We Can Control Ourselves*

Revolutionary (Angela Davis) 1972, Wadsworth Jarrell at Soul of a Nation
The Broad Museum, Los Angeles

To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.

Angela Davis 

It's a rainy Sunday morning in Los Angeles, and I'm listening to Erik Satie because it goes well with rain, with melancholy and gentleness. Last night, Carl and I went out with our friends Jason and Leah. Jason is the co-host of our podcast Who Lives Like This?! and given the intimate conversations we've had together and with the wide array of guests on the show, I feel as if I have known him and his wife for far longer than two years. We met downtown at the Broad Museum to see Soul of a Nation, the work of 60 artists that explores "the historical and cultural influences that define their unique approaches to Black art both as a vehicle for change and an expression of self-exploration." (Artnet.com) It was a thrilling exhibit with a wealth of female artists, most of whom were new to me.

Carolyn Mims Lawrence, Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free

What a weird week of near paralyzing stupidity from the southern states and the Republican party and the religious right. I'm repelled, for once, by the snark of memes, by jokes and satire, my ordinary easy and dogged sense of humor replaced by rage. There's no hilarity in cruelty and oppression, in the stripping of women's rights, in the muscle of the white patriarchy and gross subversion of what it means to honor and protect life. Oliver donated to a woman's reproductive health clinic, unprompted by me. Henry said that he was thinking of volunteering as an escort at a health clinic, but he was afraid he wouldn't be able to control his own anger.

The word channel. Channel your anger, I told him, even as I have to channel my own.

Donate HERE.

* I imagine I have readers who agree with what's going on, and I have no conciliatory words for you. The following words are from an ultrasound technologist, though, a confirmed source -- perhaps you will be moved in your tiny minds.

Abortion issues

So here’s the thing:

This Alabama abortion ban is a big deal, in a very bad way. Ohio, Missouri, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky… I’m looking at you too, but we’re going to focus on Alabama. If you’ve been living under a rock, let me catch you up. Alabama Governor Kay Ivey just signed a total abortion ban into law, the most restrictive law in the United States. The law will ban abortion at every stage of pregnancy for every reason.

This is not OK, not reasonable, and definitely not acceptable.

If you don’t know me well, maybe you don’t know what I do for a living. I’m an ultrasound technologist. My colleagues and I look at babies in every stage of pregnancy every day. I also work in a high risk unit. My unit and I look at babies and mothers in varying states of mental and physical health. If you think an abortion ban sounds good, then I am a good person to ask about why it isn’t.

So, let me tell you:

• About the woman whose baby developed with no skull, and the brain just floating around. Her baby still had a heartbeat, and she would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman whose baby has a rare chromosomal condition called T13. Her baby’s organs grew outside its body, and had a cleft palate so bad that there was no nose. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman whose blood pressure is spiking so high that she passes out and is likely to stroke out before her baby is born. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman with such a severe form of hemophilia that giving birth will probably be fatal to both her and the baby. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the 13-year-old whose school isn’t allowed to teach her science-based sex-education, so she didn’t know how to prevent pregnancy or STIs, but whose body is not developed enough to carry to term without being damaged. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman who was raped by a "friend" who wanted to “make sure she got home safely.” She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman who has PCOS, so only has periods every 3-4 months and can’t find a birth control that works for her. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman whose abusive partner removed the condom without telling her (it’s called stealthing, and it happens more frequently than you’d think). She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman with the cornual ectopic pregnancy that isn’t reliably in the uterus, and could grow to a size that will kill her. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman who has two kids she can barely feed already, and whose birth control just increased in price. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the 18-year-old who just started college and is going to be the first graduate of the family if she can just stay in school. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the woman whose IUD slipped slightly, and is now endangering both her and the pregnancy it was designed to prevent. She would not be able to access abortion.

• About the many, many, many women who just don’t want to be pregnant for reasons that are their own. Health issues, abusive relationships, financial issues, social issues. They would not be able to access abortion.

Some of these might sound like reasonable exceptions to you. And you would be correct. But no one should get to decide what happens with another person’s body, not even to save a life. You need written permission from a corpse before life-saving organs can be taken from them. You cannot be forced to donate blood, no matter how dire the situation. And no one else should get to decide what a woman does with her body -- end of story.

