In January I said that there was nothing like a windy, five-degree morning to make a still, ten-degree morning feel tropical by comparison. Today, after two sunny, eighty-five degree days that reduced me to torpor, I really enjoyed a cloudy, fifty-degree morning.
My parents are 86 and 87. They are falling a lot. Right now my dad is recovering from a broken shoulder and my mom is recovering from a broken pelvis. Right now they require 24 help in the house. We had to encourage my mom to recognize the increasingly untenable situation they are in, living in a split-level home: stairs to the bedroom, stairs to the front-door, no shopping within walking distance. Negotiating those stairs with the assistance of a home health care aide puts those aides in physical jeopardy.
So yesterday my mom calls me to say they will be moving to an assisted-living facility sooner rather than later. And -- apparently because I am not steeling myself to make the argument that this is a necessary change -- this hits me really hard. I don't really mind them giving up the house. True, I barely remember any other place (they moved there when I was four) but they rearranged everything long ago. The bedroom my brother and I shared no longer exists; it is an office for my parents' desks and computers. My sister's bedroom had its walls knocked out; it is a loft for the living room. Our playroom? The front two-thirds are an entryway, with the door to the house where the window used to be; the back third is part of the utility room, along with the original utility room and part of the original garage.
No, it's not the house. It is my parents themselves. For several years I have had to look closely to actually see their age and frailty instead of just habitually seeing the robust strength of their former selves. But this? This inability to even remain in their own house? That is something new and very frightening.
It frightens me that I will have to visit them in some other kind of place. It frightens me that their strength may be irrevocably past. It frightens me that my grandson will only ever know them as elderly. And, truthfully, it frightens me that this is my future, too. How will I be able to live out of a vehicle if it is hard for me to stand, unsafe for me to drive, dangerous for me to walk? Who will care for me?
Today is cloudy and still (1:30 pm) in the fifties, so my optimism is back and the world feels better. But I need to be strong when it's in the nineties, too. I am still capable in MY sixties. Who can say what MY eighties and nineties will bring?
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
"Hashtag Activism"
People describe "hashtag activism" as cheap. And, yes, when there is the ability to do more, and all you do is express your sentiments on Twitter, that can be construed as cheap. But this last week that "hashtag activism" has brought the attention of the world to the 200+ girls from Chibok Government Secondary School who were kidnapped en masse by Boko Haram. The Federal Government of Nigeria was choosing to ignore this, or to pretend that it had never happened, or to claim that they had already freed the girls. The world's media outlets were interested in Ukraine and the LA Clippers and a deadbeat rancher in Nevada.
The #BringBackOurGirls campaign was successful first in bringing the kidnapping to the attention of all Nigeria and then to the rest of the world. Goodluck Jonathan stopped "investigating" after three weeks. Patience Jonathan stopped arresting the girls' advocates in the capital. Who knows? Perhaps the news media might pool their resources and send an actual reporter to Maiduguri in Borno State, or even to Chibok itself, where the kidnapping took place.
There are several ways to view all this, but I want to address two. In one view, the FGN and Boko Haram are adversaries. They exist at opposite ends of an axis on which the Federal Government of Nigeria sees itself as the defender of order and sees Boko Haram as a force for chaos and lawlessness. Boko Haram apparently see themselves as defenders of northern culture and the FGN as a vicious occupier. In this view, everybody who gets in between the two deserves to be chewed up and destroyed, because they should have chosen the "right" side... "right" being defined by Boko Haram and the FGN.
There is another view. In this second view, both Boko Haram and President Goodluck Jonathan are forces of callousness and inhumanity. They regard the lives of individual humans and their families as a matter of less import than some "big" question, like "who gets to rule?" There are people supporting #BringBackOurGirls who are in this camp as well. They view the protests as an opportunity to attack the Jonathans and advance their own political careers. When Patience and Goodluck accuse the movement of this, they are seeing their own self interest, but they are also accurately seeing some of their opponents. The problem is, they are so lost in this way of seeing the world that they will not (and maybe can not) see the majority of the Nigerian protesters.
Because the other end of this second axis is people. First, the girls who have been enduring the unimaginable for over three weeks for the crime of wanting to take their exams and go on to university and -- honestly -- for the crime of being female. Then, the families and friends of these girls. Again, I retreat from trying to imagine what they must be going through. And finally, the people of Nigeria and the world who are outraged by both the kidnapping and the delays by the military in going to bring back the girls.
