Tag Archive | Facebook

Shock and awe

Feb6

DREAMS AND MELANCHOLY

I feel so down. I believe my country is being destroyed. Every day, something new. Something awful every day. Posting on Facebook does nothing to help. I’ve found those who believe in most of the same things I believe in, and I’ve discovered those who think I’m a ‘hater’ or a loudmouth or ignorant of the facts or simply stupid for protesting. No matter how much back and forth we carry on, I haven’t changed my mind on any issue, and neither has anyone else.

Some people say, just ignore the news and get back to the fun stuff, the puppies and kittens and cute babies. While I agree that one can’t be consumed with anger all the time and survive, still, how can we be silent? I think that is what went wrong in Nazi Germany. Otherwise good folks were silent, they looked away. It’s too hard to be angry all the time, and besides, it can get you noticed and then people start calling you a ‘hater’ or a ‘n##ger lover’ or a ‘Commie’ or a ‘Jew’ (in the ugliest sense) or a ‘witch’ or any other derogatory label the mob comes up with to stifle your voice.

I believe in freedom. I believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I also believe that with these freedoms comes responsibility. To try to be the best one can be. To educate oneself and to be proud of being educated. To protect the weakest of us, even the ignorant, from the mean, bullying, cruel strong. To do whatever we can to ensure that everyone enjoys the same freedoms. To treat ourselves with respect, and to give that respect to others, to other nations, and to the earth. To leave no one behind, even if that means some personal sacrifice on our part. Isn’t this what the Constitution stands for? Isn’t this what we fought the Revolution for, the Civil War for, WWI and most significantly, WWII for? To stand up and declare what is right? To protest what is wrong and fight if necessary for what is right? Why did my father and mother endure the sacrifices of war, if not to fight to guarantee our freedoms for all of us? What has happened to that noble spirit?

I don’t know. All I know is that day after day, there is more news that tears down and cuts through what progress has been made to give everyone in our country equality and freedom. There are so many strikes coming so often, I feel overwhelmed and sad in the extreme. I guess that’s the strategy – shock and awe. But this time, it’s not bombs and it’s not in a foreign land. It’s shock and awe right in our own country, targeted at the psyches of those who dared to believe that, someday soon, the only thing that could hold one back in this great country of ours would be the content of one’s character.

 

 

Pandora’s Box

Jun1

DREAMS AND MELANCHOLY

Those of you who have been following my postings know that Facebook and I have been together only a short time. I resisted Facebook because I was worried it would sap my time (it has), keep me focused on the trivial (ditto), and turn me from reality to virtual reality. Lighten up, I’ve been told quite sternly! But with so little time on this earth, why would I want to use it up staring at my laptop or my smart phone?

In this excerpt from PERSEPHONE IN HELL, set in 1968, Ancient Glory narrates the story from 40 years in the future. She’s understanding. She gets that there are exciting and sometimes compelling distractions all around. Paying attention to the important things, to what’s in your heart and mind, the content of your character, the quality of your soul, can be tough with so much competition.

“Maybe that was why a year or more had passed, and no one had noticed Gloria’s scars. No one had seen the ugly lines on her thighs or the jagged breaks against her breasts.

Not one of them had looked, really looked at Gloria. Not even Penny, who shared a bedroom and might have seen at least one of her sister’s fifteen cries for help. Not Sammy, who ignored Glory as much as possible, hoping to tune out the crass remarks he heard around the locker room. Not Dad, always annoyed and uncomfortable around his pretty daughter. And least of all Ma, the mother who might have paid attention but didn’t.

Honestly, there were so many things to think about, so much to occupy one’s mind. There was the mortgage…food for eight…sneakers and coats and shoes and pants for ever growing children…college loans and Vietnam and protests in the streets…heart surgery and a sister-in-law’s last days…taxes, paychecks, money, electricity. One couldn’t see it all.

A daughter’s cutting pain could go unnoticed with other children to tend. A sister’s torn miseries might easily remain unseen when you weren’t even talking to her. An almost grown child’s razor blade lament could be overlooked or forgotten when, after all, it was old news. And how could you pay attention to the ordinariness of life when history was in the making?”

Pandora’s box, Facebook is. Open it. All the fun and troubles and temptations in the world come flying out at you, cluttering space, leaving you staring into an empty abyss and wondering where it ends, where will it end.

 

Dedicated to the memory of my old friend

Apr20

TIME AND OTHER NONSENSE

Once upon a time in a long forgotten land, I had one phone number and an email address, both of which I shared with my entire immediate family…

A couple of amazing things happened to me over the past weeks. First, under pressure from a well-meaning sibling and my daughter, who both insisted that I MUST open a Facebook account or be forever excluded from all communication with them, I started a #%!!#! account. I struggled my way through the setup, which included having to delete several mistakes (you don’t want to know how many) then added a fan page for my book, PERSEPHONE IN HELL. You can find a link to my Facebook page on this site – please take a look at it, it was so much work – I’m begging you! Several hundred grey hairs later, I now have three email accounts, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and this blog. Plus a smartphone that bleeps and buzzes and texts me all day long. I now have to bring my cell into the can with me so I won’t miss the latest blinking green light that indicates an important contact is attempting to be made. Did I forget anything? Today a so-called friend told me that I should set up an Instagram account too. I officially have no time for any other occupation or avocation, such is my preoccupation with this social media world.

But on to the good news. I’ve been discovered! No, not by Houghton Mifflin or Harper Collins or a Hollywood agent. Discovered by an entity far more significant than a mere publisher or movie producer. I’ve been discovered by my high school class reunion committee!

They found me on Facebook. And here, I’d successfully hidden from them for all these many (too many to count or admit to) years. Somehow, they hunted me down. They found me out. They called my name and surprise (this is the other amazing thing), I am pleased. Every emotion in the world has run through me since a nice woman named Alice found me out. I am humbled and shocked by the attention they’ve shown me. I’m amazed they remember me, that some think fondly of me; that some even like me. Who knew? I didn’t. I spent many years being scared of my past. I blocked out as much as I could until the emotions of my teenage years came screaming back in my writing.

In this passage from my novel, Ancient Glory returns after 40 years to end the story. Glory the teenager has had a rough time of it. She believes that everyone hates her. She’s lost all her friends and the love of her older sister, and thinks that even Mother Nature is out to get her. She despises herself. She needs the comfort and support of knowing that she will somehow survive. She gets it from Ancient Glory…

“And scars will lighten, they’ll pale unless you keep rubbing at them. Best to let them be, let them fade away in their own good time, in their own difficult and savage, cruelly dissonant way. Wait long enough, they’ll fade – it’s the law of nature.”

That’s what I did. I let enough time pass from my troubled youth for my scars to fade. They have lightened, so much so that when I got the call from that nice woman named Alice, I could answer with a hesitant but happy heart.

With many thanks to my old chums.

This posting is dedicated to the memory of my old friend Tom, who tragically could not find the strength to let enough time pass for his own wounds to heal. Tom, if only we could go back in time…