...Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave. No one was saved

My dad is dying.  He has stage 4 lung cancer, it may even be stage 5 by now.  He's at the "make him comfortable with pain medications" stage, whichever one that is.  My mother is in denial (she is the queen, after all), my brother is spending up their money, getting his inheritance now before someone else (aka me) gets it.  It's fucked up.  Like really fucked up.

And I'm conflicted.  Actually, that's about as 80's understatement as it gets.  I'm supposed to be feeling pain, mourning the inevitable loss, holding my mother's hand.  Instead, I've visited twice, I've helped a few times with doctor's appointments and various tests and scans....  I know I should do more to be the "good daughter" but I can't move past my childhood.  I should be the bigger person, but I just can't.  I'm weak.  And I don't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing me hurt.  I promised myself when I was 16 that I would never ever let them get to me again.  It's like his dying of cancer is his last revenge, his last way to get to me.  I know that's not it, but it feels that way.

When I was a kid, my father was miserable.  He worked for the government and every day, day after week after month after miserable year, with enormous resentment emanating from his core being, he went to work to support his family.  To support me.  Ours is the classic dysfunctional family and I'm "it".  I'm the martyr.  I'm the Jesus, made to suffer for their sins, to absolve them of their own failings.  Everything was, and still is, my fault.

So as I watch my father dying, from a safe distance, I, too, am trudging along through life.  Something I always swore I'd never do, yet here I am.  Day after week after month after miserable year.  And it makes me panic.  I see my father at the end of his life, sitting on the same couch he's been sitting on for the past 20 years, watching the same reruns he's watched since I was a kid...  and all I can think about is, I don't want the end of my life to be like that.  My heart breaks for him and for all the things he never did, because he chose not to do them.  Like hug his daughter.  His loss.

And I'm still conflicted.  I feel sorry for him.  And I feel compassion.  Despite his nasty, grumblings and his name calling and the bitter resentment he has towards me because, I'm sure, his cancer is also my fault...  I see this frail, broken man, who was frail and broken even before I came along, withering away.  Slowly disappearing before my eyes.  I see the panic in my mother's eyes as she loses her partner of 50 years.  I see the selfish, greedy side of my brother growing with intensity as he watches his father dying, and I know it's how he's coping.  It's our family motto...  money solves everything.

I want to be angry, I want to blame, I want to detach and say, "well, old man, you did it to yourself".  And I can't.  The compassion in me is overriding the anger, and I hate it.  I want to be angry, he doesn't deserve my compassion.  They don't deserve my compassion.  Yet something inside me won't let me be any other way.

My father told me one time, in a fleeting moment of very slight bonding, that his favorite song was "Eleanor Rigby" by the Beatles.  I've always been a Beatles fan, and when he said that to me, I got it.  The way he treated me wasn't his fault.  He had been abused.  He wasn't equipped to love his family.  So as a child, even though I was suffering my own misery, I had compassion for him.  I should have been too young to understand, but I still did.  It was probably the only thing he and I had in common.

I know I'll never get an apology.  I'll never have that moment with him, as he's on his death bed clinging to his last life, where he turns to me and says those words.  It's just not going to happen.  And I really am OK with that. He was the adult and I was the child, he could have chosen to be different but he didn't.  And I can't blame him for that.  He did the best he could. 


Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles:

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

And if you go no one may follow, That path is for your steps alone.

First, some self-shaming is in order.  It's been two years since I've blogged.  My life has sucked, loved ones have died, another is in the battle for his life, someone close to me betrayed my trust and killed my faith in humankind.  So just the usual.  You know how it is when things get overwhelming and it's just too much to think.  It's easier to retreat to that place that's beyond thought where routine takes over.  

Sometimes, though, thoughts manage to seep into my daily life and sometimes it's not too overwhelming to let them in, so on those rare instances, I'll let them.  And then in an ever increasingly rare moment, I'll write it down.  I'm not sure why today's the day but I'll go with it.

I've had a recurring thought lately, not one that's keeping me awake at night, necessarily, but it's still something that makes me stop and be quiet and listen to my brain for a while.  

When I was younger, in my 20's and 30's, I would amuse myself with the thought of people "having regrets".  There were catch-phrases floating around that were moronically overused, the obvious one in particular that amused me the most was "no regrets".  I thought it was the dumbest thing anyone could say, who would possibly have regrets?  All you have to do is do what you want to do, be happy, live your life.  Duh!  Come on, old people, get your shit together already! 