Today I found another group who have chosen to join the BK/Jonathan camp. They are chatterers on the cable news channels who want to make political hay, not out of the crisis, but out of the response, out of so-called "hashtag activism." Instead of trying to get actual news out of Nigeria, they want to sit in their studios and denounce people sitting at home and publicizing the kidnapping.
It is now three years since my last Global Enterprise freshmen graduated. I told them at their commencement to beware any "big ideas" that ignore their impact on actual individual people. I was speaking then about the Bloomberg "reforms" that had doctored data to make GEA look like a mediocre school, then declare it a failing school and move to close it. I told them that there is a wolf right outside that feeds on doubt and hatred and greed, and that the wolf is always hungry. But I told them the wolf is not the only one there, that there is also our love and our care and our support for each other. In our moments of doubt, we have to reach out for the one and not for the other.
#BringBackOurGirls
The #BringBackOurGirls campaign was successful first in bringing the kidnapping to the attention of all Nigeria and then to the rest of the world. Goodluck Jonathan stopped "investigating" after three weeks. Patience Jonathan stopped arresting the girls' advocates in the capital. Who knows? Perhaps the news media might pool their resources and send an actual reporter to Maiduguri in Borno State, or even to Chibok itself, where the kidnapping took place.
There are several ways to view all this, but I want to address two. In one view, the FGN and Boko Haram are adversaries. They exist at opposite ends of an axis on which the Federal Government of Nigeria sees itself as the defender of order and sees Boko Haram as a force for chaos and lawlessness. Boko Haram apparently see themselves as defenders of northern culture and the FGN as a vicious occupier. In this view, everybody who gets in between the two deserves to be chewed up and destroyed, because they should have chosen the "right" side... "right" being defined by Boko Haram and the FGN.
There is another view. In this second view, both Boko Haram and President Goodluck Jonathan are forces of callousness and inhumanity. They regard the lives of individual humans and their families as a matter of less import than some "big" question, like "who gets to rule?" There are people supporting #BringBackOurGirls who are in this camp as well. They view the protests as an opportunity to attack the Jonathans and advance their own political careers. When Patience and Goodluck accuse the movement of this, they are seeing their own self interest, but they are also accurately seeing some of their opponents. The problem is, they are so lost in this way of seeing the world that they will not (and maybe can not) see the majority of the Nigerian protesters.
Because the other end of this second axis is people. First, the girls who have been enduring the unimaginable for over three weeks for the crime of wanting to take their exams and go on to university and -- honestly -- for the crime of being female. Then, the families and friends of these girls. Again, I retreat from trying to imagine what they must be going through. And finally, the people of Nigeria and the world who are outraged by both the kidnapping and the delays by the military in going to bring back the girls.
Today I found another group who have chosen to join the BK/Jonathan camp. They are chatterers on the cable news channels who want to make political hay, not out of the crisis, but out of the response, out of so-called "hashtag activism." Instead of trying to get actual news out of Nigeria, they want to sit in their studios and denounce people sitting at home and publicizing the kidnapping.
It is now three years since my last Global Enterprise freshmen graduated. I told them at their commencement to beware any "big ideas" that ignore their impact on actual individual people. I was speaking then about the Bloomberg "reforms" that had doctored data to make GEA look like a mediocre school, then declare it a failing school and move to close it. I told them that there is a wolf right outside that feeds on doubt and hatred and greed, and that the wolf is always hungry. But I told them the wolf is not the only one there, that there is also our love and our care and our support for each other. In our moments of doubt, we have to reach out for the one and not for the other.
#BringBackOurGirls
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Orioles
Today the orioles appeared to me. Last year I spent all of March and April wondering where they were. In May they appeared one day everywhere I looked, and I realized that they simply hadn't returned from Central America yet. This year I didn't start worrying about my failure to see any until last week. My son-in-law saw some this weekend in Brooklyn. I hope I showed him that I was excited. I am certain I revealed my envy.
We were on Hunter Island in Pelham Bay Park, way up on the northwest corner near the peninsula that I think of as blueberry island. There were three of them, way up high in the oaks, and they were hopping from branch to branch and dancing in the air. I stood watching them and appreciating this blessing for a good long time. Prophet eventually got bored and signaled his desire to move on.
