Yes, it can.

Yes,  it can happen here.

Well, I wish I could say I was surprised that it happened here.  But I have grown cynical.  And impatient.

In case you missed it, the city I’ve lived in for nearly twenty four years made the national, if not international, news last week when a celebration of a victorious football team turned into mayhem and panic when two squabbling teenagers started firing.  Apparently high caliber weapons.

Not that it matters, but for the record, I have no interest in professional sports – and that goes double for football.  I was not at the parade and rally for said football team, but several of my friends and acquaintances were.  One just barely managed to stay upright and thus avoid being knocked down and trampled in the ensuing stampede as people raced to safety.

In case you were wondering, yes, you read correctly:  one person is dead, at least twenty one were injured (I’ve heard twenty two and even twenty three); an entire city has been left anxious if not traumatized…why?  Because two kids apparently had some kind of dispute going on with each other.  And now their lives are pretty much ruined too, let’s not forget.

Like everybody else, this writer is still trying to capture the words to sum up and process the events.  But the conclusion I have definitely came to – came to a long time ago, in fact – is that we need to send a better class of people to Jefferson City to do our business.  To echo one sentiment read just today: people that will put people’s right and desire to live and be secure as they go about their life ABOVE people’s desire to have a gun with them at all times.  We need the ability to set local ordinances and restrictions as we work on the second part of the equation.  This we cannot do.  In the state with some of the loosest gun laws, we do not even have local control of our police department.  Our mayor is but one voice on the police board that is more or less appointed by the governor with the blessing of the state senate.

The second part of the equation that I mentioned?  We have teenagers, youth, minors, young folk; and they won’t stay young folk forever, that have no idea, none, zero absolutely no ability whatsoever on,how.to.manage.a.conflict. 

How the hell did that happen?  What are they learning or not learning on how to handle it when somebody says something that upsets them?  Where the hell are the adults that are supposed to be modeling this life skill and what behavior are they modeling for an example? Where did we, the adults go wrong?

I want to be positive.  I want to believe that things will get better.  But to echo another statement that I read earlier:  if the murder of children at Sandy Hook all those years ago didn’t change a whole lot, then a shootout involving football fans won’t either. 

If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got. 

WE’VE GOT TO CHANGE

 

 

 

 

Grounding

 Go outside. Stand. Wiggle bare toes in the Earth. Listen. Listen deep. Can you hear it? Close your eyes and listen again. Now do you hear it? There it is, yes. That is the heart beat of the Earth trying to sync in rhythm with yours. 

Well met?

 

Yours truly with our new police chief, Stacey Graves.  I have been trying to gauge what I think of her since her promotion a few months ago, and when I found there would be a welcome reception for her close by, I decided that would be an excellent opportunity to maybe make my mind up a little.

Beings that I trend heavily on the introverted side of the spectrum, I loathe such meet and greet functions.  To be blunt, I would rather have a tooth pulled then go to a social mixer where I don’t already know at least some people.  By the time I convinced myself to go, it was mostly over. 

What I remember most about the less than an hour that I was there, however, was not being awkwardly off to the side by myself; debating about how long (or if) I would stay as I had apparently missed whatever remarks or comments she was planning on making that night.  Nor was it trying to look as if I was totally comfortable standing around with a handful of other strangers waiting for my moment to speak a few words to her.

Nope.  What stands out the most in my memory banks was her gracious good humor when I asked for a photo.  She even worked the phone herself to make sure we got a good “twosie” together.

Cleaning the proverbial house after the last police chief is likely to be a huge undertaking, and the jury is still out if she is up to the task; there has already been at least one missed opportunity to start rebuilding trust.

But….well……here’s to hoping that a lot of people, myself included, are pleasantly surprised.

 

Other Pressing Matters

 Okay, I’ll give a full disclosure here.

With the unexpected and insane work load at my day job for the past year or so, and spending whatever free time I have trying to do my little bit to help mitigate the disastrous consequences of fifty {insert expletive here} years’ worth of precedence with a swipe of a pen to take out Roe; my creative well has been…dry.

In other words, barely any writing has happened at all for some time.

