Thinking out loud: Politics.....

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Politics.....

I've been trying to keep my political cards close to my chest so as not to offend anyone I might offend by having my own feelings about things and people and choices and all. I haven't wanted anyone to lose sleep over who I might vote for. I talk politics a little with my banjo teacher Bates and his lovely wife, Jody. I see them as being wise and connected to the bigger picture and cool, in the way an almost 50-year-old hippie-wannabe would see folks like Jody and Bates as cool. They are cool. So I don't mind hearing what they have to say about the politics at hand. It either reaffirms what I'm thinking to date OR it makes me think a little harder about what I'm thinking to date, depending. I talk with my son Daniel about politics, too. He's more actively involved and on top of things than I am. I believe everything he tells me because he's my kid and he's a good one. I don't mind leaning in the same direction as he leans being I figure he gets his leanings from his mom.

I talk a little bit of politics with my boss, Dr. Scott. Mostly we rib each other, but in a good way. He likes to poke fun at what he thinks are my obvious "bleeding heart liberal Democratic" tendencies. One of the ways he likes to tease me the most is to tell me that I sound like a Republican! I'm not a Republican, by the way. I am a registered Democrat. But let me tell you the story of how I got that way:

I registered to vote for the first time in 1979 as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were getting ready to run against one another. In North Carolina, you can't vote in the primaries as an Independent - you either have to be a Democrat or a Republican. So I was trying to decide how to register. I'd taken a poli-sci class and learned about our country's political parties in college, but, basically, I pretty much had no clue what it all meant. My father is a Republican. My mother is a Democrat. At that point in my life (I was 20), I kind of aligned myself a little bit more with my dad, for some reason. I think mostly because he loves music and is a huge procrastinator like me. So I was thinking I would register as a Republican - to be like my dad. I mean, that's not such a bad reason, right? Think of how many other people have done that........

The night before I was going to register, we had a little get together at our house. I was living with several other people in a big old house outside of Boone. So we were having this get-together and I was telling a friend of mine - Lee Carter - about how excited I was about registering to vote the next day. So he asked me how I was going to register. And I told him I was going to register as a Republican (I didn't go into any of the explanation about my dad and all......I was afraid I'd sound like a kid and Lee was older and intimidating). He looked me right in the eye and said, "Hell girl! You don't make enough money to be a Republican!!". So I registered as a Democrat. I was afraid I'd have to show proof of income or something!

That's no joke. That really happened.

I was incredibly bummed out when Jimmy Carter lost his bid that next year for re-election. I liked Jimmy Carter. I thought he was a good president - in the way that a 20-year-old, non-TV-watching, mountain-climbing, vegetarian, hippie-chick, bartender/cook/waitress thinks someone is a good president. By the way he presented himself. I mean, I liked the things he seemed to believe in and wanted to try to do.

As the years have gone by, I've been glad I registered the way I did. Had I registered as a Republican, I'd have probably jumped ship a long time ago and switched sides anyway. I was so bummed out after the whole Jimmy Carter thing that I didn't vote again for awhile. I became apathetic, like a lot of Americans. During the last election, I got pretty riled up. And I kept after my patients to "go vote, go vote". I asked a local elections board official to send somebody to stand in front of my office and register folks coming in and out. I was working in a county in western North Carolina that had been particularly hard hit by the economic dysfunction of the country. Supported almost entirely by the furniture industry, our county had seen massive lay-offs over the previous two-years. A huge number of folks in the county were unemployed. And almost all of our patients were on Medicaid. It was a mess. The county was a mess. The people in the county were a mess. And anger was rampant. My boss was angry. The office manager was angry. Almost all of the patients were angry and confrontational.

The county overwhelmingly voted for "four more years". I was so stunned, I almost had decided to give up voting again. Daniel had the same feeling. He couldn't believe his vote didn't change the outcome of the election.

I have decided that I will vote. And I'm an Obama supporter. I will be glad to explain why to anybody who wants to ask me why. My reasons, you will find, are not so much politically based as they are based on my own personal feelings about all sorts of different things. I don't apologize for them. They are my feelings and I have good strong reasons for them. At least in my own mind I do.

