“Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.” ~ Voltaire

Sunset at Pensacola Beach (NOAA Gulf Coast Collection)

  

“It is important to not let the fight become the life we live instead of the challenges we overcome.” ~ Skyewriter

Pelicans and Seagulls, Cortez, Florida (NOAA Gulf Coast Collection)

I was fortunate enough to glean the beautiful quote above in a comment that I received from Skyewriter on one of my posts. She and I share a sense of great sadness over the current situation in the Gulf. The biggest difference is that she is looking into ways of getting there to help with the cleanup. I am so impressed by her commitment to doing something instead of just bemoaning fate. I only wish that I could participate in the cleanup as well.

Several people have written to me to comment that they, too, feel that something is just out there on the periphery. By that I mean a sense that the escalating incidents of intolerance and madness bespeak a mounting swing of the pendulum; I know that historically, we swing from one extreme to the other, with short respites in between in which life appears to be calm.

There are so many rumblings now: acts of incredible violence, attempts to legislate intolerance, blatant disregard for the planet and its other inhabitants—it’s as if  there are billboards dotting the highway flashing warning signs, but no one is paying attention. Then again, perhaps I am overreacting. 

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not talking about conspiracy theories or paranoia that someone is out to get me. It’s more a sense of feeling the pulse of the nation and noticing that something is not right, is off somehow.

“But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.” ~ Umberto Eco

The news in the past couple of days does not help to alleviate my feelings of dismay.

Gulf Crew Boat Offshore Cameron, Louisiana (NOAA Gulf Coast Collection)

• In Kabul, Afghanistan, the Taliban has executed a seven-year-old boy for spying. According to The Daily Mail, the child was taken from his home by Taliban militants. He was taken to a neighboring village, put on trial and found guilty of working for the government.  Afghanistan’s president Hamid Karzai condemned the act as a “crime against humanity.”
• In Salt Lake City, a leaked pipeline belonging to Chevron spewed between 400 and 500 barrels of oil into Red Butte Creek before being capped. The leak coated wildlife and cause the park to be closed.
• BP Directors will meet tomorrow to discuss deferring payment of its next dividend to shareholders. Gee. You think? This move by BP comes as a result of President Obama’s request to the company to set up an escrow account for a third-party administered claims process. Meanwhile, more and more individuals who work on the water in the Gulf are watching their livelihoods disappear beneath a tarry sheen of oil. Dave Marino, fisherman and owner of a charter boat business in Myrtle Grove, Louisiana put into words what a lot of people are thinking: “My concern is that it’s going to tip the balance to where it’s too much to overcome. What happens when you tip the point to where there’s more death than life?”
• In Arizona, Republicans plan to introduce legislation this fall that would deny birth certificates to children born in Arizona to parents who are not legal U.S. citizens—also known by the derogatory term anchor babies. Under the legal principle jus soli, or birthright citizenship, any child born in the U.S. is automatically a citizen. The term anchor baby refers to the belief that these children of illegal immigrants give the parents legal foothold in this country and allow for other family members to come into the country under sponsorship. Once again, state Senator Russell Pearce is spearheading divisive legislation. Pearce admits that he may have a Constitutional fight, but in his mind, illegal immigrants have hijacked the 14th amendment, which states that “all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.”

“Disorder is merely the order you were not looking for.” ~ Henri Bergson

Shrimp Boats, Padre Island, Texas (NOAA Gulf Coast Collection)

Meanwhile, closer to home, we are getting ready for Brett’s graduation tomorrow. Today he went to a graduation party at one of his friend’s houses, which is a good distraction because he’s getting really nervous about graduation. I don’t know why, but he is.

On Friday at rehearsal, he received his honor tassel and gold cord, which he was really happy to get. He’s been .04 points away from being an honor graduate, and his counselor had said that she wouldn’t know whether or not he would be graduating with honors until final grades came through, which was Friday. We’re so proud of him.