But it’s not the end of the story, is it? Because here’s the kicker: If you consider abortion to be a murder (and some people genuinely believe that!) then miscarriage can be second degree murder. And this is already happening all over the world -- El Salvador, Ecuador, and the U.S. Women are being jailed for miscarriages and stillbirths because they "might have done something to cause it." If you start down this path of jailing women and doctors for making healthcare decisions that affect no one but themselves, then you get women who don’t go to a doctor for a safe procedure, and instead order pills online or use whatever metal instruments they can find to end their own pregnancies. Women who are honestly experiencing a miscarriage (which is medically called a "spontaneous abortion," just FYI) will not go to their doctor for help. They will bleed out on their bathroom floors or die of septic shock. And I haven’t even talked about how this will disproportionately affect women of color, LGBTQA+ women, or trans men. This isn’t about the “sanctity of life” anymore. It’s about controlling women.

We can control ourselves.

Tiny Little Mother Mind™ Part One

Tiny Little Mother Mind™, under wraps

I've got two things to say, and they're both reflections from my tiny little mother mind.™

I'm going to break them up into two posts. After reading this, stay tuned for the second one because it has to do with MEDICAL CANNABIS.

The first has to do with the wonderful commentator Van Jones, whom you might be very familiar with as his pre and post-election insights have been sustaining to many progressives. Today I read a good long interview with him in Rolling Stone. It's called Van Jones: Only a 'Love Army' Will Conquer Trump. Here's the thing. I love Van Jones and I love what he's saying. His words have particular relevance to me because I am guilty of spewing my disgust at the current political situation and certainly lumping all those who voted for Drumpf together. I am going to try, try, try to reach out and be more understanding of the varied reasons people voted for this man, however difficult that might be. I want very much to be a part of the 'love army.'

Where my tiny little mother mind™ gets miffed, though, is from this passage:

How do you do that? We're going to do national teach-ins starting very soon – once a week, every week, standing up for the most vulnerable people: Muslims, the DREAMers, Jewish people, women, trans people, black protestors. And once a week, give the whole country a chance to show a whole lotta love – both to demonstrate and deepen a solidarity with those groups, all under one hashtag. #LoveArmy is an opportunity to reassert at a values level.

What are we missing in that paragraph? Anyone? Who's missing? What did my tiny little mother mind™ catch that Van Jones did not, nor Rolling Stone?

THE MOST VULNERABLE PEOPLE in this country includes those with disabilities, particularly those with cognitive disabilities. They are routinely left out of the conversation, as we see in Van Jones' otherwise beautiful, inclusive words,  and while I know this isn't intentional, it's deeply symbolic.

What's coming round the bend with the Drumpf administration and his Band of Billionaires, as well as the usual folks like Eddie Munster et al, is striking fear into every single caregiver of a disabled person that I know and in disabled persons themselves. ALL the systems of care that we rely on, including health, health insurance, scientific research, education, social services, respite, etc. are at risk. These systems of care -- these issues -- help to assert and maintain the dignity and well-being of disabled persons. DISABILITY RIGHTS ARE CIVIL RIGHTS.

I'm not sure what to do about it but keep talking and talking and writing and writing. Will you help me? Will you share this? Will you speak to Van Jones and Rolling Stone and other media outlets that routinely neglect to include the rights of the disabled as worthy? Again, I do not think it's intentional but rather that the disabled have perhaps the quietest voices, if at all, in our country. They are not literally "worth" anything at all -- monetarily. Often they do not have a vote or a voice. Their caregivers are generally exhausted. They have few champions.

This tiny little mother mind™ is begging you to help.

#LoveArmy

Love is a Verb, Part 345

Crescent Lake, Washington

I slipped away from sunny California and traveled first by plane to Seattle and then by ferry and car to  Port Angeles in stormy but beautiful Washington for a long weekend. I joined my friend, fellow writer and caregiver Jeneva Burroughs Stone, and writer/caregiver Leslie Haynes at the invitation of Heather McHugh, the MacArthur prize-winning poet who founded the organization Caregifted. Many of you who've been reading this blog for years might remember that I received a week of respite several years ago, the first time I'd been away for more than a few days in more than nineteen years. Caregifted provides respite weeks, free of charge, to family caregivers of the disabled who have been doing the caregiving for at least ten years.

