I Go Blank

            In a writing group I participate in, we were prompted with the following: “I go blank every time I...” I would like to share my response of then and some further ruminations of now.

            “I go blank every time I see a headline like the one of last week; ‘Gifford shot in head, six dead, nineteen wounded,’ and that moment of incomprehension, in contrast to the event itself, is a testimony to some unarticulated belief in the goodness of people and appreciation in the celebration of life and love.”

            I come back, over and over again to that moment when the props fall, the lights are turned on, nothing adorns and all is naked. It is a moment of truth, stripped of justifications, moral judgments, emotional persuasions, and intellectual dissection. Even a glimpse is precious, even if it is painful or bewildering.

            “In that blank moment there’s a small gateway to a long, narrow tunnel through the sarcasm, anger, disillusionment, and sadness of my psyche. I am touched, and then it is gone, sealed once more with all those layers I hide behind...”

            There are questions that drive my inner life, great questions, great being defined by as having no definitive answers. Some have fallen to the wayside, having lost relevance in the passing of time, but this one looms large like a seamless, smooth, steep iron mountain, impenetrable and without handholds or footholds Simply, how does one keep a tender heart amidst the challenges, the pain, the violence, and the suffering of the human world? How can we keep coming back with an open heart and arms, year after year?  It is a spiritual question and quest for me, and that momentary rent of my persona is just enough to show me the path. It is like a lightening flash on the darkest of nights in a forest. Oh yes, over there...

            “...all those layers of truths, of commonsense and acceptance, all adding up to what amounts to a surrender to the obvious.”

            Courage, I am told, is not being fearless, but of being fearful and moving forward nonetheless. I am old enough now to know, with my heart as well as my head that I am mortal and the bigger chunk of my life has already been lived. Friends have died; too many of them were younger than I am now. Will I embrace the voices I hear or not? Will I fulfill my path and honor that which deeply yearns for expression? Yes or no? What is there to lose by hiding? Or to gain by crawling out of those moments that tear holes in my armor? It is hard. I appreciate the help of my friends. We need to help each other.

            “But I don’t really give up. I pretend, and at that, not very well.”

            Thank you for listening to me. May those hurt one way or another that day heal and go with peace.

           

           

Two haibun*

*a short prose piece incorporating a haiku poem

One by me:

            Lately I seem to be acutely aware in my dealings with people with what seems to be lacking rather than what I see or hear: a call that doesn’t come, an explanation cut short, a hand that doesn’t wave or eyes that don’t meet, and it strikes deep. How do you respond to what remains in the dark? I am reminded of a time I was camping in the forest, looking at the night sky:

            “captivated by

                        what isn’t there-

            quarter moon”

and this one by the master poet Basho always reminds me to be grateful and less self-centered:

(two notes :

1)    the cry of a monkey was noted in Chinese and Japanese poetry for its plaintive nature, and poets would seek it out just as they would an autumn day when the maples were turning or a full moon evening. These outings were a common practice among the privileged classes

2)    child abandonment was common among the impoverished.)

“I was walking along the Fuji River when I saw an abandoned child, barely two, weeping pitifully. Had his parents been unable to endure this floating world which is as wave-tossed as these rapids, and so left him here to wait out a life as brief as dew? He seemed like bush clover in autumn’s wind that might scatter in the evening or wither in the morning. I tossed him some food from my sleeve and said in passing,

            ‘those who listen for the monkeys:

                        what of this child

                                    in the autumn wind?’”

translation by David Landis Barnhill

            

Border Stories

“...the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects.”

            Thomas Berry

           

            I use to think of myself as being fairly intelligent, but I wonder if I am the wiser, or less so, by realizing how little I truly understand. I have lived here on the border with Mexico for ten years now and remain dumbfounded how people living within shouting distance of each other cannot understand each other’s language or that an imaginary line can create such differences in economic well-being.

            Even small things can reveal surprises and stories. I use to find a lot of objects left behind by those crossing the border illegally while out hiking along the jeep roads and trails. Some of the things I would find were left behind when they were apprehended by the Border Patrol; things like cigarette lighters, nail clippers, and toothbrushes. These are considered potential weapons. Other things like backpacks, clothing, and personal objects are left behind when the migrants make their connections for transport north. Vehicles are packed with twenty or more persons at times. There is no room for anything except what they wear or perhaps what can fit into a pocket.

