I could begin this just about anywhere, but in having so many choices, I find it impossible to begin.
Perhaps it began as a young girl growing up in a mid-sized town, and choosing my first pet. A cat. Gray and white and black with an equally multi-colored nose.
Or perhaps it started years later when my father brought home a dog though not just any dog. A Saluki. He knew nothing about dogs, but this one was exotic so in my father's mind, the dog was important. At first, in deference to my cat, I rejected the dog, but soon, after slithering up on my bed, cautiously lying next to my snarling cat, I was as bonded to the dog as I was to my cat.
Or maybe it started years and years after that when I was in my mid-twenties and chose my own dog from the animal shelter, the dog that saved my life.
Or perhaps it was even the 10 years on a small farm with dogs and cats and birds and sheep and llamas.
Somehow, somewhere I realized I'd rather spend time with animals than most people. It's not an uncommon desire. Anyone who has loved a pet has contemplated the meaning of unconditional love. Anyone who has cuddled up with a cat or a dog or even a guinea pig has experienced that feeling that is impossible to describe though we still admirably try.
For me, the connection is not just love, but something more primal. It's sensual in that it incorporates not only sights and sounds, but smells and textures that cannot help but enliven the taste buds on some level. When cuddling with my current dog or years earlier burying my nose into the long neck of a dusty llama, I am forced out of my head and into my body -- a place where I do not spend nearly enough time.
So, it is no wonder, when my head hurts after a particularly cruel day of teaching children, I find myself hungry for an animal's companionship. Currently that companionship comes in the shape of a young dog who we've raised from a puppy. In the past the hunger made me race home from my classroom to muck out a sheep stall or curl up on the couch with purring cat or two.
It's probably no surprise then that my mid-life crisis comes not in the form of tattoos or expensive motorcycles, but in the desire to deepen that relationship with the animal world. Specifically, to deepen my relationship with dogs.
And despite my history with animals, I'm scared as hell to leave my 22 year career as a teacher and venture into the world of dog training. Talk about old dog and new tricks. This leap, while it feels both compelling and perfect on my levels still lifts me from my bed at night in a cold, panicked sweat.
There's so much to learn. There's so much I don't know I even need to learn. There's a level a fear I think one can only develop at 49 years old that as a 23 year old you weren't even capable of knowing existed.
Case in point: Recently, we've needed to hire a dog walker a few days a month. Through various connections we met Hannah, a 25 year old Divinity student who, on the side, began her own dog walking business. In her short life, Hannah has been a U.S. Marine working as a cryptologist and linguist, a corporate telecommunications specialist, and is currently enrolled in graduate school with the hope of becoming a hospital chaplain.
She's 25.
At 25 I was an underpaid bicycle mechanic earning my teaching certificate. I never contemplated owning my own business. I simply thought I wanted a job teaching and after my first tumultuous year as a teacher, I greatly doubted that choice.
Perhaps what separates the 25 year old Hannah and the formerly 25 year old me is that I lived my life in fear. Fear of failure, fear of doing the wrong thing because somehow I believed there was a right thing to do, fear of not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life, and fear of somehow living the words of caution my second grade teacher warned my parents about so many years ago: She struggles with completing projects.
On my good days, I tell myself this: 22 years of teaching IS completing a long project. While a talented teacher, I'm worn out and unlike many of my colleagues, I have the good sense to know that quitting teaching is best for everyone involved. Following a passion -- the desire to work with dogs, to work on my writing -- is what mid-life crises are all about. Some fulfill that crisis with a trip to Nepal or a cruise to Alaska or a stint in the Peace Corps or, as a recent psychologist friend informed me, an application to Doctors Without Borders. Others purchase things -- another house, a boat, and yes, the obligatory Harley Davidson motorcycle.
A mid-life crisis is not necessarily a crisis at all. I like to think of it more as an attempt to hone in on something you've put off for whatever the reasons. For me, the reasons were all based in fear.
Of course, this is what I tell myself on a good day.
