A World Divided

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On Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was an episode about a planet wanting to join the Federation but could not because a small part of its population was opposed to it. It had to be unanimous, a united planet to be a member.

A united planet.

We who call ourselves citizens of the United States would be noted as liars to say we are united merely as a country these days. Once we got over the shock of it, I’d say we stopped being truly united five or so years after 9/11. Perhaps there was a momentary resurgence of patriotism when Osama Bin Laden was finally taken down, but the bloom fell off that rose pretty quickly.

Since Cain first had his jealous streak and took out Able it has been man’s penchant to divide and hold his cause in favor.

It is one of the oldest strategies in the book of power. And it works, because it plays directly into human nature.  We classify ourselves along political, social, religious, and economic lines, and so on. We used to agree to disagree and, if not fine, at least be tolerant of opposing views. These matters are central to human social existence and tend to resist any attempts at resolution. As a result, each side views the position of the other as a threat to its very existence.  The more we lose sight of our commonalities, the more we drift away from each other and become less human. When we group ourselves away from those outside our immediate groups and regard them with fear and hostility, even when they’ve done nothing, we forget that they are humans too, and that makes us part of the problem.

These intractable conflicts are ones that have continued unresolved and seem stuck in their levels of intensity and destructiveness. People tend to strike out at what is different, what they fear, which is bad when what we fear is each other.
It’s worse when we give in to that fear, give in to that desire to inflict as much harm, physical and psychological, on each other as possible. For so many this constant sense of threat and hostility pervades everyday life and overrides our ability to recognize any shared concerns.

For a nation renowned for embracing the different, some in the U.S. seem to have lost sight of this within our own walls. Where will her huddled masses go if Liberty’s torch grows dim?

I live in New York City, and twice within my lifetime, we’ve been a target. It’s a very sobering thing to have at the back of my mind that the physical symbolism of Liberty, if not all she stands for, could be blown out by force?

And considering the current clime…

So many nations flexing power with malice, not peace. We as a people seem to be doing more and more of separating ourselves from each other than coming together. 

Countries Currently at War 2026 according to the World Population Review
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-currently-at-war

Earth would never be admitted as a member of the United Federation of Planets as we stand now.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 7 – Two Writing Teachers

 

Public Insect

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There are several signs of spring. The warming air, the first hints of flora, annual fauna, and springing forward into Daylight Saving Time. I’m waiting for the natural aspects of spring to appear, and on Sunday, I will begrudgingly lose an hour to gain more sun. In the interim, I have become cognizant of another personal marker of spring:

My social calendar.

For obvious reasons, my public out decrease along with the temperatures between November and February. Oh, I still go out. I’ve been to movies, caught a couple of shows, dinners with friends – uh, hello, I’m Raivenne, I don’t hibernate, but I do slow down.

I’ve looked at the past few years, and the pattern is the same. March may come in like a lion and leave like a lamb weather-wise, but for my social calendar, it is the exact opposite, and I love it.

Today is just the 6th, yet in the span of the past three days, I went from only having three outings this month to eight. And that’s just March. I have at least three outings for each month from now until January. Mind you, this does not include the larger events, such as a convention I’m attending in Atlanta in April, Las Vegas in November, and my annual birthday getaway in September

So it’s March, the event horses have begun lining up at the gate– .

— and the Le Raivenne [a.k.a. the Social Butterfly turned Mothra] is off!

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 6 – Two Writing Teachers

A Little Perspective

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I got up this morning go through my usual routine while not-so-silently kvetching about the snowy-rain mix coming down, only grateful it was not full-out snow. Do I wear my boots or tough it out in my sneakers? What if it is not raining that hard? I don’t want to be standing around all day in boots, yada, yada, yada… I make a decision and head out. It’s dank and just miserable looking outside.

The path from my home to the train station leads past several tenement buildings and projects.  A part of City life in my current neighborhood is the occasional appearance of memorials for the recently departed. I’m ashamed to say, they are so much a part of the scenery that while I see them, I really don’t. 

At least, until this afternoon.

This afternoon, as I returned home, I noticed one such memorial. This was somehow different, and as I looked closer, I understood why. It was a large portrait was that of a baby. This life could not have been more than a few months if I am gauging this infant correctly. Someone lost a baby. Do we even want to go into all the reasons why the younger a life is when it departs from us, the more tragic it seems? No. It just is.

And suddenly, today’s highly annoying rain/snow crap was considerably less so.

A Little perspective is everything…

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 5 – Two Writing Teachers

This Is A Beauty No One Is Sleeping On

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.
So, a guy emails me through an online dating site:

“I am going to assume that my profile is too casual/risqué for you, but I thought I’d shoot you a line anyway. (You have a fetching smile.)”