            I would sometimes take found objects home. The lighters were handy. There were blankets, hats, nail clippers and all sorts of interesting things. In time these objects forged a connection that went beyond whatever practical use they served me. I say this in hindsight. It wasn’t my intent. I came to a fuller realization that there is no such thing as a small thing and no act without consequence. Sleeping under a blanket or holding something someone else has carried across the length of nations has meaning. I can’t say what it is and I fear defiling it by making feeble attempts. I often struggle to find words that denote significance without implying that something can be understood, but we all breathe the same air.

            A few years back I was working as a RN in the emergency room. A SUV that was seen driving from a mountain access road was pursued by the Border Patrol and eventually halted when strips laid in the road for that purpose flattened the tires. The driver lost control. The vehicle was overloaded with nineteen or twenty passengers and it rolled into cars that had been pulled to the side by the police. If I remember right, nineteen of the injured were brought to our emergency room. There were others that were flown directly to the trauma center and others were taken directly to the morgue. There were no drugs, no weapons, just people looking to work or to reunite with family.

             I understand the need for immigration control. I don’t understand how it mitigates our humanity. Maybe one has to be there, talk to these folks, see their hunger, their embracing of your smile or cowering in fear, to cover their wounds, or watch them die in order to see the weakness of our explanations and justifications. I hope not, although it does leave an impression. They are not concepts or statistics. They are people. Trust me, they are not so different from you or me and for all the suffering we inflict on these people I have come to believe that we, collectively as communities and as a nation, and we as individuals of these collectives are the greater losers for turning our backs on them. We lose a chance to honor something very worthy and to show gratitude for the good fortune we have.

            I am trying hard to say something, a gut feeling about who we are and I risk compromising my effort by saying too much or too directly, so, please indulge me one more story, one more experience that has become part of the worldview I hope to share. The beauty of telling a story is that I don’t have to decide what it should mean for you. My great hope is that you listen with an open mind. The Christian mystic Thomas Merton said in his book, ‘No Man is an Island,” that “A person of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself.”  The onus is on me and if one person out there steps out of their citadel of concepts to be touched by the struggle of their fellow men and women, someone who would have contentedly and complacently kept their distance otherwise, I will feel fulfilled in my endeavor.

            This too happened while I was nursing. At the time I worked in the Intensive Care Unit. A young woman was rushed across the border by ‘Cruz Roja’ ambulance service and left at an outlying hospital. From there she was flown to where I worked, it being the nearest place with a surgeon. This woman had been pregnant and in the early stages of labor when the doctors in Mexico discovered that she was breach and recommended that she have a caesarian delivery for which payment was expected in advance. She did not have the money and went ahead with a vaginal delivery that left her hemorrhaging. They were unable to staunch the bleeding, even with surgery. She arrived at our hospital in severe shock and was given many units of blood and went into surgery twice again that night. She remained unconscious. She was dying. Truly everyone did everything possible. Truly, it was too late. She was going to die a needless death. The border guards would not let her husband across to be with her for the lack of the proper papers. They had one other child.

            Death was no stranger to those of us there that night, but there was something so poignant, so intense that it cast a spell over the whole hospital. Little was said between us. When someone would try to say something their words would falter and fade, sentences were left unfinished, tears shed and all night long something happened that I had never seen before or since. People came to see her: nurses, doctors, technicians, people who had nothing to do with her care. They came as if on a pilgrimage and stood by her bed unable to really comprehend what we were witness to. Sadness welled like a great ocean wave that one never knows from whence it comes or why and at dawn she died. Her husband never made it to her bedside despite our pleas.

            I wrote a poem of sorts and it remains an expression of my experience that night:

“This sunrise

            the priest sets the crucifix

            at the bedside as

I watch

            sadness bloom and take faith’s hand

            for the last dance of a long night.

A small Mexican woman

            dies from birthing a child.

All night

            women came to embrace her

            in love and fear

            and beautiful incomprehension.

We were

            the end of the line

            of too many circumstances and injustices.

This sunrise

            seems to hesitate while

            sadness and faith dance on and on

            into a new day.”

            I recollect and reminisce on these events because it is like tilling the soil in the garden prior to planting. I aspire to fulfill an ache to explore what it means to be human, to be me. I do not hope to satisfy this ache, only to honor it. Sometimes it means turning aside from choices that are safer, more comfortable, or offer gratification of my immediate emotional needs. I am supported by a deep belief in our connections to each other and all that lives. I believe in an intrinsic inclination toward kindness. I believe this not because it is necessarily true, but because it is empowering. I am supported by you, and, I hope you find some support in me

           

Thank you.

            Be well.

            

Can We Do Better?

