Resourcefulness....

This morning I still find myself fantaszing about Maui....Although today the weather brings a strange chilly wind instead of the sun's warming rays....And actually, instead of dreaming about Maui, I'm stuck on wondering where do "middle class" people go when they're out of work and out of a home?

I think for a moment of whether I would be tough enough to "live in" a shelter...or beneath a freeway underpass. Thankfully I recall that when economic times were better, I paid off my van and so actually own it. I think: I could live in my van. I'd only have to find places to park it and finding running water would be good too....Okay...I'm feeling more secure now....Oh...and I also have a small tent.

Phew! Nothing to worry about here....

Growing in the sunshine....

I learn a lot from the things growing around me. (Mostly that would be my kids and the things in my yard.) This afternoon I'm in the yard -- trying to keep my back to the sun as my face is sunburned from a really nice bike ride along the Bay in Emeryville and through Berkeley -- watering in the afternoon breeze.

One thing I learn (although in truth, I already knew this but conveniently let myself forget, over and over) is that when I water the lavender, the spikes are actually green rather than dry-stick-brown and purple flowers grow on the ends. Oh...water something and it will grow....While I'm watering, I spray off the overgrown frissee. Recalling that I meant to see about "pruning" it earlier in the week -- except I couldn't find any advice about how to "prune" lettuce and so I left it.

I'm using the hose on a few nesting spit bugs or aphids, (realizing that although I loathe death and destruction, I do not hesitate long before picking off the impossibly bright green bugs and squishing them onto the pavement), and I notice something purple. The lettuce, on its way to going to seed I suppose, is about the let lovely purple flowers open along its top. Good thing I didn't cut those stalks down earlier in the week.

If I'd snipped the frissee, I never would have been witness to the purple flowers....What's my lesson? Water things and they grow? Give a little attention and life happens? Let something go, take another direction than the one I'd intended, and I might be surprised with something lovely?....

It's all good....

Daydreams of Maui....

I migrate out to my yard...escaping the drudgery of some volunteer work I am slogging through...and sit comfortably in "my chair" -- a small pillow behind my back, my feet up on another chair. A reasonable stand-in for a chaise lounge....

The sun is warm and gorgeous on my face and I close my eyes. My sneakers and pink socks are the first to go, freeing my toes to the reach of the sun and gentle breeze. Oh, that feels good....Next is my sweater, tossed onto an adjacent chair. Oh...even better. My body and mind begin to relax and meld and float on the tinkling music from my windchimes. The jeans are next. And then I'm gone..Body here...head in Maui....

(I don't think anything else needs to be said....)

Guns

Last night I watched the movie "Milk." (Quite a well done film: good acting, nicely written script, well edited...and of course, the story....) Obviously the end of the movie gun violence was no surprise; like most of us, I recalled the main points of the story. But what did surprise me was its reminder to me of an incredulity I have held since I was a teenager.

After the movie I said to BZ, "I have a stupid question....Why is it that we still allow guns to be so available in this country?" His answer did not make me feel stupid but it didn't elucidate the issue either. He responded with things I've heard before....'American tradition...the Second Amendment'....Stuff like that....

I still don't understand....I never have. I have vague recollections of debating this issue, both formally and informally, in high school and college and law school. It always seemed to me that it was like religion: people believed what they wanted to believe, what their faith led them to believe, and were not about to be swayed by someone else's facts.

I get this. But I still have the same questions: How can it make sense for guns to be so readily available? How is it that a seemingly small minority of "gun owners" can make policy for the rest of us? Especially when that policy is killing us in what seems to be shockingly large numbers....And in the random, senseless killing of people who had no relation at all to the violence other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time....And even if they were "related" (think of domestic violence or gang deaths, etc.), there is something jarring -- and dare I say, "unfair" -- about the thought of it....A burning piece of metal piercing your flesh and then death....

Actually, I discover this morning, it is not a simple matter to find out how large the numbers are. Like most people over the age of nine, when I want to know a fact, I hop on Google. What my searches reveal is not too helpful. One of my first hits is the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) mortality charts. First of all, apparently the most recent data is from 2005 (that's already four years old!) and after plugging in the variables (which were required fields), I'm not exactly sure what number it was spitting out. As far as I can tell, the CDC data shows 12,352 gun deaths in the United States in 2005.

I return to Google. I find a promising looking link to Harvard. An article from 2000 mentioned a pilot study to track gun deaths. But the trail peters out early in the decade and the Harvard site itself doesn't contain links to articles past 2003....Where is this information? I can't help but wonder....Is its paucity related to the whole reason we don't have any meaningful gun control to being with? (Are there some hidden agendas?....)

Anyway, it is perhaps something to think about next time there is a gun death....Four cops in Oakland, someone on television, God forbid...someone we know....Maybe after we're done thinking about health care and the economy and relationships between people and the health and well being of our loved ones, we can think about guns in this nation....Or maybe we should think about it at the same time...because actually it's all related....

(If you're interested, check out: http://www.marinij.com/ci_12126366?source=most_viewed OR http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/nviss/index.htm OR try your own Google search....)

Passover....

In anticipation of Passover, brought up by the cards and wishes I am receiving, I begin to examine what this holiday means to me. I say "begin" because it is only in between the dog and kids and work that my thoughts swirl and eddy and begin to pool....

And that represents one of the very basic things that Passover means to me. Freedom to think. Even sandwiched between competing interests, I am fortunate in that I do possess the great freedom of thinking. I use that gift to think about other freedoms. Some of them given to me by our Constitution; some by my children and loved ones. Basically, (limited only by my children and the Homeland Security Act), I have the freedom to say whatever crosses my mind....

And one thing that always crosses my mind, is economic freedom. I think of the way it has been so easy for people to maybe heretofore take for granted their own economic power. Or maybe didn't take it for granted, but didn't exactly appreciate it either. And now, maybe those things are changing. Maybe freedom also means the power to think in new ways....

I have to acknowledge, that even in my interesting economic state, I have more than many. I am not on the street....And that, of course, makes me think of the homeless man I often see a mile from my home. Last week I saw him, (near his usual spot), sitting on an overturned bucket, reading the New York Times. I had only the change from a dollar in my pocket and when I gave it to him, I apologized that it couldn't be more. "No worries," he told me, his face a warm smile of sincerity. "The important thing," he continued, "is that you opened your heart." And then we got into a long discussion about how the world is a better place when people open their hearts. He -- this man, whose name I don't know, this man I know only as the 'sweet guy asking for change' -- reminded me to keep my heart open. Even when times are tough. Indeed, when times are toughest. That's when it really counts.

And that too is a freedom. One I don't want to take for granted....

Oh, and I don't want to take for granted the freedom, which we still have in our country, to practice our religion...because this is not a Christian nation or a Muslim nation or a Jewish nation...but a nation for all...including (as our President mentioned in his Inauguration speech) the 'non-believers'....So, no matter what your religion, go out an enjoy your freedoms this week....