Mercy Now

Mark Bradford's "150 Portrait Tone"
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

I do not pray except for mercy. I may sit on the side of Sophie's bed in the early hours of the morning, pulled there by a groan and thrashing legs and arms, and I'll curse in my mind even as I stroke her tiny face my grimace an extension of hers and I will ask for mercy. Mercy. I do not pray except for mercy. There is such a thing, isn't there? Not the prayer but the mercy. Today another ten children were gunned down by another child. Mercy. My own son rages at the world says hopeless but his strong body intelligence the way he moves belies the cynicism. Be merciful, I think. This morning two small yellow-breasted birds splashed in the fountain just outside my bedroom door. Yet, the earth is betrayed, buckling, relentless. I sip coffee. Sophie slept. Even so, I have a past, you know, where or is it when I did terrible things. I have a past, you know, when I was terribly hurt. I am sorry. Yes. I am, too. What, I think, might have happened if I hadn't done that? Yet still, mercy. I have held Sophie in my arms, a pieta without prayer.  The line of those who have hurt her, even indirectly. We must show mercy. What might have happened had Sophie been given cannabis medicine in those early days? Would I have crouched in the shower and wept, lay my forehead on the tile in thanksgiving for mercy? I have not prayed except for mercy. Those children dead, this earth, that person, that love betrayed and having been betrayed, my son, my son, my daughter. Mercy. There is such a thing, isn't there? Not the prayer but the mercy.

There's really nothing to talk about but the heat

Holy shit, right?

Continued Squirrel Girl Imperil

So, this morning I walked outside to get in my car and drive the two blocks to CVS in my sexy Mazda to buy a cool mist vaporizer that might help alleviate my and Sophie's terrible coughs that I guess I'll blame on a virus worsened by the incredibly dry air that's accompanying the drought caused by global warming. Did you get that? I was immediately made aware of something angry chittering at me. I looked up, and there she was -- The Mother Squirrel. She stayed on that branch for what seemed like minutes but was probably a few seconds, and the whole time kept up the most angry racket of mutterings and growlings. For a split second I felt terrified, certain that she'd come leaping off that branch like some kind of Monty Pythonesque beast and splay herself all over my guilty face, but then I remembered that as a human, the world is under my dominion***, so I pretended bravado and looked down for a moment to adjust my phone, took the above photo and then attempted an Instagram video as she scampered away. Basically, I got away with a scolding, but I'm certain she was pissed at me for not taking care of her baby. I have no idea whether her baby is even alive, but when I got into my car, my other least favorite animal appeared from under my car -- a big, fluffy black cat -- which makes me a tad suspicious that she was waiting around for another baby to fall from the nest.

In all seriousness, if there's such a thing as karma, this might be a testament to its veracity. Baby squirrels falling from nests, black cats lying in wait, sexy Mazdas  instead of legs, a persistent cough and headache, no rain for eight months -- what does it all MEAN?









***Just kidding. I don't really believe that the world is under my dominion. I was only quoting a very well-known Mormon blogger who years ago poo-pooed global warming with that Biblical imperative.

Drought

In case you hadn't heard, California is in a very big drought. We're letting our grass go brown and dead because it's really almost sinful to continue to water it. Even with water restrictions in place, the sight of glossy green lawns makes my stomach turn, and I'm trying not to be moralistic about it. I think about it all day long, to tell you the truth, the drought and the brown lawn and maybe what I'll plant there or do to that space when my ship comes in -- or runs aground, I should say. Despite the drought, I took a shower today that was on the long side and very hot. I was hoping that it might help my cough. I know people don't believe in global warming, still, but maybe they will wake up when all the fruits and vegetables and nuts and grains that California provides to the world wither and dry up, too.

And speaking of heads up nether regions, there's a drought going on here in blog world, too, at least at this blog. I just don't have much to say. I dragged myself to a movie last night with Oliver, my friend and her son, but it was a very stupid football movie. I actually love a good football movie, even though I hate football, but this one was just dumb and sad all around. I can't even remember the name of it -- something about standing tall and proud? Football and the military -- two things that I just don't have the love gene for, I think.