But I’m not worried.  That eternal spring of words, stories, poetry, song and dance is still there.  Still can be tapped into.  It’s all there, just buried pretty deep right now.

Meanwhile, if you are interested, this is what I have been doing:

In the past few months I’ve sort of become the unofficial note taker for the monthly meetings of the Pro-Choice group expanding in the state and city I currently live in.  I’ve also made some phone calls and left electronic messages for various state and federal lawmakers.  I’m putting together my thoughts to use my writing skills to compose an op-ed piece.  So, hey, maybe some writing is still going on after all.

And on March 8, International Women’s Day, I spent some time with some great people preparing care packages of tampons, pads and other feminine products donated to the Boys and Girls club for financially struggling women and girls who may have trouble affording these items.  Nothing like being up to your wrists, counting out tampons to tie up in a small cloth bag.

I was crocheting up a series of scarves to donate to Project Warmth at some time; until the skin on my hands got too split and cracked.  (Side note: corn huskers lotion might be soothing, but it.smells.terrible).

And I got my eye out for more opportunities to do other things that seem small – unless you are the person benefiting.

But today, I’m settling in with the cat, a book and endless cups of tea.

Tomorrow I battle on to be the change I wish to see.

Until next time, for Women’s History Month, I’ll leave you with one last thought: a meme I came across that has stuck with me:

“When attempting to burn down the patriarchy, do NOT use other women as kindling.”

 

Be well,

JB

Transformed

 

My latest musical obsession is “Fire in My Mouth;” composer Julia Wolfe’s interpretation of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire of 1911.  But I found myself not just thinking of how that nightmare transformed how we work, but also of how primarily single women working in factories transformed our society. 

Rebecca Traister speaks on this in her book “All the Single Ladies” and I echoed it in my book “Short Chick with Glasses.”  As young women flocked to the cities to take jobs in factories that then had no safety regulations or codes they were compelled to abide by, they took to wearing different clothing and different hairstyles for their own safety.  Non-factory working ladies started to copy that style, and, thus, fashion changed.  But that is not all.

As these women worked, and roomed together in the boarding homes set up to accommodate the influx of these newly arriving factory workers, it stands to reason that on their off days they went out together as well.  Being new arrivals, they probably did not know anybody else in the city after all.  So they went out together to restaurants and other entertainment.  Or maybe just to walk around and see the sights of a place new to them.

The more this happened, the more accustomed to, the less anybody took notice of, a group of apparently single women out together with not a man with them to be seen.

And you can draw a straight line from that to, many many years later, in the early 2000s, my besties and I heading out every Friday or Saturday night (sometimes both) for a meal and dancing.

Their terror trying to escape the fire that day brought about sweeping, incredibly significant and much needed changes in almost every part of our society.

Is it foolish to hope that that might bring them at least some level of comfort?

 

 

 For this post, I will share an article that I just finished reading in the Kansas City Star.  I had never heard of this law that exists in a few states, but it does not surprise me that Missouri would be one of them where it is still on the books..  Read please.  It only takes a minute or two. I will not opine myself on it here, anybody that spends enough time with me already knows my views on certain "women's issues."

 

https://www.kansascity.com/news/article263614113.html  

Welcome to Missouri

 

So. 

Abortion, a totally safe, legal medical procedure that has been protected by law for about as long as I have been alive, is now illegal in the state I reside in. Or will be as soon as our lawmakers race and trample each other to sign whatever they need to in order to make it so.

This means if you do not have the wherewithal to go elsewhere, you must remain pregnant.  And if that child you are now carrying was conceived by rape or incest; it means you are tied to your attacker in some way for.the.rest.of.your life.

And if your pregnancy is high risk? May even possibly kill you to carry to term?  Tough.  Suck it up, princess, you’re not what’s important here.  You’re just a vessel we pour a baby into from time to time.

The majority of us Americans – 8 out of 10 is the number I consistently hear - wanted Roe to stay in place.  The vast majority of us did NOT want this.

But welcome to Missouri.  Where somebodies god given right to have a gun is more important than a women’s (or pregnant person’s) right to live.

“Pro-life” my ass.