That week in Victoria is documented on my blog, and it quite literally changed my life. I grew to love Heather and what she is doing for those of us with these unique, often arduous but also deeply fulfilling lives. Most, if not all of us are exhausted, and while we might have learned some profound perspective, the relentless nature of caregiving for a severely disabled son, daughter or spouse is something that few people -- even close friends and family -- ever understand. I'd say that Heather McHugh is a person who does understand this -- inexplicably, as she has no children of her own. She is a poet and an angel -- and I don't say that lightly.

There is no other organization that I know of that does what she does, and while it's a small one, the impact of Caregifted is deep and intense. Heather invited us to her beloved Pacific Northwest  to have a kind of creative pow-wow to figure out how to keep the organization going. Given the disastrous election, many of us who work with and care for our disabled children and young adults are justifiably terrified at what might happen. We are certain that any services we might receive could very well be cut or drastically reduced. We are concerned about the rights of our children and all people with disabilities and about our ability to fight successfully for them. Disability rights are civil rights, and they will be threatened. There has been real progress under the Obama administration in the areas of education law, the Affordable Care Act and other issues. Many people don't realize that, but there is still much work to be done. The cognitively disabled, in particular, are overlooked, as are the severely disabled, and our lives as caregivers are seriously impacted by a culture and government that doesn't acknowledge or help us.

Caregifted is an extraordinary and very unique organization. Since the election, many of us are mobilizing through concrete action to help organizations that are helping the disenfranchised. I am making monthly donations to Planned Parenthood and to the ACLU. I plan on registering as a Muslim should the Trump administration make registration a priority, and I am ready and willing to do what it takes to resist the mockery of a presidency, the band of mostly white men who surround him and the legion of their supporters. I know that many of you are doing the same, supporting organizations that support people of color, the LGBTQ community, climate change initiatives, Muslim and other religious minorities, as well as women. I urge you to add the disabled to your list. Caregifted is decidedly NOT a political organization, but it is an extraordinary and very unique one. I would love if you'd make a contribution, however small, to Caregifted. Helping caregivers helps the disabled. Rights for the disabled are civil rights. Trust me on that one.

Here's their website. Donate if you can. Stay tuned to hear about screenings of the wonderful documentary Undersung. We are a small group, but you are a mighty one. Share it and tell your friends and family about it.

Thank you!

On Being Beautiful and Angry

Tonight I dragged my sorry ass self, newly recovered from a cold and cough, to a screening of a remarkable documentary about the movers and the shakers of the feminist movement from 1966-1971. It's called She's Beautiful When She's Angry.

Wow, people. Just wow.

I watched the movie with a few hundred other women and a scattering of men in an historic building in Los Angeles called the Ebell. The women were of all ages and races. The movie is funny and moving and most of all, rousing. I feel such gratitude toward these women who came before me, who so doggedly and -- yes -- angrily demanded their rights as equal citizens. The movie isn't just about white, straight women but about all women, including women of color and homosexual women. It does an excellent job, too, of demonstrating that despite all the radical goings on of the time -- the anti-war movement, the student rebellions, black power, etc. -- women were left out and not counted even by these so-called liberals and radicals. I sat on a little hard-backed folding chair and laughed and teared up at the audacity of these pioneers and radicals, realized how much I take for granted and how much left there is still to do.

I felt galvanized by these women and their history, and I felt strengthened and more accepting of my own anger and radicalism -- not just about women's equality and, particularly, reproductive rights that are being whittled slowly away, but also by this cannabis movement and my role in it as, often, a quite angry mother in confrontation with an established power structure.

I received an email the other day from our local Epilepsy Foundation affiliate with an announcement of the annual Epilepsy Pipeline Conference in San Francisco. Last year, I attended this conference and was an invited speaker on a panel. I spoke of our experiences with cannabis and didn't get the greatest reception from the physicians and "professionals" in the room -- they were either dismissive or uninterested, one was downright hostile -- but I had numerous people come up to me privately and confide their gratitude that I had spoken so openly and honestly about our experience. One guy told me that when I spoke it was as if a bomb had gone off in the room and blown everyone up. I have to say that my ego surged when he said that, but deep down I was embarrassed, too. As a woman pushing against boundaries in the medical world (and it started long ago for me and well before the cannabis revolution began), I haven't always been confident. I'm even now not always confident, particularly when I am admonished for being angry. I've been called too angry, too outspoken, undiplomatic. Several relatives have publicly shamed me and called me a miserable person. Someone anonymous not too long ago left the condescending comment You're a great writer, but you're too angry. I'm going to be honest and say that those comments hurt me, that I hold remnants inside of me that dictate what a good girl is, what a humble woman does, what makes a lady, and that I'm none of those things.

