I took some time off this month, from blogging and
other things. I celebrated another birthday and witnessed my son and grandson
celebrating another year of living. I cleaned
out the spare room in my home, reliving and organizing old family photos,
documents and other memorabilia. And throughout the summer I have been
reflecting upon all that has happened in my lifetime; and especially how the
America I grew up in has changed in the last 50 years or so.
As I watched the commemorations of the March on
Washington in 1963, I remember watching it on TV with my family when I was 7
years old. I really missed my mom these past few weeks because we would have
been camped out in the front of the TV together, as we have done as a family so
many times before. Through celebrations, assassinations, funerals, national
conventions and demonstrations, we always shared those moments together: my mom
and my two older brothers and me. This year I watched them alone and thought
about how much equal rights for all, including the LGBT community, had meant to
my mom throughout her life; having grown up in a segregated Ajo, AZ.
I was glad to see so much attention revisited upon
how really bad it was before the mid-1960s for all people of color, but especially
African-Americans. And even though you can no longer legally discriminate
against them, the racial and social accomplishments of the last 50 years are
often trumpeted in a manner that drowns out the truth of the still remaining
economic injustice and inequality. The wealth gap between black and white grows
wider, with Latinos not fairing too much better.
Dr. King’s message was never solely about race, but
about legally permitting the demeaning exploitation of others -- for any reason.
The color of one’s skin only made exploitation that much easier. And this
exploitation manifests itself most viciously and effectively in the manner in
which we devalue “the other,” and permit the powerful to discount the labor and
the lives of those who are “less than;” the poor, the sick, the “colored.” King’s
message was one of exasperation with this vulgar exploitation of his people in
the land of freedom for all.
As Labor Day came and went, I lamented the plight of
the working stiff with no time or resources to “get ahead” because they are
already working 2 jobs and still can’t keep up with expenses. As the daughter
of a union copper miner, I am encouraged and inspired by the new voices of
labor, those who labor in low-paying jobs at fast-food joints and Walmart; with
no benefits and little opportunity for advancement and who are letting their
grievances be known. They are the inheritors of the raping and pillaging of the
American middle class that has been going on for the last 30 years; since the
Reagan Revolution of the glorification of greed. This is where the road to
union-busting leads; not the Utopian fantasy of Ayn Rand.
And, as the anniversary of 9/11 came again with all its
memories of sadness as well as inspiration, I felt how deeply I missed my
mother this summer; more than I knew was possible. Last summer I was too numb
to feel anything, but this year I was once again alive enough to feel the loss,
and her absence surrounded me more profoundly than I could ever have imagined. Somehow,
I don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not driving across the desert every
several weeks to visit her, or bringing her back here to stay with me on
holidays, and driving her back home again. She used to make that trip by
herself on the Greyhound bus, but it had long ago become too dangerous, and her
physical capacities too slow and weak to entrust this public manner of
transportation. Once, I flew over here with her, because she was always too
afraid to fly. I realize now how much our lives revolved around each other, and
how empty my time and space are now.
I have plenty to do, but seem paralyzed most days. I
do what I can and it never feels like enough, especially on days when I am
fatigued, lonely and lost. It almost seems that the space in my life occupied
by her – her paranoia, her needs, her company – is sacred somehow. I remember
one day a couple of years ago as I was driving home to see my mom, when a
thought popped into my head that acknowledged all the time I had spent on the
I-10 freeway going back and forth to see my mom to take her shopping, or to a
movie or to see an old friend or relative. I wondered what I would be doing
with myself otherwise. Now I know.
Last summer, and all last year essentially, was just
a void for me. It is as though I was sleep-walking. This summer has been one of
remembering, as well as preparing to move on. My grief for my mother is not
gone, nor will it ever be. I can feel her presence sometimes. I can hear her
laughing and talking to my grandmother, who I never met but still know deeply
and am so honored to carry her name – Irene.
And I hear them both telling me that it is time to
get back to work and time to get a new housekeeper because I can. I can hear my
Nana’s heavy sigh of lament, watching me doing some strenuous cleaning, it’s as
if she is saying that she scrubbed a lot of floors and washed and ironed a lot
of other people’s clothes so that, maybe one day, her descendants wouldn’t have
to work at such back-breaking tasks. While I know that it has been good for me
physically and emotionally, I know that they are right. And I am ready now, to
fall forward.
I fall forward into myriad administrative matters
that need tending to; into once again putting myself out there, personally and
professionally; into reaching out and reconnecting; and most of all, into
writing, writing, writing.
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