The next thing

Friday was my last day at work.

Regular readers may not be surprised, given some of the things I have said about my work situation. However, you could also be surprised knowing that money is tight and some of the tolls that other times of unemployment have taken on me.

I'll tell you how it happened.

I have been waiting since the new year for the volume to go down, but it was not. Neither was the frustration.

I had been fighting this urge to walk away. That was probably more true since around my birthday.

I had taken a sick day on a Thursday, then worked Friday, had a three-day weekend due to President's Day, worked Tuesday, and then had my birthday off. It wasn't a full vacation, but those days where I was not working felt so beautiful. 

Ahead of me was a stretch with no holidays until Memorial Day. The frustration was growing. I was tired and stressed and unhappy; and not "sick" but not well.

On February 5th I checked the calendar and saw that no one had the next two days off. I requested them as mental health days. I had been planning on saving my time off for an actual vacation, but I needed to not break down before then.

One of the last things I did Monday was call a member who had been having issues due to a formulary change. I had been trying to help her and if I was going to be out I wanted to update her. She was not happy and I could not blame her.

I felt okay for those two days, but I was not exactly recharged. 

Thursday I had e-mail about the one incident, saying that I had needed to cancel this request and I missed the deadline for doing it, and had refused to do so.

It was not exactly a scolding; just a reminder of the rules. I had in fact been refusing to pull the request because I was waiting for something that would work for the member. The alternative they had mentioned had not gone through. I know I was saying that, but we were speaking at cross purposes.

All the bad feelings were back, but I needed to respond to that. I needed to point out the ways in which we were not getting enough support to do right by our members and to maintain sanity and keep our heads above water.

I did not see any way I could say what I needed to say and stay working there. 

I didn't see any way I could stay working there.

I didn't write anything that day. I prayed, but I didn't respond.

I didn't start writing until late in the day Friday. I meant to send it sooner, but then when I was writing calls came in and the work day had actually ended when I got off the last call. 

I wasn't sure if they would take the two week's notice. Usually once someone is gone we find out after they are gone. In retrospect I think that means most people are not giving notice. That impulse I kept resisting may have been more irresistible for them.

I did get an announcement while I was still there, and some people reached out.

Honestly, everyone has been pretty good. 

I do understand that they are swamped, across positions and departments. The lead time for appeals went from 45 days to 120 days. That is a serious problem.

In the end, though, I can't make it my problem.

I was feeling like "I can't do this", but I can do it. I do it pretty well. Doing so was grinding me down, physically and emotionally. I can't do it with quality of life.

I know there is privilege in walking away. There are other people who are working jobs that are bad for them that can't quit. That's not a reason for me to say.

And there is still risk. I am deeply aware of that.

I had this list of things that I wanted to do, jobs and programs to apply for and things like that, but I wasn't getting anywhere because I was too tired and busy.

Well, now I have the time. The steady income is gone, but I think we are good through May.

That's some time. 

I'll be praying more.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/professional.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/sick-day.html

NAHM: Indigenous people and the environment

One of Indian Country Today's regular features is "Global Indigenous" with features not only about Canadian First Nations people and Native Americans in United States, but also the Maori in New Zealand, Aboriginal Australians, and more. 

Colonization had a far reach.

There is plenty to think about there, but that is not the point of today's post.

Featured stories often came from Mongabay, which I had assumed was a news source focusing on "Global Indigenous".

Mongabay.com focuses on environmental science and conservation.

If there are frequently stories about Indigenous people, it is generally because of environmental damage that they are fighting, or from which they are suffering.

Two books in my recent reading focused on this:

Wisdom of the Elders: Sacred Native Stories of Nature by Peter S. Knudtson, David Suzuki

Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge by Laurelyn Whitt

Of course, it has been a recurring theme. 

Both Indians in the Making and Seeing Red dealt with it in part as part of the legal issues.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/02/native-american-heritage-month.html

Indians in the Making was inspired by a legal case about fishing rights. 

I have also recently read these articles:

https://ictnews.org/news/the-50th-anniversary-of-the-boldt-decision-is-a-celebration-of-native-leadership?

https://www.yakimaherald.com/30-years-after-salmon-scam-trial-david-sohappy-is-still-on-the-river/article_5dc2f63e-27d6-11e7-9b2f-276b99f27bf6.html 

One interesting thing to note is that sometimes the attempts to limit treaty fishing rights were in the name of "conservation", but commercial fishers were taking 85% of the catch, compared to 5-7% by Native fishers.

One has to doubt the sincerity.

Seeing Red's focus on the "political economy of plunder" really helped me see that settler colonialism and extractive colonialism are not mutually exclusive.

As settlers, we should be invested in the land and its health, but greed gets in the way.

It has been shown time and time again that to successfully restore the environment, you need to involve local Indigenous people. That was not only demonstrated in the Wisdom of the Elders and Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous People, but was also featured in a recent World Economic Forum study, Embedding Indigenous Knowledge:

https://www.weforum.org/publications/embedding-indigenous-knowledge-in-the-conservation-and-restoration-of-landscapes/

As hard as residential schools and relocation and other factors tried to eliminate this knowledge, it is still there, and is still necessary.

Greed gets in the way.

One of the warnings in Embedding Indigenous Knowledge is that profit cannot be the only consideration or marker of success.

That will require many more people being wise.

Grief and anger

I want it to be “no”,
But I know it's “yes”.
I had hoped for more for you,
then regret that you've reached infinity.
Logic fails, but memory will not,
and may not always feel like grief.

I am angry and sad. 

Back in November I wrote about going through e-mail messages. There were a few replies to direct messages from the previous year, where I was worried about losing contact and not having told them that they meant something to me and I cared. I didn't want to leave that unsaid.

One of them, Shafiqah Hudson, "Sassycrass", has died.

I think our last Twitter exchange was agreement that if I have food, you have food, because that discussion of Swedish hospitality had come back.

I know our last e-mail exchange for sure. I was reminding her that I was not far away, and if she needed something to let me know. She assured me on a few things she did not need help with -- at least for the moment -- and I replied with a few more things that I could possibly do.

That was February 1st. February 16th I saw that she had died the night before.

One of the last thing I offered was that I always have extra KN-95 masks. Those can be very important, but of course what she needed most was to not have had COVID. She had it three times, and that pushed her blood pressure up badly and kept it there, wreaking havoc with her system.

That is a big part of my anger, but there is another aspect to it as well.

 

There have been a few deaths over the years on Twitter. I engaged more with Shafiqah then the others, but you can still admire someone's caring and wisdom and feel their loss. 

 

There were two others who were Black women. We had commiserated together over one of them, and then all of these memories keep coming back.

 

I am angry that Black women keep paying the higher price, and being expected to do so.

 

I am angry that she had to ask for financial help getting to medical appointments. Many people benefited from her work, and never reimbursed her in any way.

 

I am grateful that Trudy collected her work into an online repository:

 

https://t.co/xx7yY6WvFU 

I am angry the she faced medical racism, along with the weaknesses in medicine that have come from ignoring women's issues for so long.

I am angry that so many people have given up on fighting COVID.

 

I am angrier that so many Americans gave up on fighting it when they learned that it affected people of color more, so that even being careful on their end is not enough.

 

Wear a mask!

