29 October 2008

a life coming to an end

it's been a very long time since i lost someone i love. my mamaw-daddy died when i was 11 (i think), and i still remember that pain. i mean, it's hard not to be crazy in love with a grandpa who never would've believed any person who tried to tell him i wasn't who hung the moon, and even though i was only a kid, there are times today i can go back to that loss, and feel as sad and confused as i did in the days following his death (which itself followed a very long and painful battle with lung cancer). the most beautiful and surprising thing about that loss - 23 years ago - is that it was the last for me.

i was at hallway boy's last night when i got the call from my mom that my other grandpa had been admitted to the hospital, and wouldn't be going home...

what i felt in that moment, in the hours that followed, and what i still feel today, is very much a mixed bag. on the one hand, we should all be so lucky to live a long, healthy, happy, fulfilled life as my pa has had. he's 87 years old, until very recently had been jovial and sprite since the day i met him, way back when i made my grand entrance, in november of some unnamed year in the 70's :). he was (and is) as proud of me as anyone ever has been, and i of him. he's a good man, my pa. and he's had a really good life.

on the other hand, his life is ending, and it breaks my heart. it hurts to know that in a matter of days or weeks, i will lose someone who has been one of my life's greatest driving forces. he's always been there for me, supportive of my endeavors, and probably my biggest fan. and he's going to be gone. i can't help but selfishly be sad for my own loss, as well as the loss my granny, my brothers and cousins, and my mom and her siblings will all soon feel. it is just sad. and it hurts.

last night when i got the news, i'm glad i wasn't alone. i'm glad hallway boy was there to comfort me, to encourage me to talk about my pa, to tell him stories about our trips to the donut shop, and that drawer full of molding donut holes i collected during his frequent visits to my hospital room after my car accident. but it was hard for me to be true to my emotions with hallway boy, because i'm trying so hard to keep me close to the vest. i mean, i tried so hard to be strong because i didn't want to cry in front of him. he knew it too, he saw me fighting back the tears, and finally told me to let go, "it's okay to cry". and i did and the floodgates opened. and he pet me while i cried, and comforted me, and told me it's okay to be sad.

the mixed bag here is that i'm not really sure i am ready to be so vulnerable with him. i mean, maybe it's time. we've been dating for a few months now, maybe it's time to start knocking a few of those cinder blocks to the ground. but i feel safer and my heart feels a bit more secure, when i keep a good distance between hallway boy and my emotions, when he doesn't see how much i feel (i.e. _everything_) and how much more of a role my feelings play in my decision making than things as silly as reason and sense. playing the tough girl helps me keep me closer to me, even if it isn't really me, and it scares the shit out of me to let him see the emotional volcano that lies below the surface of my "baller" exterior... or maybe it's just that he scares the shit out of me...

26 October 2008

"we're both mavericks"

O
M
G

denial ain't just a river in egypt... mcsame appeared on this morning's meet the press, ranting like a madman, turning every conversation into an opportunity to issue an ill-advised smackdown on obama's tax plan, turned a blind eye toward every damning poll, and praised his vice-presidential candidate as a, "dynamic person with executive experience, leadership, reform, exactly what waRshington needs. i'm so proud of the way she ignites the crowds [uh, more like racially incites crowds], the way she has conducted herself is incredibly admirable... we're both mavericks".

hmmmm. i've been wondering if mccain regrets his decision to invite palin to join his ticket, but it sounds to me like he's still her biggest (blindest) fan. but why should i be surprised? the republican party put the biggest dumbass on earth in the white house two terms in a row, and sat back while he made a fool of america by waging tyrannical wars, as though imperialism were the tried and true means of spreading democracy, flushed our economy down the toilet, set mandates that encouraged our auto industry to bury itself in suv manufacturing while the rest of the world moved toward fuel efficient vehicles (clearly an insightful move by a harvard-trained business genius), and created the largest discrepancy in wealth in this country since the gilded age. ya gotta love a government that ignores the lessons of history, because it's either too dumb to see its own limitations and ask for help, or too greedy to care.

and then that same party goes on to find the only dipshit on earth with the ability to make george w. bush look like he has a single working brain cell in that monkey head of his. and they make her the vice-presidential candidate, to the oldest ass presidential candidate in history. i'm not complaining, though, because i want the fools to lose, and i want to see their party implode completely, and have to send the next eight years figuring out the way the world really works today and having to reinvent themselves in a newer, fresher identity, one that will be able to move the country forward in a changing world (i may be a democrat, and a liberal one at that, but i am an american first, and this republican party is made up of blind fools who cannot see that we live in a global market that requires greater governmental involvement and that needs to change if we're to make real progress).

i'm only going to touch all of the clips from interviews with mccain the past several years, that show a clear trend toward flip-flopping on many issues, from agreeing with bush, to being opposed to reducing taxes, to being in favor of spreading the wealth, but i will point out my favorite line in mcdenial's interview with tom this morning, "we're gonna do well in this campaign, my friend".

uh huh, we'll see about that, maverick...

The Cure at Troy

Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted or endured

The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker's father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
Double take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightening and storm
And a god speaks from the sky.

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth cry
Of new life at its term.

-Seamus Heaney