Or maybe I'm just depressed, and if I pulled my own head out of the proverbial nether regions, I'd have felt moved by the story of how football orders some kids' lives who would otherwise have nothing.  Like Eeyore, though, my thoughts run more to the doleful, thinking that those kids are just pawns in a massive and gross money/education/bullshit machine that makes me despair.

A drought of the spirit.

Jeez. This is an unbalanced post, isn't it? How about a poem?


Take Love for Granted

Assume it's in the kitchen,
under the couch, high
in the pine tree out back,
behind the paint cans
in the garage. Don't try
proving your love
is bigger than the Grand
Canyon, the Milky Way,
the urban sprawl of L.A.
Take it for granted. Take it
out with the garbage. Bring
it in with the takeout. Take
it for a walk with the dog.
Wake it every day, say,
"Good morning." Then
make the coffee. Warm
the cups. Don't expect much
of the day. Be glad when
you make it back to bed.
Be glad he threw out that
box of old hats. Be glad
she leaves her shoes
in the hall. Snow will
come. Spring will show up.
Summer will be humid.
The leaves will fall
in the fall. That's more
than you need. We can
love anybody, even
everybody. But you
can love the silence,
sighing and saying to
yourself, "That' s her."
"That's him." Then to
each other, "I know!
Let's go out for breakfast!"

Jack Ridl
via The Writer's Almanac

Inauguration day and why I'm a tad jealous of my kids

When I was Henry's age, Jimmy Carter was trying, ineffectually, to bring our country out of the dark days of Watergate and all the lying and paranoia of the Nixon years as well as the lingering poison of the Vietnam War and the ripping social changes that occurred as a result. A few years later and still too early for my first presidential vote, Ronald Reagan was in charge. The only thing I can remember in high school was the day Reagan was shot, and by the time I was immersed in college and had found my people, those with broad and tolerant liberal ideals and traditions, Reagan's second term represented nothing but superficial cheer and jingoism. I understand now that Reagan was unable to utter the word AIDS until 1987, so huge was his discomfort over homosexuality, and one has to wonder if the epidemic had broken out in the "straight" world whether more might have been done to stem it and prevent the hundreds of thousands of deaths from the disease during his tenure and the millions afterward.

But then there's this:

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law ... for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

President Obama's Second Inaugural Address 

And there was also this:

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.  We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.  But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.  We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few. 

President Obama's Second Inaugural Address 

 and this:

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.  We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  ...  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it.  We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise.  That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure -- our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks.  That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.  That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

President Obama, Second Inaugural Address 

I remember wincing when Reagan spoke during his later years, and for the life of me I can't remember a single thing he said in an inaugural address.

Not so my sons Henry and Oliver, and the experience they are having as kids growing up during the Obama years. They are at once nonchalant about his race and the enormous gains that his presidency represents and enamored of his cool eloquence, his smile, and his beautiful children the exact same age as they. They know he supports the gay parents of their friends, and that his health plan will help families of children with disabilities like theirs. They know that he not only believes in global warming but that he is (however belatedly) pledging to do something about it.

We watched the inauguration all morning, and while my eyes teared up again and again, finally spilling over at the ringing words of his address, both Henry and Oliver took it in stride, enjoying the music and even the wonderful poem that the openly gay, Cuban-born and American-raised Richard Blanco read in a Billy Collins'-like incantatory tone:



You guys are so lucky and blessed to be coming of age during this time, I said to my boys, proudly. This  man is our President and he represents what is good about our country, what our country should be proud of  -- you're lucky that when you look back on your childhood, he will be the man that you remember as our country's leader.

You know, I realize the inauguration used far too much corporate money, and I've never been one to appreciate splendor or fawn over celebrity, but I do revel in the words, and I heard them as authentic and true and resolved. I can't pretend to know whether things will unfold as the President wishes them to, but I can hope they do, and I can sure as hell impress upon my children that the ideals spoken of yesterday are the right ones, the honorable ones, the ones that their father and I espouse and support.

Reader, what did you think of the President's address and if you are conservative and dislike the President, what did you tell your children?