Plus I just can't seem to bring myself to vote for Sarah Palin as vice-president. I know, I know - it's a presidential election BUT I think now it's becoming about more than just who we elect as president. All of sudden, the country is becoming fully aware of the implications and the ramifications of who the vice-president is going to be. I'm thinking John McCain might have made a really huge mistake. That's just my own opinion. My own thinking out loud. Having Sarah Palin for vice-president would certainly give us four good years of laughs. It's already started and sometimes it's funnier than hell!! But I think about what would happen if......... and it's an "if", I realize that but - just think - IF some madman takes John McCain out (or a heart attack or melanoma or a car wreck), as smart and as strong as she is, I don't think Sarah could keep us all together. Look at the division that's already occured! I don't think she could do it. And, more than any other time in my short life, I believe we're in a time where we all need to be together.

Reminds me of a song from the sixties! I swear I should have been a hippie!

Enough on politics. Peace to ya!

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Song Lyrics of the Week (or maybe the day)

I've been walking down a solitary road.

Looking for some open door, some comfort from this cold.

And I have been afraid I'd lose my hope

But now I know hope will survive.

I've been searching for a heart that is like mine.

A little taste of peacefulness is all I'd hope to find.

So I looked into the eyes of my child

And when he smiled, I could see it shine.

I do believe the dawn will follow the night fall

And I will not have to walk this road alone.

In the voices of my friends, I hear a light call

And the sweetness of that sound will lead me home.

Love is waiting there for me, it's in the pictures on my wall.

I hear it in my grandpa's clock ticking down my hall.

It's underneath the quilt my grammy sewed

And the sweet songs that I've know since I was a child.

I do believe that joy will come to find me.

And I'll know again how that pleasure feels.

And the scars that I bear are here to remind me

That I may love and lose but I will heal.

-----yours truly, Hope Will Survive

Gratitude Journal (a New Year's Resolution)

I am grateful for the many times that I have survived depression.
I am grateful for the memories I have of Morganton and our house there - the house where Jacob and Daniel and I grew up, and the many great times I had in that lovely space.
I am grateful for the red maple leaves blazing in my front yard and the few short weeks I have left to say, "Oh! look at that!" when I step out the front door.
I am grateful that I have learned to be alone and at peace with my own company.
I am grateful for the book of Job. One cannot feel sorry for one's self for very long whilst reading Job. And for that I am quite grateful, as I'm feeling sorry for myself today.
I am grateful for the opportunity I had to play music with Scott and Ken and Mary. Our group was a wonderful thing.
I am grateful for patience.
I am grateful for my nephew Matt and for the man he became in his recovery. I am grateful for the relationship that we've developed and the love that we share.
I am grateful for the sound of my father's voice - the way it echoes still.
I am grateful for dreams of the mountains.
I am grateful that I knew a part of Scott that was good and true before all the other stuff happened. It gives me the place to start forgiving and letting go.
I am grateful for my friends Jon, Lorna, and Bruce.
I am grateful for the week I had to sit by the ocean and listen to that ancient, pounding sound.
I am grateful for friendships that span miles and years.
I am grateful for giggling! You should hear my sisters and my little brother and my sons and me - we all giggle the same!
I am grateful for love that came later in life, even though it would not stay here with me and even though it broke my heart. I am still grateful that I knew it and it knew me.
I am grateful for my music and the way it saves me.
I am grateful for tears.
I am grateful for the voices of my sisters. They sound so much like my own, it surprises me everytime!
I am grateful for the way my kids hug me - with love and intention, warmth and honesty.
I am grateful for the beautiful, warm day yesterday (2/8/09) and the opportunity to sit out in the sun with my dad.
I am constantly touched and amazed and humbled by the courage of others. Thank you for that. Thank you to the young man who waited on our table down in Chapel Hill. Your courage inspires my own!

Good Music

If you haven't heard these albums, have a listen. You'll be glad you did:

Jon Zachary, Turn on a Point ("The Ballad of the Piper Cub" is indeed a very very fine song and an artist rendering on forgiveness. Worth listening to about a thousand times or more.)

Mary Gordon Hall, Wine Glasses and Wooden Spoons (with Christmas coming, listen to "Babe Alone", incredibly beautiful song)

Danny Ellis, 800 Voices (listen to "800 Voices" or "Tommy Bonner" first and read the liner notes, this is powerful music and will heal you way down inside if you open yourself up and let it)

Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, The Harrow & The Harvest ("Hard Times" is my current favorite song!)

Patty Griffin, Children Passing Through ("Up to the Mountain" is a song that I play and belt out when I think that I can't go on anymore.)

I could go on for days!!