So my last baby is leaving high school. I have so many mixed emotions about this, another life milestone, but luckily pride seems to be the overwhelming emotion. Once we get through graduation, I have to see about driving lessons for Brett as he still doesn’t have his license. Unlike Alexis and Eamonn, Brett has never had any desire to drive or to have his own car, but with college looming in the fall, he needs to learn to drive.

Apparently, even though he will be 18, he still will have to have his learner’s permit for a year before he can get a license. That’s how the law is here in Virginia. And he also has to have behind-the-wheel certification because of his age. He never bothered to take it while he was in school, and I never pushed it as I wanted him to focus his energies on his academic classes. So that’s his next big step before beginning college.

That’s all for now as I need to iron clothes for tomorrow. All images are from the NOAA site’s Gulf Coast collection, pre-spill.

More later. Peace.

Music by Damien Rice, “Grey Room”

“My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate—that’s my philosophy.” ~ Thornton Wilder

 

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.” ~ Rainer Marie Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I haven’t done an update in a while, and since I am supposed to be filling out FAFSA applications for both Brett and Eamonn, I thought that this would be a good topic to keep me from completing more forms. So here goes.    

Twenty-five things:   

1. This time ten years ago I was just beginning my relationship with Corey as friends and co-workers.



Egret in Flight

2. Five years ago I was miserably working for a real estate company as a marketing director.
3. This time last year I was doing exactly what I’m doing now: frittering my life away, attempting to write, being a slug.
4. One of my favorite moments at the museum was the time that I was at the shoot for our Monet exhibition, and there was a frog wrangler. Seriously.
5. Corey and I were walking through the Botanical Garden when we decided to get married.
6. My dad loved to go fishing late at night, and when I was a girl, it was always a treat when he took me with him.
7. The part of my body that I hate the most is my neck. Second, my arms.
8. I think that Gwyneth Paltrow has a lot of nerve complaining about her bat wings (upper arms) as she is skinny and knows nothing about real bat wings.
9. When I was in the 6th grade, I pretended that the man in the picture was not my father. I am still ashamed of that.
10. My cell phone was stolen out of my car by a man I let wash my car. I was so stupid, which is what the police pointed out in a neighborhood meeting about crimes committed by the men who went around and offered to wash cars.
11. When I was a teenager, I cleaned my mother’s house every Saturday. No one made me. I just did it.
12. I have a soft spot in my heart for short, elderly Filipino men.
13. I think the reason that I am so intrigued by my dreams is that they are so much more interesting than my real life.
14. I am afraid of snakes and centipedes but not spiders.
15. I love to listen to the birds singing in the early morning, when the air is filled with many different songs, creating a natural harmony.



Chickadee

16. When I was little, I always wanted to have a sister, but not necessarily a brother.
17. The most beautiful place Corey and I saw when were in Mexico was the Mayan ruins in Tulum. I much preferred the natural beauty of the ruins, the Iguanas,  and the blue water hitting the rocks to the crowded, touristy atmosphere of Cancun.
18. The Mexican soldiers patrolling Tulum carry automatic weapons, which is quite a jarring sight in the midst of such natural beauty.
19. I wish that elves and fairies were real.
20. I have boxes and boxes of photographs that I have taken over the years but have never sorted or arranged. I also have several empty albums that I bought with the intention of putting the pictures into albums.
21. I don’t think that there’s an episode of Law & Order that I haven’t seen, and the show has been on for 20 years.
22. I still want to go back to graduate school to get my PhD.
23. Is there such a thing as a family that isn’t dysfunctional?
24. I have had three bosses for whom I would work again in a heartbeat—the City Editor at the newspaper where I cut my teeth, the marketing director at the Museum, and the Director of Marketing and Communications at GW.
25. The worst boss I had was at the department store. He was a misogynist, and he had no sense of loyalty.

“Where am I? Who am I?
How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director?
I want to see him.” ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Twenty-five more things:  

1. I once worked as a temp for a company that was so cheap that they counted paper clips.
2. I used to clean my guy friends’ apartments whenever I visited.
3. I used to dream of owning a muscle car. Now, I couldn’t bend down to get into one.



