Pet Peeve

Wal-Mart is my pet peeve. Betty Dukes deserves our respect for taking on the world largest supermarket chain with its 3400 shops; a chain seemingly discriminating women, not giving them training possibilities, not paying the same wages for the same jobs. Two million women have worked for Wal-mart since December 28, 1998. Now they could get a settlement if they win this case. Furthermore there are no trade unions, except I am told in Quebec, in Canada because obviously ‘nobody wants to get on the wrong side of the Quebecois’ and in China where trade unions are not free and independent. China only acknowledges state trade unions. Not only are much of the ugly cheap plastic consumer goods Wal-Mart sells and that break when one looks at them Chinese, but the workers producing them live in miserable circumstances. When China did bid for the Olympic Games they made 5 promises: they would organize green Olympics, there would be freedom of the press (that is actually in their constitution!), friendly security, the profit would be used to create a better social situation for all, and lastly more transparency to the public. Nice promises, good rhetoric. One could compare this to the 1936 Olympics when in Germany a certain dictator pulled the same publicity stunt. What are the problems with China: the internet is not free (Google accepted that), cyber dissidents are thrown in jail, there is no freedom of the press, vast stretches of land is so polluted it can not be used and in Bejing the air makes you cough constantly. The country doesn’t think about sustainability. There are problems with health (HIV is increasing rapidly), with women rights. NGO’s can do their jobs. There has been a severe crack down on lawyers last year. Human rights, capital punishment with about 10.000 executions per years, workers rights, ecological disasters such as the big dam projects responsible for the displacement of 30.000.000 (40 million, 300 million, what figure is right?) landless farmers and Tibet to name but a few issues which should make one think before buying Chinese goods.
China claims Western values don’t work in Asia. Is that true? Are there no universal values? Is only competition and profit universal?

Tower of Silence

We have to write. Not privately, like a diary, where there is no ‘publicity’, no testing of truth and history and reality. Our reactions in private settings don’t yield results, don’t flow into schools of thinking nor are they part of the general critique of government. Our private thoughts cannot change the paradigms of our society. So if we write we need a private/public situation like a blog, a website, a newspaper, to exchange ideas, to influence and be influenced, to learn. Whenever there is a marriage between capital and power, democracy, freedom of expression and freedom of the press and our civil rights are in jeopardy. So we need to write as sharp and clear as we can. We need to point out that no more money should go to the surge in Iraq. We need to be vigilant because there is a real risk that without a word, without the approval of the congress, the UN or the allies of Nato that President Bush will attack Iran one day soon. We need to prevent this. We need all to write as good as we can to stop our government, to embarrass our government, the business Tzars and the power brokers. Let’s polish our words till they are strong enough to bring about peace. Don’t lock yourself up in a tower of silence, care about the lives and beauty lost. Build confidence and trust, talk and listen, and heal the world of violence.

Anfang

Soft spoken they had been getting used to each other sitting outside under the tin roof of the old gas station. CJ stopped by with his fiancée. The tone of the conversation changed. The talk was guns and rifles, they came out of the pickup truck and CJ sighted, checked and moved every movable part and eventually could not get the ‘bottom loader’ to shut tight anymore.

It was then that CJ announced his impending wedding. She, tall with flowing hair and a gentle soul looked apologetically down. It was not her idea. The thought scared her, yet the gesture of asking her was meant to be generous and caring. She had been through a lot with CJ. She knew the caring would be hers to do, between the heart trouble and the nightmares…

While they fought, maimed, bombed, sprayed and gored, saw death and destruction and sowed the same, she grew up listening to the news, marching in the peace marches. She woke up with nightmares of burned children and young men without legs. CJ too woke up every night to them. Not knowing what he was doing he would take his gun, cock it and walk around the house, look in every corner. Cin then would calm the wild look in his eyes. He hoped that they, that is the Veterans Administration, would recognize that he was crazy and paranoid and pay him a pension and grant full health care for him and his family. It was the plan to give Cin security that way, an honorable plan after a life of two and a half tours as a volunteer, then working as a cook or cowboy because he could not stand the confinement of having a boss.

