our need to feel each other close grows brighter

Than our desire to keep private our intimacy

Conversations tumble from one space to the next

Keep flowering, blooming across pages

Words, pictures and music spoken between us

Stumbled through to tell stories of fragile history

Rushed toward with hopeful heart and daring

Not that woman yet, but maybe tomorrow

If love knocks hard enough and with bold claim

To write across heart and body

Valentine, 16-June-2014

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: , , , ,

Most Fortunate with Two

June 15, 2014 by

the dads

Fathers are people too, I was both cursed and blessed with two Fathers through the course of my life. They would over time become touchstones, friends, guides, mentors and ultimately true fathers, dads and daddy.

I was always, from the day I was brought home from the hospital a ‘Daddy’s Girl’. At best I tolerated my mother, but my father, him I adored. The stories that were told of my bad sleep habits, bad eating habits, colic and overall bad temper; all these were cured immediately upon my Daddy walking into the room and picking me up. I slept on his chest, drank from the bottle he fed me and apparently any illness I managed to catch he could cure by a laying on of hands. I tracked him with eyes that did not yet focus, cooed happy sounds if he was in the room but screamed bloody murder at the approach of any other person. Mind you, I do not remember these things thus can only relay the stories I was told.

What I do know is my first memories are of my father, the smell of Fiberglass and sawdust.DAD&Me

I was adopted at birth and brought home from the hospital at three days old. My original birth certificate doesn’t have a name, it says ‘Baby Girl’ with my first mother listed and my first father listed as unknown. This last part wasn’t  true, my first father was known and had tried with the help of his parents to stop the adoption from proceeding, in 1957 though it was a different world and biological fathers were not afforded consideration regarding their children, born or otherwise.

My ‘Daddy’ and I had an imperfect relationship through most of my young life. In large part this problematic relationship had to do with his absence, not so much his physical absence as his emotional absence from our lives. I spent a very large part of my life trying to get his attention, even as a young adult what I wanted was my father to ‘see’ me. It wasn’t until my father remarried in later life that he and I finally learned how to talk, where secrets of my childhood were revealed and we finally repaired what was broken between us. Even with all that was broken though, I was a ‘Daddy’s Girl’, I loved my father he was my rock, the most dependable person in my world.

When I was 24 I had the opportunity to meet my first (biological) parents. It truly was unlooked for, not something I had planned but a gift. What I found, my first parents had married after I was born; married and gone on to have five (5) more children. It was an unusual circumstance, not something most adopted children find when the files get opened and their ‘birth’ names are revealed to them. By the time I met my First parents they had divorced, both were leading separate and different lives, my first father had remarried, had two step-daughters, a very pregnant wife not much older than me. The first time we met, it was a phone call. A short, stuttering phone call with each of us not certain what to say or how to react to this unlooked reemergence of me or him into each other live.

What is important to remember about my first parents, they and I, we are the same generation; all of us Baby Boomers though born at different ends of the generational curve we were still within the same generation, still had some of the same experiences and same expectations. My ‘grandparents’ biologically were the same age as my adoptive parents. It was a very strange dichotomy we created, when you added to this a sibling group, two sibling groups actually it was a great deal to wrap my head around.

LVD and dad

This takes me back to my fathers, two of them. The relationship with my adoptive or second mother was such, broken and toxic would be the kindest terms I could use that finding and meeting my first mother was something I considered a curative at the time. Something that would fill a hole in my heart, I believed since I hadn’t really had a mother – daughter relationship up to that point I would perhaps find what had been missing. The idea I had a father out there, one who was prepared, even eager to meet me had never crossed my mind up to this point and I didn’t know how I felt about it. In truth, I didn’t think I needed or wanted another father, despite truly not having mended all the broken bridges between my ‘Daddy’ and I.

What I found when I met my first father.

  • Someone I looked like in many ways, I am a blend of my first parents and you can certainly see me in them. When you line me and my siblings up there is no doubt we are related. I had never looked like anyone before, it was stunning and for months after meeting them I would stare at pictures.

o   Gee thanks Dad, love that ass you handed down to me

o   Yeah, and those hips gotta love those

o   But the cheekbones, I do appreciate them they give my face character

  • Someone with a similar sense of humor, until I met my father I hadn’t really ever met anyone who saw the world the way I did and laughed at it. Strangely my Dad had the same sense of the ridiculous, I never knew this was simply built in.
  • Someone with the same intellect. My Dad was truly a very smart man, I am fairly certain he didn’t always use it for good, but he did use it. I am so grateful  I inherited his intellect, his brain.

o   I am also grateful I was nurtured by my Daddy and gained my moral compass where I did, giving me a true sense of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ even if I did not always apply it to my own life until much later.