And then I hit my 40's. 

What I've realized, with wisdom come regrets.

I mean the kind of wisdom that can only come with experience, and the experience that can only come with age.  So, therefore, as one ages, one has regrets.  It's like some magic life algebraic equation.  Well, fuck. 

I don't regret never having jumped out of an airplane (oh HELL NO!), or not climbing the Himalayas (again, nope!).  My regrets are small, haunting little bastards.  Moments missed.  I wish I'd made that phone call to Mary and talked to her one last time before she died.  I wish I'd recorded all of those long, boring stories my grandfather used to tell so I could hear them all again.  I wish I'd let my dog die peacefully in her home instead of rushing her to the emergency vet where she died.  I should have hugged that 3 year old who was having a meltdown instead of getting frustrated.  I should have been nicer, more patient, more generous, more understanding, a better listener, a better friend...  those Himalayas don't seem so tall now....

So I'm not saying that one shouldn't live his or her life to the fullest, you absolutely should.  Dance in the rain, ride the roller coaster, try the extra hot pepper sauce.  Get shit-faced drunk at least once.  Fall in love, fall out of love, then fall in love with someone better.  Take vacations.  Travel the world.  Life will happen and it will hit you hard, no matter how prepared you think you are, and there will be plenty of things to regret.  So don't end up regretting the easy things.



Ripple by the Grateful dead.  Because it's one of the best songs ever written.  

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine
And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung,
Would you hear my voice come through the music?
Would you hold it near as it were your own?

It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken,
Perhaps they're better left unsung.
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

Reach out your hand if your cup be empty,
If your cup is full may it be again,
Let it be known there is a fountain,
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway,
Between the dawn and the dark of night,
And if you go no one may follow,
That path is for your steps alone.

Ripple in still water,
When there is no pebble tossed,
Nor wind to blow.

You, who choose to lead, must follow
But if you fall you fall alone.
If you should stand then who's to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.


 

One day I'll saddle up and the two of us will ride away

My friend David passed away a few weeks ago.  My emotions have run the gamut and I'm pretty sure I'm back to where I started:  Feeling guilty that I didn't visit more.  I didn't talk to him more.  I had meant to get his full life's story, write it down, tell the world what he'd been through.  His life was no less than extraordinary, and almost a complete mystery to me. 

His life was so so different from mine, and his experiences were so far from anything I could ever grasp.  Even in concept, it's hard.  He was born in a small agrarian village in what is now Poland.  When he was born, his village was technically in Czechoslovakia, but the river rerouted and then their village was in Poland.  How crazy is that?   He used to tell me wonderful, amazing stories about his favorite horse, who's name I never got, who was, according to David, the most intelligent horse who ever lived.  He was an old, retired plow horse, who's job was to get water for the family from a cistern located down a hill.  David, as a boy, would hook a cart up to the horse, and in the cart were buckets.  He'd say to the horse (in Polish), "Go get the water", and the horse obeyed.  On his own, the horse would pull the cart down the hill and maneuver the cart under the village's cistern.  The cart triggered a latch that opened a release valve and the water would flow from the cistern, filling the buckets.  When the water started spilling over the sides, the horse knew the buckets were full, and he'd carefully maneuver the cart back up the hill, delivering the water to his family. 

Who knows how many times David had told this story, or how many times it had been revised over the years.  Our memories have a way of editing themselves as time passes.  Who knows if this story was even true?  What I do know is the love and the pure joy this horse gave David, and continued to give him through memories, throughout David's 85 years of life.  I'm sure it was this memory that helped David through the most horrific time of his life:  the Holocaust. 

When David was 13, his entire village, including his family, were rounded up and taken from their homes.  Everything was confiscated, including David's beloved horse.  His family ended up in the first concentration camp in Warsaw, known as "The Ghetto".  David was sent to an orphanage along with a girl from his village.  At the age of 14, David "aged out" of the orphanage and was sent to a labor camp in Siberia.  When the war ended and he was rescued from what I'm sure were deplorable conditions, David was sent to a "rehabilitation" camp in France, where he taught himself to speak French (it was to be the fourth of the five languages he'd learn to speak).  He eventually emigrated to Canada, then made his way to Baltimore.  He met and married his wife, they had two daughters, and eventually two grandchildren.