Of course I check out his profile. He states he wants a FWB, not looking for serious dating and is desirous of a woman with intelligence.

Got it – he wants a fuck, just not a dumb one.

My response?

“Hello,

My orthodontist and I thank you.

“Check you out!” as the kids say, throwing down the gauntlet on the opening play.

If I respond in the negative I come off as looking prudish, yet a positive one is indicative that I am open to only being someone ‘beneficial’. If I am open to such with you, who else have I been beneficial to? Providing I am someone simpatico to your intelligence and views to be worthy of said fornication.

Damned if I do and damned if I do. Fiddley-dee, whatever is a woman to do?

Oh, I can pick up that gauntlet and cyber strike you across your grizzled jowl for your cheekiness. (Insert emoji with tongue sticking out here.) [– Yes, I actually wrote out the emoji as such.]

How dare you!

Rai”

This is not to say I would or would not go for a roll –or a few- in the hay with him. He is attractive and arrogant and just the sort of ego balloon I like to stick my pins in and pop.

Regardless, one has to prove worthiness of my wrapping these thick juicy thighs around, and that ain’t the way, Bub.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 4 – Two Writing Teachers

sol

Articulate This

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I’m in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Two of the GPs are out, and there’s an understandable delay. I’m not happy, but being retired has its advantages. I had not packed my day chock-full of All The Things To Be Done On My One Off. I’m not stressed and have time. My doctor is in the office, and I absolutely do not wish to reschedule until next month or possibly longer, so I wait.

A patient is making his displeasure at the delay known to the nurses at reception. As in, I can hear his complaints over The Hu (a Mongolian folk metal band), over my iPod (yes, I still use my iPod). A woman sitting near me and I give each other the “Oh, you hear him too, huh?” empathic smile that all who have gone through such before have, and strike up a conversation. I am a born-and-bred New Yorker; she is a transplant from another state, having lived here for less than two years.  We touch on television and learn that we both have a penchant for period dramas. We spent a few minutes on classic books, version the Hollywood interpretations, and that’s when it happened…

She shakes her head, “Wow…”
“What?” I ask.
“You. The way you speak… You’re well read and very artic…”

I am going to gather she stopped short at that point, less because her brain kicked in and more because I’m sure my expression went from amicable to apoplectic by the second syllable of the classic “A” word used with well-spoken blacks: Articulate.

Was it because I did not interject “like” and/or “you know” every fifth word or so? Perhaps it was my lack of “neck roll”? I do not know. However, I’m pretty sure I popped a capillary or two in my efforts to restrain my agitation at hearing this.

Worse, I am hearing it from someone less than 30 years of age. Someone who assuredly should know better, coming from a – not major, but a metropolis. Geographical differences aside, clearly Barack and Michelle Obama, Kamal Harris, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Maxine Waters are ethnic flukes, as though they do not speak the same English spoken by the majority of people in this country.

“I mean, I mean….” She starts the familiar back-peddle seen often when people are caught hoisted on their own petard.

“Oh, I know what it is you meant.” I stop the peddling in its tracks. “I don’t know what you were exposed to in (name of city redacted to not paint all of its denizens with the broad brush of ignorance), that gave you such preconceived notions, but for the record, it is not a compliment to be surprised, or worse, impressed, that a person of color can speak well as though it is such a foreign concept. And, it is incredibly condescending and patronizing to think we should feel complimented that it’s noticed and meets your unasked-for approval.”

Suffice it to say, the conversation ended there. It was just as well, for my name was called to see my GP not too long after.

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is: some of us (Black people) become a little perturbed when people call out our articulateness.

It perpetuates the stereotypes that Blacks speak mostly in slang, in African-American Vernacular (aka Ebonics), or in anything other than standardized English. It is also divisive, a separating of us into an “us” and “them”. It is the stereotype that is perpetuated even within less affluent black communities every time a well-spoken black person is accused of “talking white”. The stereotype that equates articulate styles of speech as belonging to “Caucasian” rather than belonging to “intelligence”, as though one was still the exclusive dominion of the other. Blacks do not assume every white person speaks with a major in English, so why is it still a thing of note to some when encountering those of us who have a more extensive use of verbiage, diction, and enunciation?

Here we are in 2036 Anno Domini (CE for those who prefer the secular nomenclature), and it’s an aggrievance that yes, this is still a conversation.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 3 – Two Writing Teachers.

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Happiness in the Present

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“Doing what you like is freedom, liking what you do is happiness” 

I hope most have noticed that this is the tagline of this blog. But sometimes it seems like I’ve been so busy chasing the funds to have the former that there’s rarely any time left over to engage in the latter.

And I know I’m not the only one.

We spend so much time getting ready to be happy and not enough actually being happy.

