Broken.

 On May 1, Fordham called NYPD on nonviolent protesters (students and former students).

I can't get myself to a better place.
What a waste of 30 years of my life.

Disgusted and despairing. 

I can't shake this.

 

 

Kansas and Gaza

Have been feeling weird last few weeks. I eventually realized that some of this felt like the weeks after 9/11. But lately, I'm pulled in by a few things:

1. Those two times when I was a child when was involuntarily separated from my parents and all but one of my siblings (my Dad's blinding farm accident, Mom's cancer treatment) for a week? two weeks? a month? I don't know how long it was because I just remember ... I cannot type what I remember about how hard and confusing and terrifying and painful that was, despite being looked after by my my grandparents, my aunt Marcena, and my older sister and my parents still being alive and staying in touch as best they could, i.e., letters and the occasional phone call.

2. That time when a tornado came through or near Portis, Kansas when I was 5? 6? and we went to the root cellar (a hole/cave dug in the ground). I remember the darkness, the smells, and the deafening pounding pounding winds. It was confusing and terrifying. But I had my parents.  

and then earlier this week, I learn that at least two of my students have experienced the trauma of child welfare workers investigating their families. 

Is this what "being triggered is"? Is/was this trauma?  And what purpose does it serve?

I like to think that if we have enough love and support in our life, then these confusing, terrifying, painful experiences can be a source of compassion and solidarity, "metta." But I'm not sure.

All I know is that there are some very broken people out there who are okay with bombing the shit out of other people.

A staggeringly, breathtakingly, exquisitely beautiful poem.

Pierre gave me Louise Glück's "Faithful and Virtuous Night," for my birthday and we're slowly reading it to one another.

Her poems are so beautifully rendered that any description I give it will only detract from the experience of reading it.

This morning I read, alone, aloud, for a third and fourth time, "An Adventure."  There is a part, in the middle of reading 3, that I turned the page and the words that were there made me gasp.



If you're so inclined, read the poem aloud.  Read it slowly.  Read it a few times, maybe over a few days, or the course of the day.  And see if it is not among the most beautiful and true things you have ever read.

Vegan-ish.

Day #4 (or #87, who can tell?) of attempting a 95% vegan diet.

My thoughts run the lines of "Bacon, bacon, bacon. Sausage. Bacon, bacon. Steak. Honey-baked ham? Roast beef. Bacon-bacon-bacon-bacon. Bacon, bacon. Prosciutto! Prosciutto!"

Yesterday, Pierre "treated" me to a vegetable juice thing. When I say "yes" to an invitation to a fresh juice, I'm thinking of the one at 138th that tastes like a peanut-butter cream pie NOT the lukewarm one at 124th that tastes like mulch and grass leavings and not in a good way.

I came home and made some iced tea.

Boobity has moved.

www.rockthebald.blogspot.com

See you there! (I'm not 50% bald yet...well, depending on how you define "bald." But decided to make the move anyway.)