That's the censored version of his life.  That's the story he told, or, more specifically, that's the story he was able to tell.  The truth, which I learned from our mutual friend, was that his entire village was murdered.  His last memories of his entire family were watching them being taken away.  He and the little girl who were sent to the orphanage were the only survivors of his village.  I can't even imagine what that was like for David, the child, and David the 85 year old.  I'm sure those are memories, and emotions, that one can never reconcile. 

When I met David, my horse, Hallie, had just had surgery and needed a place to retire.  I was looking for a quiet home with plenty of green grass and other horse companions.  My friend Dawn recommended to David that he let me bring Hallie to his farm.  He was reluctant but he agreed to meet Hallie first, before deciding.  He visited Hallie a few weeks after she'd had her surgery, she was stitched and swollen and partially bandaged, I'm sure she looked the worse for wear.  David immediately agreed.  He said, to Dawn, "This horse needs to live on my farm."  And so she did.  He took her in and he loved her and he spoiled her, and I loved him for that.

I only knew David for 5 years, and I can't say that I knew him well.  I knew what he allowed me to know and given the circumstances, I'm sure even that was difficult for him.  He was a closed man, he didn't talk much about himself.  If I asked how he was doing, he'd respond with, "oh, you know..." and then he'd change the subject.  I've heard he was tough on his employees, he was demanding, and he expected perfection from his children.  He would accept no excuses.  I, though, had the honor and the pleasure of knowing him not as an employee, or as his child, but as his friend.  To me, he was honest, he was sincere, and he was so, so compassionate.  When he told me the story of his childhood horse, he cried.  That horse represented, for him, everything in his life that was taken.  His home.  His family.  His childhood and his innocence.  But, I'll add, they did not take his compassion.  For all the unimaginable, tragic and absolutely horrific things he experienced, he never, ever lost his compassion. 

The night that David passed away, our friend Dawn was with him.  She had stopped in to have dinner with him.  She said David seemed sullen, it was as if David knew it was his last evening on Earth.  He didn't eat much dinner, and he asked to be helped into his chair by the window.  He told Dawn he just needed to see his horses.  He sat there for a while, watching the horses, then he asked Dawn to help him into his bed.  She helped him upstairs and got him settled in bed, and David quietly, peacefully passed away. 

Even in his last hours, "his" horses meant the world to him.  I have no doubt as he was watching Jane, Lily, Bravo, Huey and Hallie, with Ringo the cat on his lap and Bridget the dog at his side, he was remembering his childhood, with nothing but compassion in his heart. 

I'll miss you, David. 

Your time has come to shine, all your dreams are on their way

Wow.  Just wow.  It's so crazy how the farthest memories can be triggered by the smallest little things.  A smell.  A photo.  A song.

I was watching Maryland Public Television this evening and it was a pledge drive.  Of course it was.  It's always a pledge drive!  They were showing, chronologically, American Folk Music.  My grandfather was a musician, he played most reed instruments and he loved music.  All music.  He preferred jazz, he had worked his way through St. John's College by working nights as a jazz musician, but he'd listen to just about anything.  I didn't realize until I was watching this show how much of an influence he had on me, I knew well so many of these songs!  When I would visit my grandparents, I'd bring my guitar and my Pop-pop and I would spend the weekend playing our music.  It was wonderful, and I had no idea at the time how progressive my Pop-pop was.  He was such an amazing man, in so many ways.

While I was watching this MPT show, the Simon and Garfunkel song, "Bridge Over Troubled Water" came on, and they showed a video of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.  I flashed back to another childhood memory, this one not quite as warm and fuzzy as the memory of my Pop-pop, but it was such an incredible and pivotal point of my life that hugely influenced who I am now.  I flashed to the race riots that took place in Washington DC in 1968.  I was so so young then, only 2 years old, but I remember it.  I remember my mother crying, my father had gone to work in DC and was stranded.  I remember my father coming home very late.  I remember my father walking into the house, he hugged my mother, and they cried.  I was too young to understand it at the time, but some years later my father told me the full story when I was old enough to understand.