The poor are so busy trying to get money to be rich, because then they will be happy. The working poor, formerly known as the middle class, are so busy trying to keep what money they have while also seeking more to be happy. The rich are so busy trying to prove themselves worthy of having said money to be happy.

Yet how many of them truly are?

Someone once asked the Dalai Lama, what surprised him most about humanity, he answered:

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

The Dalai Lama is very astute in his statement. In the bombardment of information, society, culture and idealism, I sometimes feel we’re slowly become something so homogeneous by silent consensus that we tend to lose that spirit which makes the individual so special. We mute the individual spirit that dares to pursue anything than what the masses have decreed should make us happy, when the masses themselves continually change the definitions.

Another favorite quote of mine: All are born originals: most die as copies.

Too many of us see ourselves through the eyes of others. And those eyes are most likely only viewing what they have been told to look at. When everyone is looking at the same things, is anyone really seeing anything?

Years ago, Android had a series of commercials with the closing tagline: be together, not the same. I think that also works in finding your own sustained happiness.

Life can be this amazing place full of light, happiness and serenity. Or it can be a dark place, full of drama and fear. It’s life, it holds all of these possibilities, but it’s up to you to choose what’s possible for yourself. And you must choose this for yourself everyday, sometimes several times a day.

When it comes down to the basics, we all want a happy future, but life can be a beautiful thing right here, right now, in the present; we just have to take a moment to keep reminding ourselves.

It’s Tuesday, let’s see how others are slicing it it, this Day 2 of the challenge:

Slice of Life Writing Challenge – Day 2 – Two Writing Teachers

sol

A Score of Marching On

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This first week of March has held odd scores for me these past years —

This past winter has been one of the coldest and snowiest in a while. Except for the staunchest of my winter-loving friends, most of us in the Northeastern US, in particular, have all reached our saturation point and want it all gone already. Seeing a string of temperatures above 40 degrees forecast for the next week and the hope of Spring finally arriving lightens my mood.  Even though there is snow on the ground and a chance of sprinkles soon, the worst of it seems to be over. The thought of not having to shovel again and soon being able to put my down coat away for the season warms me immensely.

It also helps that there is a celebration of my firstborn’s birth in a couple of days. Like all mamas of adult children, I can still see the wide-eyed sparkle of those newborn eyes brought home oh so many years ago in the very same eyes that will now roll over two score later, yet again, in some annoyance that I’ve inflicted upon them -probably happily inflicted knowing me. I’m Mommie – it’s in the unwritten job description that can’t be retired from.

But this year marks a score I saw coming, yet it snuck up on me regardless: a score, as in I became a widow twenty years ago today.

When he passed, he had been pretty much half my life – literally and figuratively. Now, I have spent as much time without him in my adult life as I had with him, and roughly a third of my life overall. It’s an odd dichotomy.

I remember once telling someone, “One day at a time?” Right now, I’m just trying to get through one minute at a time.” And now twenty years’ worth of minutes are in the rear-view. That’s exactly where it is, and where it should be – in the rear-view.

As I posted on Facebook earlier:

A Score of Time Flying
The heart doesn’t break anymore.
The heart doesn’t love any less.

I still see and feel that presence; it will always be there, but I’m still going forward.

Still warming up, still celebrating, and a score later, still marching on…

Day 1 of the March Slice of Life Challenge

You Know

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You know

The look that will ease the yearning

The touch that will quench the thirst

You know

The feeling of wanton satiation

But I know it is

Your love

That is the sustenance that feeds another

All the while

You know

I Hunger

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At dVerse Poets, our host Lis Li invites us to feed our poetic appetite with a quadrille, a poem of exactly 44 words not including the title, but must include the use of the prompt word “hunger”.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Q242 Hunger Makes the Best of Poetry

The Shame Of It

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Artwork: Shame by Ally Saunders
Artwork: Shame by Ally Saunders

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
Hurt – Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)/Johnny Cash

I was darkness and fury
To your light and sun
On a whim I simply snuffed it
It’s a hurt that can’t be undone
I thought I knew what I was doing
To take you for granted and then some
Only to simply walk away
Leaving you as chaff in the wind’s sway
And how the shame of it numbs
What have I become?

