Patriots Day Storm

Some days my faith, like the flag on a cloudy, muggy day is suspended like a deflated balloon. The still air should calm my innermost fears but without the wind my ears hear everything. The screams of my own childhood, The gunfire and bombs crumbling homes in Syria The panicked cries of babies unable to breath and the swooshing of the fire hoses as they try to remove the poisonous gas from the children’s lungs. The waves lapping at the overcrowded boats packed with children, women and men and their eerie silence as they make their way to the Greek Isle of Lesbos. The whimpering of children in cages, crying out for their mothers. When I was six I had strep throat. A fever kept me home all day to watch the Cuban missile crisis unfold on television. In the night I called out, afraid we were all going to die. My father came in and said it was OK, that I should go back to sleep. His words, like my affirmations of faith some days Didn’t soothe the fear I heard murmuring loudly around me. For three days we have gone to bed wondering if a nuclear war will have started while we sleep. In my America, we elected a trigger happy bully who is dismantling civility and giving permission for the demons in us to rise like a ghoulish nightmare talking death: billows of smoke, rape, walls of hate and discrimination. The safe places are disturbed by sobbing. Where does a lesbian feminist, mother of two black daughters go in a country that is no longer speaking Goodness? On my desk a post-it note in my own hand scribbles: "Who are my people and how can I serve them?" Some days the answer comes back quietly: “today, just you.” (The airline attendant reminds us “put the lifejacket on yourself first, then on your little traveling companions.”) I cannot cover my ears or shut my eyes to the despair around me. The 3-year-old body washed upon the Greek coast, his little pants and shirt looking like something I could buy in Target or Walmart. He is silent. But his clothes scream to me: “He is one of you!” Yet the collective “we” doesn’t hear, doesn’t see. I go to post Women’s March huddles where we talk about what we (first world women) need, while I hear other people’s children gasp their last breath. I have listened to the wind pick up in the trees at night, blowing away the storm clouds. The heavy air yields to a bright morning sun. In the day-after the flag flaps proudly in the breeze and fills my ears. Just for now, just today.

Old Kinda Dads Don't Belong On SCOTUS

“You may be told that the legal decisions lead the changes, that judges and lawmakers lead the culture in those theaters called courtrooms, but they only ratify change. They are almost never where change begins, only where it ends up, for most changes travel from the edges to the center.” Rebecca Solnit It was my misfortune this morning to be behind a school bus, stopping every few blocks to pick up grade school students. At the first stop was a man in an electric company truck. As the bus rolled up he jumped out of the driver’s side in his coveralls and walked around to the passenger door. A little wisp of a girl came bouncing out. His hand hanging by his side rested on the back of her head and walked her towards the bus. With a quick squeeze she was gone, her little backpack trailing behind her. The doors closed and we traveled to the next stop. This time a tall balding man with a young boy by his side, standing in the road. The boy ran onto the bus as the doors open and the father stood for a moment to watch the bus drive on. The third and fourth stops were similar, also with men accompanying children onto the bus in varying degrees of intention. A few more stops were a woman with children and then a woman and a man with children. These dads stood in sharp contrast to the angry dad I saw yesterday afternoon defending his nomination for the Supreme Court. That morning, a woman told a powerful story of violation. It was moving, it was powerful, it was excruciatingly painful to watch. The angry dad said he liked beer. He said he worked his tail off to go to Yale. He drank beer with his friends in high school and college. I have heard that the woman’s dad couldn’t support her decision to come forward and testify in the Senate. He lived, worked and was a member of the same country club as the angry dad and he didn’t want to lose his place there. But more than 1700 men took out an ad in the NY Times supporting her testimony. Those dads, let the world know they believe this woman’s story of violation. Maybe many of them are dads like those that I saw at the bus stops. I had an angry dad. He liked vodka. He wasn’t a country club dad. He wasn’t a bus stop dad either. Five out of the 7 bus stops this morning had dads there. Something is changing from the edges. The angry dad probably doesn’t need to be a judge in the courtroom as the changes ripple from the edges….at least, not for a lifetime.