I am angry that COVID brought back Tinu's cancer, and afraid that she will lose her fight too. 

I am angry and I am tired and sad.

 

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2023/11/connected.html

Native American Heritage Month: Spotlight on Julie Flett

Julie Flett's name has appeared on this blog before.

The Cree-Métis illustrator worked on one of my favorite children's books, Little You by Richard Van Camp, and reliably appeared on lists of recommended books.

Birdsong came up more than once, and I think it was looking at it again that made me want to review all of her work. She often illustrates with digital collages, but not exclusively. I find her work very visually appealing.

I was able to check out almost everything. There is one book showing on Goodreads as not yet released (Best in Show, September 2024), and one compilation that may not be in general publication (A River of Stories, Volume 3: Air).

There is a strong connection to nature throughout that I appreciate. 

Books read this time were mostly picture books, but there was one other book that was a little more complicated that I really loved.

The Journey Forward: A Novella on Reconciliation 

There was a foreword by Alison Gear, then two short books:

When We Play Our Drums, They Sing! by Richard Van Camp and Lucy and Lola written by Monique Gray Smith and illustrated by Julie Flett

Both books center on young protagonists, too young for residential schools themselves, but having parents and grandparents who did go to residential schools.

It is the first time I have seen attention paid to the parents after the children were gone, and what it was like for them, and also a good explanation of how that affects the generations. Having the two books together makes it more effective.

Without shortchanging the pain or problems, both stories are ultimately optimistic, and it is good that they are out in the world.

I highly recommend them, even for adults, though the target audience is probably early adolescents.

Flett's work is not as prominent here, which makes sense for the context, but it was something I was very glad that I read, and that happened because I liked her work and sought out more.

That is a good pattern.

Picture books read this time around:

by Julie Flett
Wild Berries
Owls See Clearly At Night: A Michif Alphabet 

illustrations for other authors

We Sang You Home by Richard Van Camp
Just Like Grandma by Kim Rogers
Dragonfly Kites by Tomson Highway
Zoe and the Fawn by Catherine Jamison Johnny's Pheasant by Cheryl Minnema Dolphin SOS by Roy and Slavia Miki, and Richard Cannings The Moccasins by Earl Einarson

2024: The New 52

This title has other reasons, but there was a major DC relaunch of all of their characters in 2011, ending existing series and starting 52 new books. 

I like titles that hold references to other things, but I should mention that I really hated those relaunches. They were messy and sadly lacking in nuance and subtlety. While I am harder to please than some for superhero comics, that was not just me, That relaunch is largely remembered as a train wreck.

Catchy title, though.

I like using titles for posts that play or pun on other titles. I like those types of connections. I like incorporating them into themes.

For example, when I was turning 31 I thought about having a birthday party that focused on 31 flavors or Baskin-Robbins or something. I didn't get on the ball in time. If Bresler's had still been around I would have just started planning then for a party in two years, but they were sold in 1987.

Also, because my birthday is so close to the new year, I often make that my real new year, like maybe that's when I start my resolutions.

Around this birthday, I was thinking about 52.

There are 52 weeks in a year, and 52 cards in a deck. 

There is a movie called 52 Pickup, and a card game, kind of. ("Game" may be too strong a word.)

I had also thought about the different forces that are in my life right now. Certainly death is a preoccupation, with my mother in hospice, and my need for money, but also I was starting to think about what gardening I will do this year, and other things that could happen.

Death. Growth. Love. Wealth.

Well, "hearts" and "diamonds" fit in pretty easily. Spades seemed like death, but you use a spade in a garden, right? And you could club someone to death, but it just didn't work.

Spades are death. Clubs are clearly some kind of tree or rosebush or a trillium.

Therefore, I decided that I would get a deck of cards, and each Sunday I would pick one and then write about it.

It was much easier to decide what the suits meant than what the different numbers mean.

I mean, I may not have been completely certain on which suit meant death, but then the first time I reached in I came up with the Ace of Spades. That was clearly the impending loss of my mother. Spades gets to be Death! 

At least for the face cards I kind of had in mind that the king could represent patriarchal forces, and then the queen could be my own energy, and the knave could be chaos or luck. That's what the Jack of Diamonds did represent when he came up, factors beyond my control in relation to money.

However, then I was thinking about Hearts, it could make sense to work down with family members. If my father is the king and mom is the queen, my brother could be the jack and then I guess my older sister is the ten. Fine, that's logical, but what do I do with the Nine of Hearts?

I mean, I had been thinking about the symbolic value of various numbers, and I even checked out a book on Tarot for ideas. Time to look at that. 

Apparently, nine can stand for completion, as it is the last of the single digits. For hearts, maybe it could be about the termination of love, or whether it had run its course and what that meant.

There are still various numbers where I don't know what they will mean, and it seems unlikely that they will be consistent across suits.

However, if there's one thing that we should all know, it's that writing prompts do not behave in an orderly manner.

Or, perhaps the name doomed it, and it will be a train wreck.

Daily songs for January

One reason I extended "December" into January by four songs (because I certainly could have done three and possibly could have done five) was that there were twenty-seven artists featured in Legends, Icons, & Rebels: Music That Changed the World.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/native-american-heritage-month.html

I probably did enough complaining about Bob Dylan in that post, so I won't harp on it now. 

For each artist there were five songs mentioned, but then sometimes other things were mentioned too; perhaps there was a biographical connection or one album stood out. For my purposes, that led to extra listening with The Beach Boys, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell.

Most of the artists were pretty familiar, especially the songs mentioned. That being said, I had no idea that the original version of "Hard to Handle" was by Otis Redding and that The Black Crowes version was a cover. I associate Redding with slower songs, but I guess with "Try A Little Tenderness" I could have known.

In the description of The Beatles, Robertson writes that you know the words even without actively listening, like it's "musical air". I realized how true that was when song titles I thought I did not know at all ended up being very familiar songs.

They are still not my favorites, but I am capable of realizing when something is important, and even well done, regardless of my own appreciation. 

And there are some pretty good ones on the list.

There were certainly things I didn't know. One of the most encouraging was that a lot of these musicians, while known for some way in which they broke new ground, were also good about mentoring other musicians and sharing.

Generally I tried to use a musician's "best", and maybe best known song, so this list in some ways does not reflect the learning. 

For example, Hank Williams has a song, "Move It On Over", about getting the dog to make room when coming home late gets you in the doghouse. I had never heard it, or heard of it, and yet it was very familiar, with a clear influence on Bill Haley & His Comets' "Rock Around the Clock".

Still, I used “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry”.

I was a little surprised that while there was a mention of the opening riff on "Johnny B. Goode", there was no mention of it coming from "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" from Louis Jordan, also one of the Legends.

Of course, Jordan was in there as "The Jukebox King", with so many hits, that wasn't even one of his main ones. Maybe Robbie didn't know. I only know it because of Wikipedia. Also, that riff specifically is more Carl Hogan.

So, while I did not love everything I listened to, there was a lot of interesting stuff, and stuff I will return to.

Also, the next listening material I pulled from a book was more annoying, though I still learned from it.

Sometimes that's all I can ask.