My father worked on K street in Downtown DC.  The K street of then was not the K street it is now, it was a time of transition for the city.  Old buildings were being raised to make room for new, "modern" buildings (that have since been raised to make room for even more modern buildings).  My father was a social worker for the Federal Government, he worked in one of the old, drab buildings in a not so great area.  To get to work, he took a series of buses then walked the rest of the way.  On the day of the riots, my father was in DC, blocks from the Mall, right smack in the middle of the riots.  He was stuck.  Apparently they had been given warning and most of his coworkers had gotten the heck outta dodge, but for some reason my father stayed.  The next thing he knew, he was the only white man in the middle of some very angry, rioting black people.  In the 1960's, our country was fractured, much like it is now, but then it was racial.  My father was a progressive white guy for the time, he marched for equal rights for blacks, equal rights for women.  Equal rights, period.  On this day, he feared that his "resume" wasn't going to get him very far, he was just a small in stature white guy in the middle of a race riot.

He and the only other remaining coworker, who was a black man, decided it was time to leave.  The streets were dangerous with rioting angry mobs breaking windows and burning buildings.  My dad and his coworker ran several blocks through the mobs to where his coworker's car was parked, they were going to try to drive out of DC. and they were terrified.  The coworker had my father climb into the back seat of his car, he covered my dad with his coat, and he drove them through the riots.  I don't know if it's fair to say he saved my dad's life, although my dad, to this day, says he did.

So as I was watching this Simon and Garfunkel video of the Kennedys and King Jr, and as I was remembering the race riots, something really big came to my mind.  It's not the first time I've thought this, but this time, I really REALLY get it.  We, the United States, have a black president.  These race riots took place when I was 2 years old.  In my lifetime, I have experienced the progress of my country to this amazing point in history.  Holy hell, I get it. 

Now.... if we can only keep our country from regressing.

Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

When you're weary
Feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all

I'm on your side
When times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard
I will comfort you

I'll take your part
When darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Sail on Silver Girl,
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way

See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind

<3

For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool

Yesterday, the song, "Hey Jude" was playing on the radio on my way home from spending the day with some great friends.  I was smiling, for the first time in weeks, and I was happy.  It was a Beatles song, which, in and of itself is a big deal for me, and it was Hey Jude, a song that get's me every time.  Yesterday, though, I had a big, fat Aha! moment.  Thanks for that, Universe, I love it when that happens!

My life has really sucked lately.  A very low point, wanting to quit my job and run away from home, extra sucky sucked.  The details aren't important, but they were traumatic (no one died), they hurt (I'm very sensitive) and it's taken me a while to move beyond them (I tend to hold grudges).  In the midst of all of this drama, I had a doctor's appointment (didn't go well) and now I need to make some big life changes.  So, my world has basically...say it with me...sucked.  Ugh.

Those who have read my previous blogs already know this about me, but I'm somewhat a spiritual person.  I look for signs.  I look for the meaning in every little thing that happens to me.  What lessons am I supposed to be learning from this?  I believe that we're not all floating out here alone, that there's something that ties it all together.  Some may call it God, I hesitate to call my beliefs God, just because the word "God" conjures up ideas of an old man with a beard in the sky, manipulating our lives.  I'm not making fun of others' beliefs, that's just not my image of whatever it is that's out there that's trying to make me learn my life's lessons.  I like to refer to it as the Universe, just because for me, I find that word comforting.

This Universe and I, we're pretty tight.  She (I like to think she's a she) knows me pretty well.  There's no lying to Her, and if I lie to myself, it only makes things worse.  The same life lessons keep hitting me and hitting me until I stop lying to myself and I learn the damn lesson already.  I also like to think that She has a good sense of humor.  :-)

Lately I've been sad and I've been angry.  And I've been withdrawn and I haven't told anyone what's been going on, only those who are involved know about it (well, except for those who know through the rumor mill, but you know how that goes!).  In other words, I once again bottled everything up and tried to put on the happy face until I couldn't even fake being happy anymore.

Long story short...  I finally mustered up the chutzpah to talk with the person with whom I had the biggest issue, and I sent him an email (OK, maybe chutzpa isn't the right word since I still didn't have the courage to talk to him face-to-face!) about how I felt.  To my surprise, he responded back, favorably.  He thanked me for my words, and he essentially said he felt the same way I did about the situation.  It helped so much to hear him say that, and I have a feeling my words helped him too.  We'd both been having a bad time lately.  So, first lesson learned: don't fear the truth, but do be sure to act appropriately.  I had made assumptions about him that just weren't true.  Shame on me!

