I got stung by a bee this morning. Twice. It had been a long time since I'd been stung, so at first I didn't know what had happened, thinking I had something scratchy in my bathing suit.
But what became apparent fairly quickly was that I had a bee in my bathing suit. What the little bugger was doing in there, I have no idea. I apparently freed him from his distress while I was trying to determine what was in there and saw him walking across the right thigh of the suit.
And I smacked him (or her) dead, instinctively. It was an instinctive over reaction on my part, resulting in the unnecessary demise of the bee.
No big deal. Plenty more where that came from. Nothing he didn't deserve—after all, he stung me twice! And what was he doing in my bathing suit, anyway? Stupid bee.
Pretty standard. And a lot of the time, my instinctive reactions are pretty standard—because they are instinctive! We share these instincts, these standard reactions and their very commonness is what makes them seem okay. And for the most part, as these reactions also stay within certain standard boundaries, they are okay Bee stings, swat bee, bee dies. Move on.
But this morning, I've got the time for some reflection. The bee's motive was survival. Even without any anthropomorphising, it's not hard to understand that. It found itself caught in a strange place with something large and warm and moving and its choice to defend itself was instinctive. We both reacted from the same place of fear—and his was far more understandable than mine. I could have brushed him off my suit.
How often are my instinctive reactions within standard, acceptable boundaries, but also unnecessary and possibly hurtful? I can think of times when, as a parent of young children, a lack of emotional elasticity brought on by fatigue or some stressor the children couldn't possibly comprehend, resulted in an overreaction to children being children, e.g., noisy, really, really inquisitive, engaging in risky behavior, and so on.
Today, my overreactions are much more likely to be internal than overt. I read or hear something that rankles me and I get "bent out of shape" and have conversations with people who are not present and indulge in some thinking about what I'd do if I could.... Cop a resentment or, as I've heard it put, cogently, take poison and wait for somebody else to die.
Fork over my peace of mind, in other words. I can do this pretty much anywhere at any time. But, increasingly, when it comes to the behaviors of members of my own species, I try to remember to wonder why that person did, said, or thought that. Maybe it's a momentary lack of emotional elasticity. Maybe he or she just got stung by a bee.
Monday, August 18, 2014
Thursday, August 14, 2014
My side, your side
My side, your side
Attention, oncoming vehicles: If there is a car or truck parked on your side of the street, or a bicyclist, perhaps, occupying part of your travel lane, that does not constitute reason enough for you to cross the double yellow and assume part of my travel lane, forcing me across the white "fog" line and onto the (perhaps nonexistent) shoulder.
Nope. You, dear other driver in the oncoming vehicle, are supposed to slow down or, God forbid, stop and wait until there is free space in my travel lane before proceeding. Got it? I know, it's hard to imagine that my safety and whatever it is I have to do in my shabby little life might actually take precedence over the utter urgency and importance of everything about you, but get over it.
And while we're here, let's talk about YIELD. Yield: give way, surrender, back down.
This is clearly NOT the American way, especially on our roadways. But I'm sorry, if I happen to be silly enough to going anything close to the speed limit and consequently driving in the right-hand lane of a multi-lane highway (particularly an Interstate, a designation apparently allowing those drivers in the other one, two or three lanes to have increased their speed exponentially since the last state border), I am unlikely to be able to move over for you and if I slow down, some semi is going to move my spare tire in to my back seat.
So yield, for God's sake. What's it gonna cost you? 15 seconds?
And there in, of course, lies the rub. You don't have 15 seconds in your tragically busy life. You're so frantic and overwhelmed and out of time that if you don't keep moving your head's going to explode.
The problem on the roads isn't on the roads. It starts way before that. The problem, dear other driver, is so deep and labyrinthine and dark and gooey that I'm not going there. How do I know? Whahahahahaha!
You know what I mean.
Attention, oncoming vehicles: If there is a car or truck parked on your side of the street, or a bicyclist, perhaps, occupying part of your travel lane, that does not constitute reason enough for you to cross the double yellow and assume part of my travel lane, forcing me across the white "fog" line and onto the (perhaps nonexistent) shoulder.
