remembering 2001

Remembering 2001

SATURDAY, JANUARY 20, 2001

San Francisco's presidential inauguration protest demonstration and march was so like this city--densely populated, diverse, creative and a lot of fun...Folks were in good moods even though the reason we were together was not something to make any of us happy. At a protest demo like this, the good feelings come from being among other people who share your views, at least your views about this particular issue. Though we might have very different reasons why having George W. Bush as president disturbs us, we gathered today as a chorus of voices in harmony with one another. Socialists, communists, labor unionists, college students, homeless, feminists, persons of color, middle class families, immigrants, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender persons, working poor, environmentalists, death penalty abolitionists, Gore supporters...they were all there.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2001

Imagine yourself seated in the second row of an auditorium filled with sensitive, caring people. You are listening to a three-way conversation on death between Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock, Terrance Kelly, the director of the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, and moderated by Frank Ostaseski, the founding director of the Zen Hospice Project of San Francisco. Their words are interspersed with songs by this world-renowned choir and spontaneous solos by Ysaye and Terrance. It is being taped for a future broadcast of "New Dimensions" on NPR (National Public Radio).

The evening moves along in a gentle rather predictable way until the choir sings a spiritual lament led by a woman's voice that taps the deepest place of sorrow imaginable. At that moment the conversation/concert becomes what they have been trying to talk and sing about. We, as a community, drop to a wordless depth of soul. I cannot describe it. For me personally, it cracked open a closed door behind which sat a dear friend who had died 12 years ago and whom--for a number of self-protecting reasons--I had "forgotten". She has been with me ever since.

SUNDAY, MARCH 11, 2001

The magic continued [after a concert by singer/songwriter Susan Osborn at the Pt. Reyes Dance Palace]. Can you imagine being surrounded by high hills nowhere near city lights on a mild night under a bright full moon and glistening stars? We sang every moon song we could think of before turning in for the night. And, I'm happy to report, not one of the 10 women in our dorm [at the Pt. Reyes International Youth Hostel] snored!

We awoke to a sunny spring day. Folks took showers, dressed, rolled up their sleeping bags, made oatmeal, brewed tea, poached eggs, toasted bread, and sat out together on the patio/deck area in the front of the hostel. We talked and sang. A lovely mother and her baby daughter joined us. Terry played with the baby and the baby played with windchime walker. Before going inside to do chores--a traditional part of staying in a hostel--we set up a date to circle sing in my garden on Sunday, March 25 from 1-4 PM. Before leaving, my group stopped to sing a Croatian song that Linda and Cee knew from their World Harmony Choir.

Next came an unanticipated gift. My three companions went off for an hour-long hike on the Coast Trail, and I was left to sit at the trailhead by myself. Pure bliss. Birds swooped and sang around me, the sun moved higher in the sky, I looked out over bushes, trees and hills, a handful of hikers and birdwatchers walked by, I sang in the silence and let the silence sing in me. I didn't know how much I'd missed being alone with earth, sky and creatures who call these elements their home. My city garden is sweet but there's nothing like breathing fresh clean air and hearing the subtle sounds of nature.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 4, 2001

I am so touched by the send-off I received today at Simply Supper.

For weeks now I've been telling folks that today would be my last day. Many guests have been through this with me before since I worked there last year too...Anyway, things were going along as normal--except for lots of goodbyes--when one of my favorite guests came to the door. This is a woman about my age who dresses in stunning colors and always enjoys my appreciation of her ensembles. Instead of coming right in, she stayed partially hidden in the hall and asked me where Elba, the program director, was. As it happened, Elba was standing at the serving counter. My friend called to her and she went out into the hall.

In a minute or two, my friend came into the room carrying the most beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers that I've ever seen. With a huge grin on her face, she handed them to me as Elba asked for everyone's attention. She then said today was my last day and that I would be back again next winter and how much they appreciated my helping out these past three months. The guests burst into applause. It went on a long time. I thought my heart was going to crack wide open.

Apparently it was this dear woman's idea to give me flowers and she and Elba had chipped in to buy them. By the end of the day, I'd also received a thank you note from Penny Nixon, the pastor of MCC (Metropolitan Community Church), in which she spoke of my "sweet-spirited compassion and service", and another card signed by my sister and brother volunteers. Wow! Talk about feeling loved. And I can't even begin to describe the appreciative farewells I received from so many of the guests. I will sorely miss these people.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2001

Ah, it is sweet to be home. Home where going for a scoot does not mean having to cross eight lanes of traffic as it did [while visiting my mother] in Maryland. Home where I can scoot in the street and feel safe. Home where Ed feeds the grey squirrel when it shows up out front. Home where the trees have just unfurled their tender green leaves and flowering fruit trees take your breath away. Home where Ed never tires of watching and listening to his two favorite arias from Der Rosenkavalier on his office computer DVD. Home where a scoot might take me to a middle school track meet I didn't know was going on. Home where we are going to watch a video together when Ed returns from his after-dinner walk. Home where it is so warm my screened windows are open and the radio is tuned to a classical piano recital on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) out of Windsor, Ontaro. Home where I can finally unpack from California, knowing my suitcases can be put away for a good long spell. Home where I will sleep in my own bed with my own pillow. Home where I miss my Mom and love being with my sweetie.

SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2001

The first thing I heard from outside my room this morning was birdsong; the second, was Pat N.'s voice directing the women who were to act out Anita Barrow's poem for our closing today. As I had been asked to be the narrator, I hurriedly slipped on a dress and wheeled windchime walker into the singing room to join them.

This poem, a beautifully painful reminder of what is happening to the earth and its people, had been a thread woven throughout our two days and nights together here at Crawfton [on the Ontario shores of Lake Erie]. Although Carolyn McDade is primarily a singer/songwriter, the theme of this retreat--the "Great Turning", Joanna Macy's vision of this time of change in which we live--had entered our consciousness in a variety of ways: certainly through song, but also through seeing slides of the earth, reading and acting out poetry, participating in dance and yoga, and listening to the profound teachings from the lives of our sisters in the circle. Our closing--the retreat was to end with lunch today--would incorporate many of these creative threads.

We 27 women gathered in the brightness of our sunny singing room--loving one another as Pat N. and Carolyn so richly showed--and stood to sing to the morning, our earth and ourselves as women dedicated to protecting the earth, its plants, creatures and people. My eyes travelled with gratitude around this circle of singing women--spinning, spinning, spinning, spinning--until I turned back within myself, conscious of the need to drop to a new level of commitment to change...

And I would travel with you
to the places of our shame

The hills stripped of trees, the marsh grasses
oil-slicked, steeped in sewage;

The blackened shoreline, the chemical-poisoned water;

I would stand with you in the desolate places, the charred places,
soil where nothing will ever grow, pitted desert;

fields that burn slowly for months; roots of cholla & chaparral
writhing with underground explosions

I would put my hand
there with yours, I would take your hand, I would walk with you

through carefully planted fields, rows of leafy vegetables
drifting with radioactive dust; through the dark
of uranium mines hidden in the sacred gold-red mountains;

I would listen to you in drafty hospital corridors
as the miner cried out in his first language

of pain; as he cried out
the forgotten names of his mother; I would stand
next to you in the forest's

final hour, in the wind
of helicopter blades, police

sirens shrieking, the delicate
tremor of light between

leaves for the last time Oh I would touch with this love each

wounded place

--Anita Barrows

FRIDAY, JULY 20, 2001

A protester at the G-8 Economic Summit in Genoa has been killed. Two bullets to his head fired by paramilitary troopers and then his inert body run over by a military jeep. A Reuters photographer witnessed the whole thing. The protester, as yet unidentified, had just hurled a fire extinquisher at the paramilitary troopers' van.

I read about it online just minutes before going to my water aerobics class. Instead of attending class, I swam laps until I couldn't swim anymore. Halfway through, the water released my tears and I swam the remaining laps sobbing underwater. I feel as though I have lost a brother, a son or a grandson.

I know these young people: I've been on the streets with them chanting and marching (scooting) to the beat of their drums; I've eaten Food Not Bombs hot meals on the streets prepared and served by them; I've sat through one of their affinity group meetings out on the streets as they decided by true concensus what action to take next; I've followed them on La Lucha my scooter trying to be a presence of solidarity so the police wouldn't perceive them as isolated, vulnerable young people; I've seen them pepper sprayed in the face, eyes streaming tears and faces blistered red; I've sung to them as they were lined up in handcuffs outside the jail; I've learned from them at teach-ins and planning meetings; I've laughed and danced with them on the streets; I've admired their commitment to high ideals, non-violent responses to police provocation, and critical analyses of world affairs.

These are the young protesters I know; not the small violent segment always highlighted by the mainstream media and press.

We're members of a global family united to protest the world being run by a handful of rich white men who decide everything in private, with no accountability to anyone outside of their inner circle, whose motives are always preceded by a dollar sign.

I am devastated by this loss of one of our own.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2001

I had set my alarm [at the week-long Michigan Womyn's Music Festival] so I'd be up in time to meet Jayne, the bodypainter, at 9 AM as we'd agreed, but my body woke up on its own...

Jayne was right on time and we got started immediately. I thought I had a busy day ahead! Jayne was off to give a breast-casting workshop and then would be going down to the Acoustic Stage to paint members of the Drumsong Orchestra before their performance. She had mixed a royal blue with silver so I had a regal single-color paint job. I wish I could show you the entire finished product, but here's the belly dancer she painted on my belly.