  • Someone who truly did love his children, all of them. He wasn’t always present, didn’t always do what was ‘right’, he did though love his children and from what I observed they knew it. In later years and with his youngest daughters he was their primary parent, present and very much part of their lives, he and I talked about this once, he called it redemptive.

When I met my first father I was most fortunate, I didn’t know it then and wouldn’t realize it for many years but I was most fortunate to have another piece of me returned. I was also most fortunate to have my Daddy encourage me to seek a relationship with my ‘other’ father. My Daddy was secure in his place with me and felt no jealous need to hold me back, instead pushing me out of the nest and into the arms of another ‘father’.

Both of my fathers are lost to me in this world, but not from my heart. I treasure their contributions to my life, to my mind, my heart, my compass through the world. I am most fortunate to have had them as a measure of what men should be.

Filed Under: Family Tagged With: , , , ,

Our Apathy is Killing Me

June 13, 2014 by

OpEdAnother day, another week, another spree of violence from more cretins with axes to grind and tendencies to believe conspiracies and live in fear and self-righteous entitlement. Isn’t it fascinating the very same people who point outward, complaining about all those ‘others’ who live on the teat of the government dole, tend to be the ones who live on the brink of tumbling into the chasm, needing a handout in the worst kind of way. Yet, they are constantly complaining about those ‘others’ that are destroying the fabric of America, you know the ones they are always talking about;

  • The folks on Unemployment
  • The folks working two or three jobs on Welfare
  • The folks needing to feed their children on SNAP
  • The folks on Medicaid and Medicare even
  • The folks on Social Security
  • The folks getting student aid (Pell Grants or Student Loans)

Did I catch all those government programs? What I failed to mention, in every case those complaining about these programs seem to think, truthfully they strongly believe most of those within the system are the problem and they are also ‘other’, meaning they aren’t of European (Caucasian) descent and in some or maybe many cases they might not even be Christian. It seems we, as a people find it entirely acceptable for people in media and elected positions to hurl the most egregious and base insults towards our fellow citizens without consequence. We have sunk so low we willingly turn away from the ugliest vitriol dripping from the mouths of those we elect and those who are paid to act as the gauge of our culture, we shrug their words off and demand no consequences from them for their divisive actions.

Our nation is being torn apart, yet we shrug and turn away, sometimes we even laugh at the ignorance of the utterances. Shouldn’t we instead be holding these bigots, these racists, these homophobes, these sexists, these misanthropes to a higher standard and with them ourselves. How dare we, as a people and a nation turn away from these terrible acts and words and not demand better, not demand something change. How dare any of us sit back, shrug and pretend not to see what is happening to this nation, even as we sip our coffee.

I can only say, What the Fuck is wrong with us that we don’t put two and two together and come up with four. Instead we sit back and say, ‘oh, well this isn’t so bad’. Really? This isn’t so bad, when pray tell have any of us seen it worse? Answer me this, when have any of us seen it worse than it is today. The origin of, ‘Take our Country Back’, the battle cry of the Tea Party movement, comes directly from the last gasp of a scared and aging demographic, you know the ones I mentioned them before.

  • White, Older
  • Disenfranchised
  • Mostly Southern (started here

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  • Low Information
  • Low income
  • Christian

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not saying all White Men above a certain age are members of the Tea Party, they most certainly are not; fortunately there are many who don’t fall into the Disenfranchised / Low Information category. Unfortunately, for all of us there are those who saw a void and scrambled to fill it, these horror stories of the modern age have been building on the fear and disenchantment of the European male for decades and in 2008 the movement exploded with the election of Barack Obama. The fear mongers saw the opportunity and jumped in with both feet and all their financial assets, they founded the Tea Party in all of its loud and proud glory. Spun off from the John Birch Society, The Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, The KKK; The Tea Party has inherited the weight of each of these, hidden under their sheen of new money and attempts at political respectability.