On the bad days, well that's when I find it hard to begin dissecting how I ended up right here, right now...and old dog trying to learn a new trick.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Small Patch of Common Ground
As a woman, white and lesbian, I have never found a candidate, be it for president, senator, governor, or mayor, with whom I agree fully. Instead I have voted and I imagine will continue to vote for the candidate with whom I disagree the least. This is perhaps why I found Senator Obama's recent speech on race not only thought-provoking, but inspiring.
Senator Obama eloquently articulated many of the racial conundrum's we've stuffed away in our closets for hundreds of years, but he also addressed one of the key ideals of what I believe to be a true democracy -- the ability to disagree and still share common ground.
When Obama compared his love of his grandmother and his affection for Reverend Wright despite his disagreement with them, he made me think of how many of us live with such contradictions. For me, this contradiction centers around my sexual orientation as well as being a woman in the dominant culture of men. I have worked with people and continue to work with people who neither support my sexual orientation nor who wholly understand what life is like as a woman in a male world. Some of these people are not my friends. They are and will remain to be simply my co-workers with whom I will have a respectful albeit distanced relationship.
Others I call friends and in doing so must see beyond their political belief system and look more deeply into their humanity. This is not always easy to do, not just for me, but for them as well. Still, when we can set aside the political bickering, when we can sit across from each other and share what we believe without fear of judgment or worse, then who we support as a candidate matters less and less.
For instance, when my partner and I chose to marry during the time Portland, Oregon offered such a window of opportunity, a co-worker/friend wrote us the most heart-felt congratulations card we ever received. "While I am still struggling with my religious beliefs over the issue of marriage," she wrote, "I cannot think of two people more perfect for each other than the two of you." Religious and conservative, this co-worker/friend opened her arms in congratulations because she knew us and accepted us as best she could. By acknowledging the chasm of our differences she took responsibility for her different position while not letting those differences divide us.
Years ago I had a heated yet respectful conversation with one of my co-workers who felt that homosexuality was an abomination. At the end of our discussion, which many other co-workers witnessed, another co-worker came up to me and said, "How can you talk with such civility to a bigot who wants to see you dead?"
"Whether I acknowledge her or ignore her," I responded, "Her position remains the same. But if I listen to her, if I show her respect as an individual and a human being, I'm hoping that when the religious fanatics come to take me away, she'll see my face and remember that I am as much a human being as she is."
I applaud Senator Obama's speech not only because he offered an articulate and astute analysis of race in this country, but he offered something essentially human -- a space in which we can disagree and still move forward. He asked us to see him as a human being with flaws and struggles. He asked us to look into our own selves and find the similar person inside of us. We are all flawed and struggling. We are all opinionated and judgmental. But we are also human and at the core of our humanity is the ability to recognize our daily contradictions, acknowledge the contradictions of others, and still see the good in each other.
While I may disagree on some of the Senator's ideas or politics, that he is able to acknowledge this fact of life -- that we love and are loved by people with whom we do not always agree -- gives me faith that as a president he will help us move forward and not grind to a halt in the political quagmire of us versus them or red states versus blue. For too long now, we've lived in such a state of fear and disdain. It's refreshing to find a candidate who is willing to step outside that construct and inspire us to talk with each other not from a place of disagreement, but from that sometimes small patch of common ground on which we find ourselves standing.
Senator Obama eloquently articulated many of the racial conundrum's we've stuffed away in our closets for hundreds of years, but he also addressed one of the key ideals of what I believe to be a true democracy -- the ability to disagree and still share common ground.
When Obama compared his love of his grandmother and his affection for Reverend Wright despite his disagreement with them, he made me think of how many of us live with such contradictions. For me, this contradiction centers around my sexual orientation as well as being a woman in the dominant culture of men. I have worked with people and continue to work with people who neither support my sexual orientation nor who wholly understand what life is like as a woman in a male world. Some of these people are not my friends. They are and will remain to be simply my co-workers with whom I will have a respectful albeit distanced relationship.