So, to try to make sense of this blog...  I spent yesterday, Memorial Day, with some great friends.  I spent the morning cheering on friends who were participating in a horse show, and we all had a blast.  Then, I met up with one of my oldest and dearest friends, and her amazing and beautiful partner whom I also love and adore, and we had lunch.  It was as simple as that, we ate lunch.  But just being around people who honestly love me for who I am, and accept me, and I, them, there was no need to fake happy.  I was happy.  I am happy.  And I know that if I weren't feeling happy yesterday, that would have been OK, too.  We would have ordered drinks and I could have cried until we were crying from laughter.  I love those ladies!

So, the big lesson, the conk on the head...  I need to stop keeping the people who love me at arm's length.  If I'm sad, be sad. And if I'm feeling overwhelmed or lonely because of it, that's my own damn fault. 

"Hey Jude", by The Beatles:

 Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder


Hey Jude, don't let me down
You have found her, now go and get her
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

So let it out and let it in, hey Jude, begin
You're waiting for someone to perform with
And don't you know that it's just you? Hey Jude, you'll do
The movement you need is on your shoulder


Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better
Better, better, better, better, better, oh!

Na na na, na-na na na
Na-na na na, hey Jude....

<3

Time it was, and what a time it was

I was laying in bed last night, struggling to read my book (John Irving's new novel), and despite the amazing writing, it just didn't hold my attention.  It wasn't the book's fault, my mind was just elsewhere. 

I kept flashing to my grandparent's basement.  It always had that certain smell, and it was cool and dark and it was filled with junk.  And I never, ever, understood it.  By that, I mean, I never figured out what room upstairs was over which part of the basement.  It never made sense to me.  So I lay there, in my mind, trying to remember it all.  Every last detail.  Including the smell, and the feel, and the stuff...  remembering it all became so insignificantly important to me. 

As I was trying to "map it out" in my mind, half tempted to get up, grab a piece of paper, and draw the darn basement, once and for all...  my mind wandered from it's wanderings.  The thought of that, in and of itself, amused me for a minute, which became a third wandering!  But what I started thinking about were all of the pictures that my Pop-pop had taken when I was little.  He was one of those in-your-face-documenting-everything type of photographers.  At one time, he even had a dark room in the basement (insert irony here!).  I didn't realize until that very moment last night how precious each and every one of those photographs really are.

So, my mind wandered to a specific photograph that my Pop-pop had taken of me when I was maybe 3 years old.  I was wearing an itchy dress and itchy tights that my mother had dressed me in.  I was sitting on the tile in front of the fireplace because it was always hot as hell in my grandparent's house and the tile felt cool, and I was playing with a stripped ball.  I was so young, but I remember when my Pop-pop took the picture.  He climbed down on one knee, then the other, then he lowered himself forward onto his elbows, getting all the way down to my 3 year old level.  I gave him a little wave and a big cheesy smile, being more annoyed by it all than amused, and he took the picture. 

The 3 year old me had no idea that 43 years later (well, almost 43!), that photograph would be so important to me.  It's a picture of me, but that's not really the part I cherish, it's the memory of my Pop-pop taking that picture that's so absolutely precious.  I had to sit there, patiently, waiting for him to lower himself to the floor, then I had to wait for him to focus, get everything just right.  It was so important to him that this photograph be perfect.  It was an old Argus camera, I believe it was a 35mm, film was expensive, developing fluids and paper, it was all expensive.  He went to great lengths to make it perfect, because having a perfect picture of his one and only granddaughter was priceless to him. 

The photo of me with that cheesy smile in that itchy dress with those itchy tights, that is how my Pop-pop saw me.  That photo is of me, from his vantage.  That picture doesn't only capture me, at 3 years old, in my grandparents house with their ugly sofa in the background, it captures my grandfather too.  His pure love and adoration for his grand daughter.  I need to buy a frame for that photo, I just realized how absolutely priceless it is.

So, I never finished reading my book.  I still haven't taken out a piece of paper to map out, "once and for all", the layout of my grandparent's basement and their house.  It's still something that will bug me, being a wee OCD and all, but maybe I'll just leave it like that.  Now, every time I start to think about it, it'll bring me back to the memory of my Pop-pop taking that photograph, which isn't such a bad place to be.  <3

Simon and Garfunkel's "Bookends":

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you

I am [s]he as you are [s]he as you are me and we are all together

Sometimes some things just need to be said.

