International Holocaust Memorial Day

Today is an important day for the chance to learn and remember the lessons of the past, in order not to be doomed to repeat them. Surely one would think that the horror of the attempted genocide of Jewish people, accompanied by the death of so many others deemed undesirable, others like my brother with Down's syndrome, my special ed. students, my friends who are wonderful people but have a myriad of sexual identities and racial backgrounds; was so unusual and so horrific as to be unforgettable and unrepeatable. Sadly, one would be wrong.

When I was a child, I couldn't have asked for a safer, more loving world, and assumed that the rest of the children also were loved and cared for by loving parents, and grandparents. So my first hints of the holocaust rocked my world, but were of something "a long, long time ago, on the other side of the world, and it isn't ever going to happen again."

But of course it had happened before, and where I lived, and would continue to happen again and again.  It had happened to my great-grandmother, that same tiny woman who snuggled me on her lap and fed me pickles and soups and sang me songs. What was I to know of the family history she never spoke of, or why her Father had disowned her for marrying a white man soon after the battle of the Little Bighorn and the massacre at Wounded Knee. I wouldn't know until her funeral when my Sioux relatives arrived en masse.

It happened here in my adopted home of Crescent City, CA when a town with 700 Chinese one night, only had one the following night. It happened here when hundreds of natives were slaughtered during a celebration that was mistaken for a war party by the fearful townspeople.

And it happened in eugenics experiments in the good ol US of A when people with too many relatives in prison or mental hospitals were forcibly sterilized. Sadly, Hitler learned some of what he did from our country after all.

I'm sad that a day of rememberance is necessary and grateful that there is also the remembrance of those who fought and resisted and won against fear and hatred. Even though the lesson has to keep being learned, we have many heroes (yes, male and female and other) who have given examples to light the darkness and chase out hate. Remembering that we are not all to be feared just because we are not all the same. Remembering that your difference may provide the very strength I would have perished without. Remembering that when the haters scream from the podium, the resistance is already whispering encouragement and love in your ear.

On this cold January when the world is still frightening, remember to look for the light, and when you can't find it, you can be it.

Mid-Night Worrying

Philippians 4:6-7 Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. (NLT)

 2:45 AM and I am awake, regretfully wide eyed by the knowledge of the bills due in days, again, heart pounding, blood cold, and all the past success forgotten in the worrying. It isn't like I have ever not had bills that equal or exceed the income or that I am in danger of going homeless or hungry but the constant balancing act is exhausting.  Suddenly even the little indulgences feel like extravagances I need to avoid.  We used to go to the movies a lot, or rent videos and now we are thinking of cutting out even the TV. The Cost of everything keeps climbing but the paycheck stays the same or even shrinks.

Finally I Remember an exercise in meditation that I learned from a wonderful Drama Teacher back in Northwest Community College days. I close my eyes and imagine that I am walking down 100 stairs to a beautiful beach, and as I slowly count my way down the stairs, I breath and focus on leaving my troubles behind me.  I visualize getting closer to peaceful beauty and feeling the breeze and smelling the salt air and hearing the waves and the gulls.  Soon I am breathing easily and relaxed enough to go back to bed.

Of course, being able to sleep doesn't mean that the problems are solved, but it does mean I can drop the incapacitating panic and find the energy to ask myself where the solutions lie.  My problems are not new, and I'm not in them alone.  I have a old, rattletrap home and enough food to pack on more weight than I should carry and make me need to wash dirty dishes on a regular basis.  I have a family to support, and they love me.  My problems might feel overwhelming, but really they are not problems at all.  They are merely a side-effect of being alive.

I am so grateful for the people and the places in my life, when I remind myself to be.  Learning to be positive is so much of the battle.  I feel alone and overwhelmed and then my head goes round and round and I get nowhere.  I have some o the same problems I had 20 years ago because I am afraid of changing them.  How dumb is that?  I have a wonderful husband who has walked beside me since 1982 and loved me when I worked full time, and when I was so depressed I didn't get out of bed.  When I was eager and happy, and when I was angry and a Bitch.

We are having a hard time financially and I hate it.  I feel like this daffodil trying to bloom in the middle of bare thorny ground.  I gave up a full time job and stayed home with my toddlers.  I am so glad I had that time with them, and when they went to school, I went as a substitute and a parent volunteer.  And it worked.  I have been a success.  My husband and I have raised two wonderful young men, and that is a major achievement.  We have stayed together and loved each other for thirty years.  That is success.  I wrote and published two novels and people love them.  My husband has been the most loved and amazing music teacher for 23 years.  We are successful, unless you check the bank account, and look at what we can give the boys to start their adult life.  And so my brain begins again to feel guilty and second guess the past decisions, I should have worked full time, I should have saved for their college instead of taking them to Wyoming every year to visit the grandparents.  They did not need to go to Disneyland.  BUT YES, they did!

They needed to experiences and the attention and the love that made them who they are today.

I just wish it was more.

I wish I could make everything smooth and easy, but even as I wish it, I know that the most exhausting, difficult times of my life are the times I was most alive.  I know I have rarely had everything I wanted, but always had everything I needed and I try to trust that they will too.  The news makes trust hard, so I turn off the news and talk to the people.

The people and the world around me make trust easy.

Life is beautiful, and good, and HARD and so Worth it.

And spring always comes back, and Joy comes in the morning.