Utah Firing Squad Executes Convicted Killer

As reported by Associated Press

“Draper Utah- A death row inmate who had used a gun to fatally shoot two men suffered the same fate Friday Morning as he was executed by a team of marksmen- the first time Utah used the firing squad to carry out a death sentence in 14 years.

            A barrage of bullets tore into Ronnie Lee Gardner’s chest where a target was pinned over his heart. Two minutes later an ashen Gardner, blood pooling in his dark blue jumpsuit, was pronounced dead at 12:17 a.m....

            The five executioners, certified police officers who volunteered for the task and remain anonymous, stood about 25 feet away, behind a wall cut with a gunport, and were armed with matching .30 caliber Winchester rifles. One was loaded with a blank so no one knows who fired the fatal shot. Sandbags stacked behind Gardner’s chair kept the bullets from ricocheting around the cinderblock room.

            Utah Dept. of Corrections Director Thomas Patterson said the countdown cadence went “5-4-3...” with the shooters starting to fire at the count of 2.

            Gardner’s arm tensed and jerked back when he was hit. As the medical examiner checked for vital signs the hood was pulled back, revealing that Gardner’s head was tilted back and to the right, his mouth slightly open...”

            The atrocity here is so obvious, it is impossible to put it in words. I let the description speak for itself. I am tempted to wish all those who would justify our communal acts of violence and wrath could witness firsthand such brutality. I imagine that at least some would hesitate in the future before being an armchair god of life and death if we were all there in that room as this man was executed, together.

            And yet I know the anger I feel at this moment is just as insidious in hardening the heart and building barriers between me and my world, and others and their worlds. It is a raw energy that needs direction so the acts that follow bring positive consequences rather than perpetuating violence and fear. I wish for people like Gandhi to be among us, to help us, our world, but in my wishing I sense there are the seeds of many Gandhi’s among us, right now. If we cultivate the soil for these seeds, they can grow. And if we trust the practice of nurturing goodness, goodness can manifest. For some of us the fields we cultivate will be small, and for some they will be large.

            So, I ask these questions. How can this kind of punishment not rank equal to the very acts of violence that we hold criminal and abhor? What do we achieve by it? Justice? Does it deter other murders? Is our world now safer, kinder, or healthier? Does anyone even really feel better for it? I put these thoughts out there with my hope for a healing world; for us, for our children, and for their children.

Thank you.

Singing

            Dedication: To all of us who can’t sing, write, lead, love, hammer a nail, or talk to God, I tell this story, one that has been told countless times for ages and ages. It is true and I know it doesn’t stand alone, neither in my life or yours. I dedicate it with prayers for our well-being.

            I was in the seventh grade and had grown up in a family that did not sing. It was assumed that we could not carry a tune. Up to this time I don’t recall even trying very hard, definitely at no more than a whisper or as a pantomime. No exceptions, not even ‘Happy Birthday’ was safe. I lamented this and deeply felt the lack in my life. I wanted to sing songs like other people. It did not seem to be too much to ask for.

            I enrolled into chorus at school. After a couple of classes the teacher took me aside to tell me that she did not think I could “fit in.” I could not carry a tune. I would be a burden on everyone else. Seventh grade chorus obviously was for young people who could sing and not for those who aspired to find their voice. Whispers became silence and pantomime a stone face. The only exception was many years later when I had children of my own. I would sing ‘Happy Birthday’ just loud enough.

            My story jumps almost forty years. Forty years! That’s a lot of time and a big piece of a lifetime! I had bought a cheap guitar and was playing with a friend of mine. We strummed chords and he sang folk songs. His voice was not particularly strong or melodic, but we had fun. After a while though, he became frustrated by my not singing and delivered the ultimatum to sing or he was not interested in us playing together any longer. Now, we were close friends and neither of us had large social worlds. We were important to each other. I knew he would not stand in judgment. He could care less about the quality of my voice. In hindsight I would say it was a matter of tough love. Whatever his intention, I had to confront all those people who told the child I was that he could not sing. It was a showdown with no escape, no whispering a tune or mouthing words. The more voices that emerged from my past, my fears of being inadequate, from other vulnerabilities; of being a fat kid with a hair-lip or a Jew or being shy, the more they shouted the more important it became to sing a fucking song! So simple, yet so hard. You know what I mean? I could not carry the weight of all those voices anymore. Now was the time. Now is always the time.

            I am not going to lament those forty years it took for me to learn how to sing. That’s just what it took. I am grateful that it didn’t take longer.

