Supreme Court Rules for Wal-Mart against 1.5 million women today

The Justices ruled 5.4 to throw out a discrimination suit against Wal-Mart today brought by almost 1.5 million female employees of Wal-Mart who alleged that the employer discriminated against them because they were women. Didn't pay equal wages for equal work, didn't promote them the same as men, and so on. Same old same old. Case is thrown out. I have this to say about that: we would not have to sue for equal wages, or sex discrimination if we were equal citizens under the law. Women are do not have equal rights in this country. We never have had. We have yet to pass the Equal Rights Amendment.
We have tried. We have come THIS close. We could still do it. We are THREE STATES away from passing the ERA. Still. I know, it seemed like we lost back in 1978, and many of us gave up hope, and the whole Women's Rights movement pretty much fizzled out at that point. There are still feminists, even Second Wave feminists. Now Third Wave feminists. But there is now legal interpretation that shows we can still pass the ERA itself if three more states will ratify it. We need to put life into the movement once again. For this we need new blood. We need our BROTHERS, we need our ALLIES, we need everyone who is willing for women to have equal rights to stand up and be counted.
Please go to http://equalrightsamendment.org/ and read up on this issue. See what you can do, and then take some small (or large or ANY size) action. Be a hero for women's rights. Do you have equal rights in your state? Are you a feminist? What does the word feminist mean to you?

Father's Day: My Dad

I was a daddy's girl, but I called him Dad. Many of my earliest memories are of my Dad. He took me with him to the woods, fishing, "hunting" although he never killed anything in front of me after the turtle incident when I was two. We were fishing and he caught a turtle and killed it. I freaked. He fished and hunted for our protein, but I was not having turtle, even at two, believe me. I was 4 or 5 before I figured out that the squirrel and rabbit we ate was the same as the ones running around outside. (duh). I stopped eating them then. I never ate deer. I think he only brought it home once and that was only part of one that he was sharing with a relative. Anyway, after the turtle, he did target practice when we went out, but mostly when we went tramping around the woods he was teaching me how to be quiet, how to identify plants (poison ivy, edibles), how to find my way back home, how to track animals. He also taught me how to shoot when I was about 6, and made me a sawed off .22 when I was 7 -- the year he died of a heart attack.
When I was 4, Dad taught me to read and tell time. Reading was the greatest gift, and he had infinite patience. I sat on his lap going "what's that word, Dad?" and "what's that word?" until I knew all the words. Then he, Mom and I sat and read together every evening until bedtime. Dad always tucked me in and sang to me as long as I can remember, until he died. He also used to ask me if I would always be daddy's little girl and if I would always sit on his lap. I would say yes, and he would say "even when you're 14?" And I would say yes. We never had the chance to test that promise.
Dad wanted a boy, but he got me. There had been a boy before me, but he died before he was a full 24 hours old. So, he had to make do with a girl. I would never have guessed that I was second choice. Not when I was little. If he had lived until I was a teen, things would probably have got tense. He didn't, so I continued to idolize him.
Dad has been gone a very long time now. I still miss him. I have come to see that he had his flaws, as we all do. I think he did his best to save me from my mom and that's why he took me with him to the woods, to his work when he could. I wonder whether he was happy with my mom, or whether he stayed with her for the sake of me and my sister (she was still a toddler when he died). Whatever the reason, I'm glad he was there to the end. My heart broke the day he died. I prayed on my knees every night for two years to be taken so I could be with him. That didn't happen, obviously.
Here's to you, Dad. You were the best. If reincarnaton does exist, I hope to see you in the next life.

Wedding Day: Fiona and Kaspa

Congratulations to the bride and groom, may you be happy together forever. Here is the small stone I wrote for the couple:

Purple hearts of the redbud tree weep raindrops of happiness onto white roses who hold their petals as if for the bride's bouquet.

As I look out my window today in Portland, Oregon the weather has changed once again back to rain for a couple of days. My Eastern Redbud sits in front of my door, its beautiful purple heart-shaped leaves bright against a background of many shades of green. Under it is a rose bush with stark white roses. Today, the purple leaves are drip drip dripping with rain, and drops are glistening all along the branches as well. Yesterday the sun was shining through the leaves, making them deep red -- another gorgeous sight, today it is rain and I choose to see the drops as tears of happiness for the bride. They do seem happy and have gathered so many people to celebrate with them, asked people to write these small stones for their wedding. To share in their joy. Brilliant! Ask for what we want, share our joy. These are concepts to be taken up and employed in all our lives, people. Better than wedding cake!