Daily songs"

1/5 “Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry
1/6 “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash
1/7 “Respect” by Aretha Franklin
1/8 “She Loves You” by The Beatles
1/9 “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong
1/10 “Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley
1/11 “Not Fade Away” by Buddy Holly
1/12 “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell
1/13 “Georgia On My Mind” by Ray Charles
1/14 “Heartbreak Hotel” by Elvis Presley
1/15 “People Get Ready” by Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions
1/16 “Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love)” by Billie Holiday
1/17 “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard
1/18 “I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams
1/19 “My Way” by Frank Sinatra
1/20 “What's Going On” by Marvin Gaye
1/21 “So Far Away” by Carole King
1/22 “You Send Me” by Sam Cooke
1/23 “Caldonia” by Louis Jordan
1/24 “Wouldn't It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys
1/25 “They Can't Take That Away From Me” by Ella Fitzgerald
1/26  “I Got You” by James Brown
1/27 “Crazy” by Patsy Cline
1/28 “These Arms of Mine” by Otis Redding
1/29 “Mona Lisa” by Nat King Cole
1/30 “Higher Ground” by Stevie Wonder
1/31 “Blowin' in the Wind “ by Bob Dylan

"Fast Car" discourse

I didn't have a big reaction initially to Luke Combs doing a cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car". 

I mean, I understand he was respectful and asked, and that is important, but I am really not a country fan; it was not likely that I was going to hear it.

Then there was the Grammy win. Apparently it is a Grammy first to have a Black woman with the sole writing credit on a country Grammy, and then she performed. I really like Chapman and had not heard much from her lately, so great.

It also means that people have been expressing opinions a lot. That doesn't have to be terrible, but now we have discourse, and now I have something to write about.

There are tweets about how the emotion of the song is enhanced by the extended wait to get to the chorus. I never thought about that, but it seems valid.

There are tweets about the difference between working class songs and the songs about trying to even get into the working class. I appreciate those now more than I would have a few years ago.

Then there is this one tweet, which is the real reason I am writing:

https://twitter.com/heavyredaction/status/1754671190701154815

"Fast Car” was always a sad song, but in 1988 when it released, you arguably *could* run away with your partner and make a life on the salary of a grocery-store checker. 35 years on it reads as much sadder"

That triggered some reaction, to which the author responded by posting comparisons of minimum wage and rents for then and now, clearly with a sense of superiority to those people getting "mad" about the tweet. It was all very white academic, removed from the subject matter, which of course makes it easier to feel clever.

The most obvious sign of missing the point is that on the salary of a grocery-store checker, they are still living in the shelter. That is not a good sign of being able to make it. It is also clear from the last verse that history is repeating itself. She may run -- and run more than once -- but she will not get anywhere.

It is easy to feel scorn about someone missing the point of a song (especially an academic), but it may be more important why the point is being missed. 

Remember I said a "white" academic? Structural racism has an economic component. 

Yes, if someone can afford to be an associate professor in San Francisco now, they probably come from money anyway, so thinking about escaping poverty is going to be more of an intellectual exercise anyway; what an interesting set of variables!

However, if that grocery store checker was white, and from a family that truly was working class (instead of actually poor), they would probably be earning more, with more housing options, and have a better footing for holding their ground. 

It's actually less hopeful now. Economic inequality has spread more, with more wealth consolidation at the top and a harder time scrambling for crumbs at the bottom. Since about the start of the 21st century, we have children doing worse than their parents, with less chance of keeping afloat.

The reason I feel compelled to write about it is that it happened because of racism. When people were deciding that domestic and agricultural workers did not need Social Security, and that wait staff did not need to make a true minimum wage because of tips... well, even if there were times when it was not specifically racism (though that happened a lot), it was still deciding that other people don't need or deserve this level of stability. 

It will just make them lazy. (Which they already are, or they wouldn't even need those jobs, am I right?)

As it is, the people at the top will never have enough. They don't have a way of comprehending what enough is because they are so far past it that they can only think "More!"

They will keep extracting more, and more people will not have any chance of escaping the trap.

There may be times when they are young and excited by a new relationship and they get this hope. That can feel exhilarating, but it is not nearly as effective as a fair and equitable society can be. 

That will take working together, abandoning all illusions of superiority to others.

If you can do that before the decline reaches you, you can do really good things, and escape a lot of bitterness.

Or, you can say things that you think show you are smart and help no one.

Decisions, decisions.

Native American Heritage Month: Legalities

I like the ways that books work together. 

American Indian Stereotypes in the World of Children: A Reader and Bibliography by Arlene Hirschfelder, Paulette Fairbanks Molin, Yvonne Wakim 

It was a collection of pieces, some of which dragged but were necessary, and some that were fascinating. I wish "The Thanksgiving Epidemic" by Kathy Kerner was more widely circulated.

There was a section on how the mental image we have of all Indians came from Plains culture, until eventually other tribes had to start using the feathered headdresses. Sure enough, another book gave me a photo of Puget Sound tribes wearing the headdresses for tourists, because otherwise they were not perceived as Indians. 

Indians in the Making: Ethnic Relations and Indian Identity Around Puget Sound by Alexandra Harmon

American Indian Stereotypes is an older book, so the focus is on children wearing the headdresses on toys, without really getting into Coachella. Before the disrespect of relegating tribal members to the best, where they can become costumes, there was requiring a costume of contemporary Indians to accept them as such, with a host of additional complications on the ways in which that acceptance helped and harmed them.

Indians in the Making was interesting being relatively local. Many of the tribe and place names were familiar, and it largely focused on fishing rights, which was the most common type of case that I remember from youth. 

It also referenced McLoughlin and Ermatinger, familiar from our Oregon City explorations, but of course the Hudson Bay Company was not just on the Pacific Coast; at least one Ermatinger also came up in a recent Pulitzer Prize winner: 

Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen

That "political economy of plunder" in the title is an apt phrase, repeated often in the book and more appropriate every time. I think I may return to it after some colonialism based reading. For now, I need to bring up one other book:

We Refuse to Forget: A True Story of Black Creeks, American Identity, and Power by Caleb Gayle

A common thread with these books is how much of importance ends up documented due to court cases.

Harmon wrote her book after working on a case about fishing rights where the argument against upholding the treaties was that the people with the claim to the fishing rights were not actually descended from the tribe who had made the original treaty. 

There was arguably some difficulty in determining that. There were many tribes around the Puget Sound (this tended to focus on the Suquamish people), and they often intermarried, not just as a coincidence but for establishing trade relationships and alliances. They would move around, and sometimes move back. So, when there were attempts to determine land allotments or annuities, sometimes they would go by where someone was staying, or whom they were related to, but it could be paternal or maternal, and it wasn't always consistent.

The legal question then becomes not just what is documented, but what is defined. 

Harmon wrote her book because as interesting as the story of the case was, there was also more to it in terms of how social ties and customs were maintained, and how that contributed to identity.

Gayle's book runs into similar issues, with Black people who were historically members of the Creek tribe (especially focusing on descendants of Creek chief Cow Tom), all of whom were expelled in 1979. 

One important part of that was that as rolls were being worked out, at one point various members were referred to as "freedmen", a term for former slaves. There were former slaves among them, but there were also people who had married in, people who were adopted, and people who had never been slaves. It was supposed to be related to how they entered the tribe, but it made the assumption based on skin tone, with at least one pair of sisters falling on either side.

