but then he killed himself

"Only one thing remained reachable, close and secure amid all losses: language. Yes, language. In spite of everything, it remained secure against loss."
~~Paul Celan

metaphor

Are fears really fears or are they metaphors? Does everything have to stand for something it's not?

the unconscious mind reveals itself

When I was eleven, I developed a phobia about being buried alive. Freud said that the fear of being buried alive is a distorted desire to return to the womb, but my friend Louise who was schitzophrenic said that obviously it’s the fear of being out of anyone’s reach and beyond their concern.

instead of candles

Tonight we went to a vigil to show support for the Muslim community. It was a candlelight vigil, but I didn’t take a candle. I said to Chuck, candles make me feel weak, and he said he knew. Instead of candles, he said, it seemed like we should hold flares.

Mosque

Last night someone set a fire in the mosque near my house. Just to show that we can target innocent people too, I guess.

Oregon in the winter

My mother is in Hawaii and my kids are packing for Mexico. Here the winter sky is gray almost every day. It's gray and bleak and we live like people buried beneath plastic, like someone has stretched a plastic tarp over our heads and all we can do is wait for it to stop. My kids don’t mind the weather, but they are packing for Mexico. They are buying shorts and swim suits.

don't be a hater

Today I was using the Google to look for an old friend named Amos Zook but instead found an account of that massacre of Amish school girls—remember? Little girls were lined up at their blackboard and executed by a man they knew, a man who delivered milk to their families. How could I have forgotten that?  How could such a crime be absorbed and then set aside?

yes, I'm a hyprocrite.

At the co-op today four people were talking about their droids, which are phones, in case you don’t know, and what their droids could do and their droids and their droids and their droids. I was getting peppercorns for Chicken Abodbo, which I’m going to make this afternoon, and I thought all people ever talk about is their stuff. They fill their conversations and their imaginations and thoughts with all the stuff they have and all the stuff they want. And then I walked away, passing a woman with one of those Haiku purses that I’ve wanted for so long, over a year now, ever since my friend Laurie got one and I thought, I wonder where I can find one are they online as soon as I get home I’m going to do a Google search.

leave the kids alone

I was in a coffee shop today, reading a chapter about Camus, for my class. I was wondering how I missed the fact that The Plague is an allegory for Fascism, when I noticed a woman and her daughter getting their drinks from the counter.  The little girl was 2 or 3 years old. What do you say? asked the mother.
thank you
They walked past me. What do you say?
excuse me
The mother saw a friend. What do you say?
Hello.
Turn around when you talk to someone.
Minutes later I heard the mother pointing out a woman and child crossing the street. They looked both ways. He held her hand.  We always look both ways. We always hold hands.
And it seemed to me there was some slippery similarity between this well- meaning mother’s moment by moment intrusion into her daughter’s experience and the fascist denial of personal autonomy.

which is it?

A grim rainy day, harbinger of winter, everyone quiet and morose. Maybe my kids would have a different impression of this day-  I spent it in the library, but they were at a tailgating party.

not exactly Pinochet, but you know what I mean

The photographs of Chileans celebrating in the streets after Allende was elected remind me a little of the pictures of people here, after Obama’s election night.  For a moment, goodness triumphed.  And then it changed again. And then it was worse, more stupid and more cruel, than anyone could have imagined.