Knowledge is Power

When I was in my late teens I thought I knew so much. I had already experienced quite a lot of life: love, marriage, childbirth and was living the life of a battered wife of an alcoholic. I was biding my time until I turned 21 and could escape (in Missouri you had to have your parent's permission to divorce if you were under 21 and I didn't have it). I hadn't graduated high school, but I was self educated. I read everything, carrying my paperback dictionary with me on the bus to work, looking up every word I didn't know as I read my way through Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. After the Greeks I moved on to other philosophers, other readings. At 21 I finally asked a librarian for a list of the classics and read authors by the armload. Complete works of Dickens, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and so on. Wish I had been pointed to women authors earlier, but picked those up in the 70s.
When I went back to school, university at age 29, I tested out of the entire first year of college and all English requirements, all Fine Arts. 30 semester hours total. After I finally finished my university degree many years later, and wrote my master's thesis and had it accepted, I did think I knew quite a lot.
Those words engraved over the side door of my high school "Knowledge is Power" stayed with me. I know that my vocabulary, my ability to learn quickly, my excellent memory in my younger years, my insatiable thirst for information -- all have combined to help in move ahead in the world. I was able to provide for my family because of those things.
I could have been a factory worker like my mom with a tenth grade education, but I fought hard to move past that. I was kicked out of high school for being pregnant. My teenage husband was insanely jealous and when my (female) teacher at night school drove me home one night, he thought I hadn't gone because I didn't walk out the front door of the school(and he had come to check up on me.) So I was beaten and had to drop out.
Now that I'm older and actually think about things, I find that I don't know as much as I thought I did. So much of what seemed so clear now seems so fluid. So amorphous. Yesterday I wrote about the meaning of love, and not being sure that I do understand the meaning of love. Lately I've been thinking about what I believe about life. All my life I have believed in reincarnation. I mean ALL my life. When I was a very young child I remembered, remembered clearly my past lives. I would tell my mom about "before." I would say to her, "don't you remember Mama, when I was the Mom and you were the little girl?" and so on. I got into trouble for this belief at Sunday School until finally Mom told me to stop talking about these things at Sunday School, stop telling these stories. She tried to convince me they were dreams. They were not dreams. They were memories.
I also experienced deja vu ALL the effing time. It happened so often I couldn't believe other people weren't experiencing it too. It never happens to me any more. Why is that? And why did it happen so often when I was a child? What is that about? Why do I suddenly sound like Andy Rooney? Good lord.
So, if I believe in reincarnation, what else does that mean? I thought that made me a Buddhist. I have told people for years that I believe in the Goddess. I have had dreams about the Goddess, in which she comes to me and tells me I will never be alone, and so on. But I don't actually believe there is some Goddess somewhere in the sky or outer space somewhere protecting me. It's more that I believe we are all one. Like all the same energy connected molecules, and we will all just come back and come back over and over. Like that. But is there a higher power?
Will we always be people? Why would we be? When I say "we" are all connected, I mean that everything in the universe is connected, everything that is made of the same energy is connected. We could as easily be a cloud or a raindrop or a star or a piece of bugshit. Right? All the same. So why the memories?
What about Karma? Why do we have minds and memories and morals? This is too much to puzzle over in one day, particularly with a migraine. Ha ha! Threw you with that one, eh? Yes. This is one of those headache days in which I cannot take meds because I can take them only twice in a 7 day period. Two more days before I can take meds again. So, I am writing to take my mind off the pain. Now I will rest.
Please, if you have thoughts on these topics that you are willing to share, I'm interested.

Understanding the Meaning of Love

Today I worked at one of my part time jobs. This one has some built in downtime and we are to bring a quiet activity. I brought a book, and I brought an essay to work on. I thought I would try to write an essay for a contest. I didn't think I would win it, this is one that attracts literally thousands of entrants. I thought it would be good practice for me, and because it has a big prize ($3,000) and lots of competition, I would try my best. Then I pulled it out, and looked at the title. "When did you first understand the meaning of love?"
I used up all my first bit of downtime thinking about that question. Not making notes or working on a mind map. Just thinking. Back to work. Next downtime. Had to re-read the question. So, when DID I first understand the meaning of love? Well, what IS the meaning of love? I didn't have access to anything except my own brain at the time, so I pondered. I thought about my first experience of love and assumed that must have been my parents. The problem is I don't think my mom actually loved me. So forget that. My dad loved me. But my dad died when I was seven years old. Did I understand the meaning of love by then? I don't think so, because at that time I think I believed my mom loved me. Although it wasn't long until I understood that she did not.
So then I thought about my own children and how I love them and when I loved them and I just feel like such a bad mother myself that I couldn't think what to write about that. I thought about people I have professed to love and all I can do is wonder: do I understand the meaning of love? I know what unconditional love is when I am on the receiving end: my cat gives it to me. My babies gave it to me until they had been hurt enough times not to trust people any more, to be wary of giving love without condition. I didn't abuse my kids, I don't mean that. But I yelled at them, I withheld love from them, I ignored them when I could have been loving and kind. They felt hurt, ignored, unloved.
And what's the use of thinking about people I've been "in love" with? It was never unconditional, it always changed.
So, what is love anyway? When I say I love someone what do I mean? I love my daughter probably more than anyone in the world. Today that means I would do anything in the world for her. I would die for her. And yet she is also the person I have caused the most hurt. I can't change that, but I would if I could. I love my grandchildren, my sister, my son, my friends, even my mom.
When I say I love you, it means something. I'm not always sure what. I think we've established that it doesn't mean I'll always live near you. For some of the people I love it does mean that I will do anything for you, give you anything I have. Those are a precious few. For everyone else, I'm still exploring the meaning of love. I'm open to discussion.