Baltimore Orioles are by no means rare. But my sightings of them seem to be. They are not especially showy or grand, but they make me very happy. Smaller than robins, they have similar markings except that their red is much more vivid. They make me really happy. Today I was reminded again that I have to appreciate everything that comes my way instead of looking for things -- like orioles -- that really amaze me.
On the west side of Hunter Island is a path through a marsh to a rocky point that was a smaller island before the construction of Orchard Beach shut down the tidal flushing. I think of it as Strawberry Island because I used to go there to pick wild strawberries, starting when I was in my late twenties. I gathered so many that I made strawberry corn bread. Maya and I went there every June when she was small. I read her a picture book (which is on my shelf above me now) called The First Strawberries. I tracked down my own copy of Roger Williams's (founder of Rhode Island) A Key into the Language of America largely because of his observations about strawberries, including a quote from Dr. William Butler: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." One of our best trips out there was with Maya's grade school friends, the twins Makeda and Samori.
Prophet and I walked out to the edge of Strawberry Island and I looked at the sad remains of the strawberry patch, overgrown with briars and poison ivy, few strawberry plants visible. Then I heard a bird call, looked up, and saw another oriole! I had a lot of years enjoying those little wild strawberries. Why am I bemoaning their loss when I have a smiling GSD at my side who gives me a reason for a long walk in the woods every day!
Hammering home that point is a fallen oak further down the west side of Hunter Island. It used to tower over the marsh right next to the trail. Maya and I sat on a rock near it with sketch books more than once to try and convey it. I got a pretty good drawing once, which I should still have somewhere in the house. I can miss that tree, just like I miss sitting and drawing it with my eight-year old daughter. But that daughter is 32 now, and a mother. I am a grandpa and retired from the schools. And that oak is lying on its side in a marsh.
It is hard work for me to remember to appreciate my blessings. Occasionally I am struck dumb by that realization and then the old glass-half-empty habits return. At least I am no longer angry at myself for this.
We were on Hunter Island in Pelham Bay Park, way up on the northwest corner near the peninsula that I think of as blueberry island. There were three of them, way up high in the oaks, and they were hopping from branch to branch and dancing in the air. I stood watching them and appreciating this blessing for a good long time. Prophet eventually got bored and signaled his desire to move on.
Baltimore Orioles are by no means rare. But my sightings of them seem to be. They are not especially showy or grand, but they make me very happy. Smaller than robins, they have similar markings except that their red is much more vivid. They make me really happy. Today I was reminded again that I have to appreciate everything that comes my way instead of looking for things -- like orioles -- that really amaze me.
On the west side of Hunter Island is a path through a marsh to a rocky point that was a smaller island before the construction of Orchard Beach shut down the tidal flushing. I think of it as Strawberry Island because I used to go there to pick wild strawberries, starting when I was in my late twenties. I gathered so many that I made strawberry corn bread. Maya and I went there every June when she was small. I read her a picture book (which is on my shelf above me now) called The First Strawberries. I tracked down my own copy of Roger Williams's (founder of Rhode Island) A Key into the Language of America largely because of his observations about strawberries, including a quote from Dr. William Butler: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." One of our best trips out there was with Maya's grade school friends, the twins Makeda and Samori.
Prophet and I walked out to the edge of Strawberry Island and I looked at the sad remains of the strawberry patch, overgrown with briars and poison ivy, few strawberry plants visible. Then I heard a bird call, looked up, and saw another oriole! I had a lot of years enjoying those little wild strawberries. Why am I bemoaning their loss when I have a smiling GSD at my side who gives me a reason for a long walk in the woods every day!
Hammering home that point is a fallen oak further down the west side of Hunter Island. It used to tower over the marsh right next to the trail. Maya and I sat on a rock near it with sketch books more than once to try and convey it. I got a pretty good drawing once, which I should still have somewhere in the house. I can miss that tree, just like I miss sitting and drawing it with my eight-year old daughter. But that daughter is 32 now, and a mother. I am a grandpa and retired from the schools. And that oak is lying on its side in a marsh.
