poetTESS's Open Salon Blog

Blue on red

Wed, 5 Sep 2012 19:09:34 -0400

Having remembered my best-kept-secret blog, I am delighted to have a place to vent. Even better that there is hardly a soul reading this. I can publish these things I've been keeping to myself and no one will be the wiser. My invisible letter to an invisible friend.

I try so hard to not talk, to not give in to the primate chatter which is a human's natural state, but oh, I have such a chattery mind. And do I stick to safe subjects? - of course not! Politics aren't safe. And I am heartsick with the politics of our nation. I am scared by them. Intimidated.

I sneak headlines, read some Mother Jones, Truth Out, Huffington Post. Just not much anymore. Mostly now I tune into the Mayan calendar, the I Ching, aliens from space... They all make more sense to me than the current state of affairs. I have veered so far from proper discourse with my anthropological studies, I can hardly open my mouth without revealing what a loon I have become.

Tuning into the Democratic Convention last night and seeing gay people and handicapped people and even somebody with a southern accent thicker than my own, I felt a wickedly sad bit of hope. The convention seemed like a beacon beaming a reverie into my liberal outback of a dwelling. I heard all this welcoming, sharing, backbonish talk about a woman's right to choose, equal access to healthcare, gay marriage, student debt and many other things near and dear to my heart.

I think what boggles my mind is we have citizens who are so against all of the bold, brazen diversity which is now our country. There are people all over our nation choosing to vote against what I saw last night. Instead they will vote in the blatant interests of corporations, for a fellow who drapes his crosses with a flag and would usher in a new dark age for America. A man who won't show his tax returns, was a pioneer of shipping jobs across seas and who keeps money out of our country so as not to have to pay taxes on it. On and on. I wonder how much fear and hatred must one hold to vote for Romney.

I should have never even turned on the TV last night, but I did. You can bet I will watch the Democratic Convention again tonight, crying and cheering for people who are articulating a plan for America which has a heart and a conscience.

A bad case of the blues in a very red state

Wed, 5 Sep 2012 00:09:11 -0400

Tonight I was tearful many times as I watched the Democratic Convention.

I feel the need to say to my friends who do not believe politically as I do:

Surely you love America as I do, and you too can be moved to tears, stirred in your deepest selves about the fate of the country we love.

Last week, I didn't even turn on the Republican Convention because it too might make me cry, but not in a good way. I would not have been inspired. I would have been deeply afraid. I only know that convention took place with a tropical storm hovering over it and Clint Eastwood entertained all Americans on the left and the right.

What I know is we all love this country. It means so much to us because we have spent our lifetimes singing hymns to it, pledging allegiance to our flag and knowing or being the people who offer their very lives in defense of the freedoms we claim.

I am an American. I love this land, the dirt, the geography and geology. I aspire for bravery and freedom. I am a southern woman who was born in Georgia and have lived here all my life. I have a bad case of the blues in a very red state.

What is good about our Federal government has been very good, but something rotten has eaten at our country since we built our civilization on thievery and genocide. Yet we have a constitution and a bill of rights which in some respects has redeemed us from our national sins, or so we can hope.

What is good are the national parks, the regulations we previously had on businesses to keep them from poisoning us, our land, food and air. What used to be good was that we educated our people and provided good working conditions.

What we've done good was we stopped slavery, and we attempted to right some wrongs. Some of us have. Others not so much.

What is bad has been our grab for power and resources which are not ours. Allowing our intellect to go unschooled. An encouragement of evil. It is like there is a rotten strand of hate which has run among the policies of our nation. We have polarized politically along lines which express our basic personality differences.

People who want security and operate from a fear based psyche tend to be republicans. Us lefties seem to be more right brained, more inclined to be creative and less constricted in the anal region.

How is it that things feel so terribly wrong now, and scary and stupid? Why does it feel like an apocalypse is eminent? How can we be so not in agreement about education, people's rights to healthcare, a woman's control of her own body and a salary commiserate across the board? How have we become a land of scarcity?

With all the guns around, I can imagine street wars and food wars and that's my cow wars. It is not hard to imagine our culture splitting at its seams.