This year's Epilepsy Pipeline Conference, as far as I can see (and the schedule could very well change), has no representation of cannabis as therapy except from a huge pharmaceutical company. This doesn't surprise me, and my initial impulse is to feel cynical and bitter. Now, don't think that I haven't done a lot of soul-searching, wondering if maybe I am too angry and combative, that I'm not going to ever be invited to speak at any of these functions again because I don't tow the party line. I wonder if I should be less angry, perhaps even tone down the truth of our story with the goal of persuasion. Is it better to tone it down and try to reach more people? Is it better to compromise one's truth?

Nah.

Watching this documentary and seeing what those women (and those before them who struggled for suffrage) did and how they handled oppression opened my eyes and strengthened me.

I am beautiful when I'm angry. You are beautiful when you're angry.

Here's a trailer for the movie:



Here's the website with information about screenings and the forthcoming DVD issue.

She's Beautiful When She's Angry

Supremely Right

There's something a tiny bit annoying about posting an avatar for one's photo on social media, and it makes me feel terribly self-conscious to do so, but the fact that the Supreme Court of this country has to get involved to decide whether a ban on gay marriage is constitutional or not drove me to it. I hate this country, Henry said to me the other day in the car on the way home from school. They're studying civil rights in American history, and he was listening to a radio show about veterans from the Iraq war and their mental health needs, how they weren't even close to being met. I told him these were not grounds for hate, but I understood his frustration. Both of my boys have very good friends, several of them, that have gay parents. This is as normal to them as having a mother who goes on a laundry strike or a father that wears chef pants every day and an apron. I sure hope the Supreme Court of the land does the moral thing so I won't have to do any explaining -- or packing.

Four of these things belong together,

four of these things are kinda the same,

Can you tell which thing is not like the others?
Now it's time to play our game.
Time to play our game.

A break in the birthday blather blather

Bob Dylan at a civil rights gathering, Greenwood Mississippi, 1963

When the boys got in the car this afternoon after school, they told me that they'd discussed President Obama's decision to support gay marriage at school, with their teachers. That's why I love living in a large, tolerant (for the most part) city in a blue state. That's why I love that they go to a progressive school with many children who have same sex families. I'm glad that President Obama "evolved," however late in the game he decided to do so and for whatever personal or political reason.

It was, I told my children, the right thing to do. 


Evidently, George Clooney is having a fundraiser for the President tonight in the valley, and like all days that The Man comes to town, the traffic is even more insane than usual. While I'm not of the camp that derides Obama for messing up the city, I will say that the whole campaign hoopla nauseates me. Evidently, tonight's fundraiser will bring in tens of millions of dollars into the campaign and, frankly, that makes me sick. As sick as Mitt Romney's bazillions do, floating around in Swiss bank accounts or those two Cadillacs his wife drives.

It might be simplistic, but why the hell (WTH) is the Hollywood set capable of shelling out tens of millions of dollars to pay for television advertisements and those godforsaken postcards that come in the mail every single day but not for the five thousand teachers that have been given pink slips during the last year? WTH can't they raise money and hand it over, directly over, to community programs that help the mentally ill and homeless? Or perhaps they might pony up to save some of the respite programs for families of children with disabilities and the elderly? Why the hell not (WTHN)? Or perhaps they could fix the potholes that line Wilshire Blvd. and make one's commute akin to the dirt roads of Afghanistan -- admittedly, that's hyperbole, but it's akin to the truth of failing infrastructure and misplaced priorities.

WTHN?

So, while I applaud the POTUS for doing the right thing (at last), I wish he'd climb out of that caravan and into the arms of George Clooney and his mega-star friends and implore them to reach out to the city that embraces them and do the right thing.

(And the photo of Dylan isn't really apropos of anything but doing the right thing. It happens to be taken in the same city that my maternal grandmother hailed from --)