Nope. You, dear other driver in the oncoming vehicle, are supposed to slow down or, God forbid, stop and wait until there is free space in my travel lane before proceeding. Got it? I know, it's hard to imagine that my safety and whatever it is I have to do in my shabby little life might actually take precedence over the utter urgency and importance of everything about you, but get over it.
And while we're here, let's talk about YIELD. Yield: give way, surrender, back down.
This is clearly NOT the American way, especially on our roadways. But I'm sorry, if I happen to be silly enough to going anything close to the speed limit and consequently driving in the right-hand lane of a multi-lane highway (particularly an Interstate, a designation apparently allowing those drivers in the other one, two or three lanes to have increased their speed exponentially since the last state border), I am unlikely to be able to move over for you and if I slow down, some semi is going to move my spare tire in to my back seat.
So yield, for God's sake. What's it gonna cost you? 15 seconds?
And there in, of course, lies the rub. You don't have 15 seconds in your tragically busy life. You're so frantic and overwhelmed and out of time that if you don't keep moving your head's going to explode.
The problem on the roads isn't on the roads. It starts way before that. The problem, dear other driver, is so deep and labyrinthine and dark and gooey that I'm not going there. How do I know? Whahahahahaha!
You know what I mean.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Slipping Out of Dreams
I've just rented my house. Or, rather, our house - Liam's, mine and the bank's. Really, of course, I rent it from the bank, and now I'll rent it to someone else. A journalist (talented travel writer) become professor and his energetic wife, who seem the right karmic residents for this place that has been my home for longer than anywhere, and home to my children, too, for all of their known lives.
I am sad and angry that I could no longer withstand the pressure of the property tax, the willful ignorance of the people of the Live Free or Die state that enslaves in a system the robs the landed poor.
Because the wealthy control the legislature and the political power in the state, they successfully keep taxes from their coffers while propagating the idea that "broad-based" taxes are evil and must be resisted. So my son and I lose our home because I simply cannot keep pouring $8000 a year into a failing real estate market. The house that was worth $350K five years ago is now appraised at $225K - while the town still taxes me at the highest rate in the state on $292K
I've been easing the pain by painting over memories - the wall writing and carvings my children left have been spackled and Bin-ed away, floors sanded, trim repainted. Oddly, it is becoming the place it always could have been. So, I will grieve it the more.
How do you tell your kid you don't have your house anymore? Sorry, son. I feel myself shrinking, shriveling from the task.
And somewhere in Fairfield County, CT, a banker deposits his bonus. I can thank him for his part in taking down the economy, which eventually cost me my job and then our home. It makes me hope, frankly, that there is a hell in which he can roast for eternity.
But I know I have to be careful what I wish for!
I am sad and angry that I could no longer withstand the pressure of the property tax, the willful ignorance of the people of the Live Free or Die state that enslaves in a system the robs the landed poor.
Because the wealthy control the legislature and the political power in the state, they successfully keep taxes from their coffers while propagating the idea that "broad-based" taxes are evil and must be resisted. So my son and I lose our home because I simply cannot keep pouring $8000 a year into a failing real estate market. The house that was worth $350K five years ago is now appraised at $225K - while the town still taxes me at the highest rate in the state on $292K
I've been easing the pain by painting over memories - the wall writing and carvings my children left have been spackled and Bin-ed away, floors sanded, trim repainted. Oddly, it is becoming the place it always could have been. So, I will grieve it the more.
How do you tell your kid you don't have your house anymore? Sorry, son. I feel myself shrinking, shriveling from the task.
And somewhere in Fairfield County, CT, a banker deposits his bonus. I can thank him for his part in taking down the economy, which eventually cost me my job and then our home. It makes me hope, frankly, that there is a hell in which he can roast for eternity.
But I know I have to be careful what I wish for!
Sunday, November 7, 2010
After the election
We've just finished running an experiment to see whether big money can hire an election to shape the future of the United States to its liking. It's not the first time this experiment has been run, but I'll bet it was one of the most successful.