Yes, the obvious point is racism, but part of the legal question is whether the tribe is viewed as a racial group or as a sovereign nation. If they are a sovereign nation, citizenship can have factors beyond blood. Maybe it would go by geographic residence, but forced relocation disrupts that.

Seeing Red has more stolen land and broken treaties, but part of that is who gets to be Indian and who gets to be white. Often that is mostly decided by political and economic expedience. We can't punish this murderer (who is an important trade partner) because the (Eastern-educated, half-white) victim is not a member of civilization and under our authority. His Indian half gets us off the hook.

There is going to be more on that next week, and then I think I might be done with this identity topic. It does seem worth pointing out that the definitions made by the white man are generally a way of getting more of one's land, and with less reimbursement.

There was not always a great possibility of resisting historically, but it certainly bears thinking about now.

Snow! (Hey Oh)

It's been nearly a year since I wrote on the preparedness blog advising people to expect more extreme weather.

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2023/02/things-to-watch-out-for-weather.html 

I don't know that the freeze this year in itself was worse than the freeze last year (and there could be another one, I know), but it seems like the disruption was worse.

We were still very fortunate; we never lost power and our pipes didn't freeze. Nothing fell on us. We had the supplies we needed.

The two of us who telecommute did not miss any income. The teacher did. (Some of the time off was covered, but not all.)

We did go six days without mail, though we would not have gotten it on the Sunday and the Monday anyway.

We missed a week of garbage pickup. They said they wouldn't charge us extra for the can being more full that next week. It is extra full two weeks in a row because we waited to empty some things to keep the bin from spilling over. It was a full missed week!

There were also things we wanted to do that didn't happen. I was going to teach a class, and we missed another week of visiting Mom.

Those things are pretty minor compared to the people who had trees fall on their houses and cars, who lost power, who had pipes burst, and who had to go to hotels to keep from freezing in their beds.

Those are people with shelter. For the unhoused, add to that the closure of many warming centers and it can be deadly.

Then, when we finally got back to the library, I saw the carts and crates full of books that needed to be shelved and sorted... I guess I knew there would be backlog, but the visual really hit home.

There are things that are easy to avoid thinking about until you can't.

For example, we heard that trees went down and power was out. Through our connections we even know some people who did have to go to hotels. However, once we finally ventured from the house and started seeing all of the uprooted trees, that's when it really hits home that it is not just a tree here and there, it is lots and lots of trees.

This is going to happen more often and worse. It makes sense to prepare.

For some people, it really might mean getting a generator. 

In case it was not clear when I said we did not get mail, I did not want our mail carrier to be at risk. I know the saying (it is not really an official motto: https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/pdf/mission-motto.pdf) about nothing staying them from their appointed rounds, but I had just read about a Texas mailman who died in 110 heat. I don't have anything coming that is worth risking anyone's life. 

But some people get their prescriptions in the mail. That could be pretty vital.

People who need warming centers are not able to wait for the city to get its act together.

We need to value people and their well-being; comfort if possible but definitely survival.

We did not order in, because I know there are people who would have risked their lives to bring me food for a few bucks, and I don't want that responsibility.

But again, we had power and we had food. 

You can't prepare for everything, but it's worth taking some time to see what you can do.

And don't take it as all gloom. In that post from last year, I wrote about how 2021's crops were taken out by the heat dome, and 2022 by an overabundance of rain at precisely the wrong time. 

I am still making big gardening plans for 2024.

So be practical, but also with hope.

Listen to what I say, oh.

Native American Heritage Month: Indigenous Identity, Part 1

In addition to reading about Robbie Robertson and Pat and Lolly Vegas of Redbone, there was one other celebrity I read about in November:

Priceless Memories by Bob Barker with Digby Diehl

I'm sure I would have read it anyway; he had died and we watched The Price is Right: A Tribute to Bob Barker. That's when we requested it from the library. Many other people did as well, so I read it in November.

I was happy with the timing because I had seen that he spent a lot of his growing up years on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, but it did not always seem clear that he was a member of the tribe there.

After reading the book, it made more sense.

Bob's father was one-quarter Sioux, but he died when Bob was very young. Neither Bob's mother nor his stepfather were Native, but because his mother taught on the reservation, they did often live there. 

As it was, Bob acknowledges being 1/8th Sioux. He is proud of it, and he did appear on the tribal rolls, yet it doesn't feel (to me) like it felt to him like something he was.

I don't think it is because of being only 1/8th. Most of the relatives mentioned in his growing up are on his mother's side. I think if he and his father had more time together, and maybe even if there had been more paternal relatives around it would be different, but that's how it turned out.

Robbie Robertson is Cayuga and Mohawk through his mother. He also had his father die young, and only connected to his Jewish family later (and he did not know for a long time that his stepfather was not his father). However, even though they were living off the reservation they visited it often. His mother's family was an important part of his musical development. 

Also, note that with those two examples we have Tillie Barker, a non-Native, living on a reservation, and Rosemarie Chrysler, a Native, living in the city.

That is not a criticism of anyone, but more a reflection on how identity is formed.

I am half Italian, through my mother. On my father's side I know that there is English, Welsh, Scottish, Huguenot, and Dutch. Except for the Huguenots, all of the lines came over in colonial times so, yes, very much the blood of colonizers, a long way back.

I have always identified more with the Italian. It is more recent and I am closer to my mother than my father (though I definitely get things from him). 

It is also true that I also feel the part of me that is Italian differently after making it to Italy and meeting my family there. I knew names before, but after I knew them.

I remember even before reading Kim TallBear's Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, that it was not about whom you claimed, but who claims you. Those connections are the key. 

That idea was completely logical, but the book was not nearly as clear. That may be the result of how complicated the issue is, or possibly of TallBear wishing to withhold acceptance of various people (at least based on later behavior).

However, books I discovered almost accidentally have recently given me much more to think about.

Meaning that I will spend more time on this.

Related posts: 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/native-american-heritage-month.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2024/01/daily-songs-for-native-american.html

Deferred disability

I said last week that I wanted to spend a bit more time on disability. There are a few reasons for this.

Part of it is my own experience with diabetes. 

Three years ago I learned that diabetes was legally a disability, and wrote about feeling some ambivalence about that:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2020/09/identity-crisis.html 

It feels more real now. This is partly due to a medication change that isn't working out. We should be able to go back, but it has demonstrated that I don't snap back the way I used to. That's not uncommon with age, but it's not fun. 

I am starting to wonder if it is even possible for me to maintain healthy blood sugars while working this particular job. If not, I need to figure out what that means, beyond it just seeming very unfair.

Various organs -- including the pancreas -- not working as well as you age is pretty common.

It happens with joints too, where stairways and sunken living rooms can become much more dangerous.

Plus potential memory issues.

Speaking of my job, I talk to a lot of people of Medicare age (which is not as far away for me as it used to be), and there are some things you hear multiple times. A lot of people have retired to the coast, which is a common dream. The downside is that there just aren't a lot of doctors out there. 

For some people this has resulted in losing their Medicare Advantage plans without a sufficient network. They can still be on Medicare, maybe with a supplement, but they are often driving pretty far for their appointments. That may not be ideal for elderly drivers anyway, but if you had emergency situations or inclement weather, that can be much worse.

(Expect more inclement weather each year.)

