A STRANGE TIME IN AMERICA

Advice for the Ages

This blog is in memory of my mother, Nina Naomi.  She was a teacher of American History.  We were raised to love our country. 

Not many women born in 1922 went on to earn a PhD, but she did, studying Native American history, the World Wars and everything in-between.  She and my father visited every presidential library and birthplace.  As for politics, she called herself an Independent.  As far as I know, she voted for FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.  I don't know about Johnson, Nixon or Ford.  Nothing was knee-jerk with her.  While my father was a yellow-dog Democrat, she was too knowledgeable to fall into that trap.  She had strong feelings about us dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and some regrets about Truman.  He was a Missourian, however, as were we.  She knew his library in Independence, Missouri well and admired him for establishing NATO. 

Oh how I wish I could talk to her now.  She was never a civil rights activist, but lived long enough to understand the movement.  A ground-breaker in almost everything, she would mourn the loss of Federal protection for girls and women who need to terminate their pregnancies.  She and I both lived during the time when abortions were illegal in Missouri and knew women whose lives were ruined by the hack jobs available in our state.  

One of my mother's history professors was the ex-patriated Chancellor of Austria, Kurt von Schuschnigg, who fled after his country's 1938 Annexation by Nazi Germany.  I can just imagine what she would think of Donald Trump's idea of forcibly removing all the Gazans from their devastated homeland and making Gaza a Mediterranean resort. Or what she would think of weakening our military by firing generals.  Or Trump's cosiness with Russia.  I really can't list all the goings on that would alarm and distress her, knowing history as she did.  

But particularly I can imagine her grief at the dismantling of the Department of Education and the siphoning of taxpayer money from the public schools, which she championed.  Our local schools ranged between middle and lower-middle class to underprivileged.  We all of us, needed every advantage, and the schools were wonderful.  They provided.  

Well, this post isn't about mindfulness, or nature, or living simply.  But since this blog is in memory of Nina Naomi I feel that I have to address the profound grief (and anger) she would be feeling at this strange time in America.  Whether she could find hope in history, I don't know.  

For myself, I look for hope everywhere, and while not finding it abundantly, never stop looking.  One place I find hope is reading Joyce Vance's Civil Discourse on Substack and going from there.  Another place is writing, as here.  Being with like-minded people, reading, finding consolation in nature and making any small contribution I can. You have ways too, I know.   Please share.  As so many of us say now, "We're in this together."   

In peace, Nina Naomi's Daughter

  

     

FEEDING THE GOOD WOLF

You know the story of the two wolves?  A Native American grandfather was talking to his grandson.  He said, 

"I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart.  One wolf is vengeful, angry, lying, arrogant, greedy and mean.  The other wolf is loving, serene, truthful, compassionate, generous and kind." 

His grandson asked him, 

"Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?"  

The grandfather answered, 

"The one I feed." 

Given the way things are, I feel like I'm hearing this story for the first time.  A story that reminds us of the power we have over our experiences and emotions. 

It's easy to feel like a victim in challenging times.  I was talking with my cousin.  She reminded me of the generations that lived through the Great Depression and World War II.  Before that World War I and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, an influenza that lasted 3 years and infected a quarter of the world's population.  Since then the Vietnam and Civil Rights generation.  We could add the Black Lives Matter the #MeToo generation and now COVID-19.  It's our turn.  That doesn't make us victims, it makes us human.  

My mother, the Nina Naomi to whom I dedicate this blog, was named after two beloved family members who both died in the 1918 pandemic, a mother and baby together.  Generations later my cousin was named after all three of them.  One year she and I put down the top on her convertible and visited all the family graves in St. Louis that we could find, including that mother and child. We had the best time!  We were feeding the good wolf.  When I reminded her of this the other day she said, "Wouldn't all those people have loved it that we were visiting them?" 

For the most part I think we are all feeding the good wolf.  We recognize that when we self-isolate we are saving more lives than our own.  We act out of self-interest, yes, but we know that our interest serves the greater good.  We are taking personal and communal responsibility.  

I'm reminded of the battle so many face against cancer.  I overheard a patient say, "I've got a year of fighting in my path.  I have to look at little things as big things and big things as little things."  We understand that.  We are doing that now everyday as we learn how the coronavirus takes no prisoners.  My husband washed the windows today; this became a big thing; I am so grateful.  We will be able to see the sun streaming into the bedroom in the morning without the haze of pollen.  The small becomes large.  

By choosing to spend our time and thoughts in ways that keep us healthy we feed our good wolf. The patient in cancer treatment mulled it over, "Yes, I've got a tough year ahead, but I plan to smile everyday because a positive attitude is sometimes the only thing I have."  How brave.  The good wolf is winning; I would like mine to win too.  
                                                                      Nina Naomi