What I don't get is how people can be convinced to campaign against their own best interests. We've seen it here in New Hampshire for decades - the landed poor raising the loudest protests against a "broad based" tax - the best would be an income tax - that would get them out from under the onerous burden of the property tax that has turned even reasonable people against their school boards and allowed the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share.
And now, nationally. The Tea Partiers, missing entirely their own point, electing people who will, now freed from the obligation of the campaign, vote against the interests of the common people (health care, financial reform, action on energy and global warming) in order to serve the moneyed interests that really got them elected. In case this is not clear, they will work for the interests of people who do not need national health care because they can afford their own, the people who do not want financial reform because the way things are going is just fine with them, the people who don't want to spend their money on something as frivolous as adapting to sea-level rise (let alone preventing it) because they have enough money, thank you, to build their own sea walls.
Just watch how fast these supporters of Constitutional rights will go to work for the very people - organizations, really - who would subvert our rights to those of the corporations and lobbyists and interest groups organized and controlled by the rapacious rich - not all the rich, but the rapacious ones who will not settle for a share.
We've lost the franchise, in most respects. What we have left is the right to assemble, the right to speak (Right along with the corporations!), the right to dissent - and the right to peaceably disobey. I am going to be looking for these opportunities and for the organizations, groups, people and occasions that afford them. I hope we will succeed.
But we have to act fast. Three years from now, if we do not, there will be a new commander-in-chief in the White House - one who will be much more likely to use the unlimited force of what has become of our government against us.
What I don't get is how people can be convinced to campaign against their own best interests. We've seen it here in New Hampshire for decades - the landed poor raising the loudest protests against a "broad based" tax - the best would be an income tax - that would get them out from under the onerous burden of the property tax that has turned even reasonable people against their school boards and allowed the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share.
And now, nationally. The Tea Partiers, missing entirely their own point, electing people who will, now freed from the obligation of the campaign, vote against the interests of the common people (health care, financial reform, action on energy and global warming) in order to serve the moneyed interests that really got them elected. In case this is not clear, they will work for the interests of people who do not need national health care because they can afford their own, the people who do not want financial reform because the way things are going is just fine with them, the people who don't want to spend their money on something as frivolous as adapting to sea-level rise (let alone preventing it) because they have enough money, thank you, to build their own sea walls.
Just watch how fast these supporters of Constitutional rights will go to work for the very people - organizations, really - who would subvert our rights to those of the corporations and lobbyists and interest groups organized and controlled by the rapacious rich - not all the rich, but the rapacious ones who will not settle for a share.
We've lost the franchise, in most respects. What we have left is the right to assemble, the right to speak (Right along with the corporations!), the right to dissent - and the right to peaceably disobey. I am going to be looking for these opportunities and for the organizations, groups, people and occasions that afford them. I hope we will succeed.
But we have to act fast. Three years from now, if we do not, there will be a new commander-in-chief in the White House - one who will be much more likely to use the unlimited force of what has become of our government against us.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Why I'm Bothering
I had the good fortune to go door-to-door for McGovern on the riverfront in Davenport, Iowa in 1972. I meant people who didn't have any idea what the hell I was talking about, looking through the worn out screens of their closed doors.
A blind man let me in, just by saying so. I never really saw him in the dark of the room across the dog-shit littered porch. I asked him if he was going to vote and he said, Sure, and laughed. I asked him if he wanted a ride to the polls. Sure, he said, and laughed.
He told me I was young. He told me he'd lost "the franchise" and a good part of his life for stealing a chicken in Mississippi when he was 14. That was when I knew why I couldn't see him.
I decided to start this blog now, a week before the 2010 election, because I think we've all joined him. We've lost the franchise, and we're invisible - but we've become this way because we've chosen to be blind. It's just easier this way.
Let's be honest. We know what's going on. Money talks. Period. End of story. And it will only be spent on what the ones that's got it want it spent on. And if you have money, you do not need to worry about health care, about education, about the environment or global warming (You think?).
If you have money, you worry about your money and making sure it's making more money. That means you do not want anyone taking your money and giving it to other people, which is what government programs do.
I maybe mistaken, but that's the way I see it going at this point.
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