Luckily the sun had warmed things up a bit by the time we finished, so I scooted over to a sunny spot in front of the crafts area to sit and let the paint dry (she uses acrylic paint). What happened next is what I spoke of later when folks asked what had been my most prized "Michigan moment".

I was sitting very still so as not to smear any of the images on my body. An orange and black swallowtail butterfly came and landed on my right breast. It quickly flew off, spiralled in the air above me, and came to settle on my left breast over my heart. And there it stayed. I watched it close its wings so the dusky underside showed, and then leisurely stretch them out completely with orange and black glistening in the sun. After timeless time, it flew off, spiralled above me again and landed briefly on my left leg. This butterfly continued to flutter around me until I was completely dry and had to scoot on my way.

As my intuitive friend Turtle said when I told her the story, "You are going to undergo a major transformation of some kind this year." In earthbased spiritual traditions like Native Americans practice, the butterfly in all of its cycles symbolizes change. I thought of her words later in the day when I saw a caterpillar crawling on the ground beside me at the Healing Circle. And even more so when Teresa, my DART helping hands, found another caterpillar crawling on the bottom of my tent as she took it down on Monday morning.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

I didn't even want to write this date knowing how it will live in our memories.

Words. Words are totally inadequate today. And to be honest, I'm not very comfortable trying to create words on my keyboard tonight. Unfortunately, I took a fall this evening and banged up my right index finger so I'm trying to do my usual 2-fingered typing using my third finger on my right hand. Not too terrific.

Actually I tried to go to bed without writing a journal entry at all today. By the time I got home at 11 PM after 13 hours working at our CPR Detroit "campaign headquarters" at Dayhouse, after the daylong anxiety about whether our niece who works in NYC was all right, and after Eddie and I had stayed up talking until midnight, I was beyond tired. But I couldn't sleep for thinking about all the families and friends of the dead and injured who can't sleep either. So I decided to get up and see if I could write something.

I am filled with a mixture of raw feelings. Shock and disbelief even after seeing TV pictures of the World Trade Centers dissolving into smoke and flame. Relief that we finally found out at 10:45 PM that our niece Carolyn was out of town instead of working in downtown Manhattan today. Anger at my country for so arrogantly antagonizing other countries and their people so something like this was bound to happen eventually. Fear over what the US leaders will do to retaliate. Exhaustion from working hard all day on the Detroit city primary elections (that went on even though everything else in the city closed down). Gratitude to have been with sensitive, politically aware, like-minded folks who gathered at Dayhouse after the polls closed tonight. Sadness for all the suffering this tragedy has caused innocent people, their families and friends. Distress over what this will mean in terms of increased military spending, the more-likely construction of Bush's Star Wars missile shield, even greater restraints on our already-compromised freedoms of speech and assembly, an increase in anti-immigrant feeling among the American people.

What hard times. How I would like to think America could learn from this rather use it as an excuse to escalate their already violent attitudes and actions towards other countries, especially Arab nations in the Middle East. Whatever happens, we will never forget this day when America finally discovered it was vulnerable to the same horrors so many nations and their people have faced for countless generations.

And now to try to sleep.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2001

As Carolyn McDade said this morning, we need "to see the world as it is without crumbling." And that takes knowing you are not alone, that there are others standing beside you throughout the world. Well, I now know there are women in Toronto, Georgetown, Milton, Melbourne, Blackstock, Stoney Creek, Guelph, Orilla, Puslinch, Dungannon, Hamilton, Waterloo, Kitchener and Mississauga, Ontario who are here at my side as I work for the peace that my country's leaders seem unable to embrace or even imagine. And as always, I feel the transformative energy of my beloved friend Carolyn, singer/songwriter/cultural change agent, at my side holding me close.

These are a few images--photographic and/or word--that I would like to hold onto by sharing them here:

The reading of a letter of support we drafted and signed that will be sent to Alexa McDonough, New Democratic Party leader, who was a lone voice of dissent when Canada announced it was sending Canadian Forces warships, commandos and aircraft -- the largest combined naval and air deployment by that country in a decade --to the Middle East to support the United States in its "war on terrorism."

Our singing one of Carolyn's series of songs, based on words by Mary Margaret Parent, a Windsor, Ontario sister/friend:

"Listen, listen to the voices
of those who differ from the rest.
The beauty of each person,
the power of our truth,
the wisdom of our experience.
Sustain and make us community.

May the voices gathered here
become sustenance.
May the voices gathered here
become transformation.
May the voices gathered here
be for all.