It is hard work for me to remember to appreciate my blessings. Occasionally I am struck dumb by that realization and then the old glass-half-empty habits return. At least I am no longer angry at myself for this.
Monday, May 5, 2014
#BringBackOurGirls
It is now three weeks since a terror gang that opposes education broke into a girls school Borno State, Chibok Government Secondary School, and kidnapped over 250 students. The school had been closed because of attacks by "Boko Haram," but it was reopened for the girls to take their Senior School Certificate Exams, and despite the dangers, these girls showed up because they want to go on to university. Most of them are still missing. The international press seems more interested in Russia's machinations in Ukraine and the comic stylings of President Obama at the White House Press gala.
This is a time when a social media campaign that only requires of its participants that they retweet and share postings may actually make sense. How are people even supposed to know what's going on when the racist ravings of NBA owners and deadbeat Nevada ranchers take precedence in the news?
But I am not choosing to write about the horrors of misogyny or of fundamentalism here. I am, instead, wondering why it took me two weeks to get agitated about this story. The entire outrage here is a world that allowed this horror to take place and then did not respond to it. That is precisely what I did. I chose to believe that the Nigerian military would get right on this. I didn't see the need for 24/7 reporting on an absence of news, a la Malaysian Air Flight 370. It wasn't some other person who knew about this for two weeks without totally freaking out. It was me.
In the Nigerian press I have read recent stories that US Secretary of State John Kerry has promised our help in finding the girls. I have seen nothing similar in the US press; only assurances by Kerry that we will continue training the FGN army in counter-insurgency tactics. When I read the stories in the Nigerian press through to the bottom, I find the same quotes from Kerry, but apparently with a different interpretation.
In the US press I read that the Nigerian first lady, Madame Patience Jonathan is promising to go to Borno herself to coordinate the search for the girls. In the Nigerian press I read that she accused the girls' mothers of being Boko Haram and ordered two of them arrested.
Last Friday, almost three weeks after the kidnappings, I read that FGN President Goodluck Jonathan was about to "investigate" them, despite the "lack of cooperation" by parents. Today I read that he is going to find the girls.
All of this is unconscionable, but so is my delayed reaction. Two years ago, when she was 12, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head, pointblank, while on her way to school in the Swat district of Pakistan. The Taliban also poisoned 150 girls at their school in Takhar Province, Afghanistan. I have not spoken out about these horrors. Now I am. But I cannot get exercised about the silence or ignorance of others when it took me two weeks to start worrying about this. I have no excuse.
This is a time when a social media campaign that only requires of its participants that they retweet and share postings may actually make sense. How are people even supposed to know what's going on when the racist ravings of NBA owners and deadbeat Nevada ranchers take precedence in the news?
But I am not choosing to write about the horrors of misogyny or of fundamentalism here. I am, instead, wondering why it took me two weeks to get agitated about this story. The entire outrage here is a world that allowed this horror to take place and then did not respond to it. That is precisely what I did. I chose to believe that the Nigerian military would get right on this. I didn't see the need for 24/7 reporting on an absence of news, a la Malaysian Air Flight 370. It wasn't some other person who knew about this for two weeks without totally freaking out. It was me.
In the Nigerian press I have read recent stories that US Secretary of State John Kerry has promised our help in finding the girls. I have seen nothing similar in the US press; only assurances by Kerry that we will continue training the FGN army in counter-insurgency tactics. When I read the stories in the Nigerian press through to the bottom, I find the same quotes from Kerry, but apparently with a different interpretation.
In the US press I read that the Nigerian first lady, Madame Patience Jonathan is promising to go to Borno herself to coordinate the search for the girls. In the Nigerian press I read that she accused the girls' mothers of being Boko Haram and ordered two of them arrested.
Last Friday, almost three weeks after the kidnappings, I read that FGN President Goodluck Jonathan was about to "investigate" them, despite the "lack of cooperation" by parents. Today I read that he is going to find the girls.
All of this is unconscionable, but so is my delayed reaction. Two years ago, when she was 12, Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head, pointblank, while on her way to school in the Swat district of Pakistan. The Taliban also poisoned 150 girls at their school in Takhar Province, Afghanistan. I have not spoken out about these horrors. Now I am. But I cannot get exercised about the silence or ignorance of others when it took me two weeks to start worrying about this. I have no excuse.
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