Others I call friends and in doing so must see beyond their political belief system and look more deeply into their humanity. This is not always easy to do, not just for me, but for them as well. Still, when we can set aside the political bickering, when we can sit across from each other and share what we believe without fear of judgment or worse, then who we support as a candidate matters less and less.
For instance, when my partner and I chose to marry during the time Portland, Oregon offered such a window of opportunity, a co-worker/friend wrote us the most heart-felt congratulations card we ever received. "While I am still struggling with my religious beliefs over the issue of marriage," she wrote, "I cannot think of two people more perfect for each other than the two of you." Religious and conservative, this co-worker/friend opened her arms in congratulations because she knew us and accepted us as best she could. By acknowledging the chasm of our differences she took responsibility for her different position while not letting those differences divide us.
Years ago I had a heated yet respectful conversation with one of my co-workers who felt that homosexuality was an abomination. At the end of our discussion, which many other co-workers witnessed, another co-worker came up to me and said, "How can you talk with such civility to a bigot who wants to see you dead?"
"Whether I acknowledge her or ignore her," I responded, "Her position remains the same. But if I listen to her, if I show her respect as an individual and a human being, I'm hoping that when the religious fanatics come to take me away, she'll see my face and remember that I am as much a human being as she is."
I applaud Senator Obama's speech not only because he offered an articulate and astute analysis of race in this country, but he offered something essentially human -- a space in which we can disagree and still move forward. He asked us to see him as a human being with flaws and struggles. He asked us to look into our own selves and find the similar person inside of us. We are all flawed and struggling. We are all opinionated and judgmental. But we are also human and at the core of our humanity is the ability to recognize our daily contradictions, acknowledge the contradictions of others, and still see the good in each other.
While I may disagree on some of the Senator's ideas or politics, that he is able to acknowledge this fact of life -- that we love and are loved by people with whom we do not always agree -- gives me faith that as a president he will help us move forward and not grind to a halt in the political quagmire of us versus them or red states versus blue. For too long now, we've lived in such a state of fear and disdain. It's refreshing to find a candidate who is willing to step outside that construct and inspire us to talk with each other not from a place of disagreement, but from that sometimes small patch of common ground on which we find ourselves standing.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Worms
We walk and the worms
squirm in puddles at our feet
They're trying to swim
The dog looks at me as if
in agreement
Curious
his lips curl as he speaks
with head cocked
ever so slightly to the left
I continue,
but they're actually drowning...
Rain has been smothering us
for days now
the gray sky has sunk his teeth
in and
all around our feet
worms are flooding up
from the winter grass
Children
waiting for the school bus
stand pink with Dora the Explorer
umbrellas like mushrooms with
booted legs
Cars spin around wet corners
and fleshy curls unfurl themselves
in puddle after puddle
So much for evolutionary adaptation
This is the dog -- dreadlock wet --
He shakes starting with his
nose, ending with the tip of his tail
Refreshed we continue walking
counting worms at our feet
Some have given up
Others lift one end or the other
confused about head
and tail
Breath and death
We turn the corner for
home and black crows perch
at the edges of our house
digging their black beaks
into the deep compost of
our gutters
searching for
worms
Down here I jest pointing
a swollen finger at the
pool of water just this side of our gate
Instinct says the dog and I
cock my head
slightly to the right
curious
-----------------------------------------------------
Today I do not have to teach. I'm supposed to be working from home, but I'm waiting for my teaching partner to arrive. I'm hoping she's late. Avoiding work feels right today. Rubin agrees. He's sighing under the desk, curled up in a ball still damp from this morning's walk.
I haven't had much time to write these past weeks. Work is burdened with too much paperwork and kids who can't get along with one another. "They've watched too many episodes of Survivor," my teaching partner says, "And they're trying to figure out who to vote off the island."
Maybe it's just me. With my decision to leave teaching, maybe now the ugly warts of this job are more apparent. Or maybe it's just this class. There are some sweet kids, but there are some real pieces of work. Psychological work. I can't decide if this is a good way to end it -- to leave with such a challenging group or wait it out for a "good season" like Brett Favre.