“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,


When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,


When he beats his bars and would be free;

It is not a carol of joy or glee,


But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,


But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –

I know why the caged bird sings.”

            Paul Laurence Dunbar from his poem: Sympathy

Borders and Boundaries

            On June 2, a black bear was spotted in a backyard near Sierra Vista, also meaning that it was spotted near the Huachuca Mts. The bear became frightened as people and game officials gathered, and it climbed a tree. Seeking sanctuary in a tree in someone’s backyard, unlike in the forest, is to seek sanctuary in a dead end, sometimes literally. Consequently, it was deemed necessary to ‘tranquilize’ the bear rather than tranquilize the onlookers, and it was reported that the bear only suffered a bloody nose from tumbling out of the tree. Do bears suffer? Have you ever seen a bear stretched out and skinned? They have an eerie resemblance to humans. I have also watched them at play.

            Cookie-cutter backyards make for poor bear habitat. This particular bear was transported to the Peloncillo Mts. along the N.M. border. This is the probable origin of the concept of lateral deportation that the Border Patrol is fond of. Do you know that there are months when twenty or more bodies of migrants will be found in the desert who die of exposure? These people are as related to cartel members or terrorists as a black bear is to a killer whale. In case you were wondering about this...

            Did you hear about the migrant teenager killed near El Paso after he threw rocks at an agent who probably could have responded by flipping him the finger and walking or driving away? This story had gotten a lot of attention for a few days and it is unclear exactly what happened, at least to me, but a very similar incident happened here in Cochise County about six months ago. It was witnessed by other agents so we can be assured of two things; the rock was thrown and the agent had help if he chose not to kill the migrant. But he did choose to kill him. And he did kill him. And the investigation was dropped the week before a rancher was shot and killed near to the same location. There is probably not a direct connection in the way we commonly think of direct connections but many a wise man and woman, black, white, or otherwise, has realized that violence breeds more violence. Sad, isn’t it? You know the saying, ”Stop this train, I want to get off.” Lets change ‘I’ to  ‘We’, shall we? Communal nightmares only end with communal awakenings.

            Two weeks before the bear we were talking about was deported, another one that was rummaging around in free boxes, otherwise know as trash cans, in the Ramsey Canyon area, also in the foothills of the Huachuca’s, was euthanized. Killed. Studies show that bears that are laterally deported are more likely to die than survive for the simple reason that if the habitat could support another bear, there would most likely already be another bear there. I guess that is why they called it euthanizing, being that it seems to be less painful than dooming them to starve to death.

            I hike often in the Huachuca Mts. and have encountered both migrants and bears. When I meet up with immigrants in those high mountains, I am reminded that I belong to the family of man. When I meet up with bears, I am reminded that I belong to an even larger family of worthy beings. I am grateful for being born into this world, although I lament for the exploited and those cast aside.

            So, I have searched for an enemy and found that it is I, and it is you. It is nature-lovers who want to live in the mountains or deserts with privacy. It is the animal-lover who projects their emotionally driven ideals into game management decisions. It is the righteous who find justification for dominion over all livings beings. It is the lover of cheap clothing and beach resorts. It is all of us who can be more mindful, less fearful, and more respectful. Those bearing the brunt of punishment are at the end of a long chain of causes. Is the bear to blame for seeking food, or an immigrant for seeking employment?

            I really don’t know what else to say. I wish I knew something that no one has thought of before. I am sad for these things. I am compelled to ask hard questions, endlessly if necessary. I know that what little empowerment I have hinges on taking responsibility for it all, regardless of how easy it would be to lay it on someone else’s doorstep. I believe wholeheartedly that the vitality of life on Earth depends on diversity and that people do not deserve or need to be killed for throwing rocks.

Play

            Play is important, worthy of being taken seriously, and anything taken seriously should be able to stand up to some play. By playful I don’t mean tinged with sarcasm. Sarcasm, even when intermingled with mirth and humor is too serious. Play is openhearted, light in weight, unhindered to come and go. Serious is thought and feeling bound in emotional need. It is fear made solid and crazy made sane.

            Play does not mean less than wholehearted or being unworthy of effort. We are supposed to nurture life but a closed fist is only the shadow of an open hand. An open heart-and-mind is free to respond to life. This is a good thing.

            Of all the functions of being human, how did humor and laughter come about? We are fortunate.

            Thank you

Edith Warton was quoted as saying:  “Longevity and creativity rest on four things: being unafraid of change, having an insatiable curiosity, being interested in big things, and being happy in small ways.”