Overcoming our personal history

Yesterday I went to see a one-woman show by Brenda Phillips called No More Pity Party Blues. Brenda has a gorgeous voice and is a wonderful entertainer. (She is also an artist, and her "tickets" were take home cards of her art. Bonus!) Her material flowed through stories from her life, covering the first time she was "in love" in second grade through being sexually abused by "play uncles" through real loves in her adult life, to today. She shows how she has come to take responsibility for her own self, her own part in her happiness. Along the way there was wonderful singing of the blues and gospel that had the audience moving, clapping, and vocalizing along. Next time she brings this show out to play, be sure to go. I'll let you know as soon as I hear about it. This was a short notice kind of thing, Brenda will be bringing it back.
I too have been working on my own personal history, as I recently wrote about. We all have things we have to overcome. Some are worse than others. For me I find that some of the things that might be considered the most horrendous to others are not the ones that were hanging me up. Or maybe not the first step. My most recent non-fiction piece that I wrote about was about being molested by a friend of my mom's. Not losing my virginity at the age of 12, or being married at 15, or being a battered wife, or when I was raped, or the things that I consider much worse that I won't even mention here. But that molestation was what changed me from the innocent babe that I was, to the person I was to become. I began taking the steps to take charge of my own life, began making my own bad decisions that led to many of those bad things that happened later in my life.
At this stage in my life the big decisions all have to do with forgiveness. Brenda talked about that yesterday. Forgiving oneself. I find it relatively easy to go back and forgive my 12 year old self for the decisions I made, but I still stick at the decisions I made at 21 and older. Intellectually I can say that I did the best I could at the time. When I knew better I did better. My heart twists and turns when I try to forgive those decisions that resulted in pain for my children. I'm still working on forgiveness.

Deep Thinking

My friend Jenny is spending an entire year doing things she has never done and blogging about it. This has led to some deep thinking -- on MY part. Today her entry is about a friend of hers who is moving away, and Jenny thinks about what it is like for the person left behind. I am a person who has moved so many times I can't remember how many, and until today I don't remember giving a thought to how the people I left behind were feeling. Maybe I did. But I don't remember it. I do remember wondering why they would be angry at me, why they wouldn't be happy for me.
From the time I started reading books at age 4, and knew there were other places to be, I wanted to go to those places. And I didn't just want to see them, I wanted to live there. I wanted to live in faraway places. But in lots of places. Also, I love houses. Apparently, all houses. So, I always wanted to move. I like decorating, I like redecorating. I'm forever seeing another place I want to live in. Once I was away from home (at 15), I started changing houses. Once I was free to move out of town, I did. My second marriage was to a military man. After I divorced him, I was even freer to move around. I started in Missouri, but I've lived in Alaska, Texas, Kansas, at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and in Oregon.
I've traveled to every state but Delaware and Rhode Island, and to 20 countries on 4 continents. I have friends in many places, friends I see fairly often. Two of my dearest friends live in other countries. I have as many close friends in NYC as I do in Portland.
Maybe. Maybe I feel that close to them because traveling is such a part of my nature. Maybe they don't feel that close to me. Maybe they only feel that close to people who ARE that close, literally. If I can't be there to wrap my arms around them, hold them when they need it, bring them something to read, make a pot of soup, am I really the friend I think I am? Or am I all just talk? Nice warm cozy words that no one can cuddle up to when pain is real and what they really want is a warm body, not a virtual hand.
These are the thoughts I am having today. I have no plans to move today or any time in the future. I'm happy in my 250 square feet. But if I ever do move again, I will have a different attitude about leaving people behind.