Hard to say.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping my panic at bay. The bigness of this move haunts me at times. I wake up and suck in cold air early in the morning. "What the hell am I doing?" and then Ann calms me down and let's me know it will be alright.
"We won't starve," she tells me and then, as she falls asleep adds, "And losing a little weight won't hurt either of us."
Then, when my head is wrapped around one worry or the other, weird things happen. Last night, for instance, I took Lucy (the Boston Terrier) to her training class and brought her home to her mom's house later in the evening. Dani, Lucy's owner, had some friends over. One of the friends is a dog walker. "Wow, I've been looking for a dog walker!" I explain how the high school student up the street is unreliable and unpredictable. Hannah, this new dog walker, is excited about walking our dog. We talk about dates and she gives me her number. "I've just gone out on my own," she tells me.
"Is it working out?" I ask.
"Amazingly," she smiles. "I panicked about the move for months, but it's turning out to be perfect."
Trust the universe is what my woo-woo friend would say, but I'm not that woo-woo. Still, there's something to be said for leaping.
We won't starve.
squirm in puddles at our feet
They're trying to swim
The dog looks at me as if
in agreement
Curious
his lips curl as he speaks
with head cocked
ever so slightly to the left
I continue,
but they're actually drowning...
Rain has been smothering us
for days now
the gray sky has sunk his teeth
in and
all around our feet
worms are flooding up
from the winter grass
Children
waiting for the school bus
stand pink with Dora the Explorer
umbrellas like mushrooms with
booted legs
Cars spin around wet corners
and fleshy curls unfurl themselves
in puddle after puddle
So much for evolutionary adaptation
This is the dog -- dreadlock wet --
He shakes starting with his
nose, ending with the tip of his tail
Refreshed we continue walking
counting worms at our feet
Some have given up
Others lift one end or the other
confused about head
and tail
Breath and death
We turn the corner for
home and black crows perch
at the edges of our house
digging their black beaks
into the deep compost of
our gutters
searching for
worms
Down here I jest pointing
a swollen finger at the
pool of water just this side of our gate
Instinct says the dog and I
cock my head
slightly to the right
curious
-----------------------------------------------------
Today I do not have to teach. I'm supposed to be working from home, but I'm waiting for my teaching partner to arrive. I'm hoping she's late. Avoiding work feels right today. Rubin agrees. He's sighing under the desk, curled up in a ball still damp from this morning's walk.
I haven't had much time to write these past weeks. Work is burdened with too much paperwork and kids who can't get along with one another. "They've watched too many episodes of Survivor," my teaching partner says, "And they're trying to figure out who to vote off the island."
Maybe it's just me. With my decision to leave teaching, maybe now the ugly warts of this job are more apparent. Or maybe it's just this class. There are some sweet kids, but there are some real pieces of work. Psychological work. I can't decide if this is a good way to end it -- to leave with such a challenging group or wait it out for a "good season" like Brett Favre.
Hard to say.
Meanwhile, I'm keeping my panic at bay. The bigness of this move haunts me at times. I wake up and suck in cold air early in the morning. "What the hell am I doing?" and then Ann calms me down and let's me know it will be alright.
"We won't starve," she tells me and then, as she falls asleep adds, "And losing a little weight won't hurt either of us."
Then, when my head is wrapped around one worry or the other, weird things happen. Last night, for instance, I took Lucy (the Boston Terrier) to her training class and brought her home to her mom's house later in the evening. Dani, Lucy's owner, had some friends over. One of the friends is a dog walker. "Wow, I've been looking for a dog walker!" I explain how the high school student up the street is unreliable and unpredictable. Hannah, this new dog walker, is excited about walking our dog. We talk about dates and she gives me her number. "I've just gone out on my own," she tells me.
"Is it working out?" I ask.
"Amazingly," she smiles. "I panicked about the move for months, but it's turning out to be perfect."
Trust the universe is what my woo-woo friend would say, but I'm not that woo-woo. Still, there's something to be said for leaping.
We won't starve.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Three Reasons
Another post I wrote over vacation...