Pelican at Sunset

4. Someone once told me that my legs weren’t perfect and hers were because mine didn’t touch at the top.
5. I wish that my legs still didn’t touch at the top.
6. If I were a billionaire, after I paid for college for everyone in the family, I would set up a foundation specifically for young women in need of start-up funds. I would also start a foundation for unpublished writers to get the funds needed to work on their writing full time.
7. If I were a billionaire, I would donate a chunk of change to the campaigns of whoever ran against Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and a handful of other extremists.
8. One day I will go to Australia and Ireland.
9. I sing to my dogs.
10. I think that I’ve taught Tillie how to say I Love You, but she could be saying “I want cookies.”
11. One of the most beautiful valentines I ever received was from a boy I was not dating. It was a hand painted butterfly, and in it he wrote a poem about me. I found out later that he killed himself the following year.
12. I love pens but hate ball point stick pens that run on my fingers.
13. When I was a little girl, I thought that I would help my mom with the ironing. I melted one of her blouses.
14. I polished the floor of my grandmother’s house in the Philippines with coconut halves that were strapped to my feet. The dark floors were so smooth that it was like skating.
15. I’ve always wished that I could draw.
16. My parents had a tree on the side of their yard that I climbed and from which I could jump onto the roof.



Cedar Waxwing

17. I have wanted to live in Blacksburg ever since I went to grad school there, but I think that it’s more the idea of living in a college town.
18. Corey and I want to go on another cruise one of these days.
19. I remember returnable soda bottles.
20. I have a vague memory of the shops on Portobello Road in England.
21. The green grocer whose shop was just down the street from our apartment on Goldhawk Road in London was named Mr. Higgins. He gave me sweets.
22. Two traditions that I think Americans should adopt are tea time and the siesta. Both make so much sense to me.
23. I haven’t bought a new pair of shoes in over two years. I think that must be a record.
24. Ideally, I would love to have a beach house and a house in the mountains. Then I could have the two environments that I love the most.
25. I let my dogs steal the covers during the night.

“To be on a quest is nothing more or less than to become an asker of questions.” ~ Sam Keen

Twenty-Five Questions:   

1. If you could have lunch with anyone in history, who would it be?  That’s hard. It’s a tossup between Thoreau, Einstein, or Anne Boleyn, all for different reasons
2. What is the one thing you want more than anything else at this very moment? A haircut.
3. What it the one thing you hope to accomplish this year? Work on my book idea to the point that I have something to show an agent.
4. What do you hate the most? Intolerance, followed closely by a lie.
5. What do you love the most? Love and being loved
6. How old were you when you first encountered death in a real way? Twelve, when my mother’s father died
7. What modern convenience would you miss the most: a computer, a cell phone, a television, a microwave? Definitely a computer.
8. If you could do one thing for anyone in the world, what would it be? I would get a job for Corey.
9. Which person that you do not know do you relate the most to? Virginia Woolf.
10. What is your worst trait? Jealousy followed by insecurity.
11. How do other people characterize you that doesn’t match how you see yourself? I am frequently told that I am confident, which I am not.
12. What is the one thing in this world that you would eliminate if you could? Famine.
13. Glass half empty or half full? Empty.



Great Blue Heron

14. Are people inherently evil or inherently good? Good.
15. Do you keep secrets from those you love? No. Absolutely not.
16. Where is the one place you return to again and again?  The cemetery where Caitlin is buried.
17. Is there a place you go to when you need to clear your head? Barnes & Noble Booksellers
18. Are you happy with your life? Not really. There are too many things I want to change.
19. Which affects you more: smell or sound? Sound. Music has a way of playing into my moods.
20. If you had the power to change one thing in your life, what would it be? I would have had another baby.
21. What would your super power be? Flying
22. Can men and women be friends without sex getting in the way? If one of them is gay.
23. If you could live in another country, where would it be? Australia or Finland.
24. When you are away from home, what do you miss the most? My dogs.
25. Do you believe in revenge? In concept.

Well that was harder than I had anticipated. More later. Peace.   

Damien Rice, “9 Crimes”