YES THINGS ARE HARD, BUT WE GO ON

I work very hard to be positive.  I bet you do too.  This month we had a lovely Mother's Day.  We most of us have a three-day weekend with Memorial Day.  There are graduations.  People are traveling--a visit with family, trips further afield. Most everyone looks forward to summer.  If you've stopped by your local garden center your senses have been filled.  Hybrid begonias and peonies, lush hanging baskets, woodsy mulch. Your own garden may be at its peak. Life can be good. 

But on May 2 Justice Alito's draft Supreme Court opinion was released overturning the constitutional right of women and girls to terminate their unhealthy or unwanted pregnancies--no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the woman or girl.  Forced pregnancies reminiscent of the days of slavery.

On May 14 an 18-year-old white supremacist killed 10 Black people at a Tops Friendly Market store in Buffalo, New York. . . . I started a post about this  but was so depressed and angry that I put it on hold. 

Thereafter on May 22 Mariupol fell to the Russians.  A once beautiful port city is pulverized.  Over 1,700 Ukrainians surrendered after a 3-month siege. Ukrainian soldiers are in Russian custody.  What will happen to them?  I think of our North Carolina port cities like Morehead City where my parents lived.  We can visualize this.  

Switching topics:  Sleep is a great disappearing act and my mom was a great promoter of naps.  So I took one yesterday.  I woke up thinking I'd post something positive.  But when I sat down at my computer I saw the news.  Today's mass shooting (an important phrase) was at a Texas elementary school and 19 children and 2 teachers are dead.  So is the shooter; again a disturbed young man, still a teenager, with easy access to weapons. He shot his grandmother as well.  Too horrible to write. 

It's like the 1 million US Covid death milestone, also reached this month and disproportionately high.  It almost doesn't matter.  Eight hundred thousand, nine hundred, what is the difference?  Either every death counts or it doesn't.  Either every killing of a Black person counts or it doesn't.  Either every Ukrainian counts or they don't.  Either every school shooting counts or it doesn't.

Another switch:  It's cooled off here today.  My hydrangeas are beginning to bloom.  They are always bright blue by our anniversary on June 4.  So, for what can I be thankful?  For what can you? 

Well, we are alive. We can vote.  As gerry-rigged as North Carolina may be, we can still vote, all of us.  There are people working in other states too.  Stacey Abrams in Georgia is a force and, God willing, won't give up.  In the Georgia Republican primaries Trump's choices were defeated.  

My family members are healthy, most of them.  Our New Jersey family is looking forward to North Carolina fishing and uncrowded beaches. Surely we can each find joy in the people we love unconditionally. 

Last night we went to the band concert at the local School of the Arts.  The children are from many cultures, all growing and learning together and performing with great gusto and talent.  They give hope.  I will admit, I looked around the auditorium just momentarily fearful of a shooter.  But my faith has not been shattered.  If you are a person of faith, I hope that for you too.  

So . . . life goes on as it must. Let us not abdicate or despair.  Rather, let us be truthful, let us be kind, let us persevere; let us look for solutions everywhere, nurture ourselves and others, find beauty to sustain us and love one another . . . .  Let not one moment, or even many, define us.  Let us be brave.  Let us say AMEN.

Nina Naomi

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUR BODIES, OURSELVES

 

Our Bodies, Ourselves.  Remember that phrase?  The book so titled was published by a nonprofit woman's health collective in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade recognized women's constitutional right to full reproductive care including terminating an unhealthy or unwanted pregnancy.  

Women's bodies are front and center these days since a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe.  This is my small offering on this subject.  

We didn't know much about our bodies in the 1970s, but we did know that rape, incest, coercion, health, age, fetal abnormality, poverty and myriad nuanced reasons could produce a pregnancy that was unsustainable for our physical, emotional or mental health.  

We made hard choices. In my high school and college, girls and women disappeared from view after illegal abortions.  Some died.   Women of a certain age have stories. 

I survived college without being sexually assaulted, although no woman was unaware of the threat. It did not take long to discover that guys who claimed sex as the prerogative of drunkenness were at every fraternity-house party.  I remember being taken home early by a date because "there's a girl upstairs."  As a 19-year-old sophomore I thought, "That poor girl's in trouble."  Oh how my heart aches for her. 

In 1973 when Roe came down I was the mother of two babies, planned and deeply wanted.   I was lucky.  By 1984 I was a lawyer.