Three Reasons
From Winthrop, Washington
2/22/08
I had a hard time making up my mind at first. For a long time I thought I’d just vote for whomever the Democrats nominated, but now it doesn’t seem that easy. The Democrats might screw it up and fight over whom they’ll nominate so I feel compelled to take a stand.
Others around me have been certain. Our neighbor, for one. She said, “I want to go with my heart, but I’m going to vote with my head.” This was her logic behind casting her caucus vote for Hillary. “She’s more experienced and I think she can win the election over any Republican they put up against her.” The other neighbor is for Obama. “Hillary’s old news,” she said. “I want someone new, fresh. Hillary scares me.” Not so much a vote for Obama, but definitely one against Hillary.
I like both candidates. Okay, like isn’t quite the word, but as I said earlier, I’d vote for either.
Well, until recently. Recently I’ve collected three reasons why I’ll vote for Obama. Here they are, though not in any particular order.
Reason #1: Bill Clinton.
My parents are affirmed, dyed in the wool Democrats. They both work for the Democratic Party on the local level. They are liberal and all my life spouted their disdain for Republicans. So they’ll be shocked to know that when Bill Clinton first ran for president I didn’t vote for him. I was standing in line at the polling center convinced I had no other choice but to vote for him when a report came over the loudspeaker that Clinton was the projected winner. Everyone in the polling place cheered though a few disgruntled Republicans clucked their tongues and marched into the booth with their ballots blazing.
I was relieved. Now I could vote for Ralph Nadar and not have to worry that my vote didn’t make or break a Democratic victory.
The second time around, I did vote for him though I was still not convinced. Rather I was casting my vote against the Republican and bedding myself down with a candidate I felt to be a bit too slimy for my tastes. And now, looking back, I think I was right to be wary. Who signed into law Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Who signed the NAFTA treaty? Who squeezed any life out of the welfare system?
Bill Clinton.
I’m not naïve to think that any candidate elected won’t be pushed more toward the middle than to the extremes once they get to the White House, but now that we’ve suffered through the ridiculous and deadly circus of the right-wing, I have a bit more hope that a liberal candidate like Barack Obama will be able to swing that pendulum back past center and more in line with a progressive momentum.
If Hillary were any other thing than a Clinton, if Hillary were just Hillary and not married to someone who obviously is beyond arrogant, then I would vote for her. But she chose to stay with the man even after the Monica affair and though I don’t really care about the president’s private life, I remember saying very clearly when the news broke, “What the hell is he thinking?”
Hillary would have more of a chance with me today if she’d divorced the bastard, but apparently I’m in the minority in that poll.
Barak is not a Clinton. Barack doesn’t have ties to Bill. Barack’s wife, while incredibly intelligent and yes, stunningly gorgeous, won’t assume second in command as Bill would if Hillary were elected. Michelle Obama will be involved, but she strikes me as much more level-headed than the man with a penchant for cigars and young berets.
I could be wrong, but my initial instinct back in 1990 and then again in 1994 was a deep distrust and dislike of Bill Clinton. Bad feminist that I am, I can’t separate the wheat from the chaff, the wife from the husband in this instance.
And maybe I’m silly, but in the film, “True Colors” when Kathy Bates (playing the role of the devoted friend and aide) confronts John Travolta and Emma Thompson (playing the role of Clinton look-alikes) on their willingness to sell out and give up on their sense of ethics and Emma Thompson counters with the argument that selling out gets them the White House, Hillary Clinton fell a few notches in my book. No one argues with Kathy Bates. Not even Emma Thompson. And though it was all “fiction” I remembered that scene for weeks after watching the movie and have been unable to remove that turning point from my overall assessment of Hillary Clinton.
Reason #2: The night Obama won the Wisconsin (and Hawaii) primaries he gave a speech in Texas. It was a stump speech of sorts, but for the first time I heard him say something that made me really listen. I don’t remember the words exactly, but he was talking about education and the need to not only pay teachers more, but to support them. That was all well and good, but what made me lift my head from my dinner was a line about the arts. Something to the effect, “…and I will bring back the arts to our schools.”