Nobody knew whether he had been a tunnel rat. He never said a word, probably was slightly offended at the one foot lettered peace sign over the gasstation’s door wrapped in Christmas lights. About a block away was the best spot to read it properly.

With Cin most things went unspoken. There was no need to explain, elucidate. The inclination of the head, the repressed tears, the smiles had told all. Probably she was aware it was going to be a hurricane ride. Love and caring can bring one to strange spots. There was no need to apologize either for the outrageous comments he made at the table one evening. They should shoot all democrats. The democrats are worse than communists. They should go into Iraq, take his gas and kick his ass. Yes, everybody knows how he is and everybody seems to have forgotten when exactly CJ moved in with her. Probably at the time his Rottweiler died. It was also the time when both her sons joined the Army within a couple of months. In her loneliness, she had put up the brave front of any Army mom. The world was not in a good way. Her boys were gentle, had an uncanny talent for bizarre stories, well written. The boys were also big and strong and joining the forces might just be the only way ever to get through college… What to say about that? She lost one and the younger one couldn’t deal with a dead hero brother, left the Army and got in with a rough crowd. There is hope for him; he was the better writer. He might just be gathering the dirt under the fingernails that good stories are made with. Having CJ as a protector in the house must have seemed a godsend to her who holds no violent thoughts. The town heard her sing Christmas carols, saw her grieve her son, saw her still believe in a purpose for all that pain. And seeing her, anger against the universe was hot.

Many have been in that spot where between flashes of genius, mood swing and old fears of dying, the days are eaten away, balking at the caring role of a housewife on top of everything else. Maybe Cin can pull off, what pulled others down. Some women are not a natural talent, resent the time spend in dusting and mopping. Give them a laptop, a paintbrush, a job anytime over the vacuum cleaner:

There is a job to do
the getting up at six
feeding the dogs
watering the plants
washing the dishes
drying them
and putting them away
scrubbing and
dusting
washing drying and
folding
putting everything away
use knife and forks
wash them dry them
put them away again
walk the dog
cut off some blossom
arrange it in a vase
brush your teeth
change your clothes
and go to work
come home and go to work -

When is your time to be a woman?

Of course there were also times of luxuriant happiness then.

Some girls alone stay alone and vow never to compromise on love, lower their expectations or darn socks for anybody. Gentle talk and the time and place when one needs to be held in a good and warm, caring way that makes the body sing, make the women fall falling failing doubting, falling. The prayer has been to have the strength not to accept out of need, out of loneliness what only should happen, because it was meant to be.

CJ sat in the bar and told nobody in particular how he ended up here in this godforsaken place that fries your brain in summer and chills your bones in winter winds. Nobody tells me what to do. Not even my father could. I did, as a volunteer, two tours of duty. One day the Fonda women came and sang for us and she said, we shouldn’t be there; that we all should go home. So I went to see my officer and told him: I am going home. He asked me why, so I replied that Fonda had told us all to go home. The commander shrugged and sent me back to my quarters. Big laughs all around, they know about Jane Fonda in these parts. Some of the cars still have the bumper sticker saying: Jane Fonda communist traitor bitch. Some people seem to carry a grudge for over 30 years. The need of others to justify all the suffering that war caused, the need to make it right, by making it honorable is overwhelming here…

CJ has a soft spot. He loves animals, values their trust and loyalty. Was it her kindness that drew him to Cin? What need he fulfills for her. She defers to him. At home, her home, she still treats him as an honored guest. Bringing coffee or tea, being attentive to his needs. Maybe after a year or two becoming more like a wife than a lover to him. No public display of intimacy between them. The only clue is that she kind of dresses up, when seen with him. Did she after the end of the previous marriage, after seeing her sons go, and one never to return, feel superfluous and does he give purpose and center to her life, filling the place of pain with here and now. Does she know what it is to burn body and soul for love? Does she long for that? And you? Will you be able to rise from your ashes and be free, and wild and wondrously whole? Dogs, after loosing their master, take to the kindness and warmth of another voice, in new fidelity…

Cin, you know, jeder Anfang ist schwer.

We and them?