With me as predator and you as prey
I shot an arrow through your soul
You had no chance in this farce
There was no means to console
I thought I knew what I was doing
Going for the break, not just the bend
Damn how your body trembled
As your soul disassembled
And how the shame of it wends
My sweetest friend

You were my own soul’s mirror
Shattered in a thousand places
And I felt the pain as my own
In a thousand fractured faces
I thought I knew what I was doing
How I’ve come to rue that day
Seeing the evidence of what I did
I was loath to leave it hid
And how the shame of it stays
Everyone I know goes away

You never said a word, I know this
But somehow your break struck me to the core
Never one to rage, yet it changed you
And everyone wanted to know the score
I thought I knew what I was doing
Now I am the chaff in the wind
The wounds of my hateful inflections
Forever bared in my reflections
And now the shame of it does rend
In the end

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At dVerse Poets Meeting The Bar, Björn challenges us to write a glosa. I have not written one in what feels like ages. The image “Shame” by Ally Saunders already had Muses’ attention, but I did not know what direction to go with it until Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails played on my iTunes, and everything fell into place. I always felt Trent Reznor’s NIN original was suppressed rage in the aftermath of a wrong done, and Cash’s cover was resignation of those wrongs in the sunset of the life lived. Here, I aim for the liminal space between rage and resignation – acknowledgment of the unforgivable.

dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar at the Spanish Court

Listen and ‘Remember, Remember, Remember…’

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"You ever just listen to a song and remember exactly how life used to be when you first heard it." @grumpyoldgits

A friend posted the above quote on Facebook. I felt it immediately, but I suspect not in the way it was intended. I won’t say certain songs make me want to reminisce about how ‘life used to be’, as the quote implies, because plenty of songs came out during chunks of life I would rather not want to remember, but the way the songs themselves made me feel. The songs that can transport me right back to that feeling upon hearing the first note.

The songs that hit me as hard today as when I first heard them.

I don’t just mean the songs that make me smile or want to move: Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, Beastie Boys “Jump Around”, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”, Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”, The Champs’ “Tequila”, Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper Delight”, Madonna’s “Vogue”, “Le Vie Bohme” from Rent, Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” -yes, you read that correctly, Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft”, Usher’s “Yeah”, “Hair” from the musical Hair, Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry Be Happy”, Beyonce’s “Crazy In Love”, Des’ree’s “You Gotta Be”, Kelis’ “Milkshake”, Propellerheads/Shirley Bassey “History Repeating”, Nelly’s “Country Grammar” and “Hot in Herre”, Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish/Sir Duke”, Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars “Uptown Funk”, Hair/Fifth Dimension’s “Aquarius” and as sort of referenced in the title of this post Irene Cara’s “Fame” et al.

I also mean the songs that made me think: Billy Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, N.W.A’s “Fuck tha Police”, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”,  H.E.R.’S “I Can’t Breathe”, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message”, Linkin Park’s “Hands Held High”,  Isley Brothers’ “Fight The Power”, Childish Gambino’s “This Is America”, RATM’s “Killing In The Name Of”, Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, John Lennon’s “Imagine” et al. Many are as relevant today as when first released.

And then there are the gut songs. The songs that make me feel some kind of way, it can be love, rage, or something undefined, but oh, I feel them: Foo Fighter’s “I Should Have Known”, Foreigner’s “I Wanna Know What Love Is”, Toni Braxton’s “Unchain My Heart”, The Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice”, Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”, “The Unforgiven II”, and “Nothing Else Matters”, Fleetwood Mac “Dreams”, Madonna’s “Frozen”, Sondheim/Bernadette Peter’s “As The Days Go By”, Fiona Apple’s “Criminal”, Eva Cassidy’s “Autumn Leaves”, Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Reasons”, “Day by Day” from the musical Godspell, Herb Alpert’s “Rise” – yes, I know it’s an instrumental – but I feel it, Fifth Dimension’s “One Less Bell To Answer”, “Out Here On My Own” from the movie Fame, Commodores’ “Easy”, Lionel Ritchie’s “Still”, Tracy Chapman “Fast Car”, Shirley Bassey’s “Diamonds Are Forever” and “If You Go Away”, Pink’s “Conversations with My 10 Year Old Self”, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, Sugarland “Stay”, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and “This Is My December”, Bruce Springsteen, “41 Shots”, Drowning Pool “Bodies”, Aerosmith’s “Dream On” and so many others. And as my former work wife knows, there is the drum solo heard ‘round the world, Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”

Also, I was a literal child for quite a few of the songs listed. So older songs like “Stairway to Heaven”, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, and “Strange Fruit” – I refer to how they hit and then stayed with me when I was old enough/mature enough to get their full meanings.

None of the above is in any order of preference and by no means a complete list of my genre-hopping polyjamorous tendencies, just a smidgen of what immediately popped into my head as I was writing this. And honestly, mini theatre kid that I am, I could probably do this same post solely with theatre songs, but more than half of Steven Sondheim’s Broadway catalog would be listed, because damn, that man knew how to write a lyric.

Still, all of the songs above have a certain something that moves ME to want to stop whatever I’m doing and be in the moment of that feeling. WMYMV [what moves you may vary].

Let’s see what’s moving others this Tuesday…

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