Personally, I have never wanted to move to the coast, but you may find long wait times to get into doctors here as well. Lately, I have also had a lot of people getting the runaround at their pharmacy, because there are things that people can't find or don't know how to do. They are covered for the prescription and it is in stock (not always the case), so there shouldn't be an issue, but high turnover and inadequate staffing creates issues.

Of course, where I started thinking of it last week related to concerns about how we treat Covid, and the increase in cases of Long Covid we are going to see. The risk of infection is higher for many who are already disabled, but additional transmission is also going to increase the pool of disabled people.

The frustration in last week's post comes from so few people even paying attention to or caring about the needs of the disabled. 

That they have needs should be reason enough to care. 

That the improvements that we make -- like curb cuts or better signage -- ends up making life better for everyone else should be reason enough to care.

But also, know that the longer you live, the more likely you are to join their ranks and have similar needs. The longer we go without heeding them, the less likely it is that your needs will be acknowledged in turn.

Money can shield you from a lot, but it has its limits.

Daily songs for Native American Heritage Month

Two things (other than previous listening) affected my song choices for this last Native American Heritage month: musically focused reading and anger.

One of those was the Robbie Robertson reading. You can see that The Band gets two songs, "The Weight" and "I Shall Be Released", because those two were the songs I liked. 

The anger was at people tearing down celebrities claiming Indian lineage. 

It made me want to bring in every artist ever attacked, but it would be easy to do that from spite, which is not the best motivation. 

(You may also notice that Buffy Sainte-Marie has two songs, though partly that was that I started with her and then decided "Universal Soldier" would be a good fit for Veterans' Day.)

It also made me just want to go off on Indian identity. I am probably not the best person for that, white as I am. 

But, Testimony was not my only rock reading.

I also found a graphic novel about the band Redbone, of "Come and Get Your Love."

Redbone: The True Story of a Native American Rock Band by Christian Staebler and Sonia Paoloni, illustrated by Thibault Balahy

One of the scenes has Jimi Hendrix coming to the band and telling them that only white people would believe they were Mexican. He can tell that they are Indian (there are some Mexican roots as well), and he has his own Cherokee grandmother.

I haven't seen anyone attacking Jimi's roots yet, but maybe I haven't looked hard enough. 

Anyway, I am going to explore identity more in another post, in a cool and collected manner, but I did include some people that I had thought of including, and I will spend more time on them.

The biggest weakness that occurs to me now is that I really have not listened to enough Link Wray. I have used songs from him at other times, but I have not been doing anything more than casual listening. When I take an artist and listen to their entire catalog three times? I should do that for him.

(I could listen to Robbie Robertson more, but I could not go over The Band's catalog three times, and certainly not for when they were backing Dylan.)

Here are the songs:

11/1 “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Buffy Sainte-Marie
11/2 “The Weight” by The Band
11/3 “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” by Redbone
11/4 “Falling Rain” by Link Wray
11/5 “My Blood Runs Through This Land” by Black Belt Eagle Scout
11/6 “Star Dust” by Frank Waln
11/7 ”Soldier of Love” by Tracy Bone
11/8 “The Garden of Love” by Martha Redbone
11/9 “Hear My Train A Comin'” by Jimi Hendrix
11/10 “Light of Mine” by Mic Jordan feat. Jessica Vines
11/11 “Universal Soldier” by Buffy Sainte-Marie
11/12 “Honor Song” by Jeremy Dutcher
11/13 “Lemonadas Verde Cumbia” by Southern Scratch
11/14 “Tree of Woe” by Halluci Nation feat. Damian Abraham
11/15 “Book of Life” by Keith Secola
11/16 “Colonizer” by Tanya Tagaq
11/17 “I Got Paid Today” by Snotty Nose Rez Kids
11/18 “Keep On Living” by Arigon Starr
11/19 “Water Prayer Song” by Andrea Menard
11/20 “Meet Me At The Pow Wow” by Lightning Cloud
11/21 “Let 'em Know” by City Natives
11/22 “Drowning” by Natanii Means
11/23 “Land Back” by Halluci Nation ft. Boogey The Beat & Northern Voice
11/24 “Call Them Sticks Home” by Naca Charging Crow
11/25 “Not Your Mascot, I've Been Watching” by Michael Bucher
11/26 “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher & Higher” by Rita Coolidge
11/27 “Believe” by Cher
11/28 “Something Beautiful” by Tina Turner
11/29 “Be My Baby” by The Ronnettes
11/30 “I Shall Be Released” by The Band

Sick Day

I called in sick Friday. It wasn't a lie, but it was also something I rarely do.

I didn't call in sick a single day when I had Covid.

Of course, for most of that time I did not think I had it, but I did not feel great.

This time a cold came around. I was still very functional, occasionally having to use the mute button to hide coughs, and going through a lot of cough drops.

Then Friday, I just couldn't. 

I know part of it was not believing my voice would last throughout the day. I still thought I could get a couple of hours in, but there was just this "No!" rearing up inside of me.

I was almost dressed for work, but I called the attendance line, got back into my nightgown and back into my bed, and stayed there for three hours. 

Having done so, I felt significantly better.

I have been going so hard (and hating it) for so long, I might just have given out anyway. However, I might have been influenced by Twitter.

Recently, Bernie Sanders tweeted about having Covid and isolating but still working through it. 

One person who is not particularly prominent tweeted a fairly scathing rebuke: this attitude about something that is "debilitating and deadly" is harmful. 

It probably would not have made much of a stir, except that podcaster Jon Favreau -- not to be confused with actor and filmmaker Jon Favreau (and even if we need multiple Jon Favreau's, do we really need more podcasters?) -- quote tweeted it deprecatingly, touching a nerve in the disabled community that he did not know existed.

He got several replies, many of them very helpful, about why the attitude is harmful, the problems with not resting and not taking disease seriously, and the specific affect on disabled people.

Favreau mainly responded by blocking them.

https://disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2024/01/02/disabled-outrage-and-podsavejon/

Please note that the sort of quote tweeting Favreau, with his 1.3 million followers, did to someone with fewer than ten thousand followers is a great way to draw abuse upon them. He certainly did not increase understanding. 

Well, the responses he drew may have ended up increasing understanding for some people, but he did a lot of doubling down before he started blocking. 

I think I am going to write more about disability next week. 

For now, it is possible that I would not have been able to log in Friday anyway. My voice was rough, there had been lots of weekend shifts in addition to the regular work week, and it has been very frustrating. 

I keep meaning to take better care of myself, and calling in that day may have been affirmative self-care.

It is also possible that seeing it mattering to other people made it possible to take that affirmative self-care for me. 

I am not always great at prioritizing my needs, and capitalism gives you a lot of reason not to.

So thank you Thomas, Alice, Aparna, Angela, and the others. 

Jon and Bernie, do better.

Native American Heritage Month: Spotlight on Robbie Robertson

The list originally appeared in December 2020, but I saw it later than that:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/books-greatest-rock-memoirs-of-all-time-161198/ 

Some of them I have read and agree with, I disagree with others, but there were six that I added to my list from that. Three down; three to go. (I believe there will be a post on that when I get there.)