Fred Koch => John Birch Society=>David & Charles Koch =>Americans for Prosperity+John Birch Society=>ALEC=>Citizen United=>CPAC

It is insidious and ugly, it is apparently the New American Way. When you add to this mix the KKK, Patriot and Nationalist Groups, Radical Christians Identity Groups then throw in a few Skinheads and a couple of White Nationalists all of whom seem to relate to and populate the Tea Party. But no, the Tea Party isn’t Racist and didn’t suddenly grow from the election of the very first Black President of the United States of America, except, look at these:

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How to account for a 755% growth since the election of Barack Obama if it isn’t the color of his skin? Whatever some of us might wish it otherwise, there is an underlying truth we must accept, the first Black President has brought out the very worst, brought to the surface what already existed. It isn’t his politics, it isn’t that he is a bad President, it isn’t his ability to lead. It is one simple defining characteristic, it is that he is ‘other’. This simple truth has led to the dividing of a nation and many other issues including escalating violence.

I struggle to write these days, I do. I struggle with the violence. I struggle with the constant seemingly never ending days of spree shooting, school shootings and people no matter how many have died, making excuses, blaming the victims or worse, ignoring the real problem in favor of screaming their Second Amendment rights trump all else. My heart breaks for the families of all those who have lost their lives, some days I can’t face the news; truly I sit on my bed and tears simply flow down my cheeks silently, my shoulders shake and I wish for someone to hold me as I weep.

I blame these venomous and bile filled horror stories siting in their studios and back offices for the state of the Union.

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This is just a small selection of who I blame, a mix of elected officials some still seated, some revered for ‘past accomplishments’, some on their way out, some media pundits, some of course dead and deified by those who apparently have forgotten what they truly did during their time in office. This is enough, I didn’t bother to put SCOTUS up, I do blame them as well. I blame the sell out to NRA, the fear the entire Congress apparently feel each time NRA is whispered in their ears, never mind we have had seventy four (74) school shooting since Sandy Hook, can you imagine? Seventy-four school shootings since twenty babies were shot dead in their school rooms and we still haven’t done a damned thing to stem the tide of blood running in the streets.

Screen_Shot_2014-06-10_at_1.48.46_PM

Map Image; Image Credit: Twitter/Mark Gongloff

I blame us. That is right, I blame all of us for not having the wherewithal to get up off our azzes and say “No More”. For being so damned apathetic we willing shrug our shoulders and say, ‘there is nothing we can do’.

I blame us. For every child that dies. For every father who weeps at the loss of his only son. For every mother who buries her child. I blame us. We don’t owe the NRA a damned thing, we owe our children a better world. Hell, we owe ourselves a better world than the one we have today. We owe ourselves safer streets than the ones we have today. I know I don’t feel safe going into downtown Dallas where men with small penises have supplemented their insufficiency by strapping large guns across their chests or backs simply to ‘prove’ their manhood. It use to be they would buy good cars, I tell you what I want to go back to those days.

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I don’t know about any of you, I am tired. I am tired of the idiots. I am tired of the hate. I am tired of the divisive trash talking BS coming out of the media and my elected officials. Let’s start calling things what they are maybe then we can start healing wounds and moving this nation forward.

  • People who kill police officers screaming about revolutions and draping those dead officers in the Tea Party flag, they are Domestic Terrorists.
  • The people out on the Bundy ranch with their guns, who pointed said guns at federal officers during the commission of their duties; they are criminals. By the way, so is Cliven Bundy.
  • Rush Limbaugh is a Racist and a Sexist.
  • Sean Hannity is a Racist and has used his position to stir Domestic Terrorism and Criminal activity.
  • The United States of America is NOT a Christian nation it is a Democratic Republic, stop saying it is anything else.

I am certain there is more. The problem is right now, we are moving further and further to the Right. If we don’t stop this tumble we will very quickly find ourselves living under a Christian Taliban. Our rights will be gone, Civil Rights will be a thing of the past, Voting Rights for but the wealthy a thing of the past. Shrug your shoulders if you like, think I am overreacting if you want. The truth of the matter is, Congress has dug their heels in, despite this Eric Cantor lost his seat for being ‘not conservative enough’.

Think about that one. Then think about November 2014 and consider what will happen if you remain apathetic.