We then went around the circle with women reading aloud from a long list of Global Women's International statements calling for a peaceful, just response to the events of September 11. We spoke in the voices of women from Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Canada, United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK, Japan, Spain, among others. It was a moment I will not forget.

We spoke not only in the voices of women, but also chanted the names of the endangered species of the Ontario land upon which we met, and the endangered species of the land that the United States is bombing every night--Afghanistan. We were reminded that humans are not the only victims of war: it is also the Afghan Tortoise, Siberian white crane, old world otter, snow leopard, long-billed curlew, Asiatic black bear, wild yak, white headed duck, Northern Persian leopard, Bactrain Red deer, marbled duck, Afghani brook salamander, Lesser Kestrel, markhor, cheetah, tiger and wild goat who suffer. At the conclusion of this Longing Series, we sang:

Let them continue on
Let them continue on
Continue, continue
Continue, continue.
Oh let them continue on.

This morning Carolyn played the piano and together she and I sang while Gerri and Valerie taught the women a sacred spiral dance they had created overnight. The song was one of my favorites:

In the places that reek of impossibility
The Serpent of Life coils

She crawls upon the swollen stone
crawls upon the swollen stone
crawls upon the swollen stone

and loosens her only garment

Each of us occasionally encounters just the right combination of persons, place, thoughts, words and actions--or in my case, song, women and politics--that serve to restore, redirect and renew who we are and what we are about. That is what happened to me this weekend [at Five Oaks Retreat Centre in Paris, Ontario]. My deepest gratitude to all who had a part in this wondrous event.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2001

Is there anything more wonderful than going to sleep in your own bed and waking up in your very own room? Well, maybe it's taking a shower for the first time in over a week.[I had broken three bones in my foot on October 30 and had been confined to the first floor of our house until now.] Or even working at your laptop in the room you love.

Being able to climb the stairs was a pretty transformative event.

Even last night's muscle spasms didn't bother me...And then this morning I was able to try out the new improved shower chair and cast bag Ed had bought yesterday. With his help, my cast was encased in a watertight rubber sleeve and I was finally able to sit under the water I adore. Was my body thirsty! Cleanliness or lack thereof had little to do with it--it was hydration I needed.

It's amazing how quickly life pares down to simple pleasures. And now my body is telling me that it's time for a lie-down/foot-elevation. And so I will. We're getting to be pretty good friends, my body and I.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2001

...As the kids [at the school where I volunteer] get used to having me around, intimate tidbits of their lives pass between us. Like the fourth grade boy at my table whose little brother was run over by a car on the way home from school yesterday. Apparently the seven-year old has a fractured skull but is already home from the hospital. As I understand it, T. was supposed to be watching his brother as they walked home, but had run ahead to be with his friends. My guess is that he feels to blame. Now, T. is often a behavior problem, but not today. He really got into drawing his screaming self portrait and did an excellent job. I think it probably reflected what he's been doing inside his head since yesterday.

Then there was the fourth grade girl who had missed the first day of working on this screaming self portrait. Art doesn't come easily to her anyway, but today she got terribly frustrated. Fortunately she sits beside me so I could see her distress. She must have erased the outline of her eyes ten or twelve times, and each time she got more upset. We were able to talk a bit about her feelings and her struggle for "perfection", whatever that is. I hope I offered her another way of looking at things.

In another class, a third grade girl sitting at my table brought up the subject of religion. It helps to know that the vast majority of students in this school are Arab American Muslims. Many of the kids are fasting--even from water--during the month of Ramadan. The school will be closed December 17th and 18th for the two-day celebration of Eid, when Ramadan ends.

This blond-haired blue-eyed girl said her mother wants her to make more Christian friends. According to her, some kids don't want her to visit their houses because she's Christian. "They tease me about my skin being white." On one side of her was a Christian boy--he said as much--and on the other side, a Muslim girl. We all agreed that people are people no matter what their religion or color.

Whoever started that myth about it's being easier to be a child than an adult? Seems to me these three youngsters were dealing with similar stresses to their parents and grandparents. Is it my fault? Am I good enough? What does it mean to be different? How many wars and terrorist actions try unsuccessfully to answer these three questions?

I always wish I could show you pictures of these beautiful children, but I don't feel I could do so without getting their parents' permission. But, like last week, I took one picture that I think I can share. It is of the second graders lined up to go back to their regular classroom. The art teacher Susan is the only one who's facing the camera...

There were two more encounters that especially touched me today. One third grade girl came up and stood quietly beside me as I was working on my self portrait. When I looked up, she smiled shyly and said, "My brother told me about you. He said you're the best visitor we ever had." Then a fourth grade girl handed me a drawing and said, "I made it for you." It was a portrait of a smiling girl with the word "peace" written eleven times around her face. How could she have known that particular word said everything to me.

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