With Robbie Robertson, I was searching for Testimony at the library and several materials came up:

Music From Big Pink, an album by The Band
Rock & Roll Highway: The Robbie Robertson Story, a children's book by Robbie's son, Sebastian Robertson, and illustrated by Adam Gustavson
Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band, a documentary
Legends, Icons, & Rebels: Music That Changed the World, a book by both Robbie and Sebastian, as well as Jim Guerinot and Jared Levine
The Last Waltz, a documentary of The Band's final concert

Also, of course, Testimony by Robbie Robertson.

Well, you know how I like diving in. 

One of the most interesting things for me was that I often don't find Robertson looking like himself, except when he's playing guitar. Somehow that just shows his essence.

The worst part of it for me was some difference in musical tastes. Largely that was because there was so much Dylan.

I do not care for him.

The Legends book goes over 27 influential musicians. I can't argue with any of them or their impacts, but not only did I have to listen to Bob Dylan more, there was a duet with him in the section on  Johnny Cash. Aggravating! 

(January songs are coming from that book.)

Even The Band is not exactly my taste, though there are songs that I like.

That being said, I found the documentaries and the memoir really interesting. There is so much rock history and fellowship there, as well as band dynamics and interpersonal relationships, which interest me a lot. 

I did get tired of the drugs though. If you're reading about music in the 60s and 70s, it feels like it never stops.

Regardless of my lack of enthusiasm for Bob Dylan (and The Beatles), I don't regret any of the reading, viewing and listening choices relating to Robbie Robertson. There are other thoughts though, and they relate to identity. 

I said last week that I would post about the November songs in this post, but it made sense to write about Robbie Robertson first. Then, looking at identity along with another band and a television personality, the songs I chose will make more sense.

Professional?

A while back -- not long after people started talking about "quiet quitting" -- I saw a thread about how loaded the term "professional" is, and how it gets used.

I thought about that quite a bit; I am often told how professional I sound, and I try really hard to do a good job. Reading about the kind of behavior that is considered "professional" and the way some employers will try and leverage it to get people to take on more work without paying more, though ... well, I could see the point.

I am thinking about it again because work is so terrible right now. We are overloaded and there is no time between calls. I briefly had to have four windows open because there were calls I could not finish logging before the next one came in. I had to do two e-mail escalations, and it took me at least six hours due to all of the interruptions. Honestly, it was amazing that I could finish them without forgetting what I needed to send.

Staffing issues are a real thing, and my employers could be much worse. There are also some things that I believe they could handle better and I will be giving feedback on that.

However, as much as I want to scream and cry and run away, and as much as I am dreading getting up in the morning and logging in, I still sound smooth and kind and "professional".

I actually had to think about back then, because I would hear myself sounding so polished and calm and caring... I kind of felt hypocritical, you know? Am I a big faker?

As it is, my job performance has a lot to do with my values, but it also has a fair amount to do with my damage. 

The rest of it is just capitalism.

I recently figured out that when the phone rings, it triggers my fight or flight response; that is why my rage builds throughout the day. 

Despite that, when I answer that ring, there is a human being there. 

I talk to a lot of seniors. Often there are things that are confusing for them and seem unmanageable.I am usually able to help with that.

Sometimes they are quite rude or annoying, but even then, there is generally a vulnerability there. Often when someone is droning on, I can tell that they are lonely, and I can sympathize with that. If there is hostility, it may be a sign of fear, or frustration. People may realize they were wrong and not want to let on. I can be sympathetic to that.

My smooth voice and calm manner helps reassure them.

Every now and then, someone is just a jerk, and there is a certain type of old bag that I hope I never am, but I am also a very practical person; responding to that in kind is not going to make anything better.

That is where it is part of my values, and who I want to be. It pertains to how I treat my coworkers too, because they are all people, and people are important to me.

For my damage, well, I still have this neurotic perfectionism that tortures me sometimes. I am still cringing about a book I misplaced. I found it in time, and all as well, but I won't get over it easily. 

That's a process.

So, that's where I am now. It's not great for my physical or mental health, and I desperately want to be delivered, though there only seems to be one possible solution and it's a long shot. 

It is important to me that I am behaving in a manner true to myself, such as it is.

But, allow me to add the reminder that much of the reason that there are so many people calling and not enough staff to answer the calls is that we have an unnecessarily bureaucratic health care system that places an unfair burden on those needing care, with diminishing resources due not only to obstacles to education but increasingly due to choosing profit over public health, especially in regards to Covid.

Capitalism! (Socialism isn't the answer either, because there is still dominator culture.)

Daily songs for December, mostly

This is out of sequence, as I have not written about November songs yet. That will be next week.

I had frustration for both months with not having a solid plan. It ended up being more personal for December; I could not bring myself to do Christmas music. I felt such an utter aversion to celebration I couldn't do it.

Well, I had been saving the "12 Days of Dim Sum" since May, so that was an easy starting place, but then I just didn't know. Christmas songs feel celebratory, and I don't.

My May music selections helped me again.

Youtube is always trying to get me to stay longer, but has to keep suggesting a wider range of songs, because I don't have easily discernible patterns in my listening. They offered me "Winter" by James Iha.

It occurred to me that songs about winter and cold weather might work, being seasonal but not Christmas-y, and often being real bummers. Maye with enough cold songs I might want to do some Christmas songs again.

I wasn't cheering up.

We didn't have a bad Christmas or anything, and some things were very meaningful, but my mother doesn't recognize me, and is in hospice, and work sucks. I feel that.

I thought I was going to run out of songs but fortunately I thought of searching on "December"; there's a ton of songs with that in the title.

A few things worked out unexpectedly.

First of all, I did find songs that I had not known that I really like. That was a plus.

Two of those songs came from Christmas albums that I did not know existed: Happy Holiday by Billy Idol and December by The Moody Blues.

Also, three of the videos did kind of have the vibe of weird Christmas specials (Fleet Foxes, Kate Bush, and George Michael).

George Michael's "December Song" -- subtitled "I Dreamed of Christmas" -- became the Christmas Eve song, followed by Christmas songs from Billy Idol and Ministry. 

(Ministry singer Al Jourgensen has his own version of "It's Always Christmas". I used the band version, but he came up with Cuban American singers in October.)

As the end of the year approached, I kept thinking about 41 by Reggie and the Full Effect. 

I reviewed 41 when it came out. Even though the album meant a lot to me, my writing is lackluster. The music affected me in a way that I could not write about then.

The album is based on a period of about a year where James Dewees lost his mother, his mother-in-law, and his marriage (while still being there for his soon-to-be-ex-wife and his mother-in-law.) 

The doctors' visits and hospital time (I think it was cancer in both cases) is best heard in "New Year's Day" (but also on "Maggie"). When I first heard it, I felt like I was hearing my future, though some of the other songs were my present. 

I think his year was worse, but for me it came at a time that was hard and getting harder. While it did get easier, it didn't end. I believe we are getting closer to that ending, so that song and some of the others were in my mind on repeat.

I remember an interview where he said part of it was that his mother had taught him music, which had been such a big part of his life that there was a question of "How" with the loss. How is this happening? How do I make it?

Again, not the same experience, but maybe some parallel feelings. 

Anyway, I had to use those three songs, except that it was also a year where I learned a lot, and was able to move past things. "Throw It Away" kept playing too. 

In November we watched the Arlo Guthrie episode of The Muppet Show (it was sort of Thanksgiving-ish), and one of his songs stuck with me, where solitude and journeying do not mean being alone or lost.