A few days ago I was baited into a conversation from someone who has differing political views than I.  He calls himself a Tea Party member, I call myself a Liberal.  I was at once corrected by a friend of this friend, someone whom I've never met, that I'm not a Liberal.  "They are communists", he said.  "You are Libertarian." Oh.  OK.  Hmmm....?

It really bothered me when he said that.  First, it caught me off guard that I really don't have a clue what being a Libertarian means.  So, I did what any red-blooded American with "freedoms" did, I googled it.  Then, just to be on the safe side, I asked an expert.  Second, it disturbs me that it makes a difference in our society with which group I'm aligned.  My value, the weight of my opinions, the "Truth" I speak, is all judged by the label I'm given.  I consider myself anti-political, for lack of a better term, so why should I have to declare myself affiliated with anyone?  I am me.  That should be all that matters.

So, that being said...

I believe that a woman should always have the right to chose.  I believe in Planned Parenthood.  I believe that beyond the healthcare it provides, it's a great educational resource and it should receive Federal funding.  I believe that healthcare is a National issue, therefore, it should be a National program.  I believe that everyone in this country should have access to the same healthcare to which I have access.  No one in our country should be without healthcare.  NO ONE.

I believe that all Americans should have the same rights.  Period.  Gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry, and their marriages should be treated with the same respect as heterosexual marriages. I believe that our borders should be open to immigration, and I believe that people who live in America, regardless of their countries of origin, should be required to follow the same rules as everyone else.  If you're here, you obey our laws and you pay taxes.

I believe in paying taxes.  I believe that everyone in our country has a responsibility to our country, and that includes financial support.  I pay taxes, so should everyone else. I believe that it shouldn't be a source of contention in our Government.  Democrats should pay.  Republicans should pay.  Rich, poor, conservative, liberal, big corporations, small businesses, everyone should pay taxes.  I believe if you live here, if you do business here, you pay taxes.   It's that simple. 

I believe in art.  I believe in music.  I believe in dancing, and singing, and acting in plays and playing instruments, and I believe that we owe it to our children to teach them these things.  I believe that every child in our country should be given the same opportunity for a well rounded education.  Every child. 

I believe in a god.  I believe every living thing on this planet is connected by the air we respire, the nutrients we consume, and we're as connected in death as we are in life.  I believe that Christians and Jews and Muslims are all blinded by hate and are condemning each other for praying to the "wrong god".  I believe they're all praying to the same god, it's the WAY they pray that's different.  I believe that Jesus Christ was a nice guy who lived, and died, and preached nice things while he was here.  I believe that this is America, it was founded for religious freedom.  Worship how you want, where you want, and to whom you want, and judge not those who's beliefs are different from yours.  You're not as different as you think.

I believe in social security.  I believe in welfare.  I also believe that there are people in our country who take advantage.  I believe our social programs are there for the good of the order, and we shouldn't judge, or chastise, or condemn those who use it because of a few bad apples.  I believe there are good people in our country who are in bad situations, and I believe that we need to help them.  I believe in charity.  I believe in helping where help is needed.  If everyone helped, there would be no one left in need of help. 


I believe that global warming is real.  I believe we've screwed up our planet and it's going to take years, generations, to put things right.  I also believe that in my lifetime I will see our planet begin to heal.  I'll work my hardest for my belief that I can make a difference and our world will be a better place for future generations.  I believe some people don't want to see the truth and refuse to do the right thing by our planet, and it makes me sad.  I like Earth.  It's pretty here. 

I believe in giving thanks for the sunsets, the rainbows, and all of Nature's gifts because they remind me that I'm alive.  I believe in kindness and honesty, turning the other cheek and standing up for myself when it's called for.  I believe in miracles.  I believe anyone can do anything if they're willing to work for it.  I believe in movie night, reading a good book, and honking my horn at the kids in the car in front of me when they make that honking motion with their arms. 

So am I a Liberal?  A Libertarian?  I think it's clear I'm not conservative, by other people's definitions, but does it really matter?  The truth is, I'm the person you want to have as a friend, a neighbor, an advocate for your children and a bureaucrat in your Government.  I work hard, I love deeply, and I'll help you when you're in need.  Even if you are a Republican.

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