 

Hate Groups Growing: http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2012/spring/the-year-in-hate-and-extremism

In their own words:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/26/913651/-The-Republicans-in-their-own-words-Part-2-bigotry-hate-and-violence

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/27/914152/-The-Republicans-in-their-own-words-Part-3-Big-Fat-Liars-and-hypocrites

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/10/28/914514/-The-Republicans-in-their-own-words-Part-4-Let-em-eat-applesauce

http://www.teapartyslogans.com/cgi-bin/web/index.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/

Jill Sobule, Protest Song: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jill-sobule/protest-song-we-want-our-america-back_b_1097453.html

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Op Ed Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Misogyny & All Women

June 7, 2014 by

OpEd

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. 1 Corinthians 14:34

I want to start this by sharing what I listened to while writing, it has taken me three days to form my thoughts around this subject so they were palatable for mixed company. While I worked through them I listened and sometimes watched as well.

 

I struggled with how I would approach the subject of women, society and culture. Of what it means to be a woman today nearly anywhere in the world. It would be easy to put my pragmatic hat on, pull out the statistics and studies, don’t worry I might still give you some of those, but at the end of it that doesn’t really speak to the truth. The truth is, being a woman of my age (56) means I have walked through a few fires simply to pay the price of being a woman. Why struggle with talking about this subject if we are going to talk statistics, better to talk from a position of authority, right?

For nearly as long as I have been conscious of being a woman, I have also been conscious it meant there were those who would always see me as one, if not more, of the following:

  • Weak
  • Victim
  • Stupid
  • Property
  • Of less value than themselves

There is not a single woman, not one single one of us who have not faced at least some form of gender based harassment, discrimination or bullying in our lifetime. As young girls we grow up being told we are ‘not enough’, it might not be the intent of the messenger to deliver this message it is though the message we receive. The message of ‘Not enough’ is delivered throughout a woman’s life, they go something like this, NOT ENOUGH:

  • To play sports, but YOU can cheer on the sidelines, if you are pretty enough.
  • For college funds to be set aside or made available based on your performance and competency, boys first there is only so much to go around.
  • To be protected from roaming hands, catcalls or sly whispers  in hallways and classrooms, Boys will be Boys.
  • For your aspirations beyond housewife, mother, secretary or assistant too some male, those aspirations are slightly ‘unnatural’.
  • For your labor to be valued at the same rate as your male counterpart, instead you will work longer hours for less.
  • To receive necessary health care at affordable costs, instead your body will be fought over as if it were an oasis in the Sahara to be confiscated by the fastest talking Bedouin every two to four years.
  • For your ‘No’ to be true no matter how or to whom you say it or for any person to question what you were wearing or what you might have done to ‘ask for it’.
  • To walk down the street at night and feel safe, even in your own neighborhood.

The list could go on, every woman could add to it from her own experience, these though are important and have been lately in the news:

  • Not Enough to be safe even when using a field in pairs because there is no other place to empty their bowel or bladder, they lost their lives after being gang raped.
  • Not Enough to be safe in their schools as the 276 young girls of Chibok, Nigeria would say as they were herded onto trucks and carried into the jungle to be sold in markets or to their kidnappers as ‘wives’.

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Women everywhere, no matter the nation they are born in or their circumstances all have one thing in common it seems, they are born NOT ENOUGH.

We might be born into the very best circumstances, wealth and privilege. We might receive the best of everything, education and opportunity throughout our lives. None of this will be enough to protect us from exploitation, catcalls on the street, domestic abuse or rape. What these circumstances will provide is the chance those who do us harm will pay the consequence of their actions.

If we are born without privilege, without money, without opportunity; if we are born anywhere in the world even here in this nation that takes pride in its ‘advanced’ views and civil rights, we are lost before we step foot out the door. Despite lip service, our bodies are the battle ground men fight ‘morality’ wars over decade after decade. Whether we have the same right to sexual freedom and the same right to protect our reproductive choice the fodder for nightly news segments, pulpit rants and Filibusters from both sides of the aisle. Our right to say NO clouded by what we might choose to wear or whether we have deigned to say YES to others previously, our history as women the only thing on trial if we are brave enough to report our victimization at all. The very meaning of RAPE subject to redefinition to narrow the scope from a Violent act against us to whether it was a Legitimate act of Violence or not.

There is no woman on the face of the earth, not anywhere in any nation who in her lifetime will not experience some form of harassment, bias or bullying simply because she is a woman. There is no woman, not one who will not suffer some form of bias, will not have her options limited in some manner specifically because she was born with Breasts, Vagina, Clitoris, Uterus, Cervix and Ovaries rather than being born with Penis and  Testicles.