In 1995 I was admitted to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).  What an honor it was to stand before the nine and be welcomed into the Supreme Court Bar by Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Scouter, Thomas, Ginsburg and Breyer.  Since retirement I have tucked away all framed credentials but this one.  It hangs where I pass it every morning.  It has always made me feel good.  Until now. 

Now I read Justice Alito's draft opinion overturning Roe with grief and depression.  He is joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, all conservative Republican judges, three of them chosen by former President Trump based upon his promise to end constitutional protection for women who need abortion care.

One basis of Alito's opinion particularly turns legal reasoning on its head.  He writes that "a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation's history and traditions." Of course the same argument can be used to overturn other rights.  The constitutional right to interracial marriage is less than 60 years old (Loving v. Virginia, 1967).  Contraception made legal in the US two years before (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965).  Hardly deeply rooted. And same-sex marriage was given constitutional protection only 7 years ago (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015).  Barely rooted at all. 

The Constitution doesn't mention marriage or contraception.  It doesn't mention worker's rights or disability rights.  They aren't deeply rooted in our history either.  With only white men of property framing the Constitution, most of the rights we rely upon every day are not "deeply rooted."  Sadly, what has been embedded in our history is discrimination.  We remember that enslaved women and girls were forced to bear their enslaver's offspring. Alito's reasoning is a straight march to the confines of the back of the bus, this time for all girls and women of child-bearing age. Forced pregnancy should be no more lawful than forced sterilization.

The opinion overturning Roe doesn't mention separation of church and state.  But that is deeply rooted and is being violated in this draft opinion.  State laws criminalizing abortion health care are based upon the religious views of some.  In this case, the five who signed on are all products of a Catholic education.  I am a Christian whose faith does not dictate that all pregnancies be carried to term; nor does my religion prescribe the wearing of the burqa, with only my eyes visible behind a screen. When religious beliefs of some become the law of the land, church and state are no longer separate. 

Many don't believe that protest will change what is coming, as crucial as protest is.  Grief and depression likely won't change anything either.  But many of us are fearing for all the girls and women who may need need abortion health-care and are in a state that does not value them or their autonomy, a state whose legislators don't care if they are raped by a family member or stranger, or are no more than a child themself, or so many other pregnancy crises. 

We have to face this, talk about it, and continue to take all steps to save girls and women from the religious patriarchy of five members of the Supreme Court (including a woman) and of the political right who either think they know what is best for every girl or woman in every situation or don't care.  In 1973 Roe v. Wade struck a balance  protecting the life and health of the woman and the life of a viable fetus, one that with advanced medical intervention could survive outside the womb. That balance is now gone. Grief and depression is appropriate.  But it must be a catalyst.  Abortion should be safe and legal.  With social safety nets it can also be rare. There's much to do.                                                 Nina Naomi

 

 

THIS IS THE WAY JOY IS

Newly Engaged, Dinner for Two

This is the way  life can be:

I once lived in a house with front and back stairways, one bathroom, coal furnace.  I tumbled  down the backstairs into the kitchen, but waltzed down the front stairs into the hall.  I thought I was Scarlet O'Hara.  How carefree  childhood can be.

I once loved a boy who drew an X by his locker and said "Here is a spot for you to stand."  I have been standing by him for decades now.  I didn't draw an X, but he stands by me too.  This is the way love can be.

I once knew not God, but God found me.  On a walk by the clock tower I knew "This is true." I was twenty years old with snow falling.  God drew the X for God's self.  This is the way my faith began. 

I once had two babies to care for.  Sometimes I miss that soft, fragrant, rambunctious time.  This is how time passes.   

I once had a son who joined my law firm and said to his clients, "This is my Mama."  What a wonderful time! Oh how hard when cancer steals a young life.

I once wanted grandchildren, precious and free.   Now I have three.   Strong,  transcendent,  faithful and kind.  My cup runneth over.  This is the way joy is.  

The house, the boy, our faith, the babies, death, grief, a new generation, blessings--all of it, all of it, the way life can be.   

 

WALK SOFTLY UON THE EARTH

A Parting Blessing
Walk softly upon the earth.
May its beauty forever surround you,
Its wonders forever astound you,
May its wisdom delight you, its music invite you
To dance and to play and to sing.
May you love and be loved by all you meet.
May you know and practice compassion.
Rejoice in the earth and in all of creation.
Rejoice in life.