I haven’t heard a candidate say that in a long time. In fact, in my adult life I don’t think I’ve ever heard a candidate say that. And he didn’t stop there. He talked about the value of music and theater, creativity and expression. He talked about kids needing art to be fully human.
To be fully human. Have you ever heard a politician say such a thing?
John F. Kennedy talked about the arts, but not since FDR have I heard a president so impassioned about them. Of course, I wasn’t around when FDR used the arts (along with other ideas) to pull us out of a Depression, but I’d read it about it in my history classes and studied the underpinnings of the New Deal when I was required to teach it to a class of 11th graders in my first years of teaching.
Arthur Miller said, “When the guns boom, the arts die,” and even though I wasn’t alive when he said it, I can fully appreciate the sentiment.
Afghanistan and Iraq. The hunt for Osama. The hatred of Saddam. Bombs and guns and tanks and dead civilians alongside of dead soldiers at the same time school budgets slashed music and art classes, as symphonies and theaters across the nation struggled to stay afloat.
That Obama never voted to send us to war was impressive, but during his Texas speech, it became apparent to me that he knew that the focus on war had killed the arts and even more, that the death of the arts was like a disease in our nation. We are without a soul. We are without deep roots. We are without any semblance of humanity. We are simply a machine, uninspired and asleep, marching ourselves into death and bloodshed.
Okay, he didn’t say all that, but that was the underlying message. We are nothing as a nation if we kill the arts. That impressed me.
Reason #3: We’ve been on vacation in Winthrop, Washington for the past half a week. It’s a conservative place. There are cowboys and truckers in abundance. There are four radio stations – two play country and western, one plays oldies, and the fourth is a conservative talk radio show. While waiting in the car for Ann, I listened to the talk radio for a few minutes. They were talking about the upcoming elections and were on the phone with a caller who was “seriously worried” about Barack Obama.
The radio host said: We should be worried. The man is passionate. The man says all the right things about hope and hard work. The man obviously cares about his country and the citizens, but let’s face it. He is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. He makes Hillary look like a moderate. He is a grassroots organizer who has hit the streets for liberal causes his entire life. And if that isn’t enough, he stands in direct opposition to what most of our listeners believe in – he believes in abortion.
I’m not sure what struck me the most about this diatribe. I’ve longed for a “true liberal” in the White House. (I’m actually longing for a radical, but I’m not stupid enough to think it will happen in my lifetime.) I’m not convinced Obama is such a man, but if the conservatives are, if the right-wing Christians are then I say bring him on!
But underneath this radio announcer’s worries was a hum of respect. He saw Obama as honest and forthright. He saw Obama as passionate and caring. He didn’t speak ill of the man. Rather he disagreed with his stance on certain issues, one in particular, but he never slammed Obama for his views. He just disagreed.
Could he have done that for Hillary Clinton?
I doubt it.
There are definitely areas where I disagree with Obama. Well, maybe not disagree, but don’t agree fully. He’s committed to carbon credits for one while Hillary Clinton wants to tax the oil and gas companies. He doesn’t believe in gay marriage, though he says he’s open to talking about it. He talks of universal healthcare, but it isn’t really. And he says he’s not taking any money from special interest groups, but Oprah seems pretty special interest to me.
Still, just like the conservative radio host I sense something different about Obama, or at least, I’d like to sense something different. He seems honest. He seems committed. He seems very genuine and intelligent and aware of the mistakes of the past eight years. He’s not about dividing, he’s about bringing together. I remember thinking that when he gave his speech at the last Democratic Convention in 2004. “It’s not red states and blue states,” he said. “It’s the United States.” I liked him even then. He reminded me of Barbara Jordan in a way – compassionate, collected, intelligent.
I will vote for Hillary if she gets nominated. I will vote for her, but once again, it will be more a vote against whomever the Republicans nominate. But if Obama gets nominated, it will be the first time in my life that I’ve actually voted FOR someone who I can believe in.