The democratic convention made me cry and it made me ramble. I felt deeply stirred about ideals I hold dear. I feel a need to reach out to fellow Americans and ask them to reconsider their hard hearts, the hatreds they hold dear and the fears they nurture. I want them to tune into the Democratic convention and allow themselves to dream the American dream for everyone. Let's get on the same page and tune out that nightmare on Fox News and in the county paper. Let's unite for the good of all Americans.

The transparency of R Money and Ryan's Rand Universe has shown us the Grand Wizard behind the curtain. The Grand Wizard is big money, greed and hatred. If they win this election, it will be a gigantic coup against the American people. Our land will have been sold to the highest bidder.

I am in love with the stars

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:10:48 -0400

August 13, Friday.

Edwin died last night.

Last night while Slim's suicide threats were ringing fresh in my ears; I knew it wasn't going to be a good night for sleeping. I went outside to watch the meotor showers. I lay on the bed of my pickup truck with a sleeping pad and a blanket, watching the stars fall out of the sky. It was a prayer, a being in the moment - staying present. The sky created a space where my mind did not have a place to get stuck in its own fears.

Thoughts I recorded whenever I saw a shooting star: His choices, not mine. I am afraid to know. What is best for the city and the county? Look at all the triangles the stars make! I open my heart to the earth and the sky. Why would the city put money in such a small watershed when the Ocmulgee lies only 13 miles to the east? I gotta a lot of stuff keeping me awake. Where is the dipper?

My heart does not have much more to say. Edwin is no longer among us in the living, but he will always be part of this house. White Light to you Edwin. GodSpeed.

I am in love with the stars.

The day I got my Goatz Journal

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 09:09:05 -0400

Months past, my marriage survived, my leg healed, our child/grandchild stayed the summer with her daddy, my son. I became the goat herder after my husband had hand surgery.

Excerpts from my goatz journals:

Aug 10

The day I lost my temper at CC as he demanded to know what I was cooking for supper. The day I asked him what the law was that a woman had to cook supper every night. And the day my son, John, said "Why don't you take that outside because my daughters have to do their homework and it is more important than who cooks dinner." The day I apologized to CC later for losing my temper.

The day I took Slim and Christine to the lake to kayak and all four of my grandchildren to swim. The day CC pulled through and cooked chicken drumsticks, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potatoes, feeding eleven of us.

The day I bought this new notebook which looks nothing like the notebooks I write the county news in, so I don't accidently take my journal into public and lose it. A new journal, a container to pour my too large self into. The Goatz Journal.

It is quiet and in the silence I can almost hear the world all around and my inner voice, the one that connects me, grounds me and heals me.

Aug 11

I began this newspaper with my partner because I wanted to do graphic design. I soon found there was no money to be had, but I was doing what I love doing. Information design. Then business planning. Then going to city and county meetings and reporting. But today I want to back out, back down.

I am scared. There are no monetary rewards yet, I am making myself a target by witnessing and speaking out. I live in a glass house. I am not sure I have the courage to do this.

My need for silence has grown like a hungry animal since I married my first husband thirty years ago. My Goddess. Thirty years ago, maybe to the day - I conceived my first son in a magical swirl of unreality and glibly changed my destiny. I conceived consciously, feeling like I was led by some sense of inevitability. Destiny.

There. I've said it twice. Destiny. This became the shape of my life that I have lived every day since.

My first son adamantly told me today - you need to take your newspaper to print. He has the nobility of my father's spirit inhabiting him and what he says seems so impossible. Tilting at windmills, a symbol of my father, Don Quixote sword brandished - going to print...

Going to print, holding my family together, holding all the discordancies in cupped hands - I can't continue this. I must let go.

Aug 12

Before getting out of bed, I find a tick on my privates. I get a handful of ants with my tea and I sat on the toilet and got stung on the butt by a yellow jacket that CC had thrown in there earlier. Thus my day began.

My dog rolled in my own shit. I had the goats out behind the garage and they were munching down. I discovered I needed to poop so I walked a little ways away and dropped my drawers and pooped. Next I know, GD is rolling in it and then he ate it. He smelled really bad.