Women around the World (Image)

Women around the World (Image)

While men continue to debate whether women should be paid equally, should have the right to body integrity, we as women seek simply to achieve equity in community and choice of how we live, how we love and who we love. Our struggle to reach equality, to be seen as whole and complete is tied to so many other movements toward equality we sometimes lose sight of our need as women to band together and lift each other up, we fail to reach across fences and work together for common cause.

Our gender creates a single unbroken chain across borders, faiths and race. As of 2013, out of 7,162,119,434 in the world we are 49.6% of the total and growing. We have enormous power in our hands and between our thighs. We are the mothers of the world, it is through us the next generation is born, it is with us the next generation learns their first words, takes their first steps and learns compassion, love and hope. We are the light of the world, without us there is nothing. Yet, six out of 10 of the world’s poorest people are women, 70% of the world’s poorest people are women, one in three American women live in poverty.

I struggled with how to approach this subject. I am reminded daily of what is wrong in this nation and worldwide, as women die simply because a man takes it in his head he is owed what is not his; a woman’s body the gift of sex or love, the gift of our gentleness, the gift of our hearts  and our compassion cannot be stolen through violence and cannot be hidden behind veils or high walls.

Before I close this let me say clearly, I do not believe all men are bad or evil, truthfully I love a man. In fact I believe most men are not misogynistic, most men are not rapists, most men do not wish to harm women. What I think is most men do not know by their inaction they enable. The chain women must form across all the boundaries we have today, whether of our making or of society and culture, that chain must include men who believe as we do, that we are ENOUGH just as we are, that we have equal value within society and our contributions as human beings are not just welcome but sought. Were all of us, men and women together to begin to form common cause, the subject of our equality would no longer be subject of debates it would instead be a History Lesson, as would many other Civil Rights issues which frankly require a woman’s voice and a woman’s touch.

 

Things of interest:

UN Women Should

Human Trafficking: The Polaris Project

Human Trafficking: The FBI Files

Do Something Campaign

PCI Global: Women’s Empowerment

Shriver Report

 

Filed Under: Women Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Did You Know

June 5, 2014 by

006

Where are you today, not with me not here

I feel you, phantom arms pressing me close with words

Whispered, telling me soon and love

Patience is not my virtue, you tell me to wait, learn

I don’t muse the bed at night, alone

The sheets stay cool, the covers barely crumpled

Dreams though tell a different story

Rolling my reticence and turning me wanton

How did this happen, in the spaces of my heart and mind

Places once darkened now burst with light

My soul captured, it dances across spaces between us

With words and pictures to seal us

With each yes, my spirit flows toward you welcoming

Did you know, I had searched and was afraid

You pushed me to run I was already yours

Stroking my fears instead I gave you my secrets

Binding us, invisible chains stretch across miles

You tell me not to question kismet

I have already put my all in fates hands and yours

While I wait for you I will sit in Lavender

Wishing for patience and remembered dreams

Valentine, 5-June-2014

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With:

What is Love

June 2, 2014 by

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe other day I asked a question on Facebook, just a small innocuous question…..

“What is Love?”

I dared people to answer the question, no debate or argument with other answers allowed. I wanted to know what some of my friends and relatives thought the answer was. Here are some of the answers:

Love

I thought all of them were interesting, some more than others. This is my favorite:

“The emotion which makes us hunger to give, even when we believe we hold nothing more.”

Given the diversity of my Facebook friends, I was somewhat surprised by how consistent the answers were. I honestly thought some of my ‘friends’ would have come up with something more, something grander. Then again, I sometimes expect a great deal when I throw the door open with general questions. I think when we ask these questions it stumps people.

What is Love?

How do we know it when we are touched by it?

Here is what I think love might be, these are just my thoughts mind you.

Love is the perfect storm, everything around you might be chaotic but inside the safety of love you always find peace without asking.

Love is the perfect counter balance, your weakness and strengths are balanced without constant power struggles to maintain the upper hand.

Love is a gift offered freely, nothing withheld, mind, body, heart, soul and spirit. Unbroken, unchained and without reservation, in the offering is freedom and the knowledge of the gift returned.

Love is absolute trust, our secrets laid bare without fear of judgment and complete knowledge we will be held closer for our painful opening.