My thoughts on finding pathways to peace

I have found that lavender candles or vanilla candles help. I light them when the sun goes down and I blow them out when I go to bed. Especially in the dark of the winter, that soft light soothes me and helps me feel centered. The vanilla reminds me of my grandmother's house when I was a little girl and the cookies, cakes, or pies she would bake when we came to visit. Lavender reminds me of the fields of summer and sitting on the edge of Linville Gorge watching the sun set. I never smelled lavender there but every time I smell it, I think of summer and the Gorge and the many days in my nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first years that I spent there.

It is often easy to set aside a hurt or an offense or a wrong doing that someone throws my way, intentionally or not. Most of us, I think, can set things aside, take a deep breath, control our tempers. The harder part is to leave it aside! To not allow ourselves to take it back up again and carry it around like some sort of blazing badge upon our chests. Letting go means leaving it behind. That's a hard task sometimes. I have found that taking things back up again or carrying them on and on and on significantly diminishes my peace potential. So how do I keep from picking things back up again? Injecting either humor or music into situations of conflict helps me a lot. i try to talk things out with someone I trust and I try to make it funny if I can. I love to tell a story and the funnier the better. I try to make big hurts into little hurts by breaking them up with humor. I also will send a little sound clip in most all the time. I have a constant, unending, soundtrack playing in my head. I have the remote to that soundtrack and I can switch stations whenever I want. There are particular songs that I play in my head that help me feel peaceful or calm or loving or generous or sensitive or, on the flip side, angry, combative, vengeful. You know what I mean? You have these too? Most of us do, I think. I use that music in my head. When I am tempted to fight, I flip a switch and turn on some internal music that either expresses that anger for me (here's an example - "No Bad News" by Patty Griffin. Awesome song. I turn that song up loud in my car on really really bad days when I feel like I might explode - and I explode into that song and wail it out!! and am much the better for it - without doing anybody harm!! 'cept maybe my poor ear drums!) or soothes that anger down (here's another example - "One Love" by Bob Marley, or from Playing for Change. "Let's get together and feel alright" or "Imagine" by John Lennon. "Imagine all the people living life in peace"). It might sound crazy. It might sound meaningless to you. But it works for me. Try it. Turn those songs on in your head and see what happens. If you don't have the right one, go looking for it. It's a powerful tool.

Gratitude has saved my life.

Service has saved my life. I wish that the Feds would give everybody a tax break for doing service work. Like you do some service work, you get a receipt from wherever or whomever, and you attach it to your income tax return and you get a 2% tax deduction or something like that. Plant trees around a local park, build trails on the Appalachian Trail, serve mashed potatoes at a local soup kitchen or bag groceries at a local food bank, write letters to an orphan in Somalia, volunteer to read to a kindergarten class, mow your elderly neighbors' lawn, clean cages for the Humane Society. There's a lot out there to be done. Big and small. Might be life changing. May just be something to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon. But helping others helps me. Helping others takes me out of my little solitary world and opens me up to the blessings that I have and puts my world into perspective.

Prayer is powerful. And it works. When I moved to the Eastern Shore in 2006, I rented this great big old farmhouse. It was beautiful and I loved it there. But the nights could be painfully long. The house made so many sounds and popped and creaked and groaned in the wind. I was sometimes quite spooked. And my peace seemed to run away and hide under the bed. Sleep was elusive. I found there were nights that I could not remember the 23rd Psalm, though I had learned it by heart when I was just a little thing. Sometimes I would simply say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." Period. That was it. That's all my mind would let me remember. And so that became a mantra and a prayer and I would repeat it over and over. And peace would come stealin' over me, slowly, gently. And I would feel my heart slow down. And the popping and creaking and groaning of the house would fade into an ambient sound that did not startle me. And I would float on that prayer into a peaceful state where thoughts came clearly and my voice, the voice of my heart, would talk directly to my God. And my God would listen. I have to work at finding that place. It does not come easily to me. But I work at it and when I find that place of stillness, I find that talking to my God is as easy as talking to my own mother or my closest friend. And my prayers are a conversation that is left unended, to be continued. The peace that I find when I pray is a peace that stays with me as long as I am willing to acknowledge its presence. Because it is always there. I just only need to remember.

A dog, a cat, a horse, a cow, a bird. Study after study has shown what great benefit there is in having a pet: lower blood pressure, less pain, less chronic disease, higher self-esteem, lower rates of depression. I am a believer. I know it to be true in my own life and in my own house. Sitting quietly, listening to a book on tape, knitting or not knitting, with my dog curled up next to me, leaning against my legs. My vital signs stabilize and then mellow, my muscles relax, my heartaches ease, and everything feels alright. Just touching her soft furry head and listening to her sigh. Wow. What a simple thing.