Conservatism, prejudice, them and us partitions, lack of social justice always are influenced by narrow definitions of “we, the people”. In a time of climate change, global economy, war & peace options “we, the people” is humanity.
Sometimes the leaders of conservative, intolerant groups incite to racism, sometimes their supporters don’t need any encouragement as was the case in a small town in Belgium, where 1/3 voted for Vlaams Belang (former Vlaams Blok, convicted of racism in the courts of Belgium). Wouter Van Bellingen is an alderman in this town and charged with performing the marriages. He is clever, young, good-looking, grew up in a nice Flemish family, went to the boy scouts, got interested in politics and got elected with a rather good personal score. He is Flemish on all counts, but also black. So where is the problem. Ma and Pa Van Bellingen adopted 4 kids from milk chocolate to dark and three couples recently objected to being married by Wouter, because he is black. This got into the international press, a wave of support and indignation swept through the country. This right wing party has a slogan ‘Eigen Volk Eerst’: own people first! But who is their ‘own people’: not working women, they should stay at the hearth, not gays (dirty!), not colored people, not weird artists, not muslims… , not… ! Until actually only ‘their kind of people’ is left. They want good housing and jobs and social security but only for their kind. The alderman has a sense of humor. He developed it being exposed to daily small acts of racism I read in a paper. Small acts of racism? Does innocent racism exist? March 21 is the International Day against Racism. Since many couples sympatize with Wouter Van Bellingen, they expressed regret they hadn’t been wedded by him. The small town will organize on this March 21 a mass wedding for all these couples. That should be fun and should put some shame on the three couples cheeks. This may be more effective than going to court. Small acts of discrimination, race, class, ideology… Sherman Alexie (Spokane writer) in Tiny Treaties (from First Indian On the Moon) doesn’t ask a question I have struggled with concerning my late husband and a pacifist buddy of mine, wearing a mohawk:

… I promised
to ask if you would have stopped
and picked me up if you didn’t know me
a stranger Indian who would have fallen in love
with the warmth of the car, the radio

and the steady rhythm
of windshield wipers over glass, of tires
slicing through ice and snow. I promised
to ask you that question every day
for the rest of our lives

but I won’t ask you even
once…..


because I don’t want to know the answer.

Would you? Would I?

Chameleon's wedding

Chameleon and The Hungarian did it. I feel an immense gratitude for having been part of the ceremonies. At the registrars office, in a splendid stain glassed hallowed secular hall, the civil ceremony was short, simple and strong, meaningful in all its parts. The bride and groom walked in accompanied by an impressive old bagpiper. There is something about how the bagpipes move the air that makes us vibrate and opens us wide, makes us receptive and ready to be emotional. The law and depth of the commitment was made clear, the love shone through their whole attitude during handfasting, a Celtic knot tying ceremony by means of a Scottish sash. During the reading with the right Scottish accent of Burns ‘A Red Red Rose’, the bride bloomed with pink cheeks and at that moment I noticed the pink roses and blue thistle of her bouquet. The gentleness and respect for each other radiated out of them during the Apache Marriage Blessing and touched all of our hearts:

Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for each other.
Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other.
Now you are two persons,
but there is only one life before.
Go now to your dwelling place,
to enter into the days of your life together.
And may your days be good,
and long upon the earth.

Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together.
Give the highest priority,
to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves.
When frustration, difficulty and fear assail your relationship -
as they threaten all relationships at one time or another -
remember to focus on what is right between you,
not only the part which seems wrong.

In this way you can ride out the storms,
when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives -
remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment,
the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life
together it will be marked by abundance and delight

Seated at the bloggers table, the virtual world materializing, it was time for lightheartedness and the sustenance of the body: delicious food, a thoughtful, teasing, slightly embarrassing, but never shaming speech by the best man and yes, almost all the guy’s wore kilts and strutted their stuff, peacocks and lions all of them! A long Victorian funny, sharp witted poem about how the couple met, would win a poetry prize for light verse, a difficult discipline! A Ceilidh Band with a caller provided the after dinner entertainment, rather we all provided it for them, trying out the different spinning, twirling, hop and scots passes we had never done before. ‘ The White Sergeant’ almost left me in an asthmatic stupor. After a dark devilish, voluptuous velvet black chocolate wedding cake and a few more experiments on the dance floor, it was time for Old Langsyne, holding hands, forming a circle of friends and breaking it at the end to return to all our far-flung places, yet bonded by the joint experience. I feel I have taken a bath in a warm and kind humanity and have had a glimpse of ‘the meaning of life’.