Love is focused, love notices and remembers everything, love is vain about love itself. Love balances on the precipice of silence, always basking in the glow of its own light, jealous of sharing but tempted to preen and show its delight in its possession of Love itself. Love once sure of itself, certain of its circle and passion, love cannot help but crow and claim. Love is a claiming and a choosing.

That to me is love. I am sure there is more, I have been thinking about this a great deal. I know there is more, I have written about love and what I want in my future, I thought though this simple question was a brain teaser.

What is love to you?

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , ,

All, I want it All

May 29, 2014 by

images

Mine, a single word holds me still, my mind frozen

Whispered in the dark, against my sleeping back

In the dawns pink light out loud, shattering my morning

My mind holds it, whispers it back to me when you are not here, Yours

Mine,  a phantom arm around my back, lips against my ear a whisper

Dancing to a rhythm only partly of music’s making

Body molded as if it knows your contours and fit before               

Dared to agree, even my skin responds without need for more, Yours

Mine, spun from honey and silk across a fearful heart

Secret words and questions, challenge shadowed corners

You are the first I tell you, gifting you my secrets and my doubts

You are the only one I see in the corner of my eye, my heart wide open, Yours

Mine, you are King Shahryar to my Sherehezade as I spin tales for your amusement

Stories laid at your feet, laying bare my soul as a place of delight

Each tale told to free us both or bind us more closely together

Hints of velvet and gold lay lightly on my neck a promise, Yours

Mine, unbound until you knock on the door, ask me again

Fantasy and reality entangled, my spirits wings beating with your heartbeat

Silk bonds float down to lay across wrists offered in trust to you, bound to you

I have loved you before as you knot the red silk and draw me toward you, Yours

Valentine Logar

29-May-2014

Filed Under: Poetry Tagged With: ,

Run Race Problems

May 26, 2014 by

soapboxpileWe don’t have a Race problem in the United States of America, how many times have you heard this? How many times has someone you know said this to you when you have attempted to have a conversation about Race with them? How many members of the media, paid to inform and even define the cultural standards of the day insisted, we do not have a Race problem in the United States of America, those days are over.

I am here to tell you, I agree with all of them. We do not have a Race problem in the United States of America. We have something entirely different. What we have is this.

We have a CULTURE of RACISM.

Institutionalized and culturally accepted. We have a culture that not only tacitly agrees, but one that has been built on the enslavement of an entire people, yet refuses to acknowledge its history. We have an entire nation, whether ‘Left’ or ‘Right’, whether wringing their hands and cringing at the use of the ‘N-word’ or blatantly calling our President a ‘Nigger’, who frankly will not admit our roots our deeply sunk in slavery and Jim Crow, we would rather white wash the entire thing pretending it simply never happened. Worse, those roots of disenfranchisement, poverty and hate are part of who we are and I think we must love them because we refuse to look our history squarely in the eye, acknowledge it, apologize for it and fix the inevitable outcomes of it.

Fix it, what am I saying? Fix it, not only do we not want to fix it we are actively working to undo any small advances we might have made in the past sixty years. Shall we look, just take a small peek at what has happened since 1954.

  • 1954 – Brown vs. The Topeka Board of Education, integrates public schools
  • 1964 – Civil Rights Act
  • 1965 – Voting Rights Act
  • 1967 – Loving vs. The State of Virginia
  • 1991 – Civil Rights Bill, a setback for all minority groups in their ability to seek remedy in court
  • 2007 – Parents Involved in Community Schools vs. Seattle Schools District No. 1 and Meredith vs. Jefferson Co. Board of Education, these two begin to unravel fundamental principles of Brown
  • 2013 – Voting Rights Act, significant portions invalidated by SCOTUS leaving open the ability of States to enact draconian Voter ID laws and redistricting, which has now been on-going and in many cases successfully implemented leading up to this years mid-term elections

Since the election of this President, yes the Black Man in the White House, Barack Hussein Obama this nation has lost its presence of mind. People who once at least tried to pretend they were on the right side of history no longer even pretend. The Right has moved so far to the right they make no attempt to curb their lunatics or shut down their fringe, in truth their fringe are welcomed to the fold with open arms. Don’t misunderstand me, President Obama didn’t cause people to suddenly become bigots or racists, no this isn’t the case at all. What the election of President Barack Hussein Obama did is scare the holy hell out of the White Man who for so long had been in power without having to share or feel at all threatened. The election of this President shook the White Man to the core of their very being and they have come out swinging, determined to hang on by whatever means necessary.