That's when the last few songs started to take place.

It didn't flow. There were two spaces that nothing seemed right for. With both "Each Tear" and "Move Along", I didn't figure them out until the night before, and I had to get to them through other songs. 

To work out right, it also needed to spill into January, so, this is messy, but that was true with the songs back in September and October too.

Ultimately what I have is a playlist that comes from exploring the new, sometimes finding great things, and sometimes just finding okay things, but then also needing to come back to the music that I love, often that I loved from the moment I heard it, and that helps me with the feelings that could be overwhelming.

Sometimes I like to do this sequence where there is a progression, but the sadder and more positive songs alternate in this.

My bad time is not over, but I am still here.

Daily songs

12/1 “12 Days of Dim Sum” by Only Won & Larissa Lam
12/2 “Winter” by James Iha
12/3 “Hazy Shade of Winter” by The Bangles
12/4 “Winter Marches On” by Duran Duran
12/5 “Love Like Winter” by AFI
12/6 “Wintertime Love” by The Doors
12/7 “Winter Sound” by Of Monsters And Men
12/8 “Valley Winter Song” by Fountains of Wayne
12/9 “Wintertime” by Norah Jones
12/10 “A Winter's Tale” by The Moody Blues
12/11 “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes
12/12 “Misty” by Kate Bush
12/13 “Cold Weather Blues” by Muddy Waters
12/14 “Cold Chill” by Stevie Wonder
12/15 “I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came” by Elvis Costello
12/16 “Snow (Hey Oh) by Red Hot Chili Peppers
12/17 “Angel in the Snow” by A-ha
12/18 “December (Again)” by Neck Deep ft. Mark Hoppus
12/19 “December” by Weezer
12/20 “A Long December” by Counting Crows
12/21 “December” by Collective Soul
12/22 “My December” by Linkin Park
12/23 “Decembers” by Hawthorn Heights
12/24 “December Song” by George Michael
12/25 “On Christmas Day” by Billy Idol
12/26 "It's Always Christmas Time” by Ministry
12/27 “The Horrible Year” by Reggie and the Full Effect
12/28 “Broke Down” by Reggie and the Full Effect
12/29 “Sailing Down My Golden River” by Arlo Guthrie
12/30 “Hourglass” by Mary J. Blige
12/31 “Each Tear” by Mary J. Blige ft Jay Sean
1/1 “New Year's Day” by Reggie and the Full Effect
1/2 “Throw It Away” by Abbey Lincoln
1/3 “Move Along” by The All-American Rejects
1/4 “Still Alive” by Social Distortion

Throw it away

One thing about my desire to keep books went beyond that I might not remember something. I also would often read a book and think that I would need to read it again after reading other things. I was not sure that I had understood enough, because sometimes they would reference background knowledge that I did not have.

There are still a few books where that probably applies, but what I have found is that the new knowledge fills in and makes me understand those books better without re-reading them. 

My brain worked better than I knew it would; that was reassuring.

It probably works better that I read groups of books together now.

This is something that I really care about, and it relieves some pressure. That should all be really great. It does leave one problem.

I am painfully aware that memories can go.

It could happen to me.

My grandmother had it. An aunt had it. My mother has it.

I could catch up on my reading (not very likely) and have it start fading away (more likely than I would hope).

I can bear it.

It probably helps some seeing that my mother has been doing okay with this. There were less peaceful periods and not everyone has the same experience.

On one of my recent visits, a different woman was crying, she said because she was stupid. 

I hurt for her.

But somehow I find that my mother is still sweet and engaging. Sometimes as she goes through these things that never happened, it feels like she is working out things that she wished happened. 

I don't know. I don't want to make it sound too good, because it has been very hard, and some of those better outcomes required a lot of sacrifice. 

It does seem to have been easier on her than on her children. Still, I would rather not.

But I can bear whatever happens, including whatever loss happens. 

I can bear it because I have borne other losses and survived. 

I can bear it because of my faith that those memories and relationships will come back.

I can bear it because -- despite whatever hardships there have been -- I like myself and am essentially happy with myself.

I can bear it because all of the struggles have shown me things that I needed to know, and led me to this place.

I won't say that I am exactly where I need to be; that implies a level of precision that I can't confirm. It's been messy.

But essentially, ultimately, I am where I need to be and I have peace with that.

While I am trying harder to remember to connect with and cherish people, I can let go of things and worries and fears.

Throw it away
Throw it away
Give your love, live your life
Each and every day

And keep your hand wide open
Let the sun shine through
'Cause you can never lose a thing
If it belongs to you.

-- Abbey Lincoln

 

La Raza Heritage Month: Stereotyping

Lone Star was a good movie, but there was a really awkward sex scene. 

I think there was a good reason it was so awkward, but that's a major spoiler so I will put it down at the bottom of the post. The possibility of it making sense came much later though, so while I was watching it, it was just "That's not sexy."

I would have remembered that anyway, but what drove it home was reading a reference to a review of the movie referring to the "sultry" Elisabeth Peña, noting that there is nothing sultry about Peña's performance.

(I believe this refers to a review from Janet Maslin referenced in De Colores Means All of Us.)

If I had not recently viewed the movie, I would have read the reference and agreed that sounded kind of racist. Having just seen the movie, what were they thinking?

It's a great performance. Pilar is a relatively young widow with two children (with one whose grief is turning into rebellion), a difficult mother, and heavy job responsibilities in the school system where white parents push back on the representation that makes sense for the many students of color. It is her time in a meeting that may give the best idea of life on the border.

She navigates all of this responsibility with dignity, a wry humor, and the needed diplomacy, and you never lose sight of how tiring it must be, even as you admire that she keeps going.

Add to that the awkward sex scene, and the only way we are getting "sultry" out of that is if you assume it should be there because she is Latina.

Let me add to this a quote I saved out of Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies:

… from traditional Mexican views such as those espoused by Octavio Paz, who claims in The Labyrinth of Solitude that pachucos were inauthentic Mexicans. (p. 59)

Also add to that reading about disagreements about who could be Chicano or be allowed in MeCha and conflicts between pro-union and pro-environment activists... we shouldn't be fighting and gatekeeping each other.

I'm sure there are places where it makes sense to draw boundaries. If those boundaries are based on how someone in a certain class should be, or a way of looking down at others, then that seems bound to cause harm.

To avoid straying too far out of my lane, let me give personal examples. I am white, but I am also a woman, fat, and kind of poor (though there are different levels and in some ways I am very fortunate).

Of course it would be very easy for me to feel a sense of superiority to women of color and try and exert authority over them, perhaps by playing a victim whom men of color feel bound to defend; white women are notorious for that.

What I am referring to, though, is something perhaps less obvious, 

It could be very easy for me to look down on other women, judging their choices and assuming mine are better. This frequently comes up as "not like other girls" or disputes between "crunchy" versus "silky" moms, or "boy moms" against any other woman who might take her son or give birth to a daughter who takes her son.

(Sounds like she would be happier if her son were gay, but somehow, no.)

It could be very easy for me to believe that my economic status is simply bad luck, but that other people messed up, and I am not really one of those people. I do see how the system has worked against me, but it is abundantly clear that I am not unique in that way.