Three Reasons
From Winthrop, Washington
2/22/08
I had a hard time making up my mind at first. For a long time I thought I’d just vote for whomever the Democrats nominated, but now it doesn’t seem that easy. The Democrats might screw it up and fight over whom they’ll nominate so I feel compelled to take a stand.
Others around me have been certain. Our neighbor, for one. She said, “I want to go with my heart, but I’m going to vote with my head.” This was her logic behind casting her caucus vote for Hillary. “She’s more experienced and I think she can win the election over any Republican they put up against her.” The other neighbor is for Obama. “Hillary’s old news,” she said. “I want someone new, fresh. Hillary scares me.” Not so much a vote for Obama, but definitely one against Hillary.
I like both candidates. Okay, like isn’t quite the word, but as I said earlier, I’d vote for either.
Well, until recently. Recently I’ve collected three reasons why I’ll vote for Obama. Here they are, though not in any particular order.
Reason #1: Bill Clinton.
My parents are affirmed, dyed in the wool Democrats. They both work for the Democratic Party on the local level. They are liberal and all my life spouted their disdain for Republicans. So they’ll be shocked to know that when Bill Clinton first ran for president I didn’t vote for him. I was standing in line at the polling center convinced I had no other choice but to vote for him when a report came over the loudspeaker that Clinton was the projected winner. Everyone in the polling place cheered though a few disgruntled Republicans clucked their tongues and marched into the booth with their ballots blazing.
I was relieved. Now I could vote for Ralph Nadar and not have to worry that my vote didn’t make or break a Democratic victory.
The second time around, I did vote for him though I was still not convinced. Rather I was casting my vote against the Republican and bedding myself down with a candidate I felt to be a bit too slimy for my tastes. And now, looking back, I think I was right to be wary. Who signed into law Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell? Who signed the NAFTA treaty? Who squeezed any life out of the welfare system?
Bill Clinton.
I’m not naïve to think that any candidate elected won’t be pushed more toward the middle than to the extremes once they get to the White House, but now that we’ve suffered through the ridiculous and deadly circus of the right-wing, I have a bit more hope that a liberal candidate like Barack Obama will be able to swing that pendulum back past center and more in line with a progressive momentum.
If Hillary were any other thing than a Clinton, if Hillary were just Hillary and not married to someone who obviously is beyond arrogant, then I would vote for her. But she chose to stay with the man even after the Monica affair and though I don’t really care about the president’s private life, I remember saying very clearly when the news broke, “What the hell is he thinking?”
Hillary would have more of a chance with me today if she’d divorced the bastard, but apparently I’m in the minority in that poll.
Barak is not a Clinton. Barack doesn’t have ties to Bill. Barack’s wife, while incredibly intelligent and yes, stunningly gorgeous, won’t assume second in command as Bill would if Hillary were elected. Michelle Obama will be involved, but she strikes me as much more level-headed than the man with a penchant for cigars and young berets.
I could be wrong, but my initial instinct back in 1990 and then again in 1994 was a deep distrust and dislike of Bill Clinton. Bad feminist that I am, I can’t separate the wheat from the chaff, the wife from the husband in this instance.
And maybe I’m silly, but in the film, “True Colors” when Kathy Bates (playing the role of the devoted friend and aide) confronts John Travolta and Emma Thompson (playing the role of Clinton look-alikes) on their willingness to sell out and give up on their sense of ethics and Emma Thompson counters with the argument that selling out gets them the White House, Hillary Clinton fell a few notches in my book. No one argues with Kathy Bates. Not even Emma Thompson. And though it was all “fiction” I remembered that scene for weeks after watching the movie and have been unable to remove that turning point from my overall assessment of Hillary Clinton.
Reason #2: The night Obama won the Wisconsin (and Hawaii) primaries he gave a speech in Texas. It was a stump speech of sorts, but for the first time I heard him say something that made me really listen. I don’t remember the words exactly, but he was talking about education and the need to not only pay teachers more, but to support them. That was all well and good, but what made me lift my head from my dinner was a line about the arts. Something to the effect, “…and I will bring back the arts to our schools.”