Hen party

A larger group of women, some of them work in the same environment, others never met anyone before, recognize each other but don’t really don’t know each other and yet we here for a hen party. The dynamics are wonderful: open, honest conversation, good fun and serious stuff, wine, gin tonic, vodka. A late walk through town on a wonderful winter night with a full moon makes me think about the spirals of experience in our lives. Definitely the cycle of life is being celebrated. All our lofty or lowly –bassement matérialiste- pursuits have been put aside to be part of this rite of passage. The women here are all strong, vibrant, interesting, intelligent and one can feel the excitement of being part of this ritual, age old and primitive. Maybe primordial behavior is the only true behavior left. Participating in the transition of one phase of life, one status to another is definitely a privilege. Seeing a friend entering a legal union after years of ‘shacking up’, meeting her friends and family, having had a few serious talks about all this and finally sharing her excitement reminds us all of the cycle of life. There is talk of old, ailing parents, there are a few kids who remind us of the manifold futures yet unseen, and we know of loss and the ensuing loneliness that comes with it. In participating, being a member of this wedding party, all of us are, once again, fully immersed in the stream of life. I wonder who will catch the bouquet? By respecting the rituals, one signifies (maybe tongue in check) seriousness about the matter at hand, solidarity of the group and thus the bond that we are witnessing will be strengthened. I wish you abundant delights…

Work

Home at 1 am after work, I feel great. Working at different times than ‘the general’ population is exhilarating to me, as if the sleep of others sustains me when I get too fatigued. I have to admit I like my job; yet I would avoid saying: ‘I am a carpenter, a neurosurgeon, a plumber, a shopkeeper, a waitress.’ Not that I would be ashamed of any of the jobs just mentioned, but a job is what I do and not what I am. In On Seeing and Noticing Alain de Botton included a short essay ‘On work and happiness’, noting that ‘The most remarkable feature of the workplace has nothing to do with computers, automation or globalization. It lies in the widely held belief that our work should make us happy.’ He speaks about work ethic, postulating that most people would work even they didn’t have to. Now that would get me a roaring laugh in my small desert town… maybe even a few free drinks for telling the weirdest joke ever. My buddies there definitely hold the view that work is penance or punishment or an unavoidable necessity to be resorted to only in case of dire necessity and advocate the right to laziness. Some jobs are rewarding, financially and in personal growth. Some ‘jobs’ lead to glory and fame. But the giga majority is not. Not well paid, not fulfilling. Yet de Botton is right when he says that in meeting a new person, often one of the first questions is ‘what do you do?’ That information tells us something about perceived social status, areas of interest. Maybe, we are just shy asking new acquaintances real personal questions: where did you grow up, who were your parents, etc. The concept of meritocracy is another conundrum. Obviously it helps to have a certain talent or knack to do a certain job; if you hold a certain position you must ‘merit’ it and thus it says something about you as person. And also obvious is then that those not having 'nice' jobs didn't merit them. In a company, institution where promotions are based on ‘merit’, sometimes things work out right and everyone ends up doing exactly what she is good at. However, this could engender a lot of hidden hurt, fear of under achievement and stress since the perceived relationship with authority will also play its part. We should remember that one’s status is never guaranteed. I wonder how, when and where the Peter Principle comes in. Ivan Illich pointed out that work, people, even health is commodified. So although some of us may enjoy our jobs, the majority of the working class can be laid off at whim, since it is all about profit and paiing the least possible for all resources, also the human resource. Inequality still plays its part in the workplace with consequences for one’s self esteem and quality of life. Optimism about nice and fulfilling jobs and living in the Wal-Mart, fast food zone, has left many people unhappy. If that is your case: estimate what you need, what you would prefer to have money wise, says Dr Scarpone, and then do what you really want to do. Since you want to do it, you’ll enjoy yourself, be good at it and probably financially successful at the same time. Free advise.