I could easily do the same thing with my weight, virtuously working to limit caloric intake and maximize activity, and judging anyone I happen to catch eating or resting. 

This type of attitude requires that the judgment on my marginalized group is just, but that I am the exception. I might even find people in the dominant group who would agree that I am not like the others, and possibly handsomely compensate me for assisting with their oppression.

Whatever satisfaction might come with that, I would be degrading myself. I would have this growing frustration as my exceptionalness did not pay off enough. I would be making the world a worse place.

I promise there would not be reliable loyalty from those I assisted.

We should be who we are in our own way. Ideally that will involve kindness, integrity, and self-examination. We might find excellent ways of inhabiting those identities, but they will still not justify trying to coerce others to follow our model.

There are enough people doing that.

And now... SPOILER ALERT!

*************************************************

It makes more sense that the love scene was so awkward when we find out that the reason their parents separated teenage Pilar and Sam was not mere racism or classism or being overly controlling, but because those parents knew that Pilar and Sam were half siblings, thus explaining that deep sense of connection they felt.

Disturbingly, once they both know they decide to keep dating, but not have children together.

It did strike me as weird, but I believe it was supposed to act as an allegory for this Texas-Mexico border relationship with a common parentage, that it is weird but it exists and is not going away, so a way needs to be found to deal with it.

All along the way

It may have felt like a weird direction to go when -- in talking about feelings of peace and security -- I suddenly turned to apocalypse and house fire.

My background with years of concentration on emergency preparedness makes me likely to think about worst case scenarios anyway, but also, I have had some pretty big losses of data.

While I have a few times lost physical notes, most of my data losses have been electronic files. That has included photos, journals, screenplays, novels, and pretty much every other writing project I've ever done, as well as some notes that I had saved for future projects.

Sadly, I am still not that great about backing up data.

For some things it just ended up being okay that they were gone. I don't generally go back to old journals. The experience of going through and writing them is very important, but then I have had the experience.

That is kind of true of the photos also, except that maintaining the travel blog has also become an important part of the process. Blogging about travel makes me to go through and look over the photos critically for which ones I like best and which ones are most representative of the place. Then the blog becomes an additional record I can share. Again, a terrible apocalypse or massive server destruction might wipe them out, but I will still have had the experience of the travel and processing of the travel into a shareable form.

The internet has served as a backup for many of the other projects . The 6 page screenplays and the comic script can be found on various sites. Some short fiction has been preserved on the blog. My self-published novels can still be found on Amazon, and I could still log in and print copies if I wanted to.

The two sequels (one in each series) that I started are gone, along with all of the screenplays except one that I happened to have attached to an e-mail. 

That was a worse loss. It felt like there was no point in writing again. 

Not long after that computer crash, someone asked me if I had been writing. I said I hadn't, meaning working on anything for sale, even though there still had been some blogging and journal writing.

It was harder to admit,  because it was someone who was always telling me I was such a great writer. I had to grapple with what part of my identity that was going to be. Here's where I landed:

I don't regret anything that I have written. Those experiences, and the knowledge and feelings they unlocked were important for me. I have experienced flow writing them. I can still slip into those worlds sometimes.

It is not how I am going to make a living. In fact, when I was trying to write for profit I wrote worse, because it hurried me and added anxiety.

Maybe part of my absolute hatred of asking for money is that if I am producing something that transmits knowledge well or helps shed clarity, I don't want to charge for that. 

Maybe that is why the computer had to crash; because the fact that I was getting nowhere financially wasn't obvious enough to permanently dash my hopes. Maybe it was a hard lesson that was needed.

I don't regret that I have written.

Some of them have moments where they touched people who needed them. Since a lot of them still reside out there on the web, maybe they will do some good again.

Right now, blogging is important for me. 

I believe I will eventually write books again.

It seems more likely that they will be non-fiction, and quite clear that they will not be a source of income.

That is fine, as long as I have some kind of income. 

Beyond that, there is a lot I don't know. I know some things to work on right now, and then I believe the rest will follow.

There is one more way in which I am thinking about worst-case scenarios. One more post, and then I believe I will change the subject.

La Raza Heritage Month: The Books

I included the original publication dates for each book read, because without planning a lot of it ended up being from the '90s.

I guess I started to notice when an essay on gendered work referenced the artwork of Carmen Lomas Garza. I recognized her style from remember Tamalada. 

While it would have made sense if I had seen it in a Spanish class, I think I saw it in a cooking article.

It is a painting of a large extended family all working together to make tamales. It made a big impression on me. I know someone whose extended Italian family makes multiple batches of ravioli and freezes them once a year. I have participated in a mass egg roll making session with a Laotian family. Maybe every culture has that one work party food?

As it is, looking through the books I see there was also a mass empanada making session, though that happened at her aunt and uncle's house. Maybe it depends on how many foods your family likes that are labor-intensive.

There was no intention to focus on this time period, and yet it made sense that it happened. This was a time when multicultural studies were growing and getting more attention, but I did not know how new it was. 

Earlier when I read about Cesar Chavez, I had not realized he died in 1993. He seemed much more in the past. The big thing I heard about -- the grape boycott -- was from before I was born, but he was still active and union rights were still important well into my lifetime.

On a completely unrelated note, I recently watched an episode of Qunicy M.E. where a doctor allows babies with Down Syndrome to die. This particular child had digestive issues, where surgery would have been necessary for feeding to even be possible, but the surgery wasn't done and IV feeding wasn't done and the child died.

That episode was from 1982.

I don't remember living in a world where that was possible. I went to school with people who had siblings with Down Syndrome who were totally part of the family, my sisters helped with a Special Olympics event, we saw other families on television, I saw "Welcome to Holland" in Dear Abby so many times...

It is the first time that I have wondered if maybe there should have been more people with Down Syndrome around. Did some maybe die or were they locked away? Because that's one way the doctor who allowed the death justified it; if they don't die, they just grow into terrible burdens we lock away!

The episode is seriously disturbing. It also has some outdated language that can make you cringe, but that is almost minor because there is a dead child.

Television is not perfect, but it can help us look back.

Certainly it is a reminder of privilege that just because you have not had a problem cannot take for granted that no one else has. 

Perhaps more importantly, changes don't inevitably happen. It takes people marching, organizing, writing letters, sharing their stories, and a multitude of other activities, repeated, often under great frustration.

Don't take them for granted.

Back to the reading list, I really liked Martin Espada and will definitely read more by him. 

It made me happy to find the rest of Lomas Garza's work.

Otherwise, the most recommended are probably De Colores and Fifth Sun. 

The other non-fiction books were a bit too pedantic, though they made valid points about groups with goals in common sometimes fighting against each other and needing to grow beyond that.

Picture Books:

Broken Butterfly Wings by Raquel M. Ortiz, illustrated by Carrie Salazar, 2021
Family Pictures/Cuadros De Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, 1990
In My Family/En Mi Familia by Carmen Lomas Garza, 1996 

Poetry:

Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Hispanic in the United States, edited by Lori M. Carlson, 1994
Zapata's Disciple by Martin Espada, 1998
Floaters by Martin Espada, 2021

Prose/Non-fiction

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century by Elizabeth Martinez, 1998
Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs by Camilla Townsend, 2019
The White Scourge: Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture by Neil Foley, 1997
Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies by José David Saldivar, 1997