I haven’t heard a candidate say that in a long time. In fact, in my adult life I don’t think I’ve ever heard a candidate say that. And he didn’t stop there. He talked about the value of music and theater, creativity and expression. He talked about kids needing art to be fully human.
To be fully human. Have you ever heard a politician say such a thing?
John F. Kennedy talked about the arts, but not since FDR have I heard a president so impassioned about them. Of course, I wasn’t around when FDR used the arts (along with other ideas) to pull us out of a Depression, but I’d read it about it in my history classes and studied the underpinnings of the New Deal when I was required to teach it to a class of 11th graders in my first years of teaching.
Arthur Miller said, “When the guns boom, the arts die,” and even though I wasn’t alive when he said it, I can fully appreciate the sentiment.
Afghanistan and Iraq. The hunt for Osama. The hatred of Saddam. Bombs and guns and tanks and dead civilians alongside of dead soldiers at the same time school budgets slashed music and art classes, as symphonies and theaters across the nation struggled to stay afloat.
That Obama never voted to send us to war was impressive, but during his Texas speech, it became apparent to me that he knew that the focus on war had killed the arts and even more, that the death of the arts was like a disease in our nation. We are without a soul. We are without deep roots. We are without any semblance of humanity. We are simply a machine, uninspired and asleep, marching ourselves into death and bloodshed.
Okay, he didn’t say all that, but that was the underlying message. We are nothing as a nation if we kill the arts. That impressed me.
Reason #3: We’ve been on vacation in Winthrop, Washington for the past half a week. It’s a conservative place. There are cowboys and truckers in abundance. There are four radio stations – two play country and western, one plays oldies, and the fourth is a conservative talk radio show. While waiting in the car for Ann, I listened to the talk radio for a few minutes. They were talking about the upcoming elections and were on the phone with a caller who was “seriously worried” about Barack Obama.
The radio host said: We should be worried. The man is passionate. The man says all the right things about hope and hard work. The man obviously cares about his country and the citizens, but let’s face it. He is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. He makes Hillary look like a moderate. He is a grassroots organizer who has hit the streets for liberal causes his entire life. And if that isn’t enough, he stands in direct opposition to what most of our listeners believe in – he believes in abortion.
I’m not sure what struck me the most about this diatribe. I’ve longed for a “true liberal” in the White House. (I’m actually longing for a radical, but I’m not stupid enough to think it will happen in my lifetime.) I’m not convinced Obama is such a man, but if the conservatives are, if the right-wing Christians are then I say bring him on!
But underneath this radio announcer’s worries was a hum of respect. He saw Obama as honest and forthright. He saw Obama as passionate and caring. He didn’t speak ill of the man. Rather he disagreed with his stance on certain issues, one in particular, but he never slammed Obama for his views. He just disagreed.
Could he have done that for Hillary Clinton?
I doubt it.
There are definitely areas where I disagree with Obama. Well, maybe not disagree, but don’t agree fully. He’s committed to carbon credits for one while Hillary Clinton wants to tax the oil and gas companies. He doesn’t believe in gay marriage, though he says he’s open to talking about it. He talks of universal healthcare, but it isn’t really. And he says he’s not taking any money from special interest groups, but Oprah seems pretty special interest to me.
Still, just like the conservative radio host I sense something different about Obama, or at least, I’d like to sense something different. He seems honest. He seems committed. He seems very genuine and intelligent and aware of the mistakes of the past eight years. He’s not about dividing, he’s about bringing together. I remember thinking that when he gave his speech at the last Democratic Convention in 2004. “It’s not red states and blue states,” he said. “It’s the United States.” I liked him even then. He reminded me of Barbara Jordan in a way – compassionate, collected, intelligent.
I will vote for Hillary if she gets nominated. I will vote for her, but once again, it will be more a vote against whomever the Republicans nominate. But if Obama gets nominated, it will be the first time in my life that I’ve actually voted FOR someone who I can believe in.
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