What a perfect blessing for springtime when the earth's beauty is newly fresh. I don't dance much but I do play and sing.  And the world has been calling for our compassion.  Well-honed by Covid, our empathy finds no lack of resting places, from Ukraine to the forest fires in New Mexico and beyond.  There's even the new concept of empathy fatigue, as if God would allow us that excuse. 

In 2008 composer and church musician Alfred V. Fedak (b. 1953) set this traditional text to music.  It is a widely-performed anthem.  I've seen the first line written as, "I walk softly upon the Earth" and previously thought about its many meanings and wondered what it might mean to each of us.  What a good discussion topic this might make.  

So how can we walk softly? Perhaps the meaning is ecological, like leaving no footprint from our hike or overnight camping.  Perhaps it's camping itself instead of flying. Not trying to visit every remote corner of the planet.  Or picking up neighborhood litter.  Becoming or being a plant person.  Not using pesticides, making our yards safe for bugs and birds and puppies.  

Surely, indisputably, it's peace instead of war, one of those things over which we have so little control, especially right now when we want (need) to help the Ukrainian people.  There's no idealism in a war zone.

But walking softly could also mean no tantrums when our way is thwarted, no snide remarks or pointless anger. Is Twitter anything else?  It could mean no self-absorption, no secondary gain from everything we do, congratulating others instead of ourselves, making a space for others' footprints instead of our own.  When we walk softly we make peace where we can, all those thousands of data points that don't include Vladimir Putin.  

Much easier for most of us, is walking softly by reusing and recycling, loving our vintage jackets and purses, the hand-me-down china, the cedar chest, the bulky furniture that is more memory than style.  Our grandson shops flea markets for cast-iron cooking skillets.  Our niece is into vinyl--the 33 1/3 RPM records some of us (me) used to have.  When you have as little as they, you tend to spend wisely. 

Walking softly could also mean caring for whatever is old, including people--listening to the stories of the old who, in fact, are interesting if only we let them be.  No one listened better to her grandmother than our daughter.  Even now she could educate us on her grandma's life.  Why is it that listening often skips a generation? 

Walking softly certainly means  being a good steward of our surroundings however large or small.  Of our friendships, our marriages, our family relationships, and ourselves.  Walking softly with those we love might mean not tallying, accepting apologies, even ones barely spoken.  After all, we know the signs of sorrow.  It might mean recognizing that anyone can change.  Or falling in love again with the same person.  Or admitting that the pandemic took a toll on our friendships and making extra effort.  

How do we take care of ourselves softly?  Maybe with love, nurture and tenderness.  Not self-criticism.  Change, certainly, but not scorn or disdain.  

The third-to-the-last line of the blessing is "May you know and practice compassion."  I'm suspecting that if we do this we will rejoice in life.  

In peace, Nina Naomi

HAPPY ENDINGS

 

 The rain has slowed and birds sing their pleasure,

Though it's dusk and rest is near.  

Nesting where I know not.  

They awake before I, already in song.

All day we hoped for the sweetness of moisture to plump us.

We, the flowers and moss, 

The gardeners and walkers and outdoor watchers. 

We longed for fresh greenness and now it is here.

Thunder faint as the train rumbles slowly

Though the train is not far, just past the tall pines.

Rolling, calling, beckoning: sounds that embrace.

They teach us how to gleam with the rain.

The sash pushed high I remember from youth,

Tilting my head for the spray,

Eyes shut and happy.

A bit of cool on a newly warm day, just May.

My notebook is open, my candle now lit to welcome the night.

It comes early on evenings like this.

(Or the clouds might part for the late-day sun.

--But not today.)  The earth faces into the mist.

My pots of geranium:  apricot, violet.

Begonias so pale after winter indoors,

Brighten and flush their leaves to colors 

Unseen since the frost long ago.

 

Windows wide as I write--

As I sit and dream, really,

The writing an after-thought, reason to pause.

Enjoying the damp on my arm near the casement.

My candle is Balsam Fir; seasons combine.

Can I make life a poem?

Can I wash grief and fear, thought and memory

Tender as rain this day does the leaves?

 

I almost can.  I almost keep the old (or new) at bay. 

The inexplicable human (needless) failings.

I almost look around and see no sign of any single thing unkind. 

The only reason there aren't happy endings is that nothing ever ends. 

by nina naomi