My youngest son told me he smoked meth last night and took 10 xanexs. That he slept all day. Then he wanted money for food. I gave him food and told him I couldn't continue to subsidize his bad choices. He told me wouldn't be so fucked up if didn't have fucked up parents. He said I'd be lucky if he didn't kill himself tonight. I told him he was making his choices, I didn't make them for him.

So tonight I will sit under the stars with a spray bottle of vinegar to ward off my dog who rolled in my own shit. I will watch for meteor showers and I will cry and pray and wait. Wait for Slim to live or die, the choice only he can make. My heart is encased in steel and crumbling inside.

Today I told John in no uncertain terms I want him to have custody of his oldest daughter whom I've raised since birth. I went to a city committee meeting and found I am helping to change city politics with my reporting.

Shooting stars, the Goddess, the earth and sky. Prayer. Miracles. That is what I need tonight. Divine intervention. Help. Grace. Comfort. Because who is there to turn to besides God, the Goddess, earth and stars. If there is grace, I open myself to it. I will get under the stars of creation. I will sweat, cry, pray and grieve. I will give up hope, pick it back up and put it down again. I will live into another day. What will its gifts be? Its stings and pestilence?

My Life with Goats

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:09:37 -0400

Getting them nearly killed me. We traveled up two states to bring home two baby goats in the back of my husband's perfect forester subaru. He wanted the goats. I didn't. He'd spent years whipping our child up into a frenzy wanting them. He and she had to have them and they finally found a place to get them.

On the day we left, I had a tick bite, a swollen knot of a thing. I decided to grate a clove of garlic on a bandage and put this germ fighting poultice on my leg. It burned - pretty badly. I kept thinking as we went down the road, "this hurts," but I just kept driving. I couldn't drive far or fast enough to leave my husband's ugly, mean talk somewhere down the road.

It was a harsh trip. When I got where I was going... there it was, what I had done to myself. A big heart shaped blister, popped and burned many layers down. Oh, it really was hurting. Everywhere. Every part of my life felt like this blister, raw, oozing, caused by a powerful concoction of earth medicine and my own stupidity. I had done it to myself.

As I walked up to our goaty destination, looking to my right, I saw a solid white peacock fully spread - like liquid light in the most beautiful form. Then I saw the fields, fences, goats and their keeper. This place was magic and I felt like I had met the goat goddess and her land. I felt the peace of thousands of years of shepherding animals in my blood.

McGoat Goddess showed us her fields, my granddaughter and I. We saw billy goats, nanny goats and milking goats, lots of chickens, dogs and even a great big snake in the pitch black night. I milked a goat and experienced the clear joy of a mother's milk coursing in my hands.

After camping out on McGoat's hillside, we got our two baby goats in a little wire cage stuffed with straw and took off back down the road. It got ugly in that car for the next 10 or so hours. And smelly. My leg hurt like it had caught almighty fire and my marriage was crumbling into nasty, goat pissed on straw flying down the highway.

It was the worst trip ever. Really it was. And my marriage was over.

We got the goats in the yard right before dark, but we didn't trust the dogs in the fence with them. One left, obedient as usual - GD is his name. He was named for the entire reason we had taken this disastrous trip - Goat Dog!

His brother, a dog of a different color, was slinking around and not coming out. I didn't trust him one bit and I went looking for him. He's probably between 60 to 80 pounds. I found him and we were going towards the gate when he turned around and began running fullspeed back the other way. Right into my left leg, he ran; his head battering my shin. I crumbled on the ground, clutching the leg. It is dark by now and I was in too much pain to get up. I laid there, reikiing my leg and crying.

My left leg, the same leg my heart had blistered its tattoo onto just a couple of days before was throbbing in the rhythm of my sobs and the earth. I laid there convulsed in pain - soul, mind and body; before I finally somehow got myself in the house.

To his credit, my husband was kind. He helped me with ice, medicated me and left me to our bed where I continued to wail and cry for approximately two hours. Maybe more. I felt a hemotoma type swelling that melted into a bone fractured lump of calcium.

Welcome to my goatz journals, fellow travelers.