With fists, with guns, with draconian voting laws, with redistricting, Confederate flags in front of the White House, with a do-nothing Congress. The list goes on and on. With marches on the White House and calls for impeachment by members of various groups who lampoon this President in guises taken directly from minstrel shows of the nineteenth century and we do nothing, we say nothing. We stand by and complain while these ignorant buffoons are insulting both the office and the man, but in honesty, we do nothing, what the hell are we afraid of losing our own privilege?

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Type ‘Hate Nigger’ in Google search, you will get 295,000 site hits in .4 seconds. None of these will be hits decrying the use of the word, or the history of the word in our Lexicon which I have provided in the footnotes if you are interested. No, they will all be sites specifically focused on exactly what it sounds like, 295,000 hits. Some are duplicates I would suspect, I didn’t do anything more than look at how many I would get. Type in ‘White Power’, you will get 1,630,000 hits in .55 seconds, admittedly some are the standard Wikipedia, but those are just the first two or three, the rest are sites for real live groups promoting ‘White / Aryan Nation’ bullshit.

What got me fired up today? This got me cranked over:

Now admittedly, this is the tip of the iceberg. This is one old man in Mississippi, likely hanging on by a thin thread to his brought-upsie and his moonshine. The problem I have is this, he isn’t alone and he doesn’t represent himself. He represents a host of others, he is an elected and seated judge. He said aloud what others think but are too afraid to say. He and his kind are why we continue to have a CULTURE of RACISM and why we do indeed have a very real problem in this nation.

Let’s take a look at some other recent examples:

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The list just goes on and on until my head spins and my skin burns. No, they must all be correct in their assessment, we surely do not have a Race Problem in these United States of America. What we have is a problem with those who would hold onto power by any means necessary. What we have is a failure to address history, acknowledge we built this nation on the backs and shoulders and through the sweat, blood and labor of those we murdered and enslaved. What we have is a nation seeped in blood, stolen from those who were here first and from those who labored for nothing to build it. What we have is a blood price owed and a failure to even admit it is far past due.

Poverty Rates

Frankly, I do not give a damn if you are personally a bigot. I don’t care if you hate every single person who doesn’t look like you. It matters not a whit to me if you are afraid, it is your problem deal with it. It is though long past time this nation stop putting Silly Putty over the wounds of hundreds of years, time to stop targeting those this nation has disenfranchised and shut out of full citizenship since the day the first slave ship landed on these shores.

We don’t have a Race Problem, we are the problem, every last one of us who turn away and allow these Neanderthals to continue to reside among us in positions of power and authority. We have a Culture of Racism so deeply embedded we are comfortable pretending it doesn’t exist. We are comfortable saying, “I am not a Racist, I am not a Bigot, I can’t do anything about the rest of it”.

I don’t know, I don’t think that is the answer anymore. I don’t know what the answer is, truly I don’t. I do know this country better get off its moral high ground and quickly. I do know, we are a failing nation and this is one of the greatest failures of all.

 

A brief history of the word Nigger: http://www.aaregistry.org/historic_events/view/nigger-word-brief-history

Atlas Left Report on Judge: http://atlasleft.org/mississippi-judge-called-out-for-slapping-disabled-man-and-yelling-run-ngger-run-video/

The Atlantic, The Case for Reparations, Ta Nehisi: http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/#ii-a-difference-of-kind-not-degree

Introduction and additional information for the fabulous Ta Nehisi article in The Atlantic: http://theobamacrat.com/2014/05/24/the-case-for-reparations-by-ta-nehisi-coates/

FoxNews is a blatant source driving the ongoing race baiting since the election of the current President, rather than me attempting to show the proof, News Corpse is a great on-going source: http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?cat=417

The Inequality Report 2014: http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/sotu/SOTU_2014_CPI.pdf

*Not true to FBI statistics, 49.3 percent of murders were committed by whites vs. 48.7 by blacks in 2010. Whites are more likely to commit violent crimes. Crime is an issue in black communities in several major cities across the nation. Nevertheless, white criminals aren’t viewed as America’s problem, although more whites commit crimes than blacks.

Filed Under: Series: Race in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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