Thoughts on Community

We are all responsible for everyone in our community, and compassion and respect is essential to that responsibility. Results will come when we work with one another to understand each others’ problems and predicaments, and move forward together, as one–not as the “better” people leading the “impoverished.”

I posted this as a comment on an OpEd piece in the New Haven Register this morning in response to other comments. You can read the article (it’s interesting!) for context. I received this response from bob:

Sorry Sara, I do not believe it takes a village, you are barking up the wrong tree.  Good parenting is as obvious as breathing.

Thoughts?

Leave a comment

Compassion, Haiti, and All of Us

I was not shaken until today, until the good Rev. McTigue called me to action, until I saw bodies being scooped up by a backhoe from a street in Haiti and dumped, nameless, into mass graves to protect those still living and suffering.

I say “compassion” often and spend much time analyzing it from my distant seat in a comfortable land. In the past week, I often called for sensible compassion, and I criticized those giving heedlessly to this sudden disaster, as if their impulsive gift meant less or would be less effective. I talked coldly about Haitians who started with nothing but raw material and therefore must have it easy because that raw material need only be reshaped to recreate life, as if their comfort would come so simply.

I held  “compassion” conveniently onscreen, on a page, conveniently defined by a spiritual tradition or, even more simply, by a dictionary. I let the word slide off my tongue as easily as whistling a tune off-key, then continued to talk about the weather or football.

But I never inhaled compassion.  I wrote poems about it and drew pictures of it, and I called those things real. But I lacked real awareness. Compassion is taking action with awareness.  Too often I lack awareness of the miracles around me, of the total interconnectedness of this universe, like how I constantly forget that my heart is beating, sending blood to every piece of me, keeping me alive.

But then I am shaken by someone so tremendously aware of the suffering flowing through the veins of this world:

So it falls to the rest of us to lift up not only the voice of compassion but a sustained attention to the literally unimaginable suffering that now unfolds in Haiti. It falls to the rest of us to name the Holiness that can move through us, putting our compassion into action. It falls to people of any faith who put connection ahead of blame to not turn away this time, once the media has lost interest, and to sustain our commitment in the weeks and months ahead so that Haitians might not live perpetually in the hell that is created not by Robertson’s “Devil” but by the insidious and far more banal devils of colonialism, racism, corruption and poverty.    - Rev. Kathleen McTigue

I am shaken by events that give compassion flesh and bones and visible motion.

I am shaken into seeing that a Haitian’s breath is my own, that their homelessness is my homelessness, that their hunger is my hunger. It always was and it always is and it always will be.

So this is my first action: awareness. Yes, I will give what resources I have to the people of Haiti, and I will speak for justice everyday, but meaningful movement is dependent upon awareness. I will strive to sustain that awareness, beyond the media’s attention to this disaster, and to the other corners of the earth (including next door) where suffering also exists.

We are one organism, one being alive because we each, we all, exist. We each do our job, whatever that is, within this earth so that this earth, and all of us, may live. We are all suffering and laughing and breathing together, as one. We move because of this knowledge. Movement out of awareness: that is true compassion.

We have been made aware of the suffering. Now move:
To Donate to Partners In Health to aid their efforts in Haiti, click here.

Leave a Comment

Manifesto of Sorts

Personal Mission Statement: To be who I am.

Definition of Values: Compassion.

–

The universe is conspiring to inspire me, to nudge me into taking stock of the things that move me and to actually move on those things.

It all started with a blog post about creating social change. Quickly summarized, it says:

Creating visionary community change is not just possible. It is practical and doable. And when we take off the blinders, it happens faster than you ever dreamed.

I posted the link to Facebook, my best friend Jason responded, and our stream of comments spurred some explosive contemplation in my head, mostly around this idea:

Once you establish what you want to do (mission) and the way you want to do it (values) all the details simply fall into an outline for creating those ideals.

While I made that comment in the context of organizational management (the activity, not necessarily the people in charge), I started to see how the idea is just as, if not more, applicable to individual lives. In fact, what is an organization but a commitment of individuals to one mission?

So I opened my journal with the intention of scribbling out the millions of thoughts I had in my head to get to the bottom of my personal life mission. But when I picked up the pen, all the noise seemed to quiet and and one theme emerged: just be you. So I wrote that at the top of the page.

But that’s too easy, right? I’m always me, aren’t I?

Not really. The more I pay attention, the more I realize I’m being who I think other people want me to be: my dad, my partner, my boss, my friends, whoever. Being who they want me to be is absolutely necessary to leading a “successful” life. If they like me and the things I do, I’ll be happy. Right?

the miracle at Cappella dei Pazzi

Florence, Firenze, on a Thursday. the day, like all the others before, had been maddeningly hot. wherever we went, thousands of tourists were crammed into whatever shade whatever giant cathedral or baptistery or museum provided, leaving half of a plaza desolate.

i was sweaty with the weight of a backpack filled with the unnecessary weight of the trusty old D200 Lauren was letting me use for the trip. i had stopped looking for good shots hours ago–too hot, too crowded, too rushed: the theme of a European tour via Mediterranean cruise. in my head, i was already crashed out on my cabin’s bed. no more weight on my feet, my sweaty tanktop on the floor, the balcony door sealed shut to trap in the cool, conditioned air. then back to reality. Ponte Vecchio and Piazza Signoria rolled past in a wave of fluttering heat like you see emanate off the hood of a hot car. we trudged on.

i hated that it was happening, but Florence was becoming just another old city with pretty old places. i’d have traded it in a second for a gallon of ice water and a massage.

we entered the Basilica di Santa Croce to see the tombs of Michelangelo and Macchiaveli (how’d the birther of lie-laced, ruthless ambition get buried in a church?). while Ignazio, our tour guide, was asking if any of us could sing, i could only think about how i had to cover my shoulders with a scarf, raising the temperature of my body another few unbearable degrees, so as to not offend God, or something.

get me out of this city.

our last stop of the day was at Cappella dei Pazzi, the chapel at Santa Croce–another cavernous space adorned with prophets and columns with a dome on top. Ignazio went on to explain the geometric perfection of the structure which made the chapel an acoustic wonder. to illustrate, he walked away from us to the other side of the huge space and whispered, “can you hear me?”  his voice rolled across the curve of the dome and floated into my ears like he was telling me a secret, but everyone was nodding their heads.

“where’s my singer?” Ignazio asked. a stout African American woman from Austin stepped out from the crowd, only a little shyly. her eyes scanned the space, maybe a little nervously, but mostly with a glint full of wonder.

“will you sing a line or two?” Ignazio asked.

“what should i sing?”

“anything you want.”

the woman nodded her head just slightly, looked around the chapel once more, then closed her eyes and took in a breath.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…

Florence went silent as her sad, deep gospel voice slowly filled the marble room. i swear i saw the walls shiver just slightly as they inhaled the sound, and then they exhaled together returning her voice to us in thick, rolling waves. i closed my eyes, and i felt the entire world tiptoe inside the chapel to hear what was happening. we all held our breath together.

the singer whispered, more shyly than when she started, “should i keep going?”

“please…” Ignazio whispered back.

That saved a wretch like me…

the sweat on my arms went cold as the waves of her song seeped into my skin. suddenly, we all weren’t just in Florence. Florence was there, but so was Austin and Mumbai and La Paz. the world turned inside out, without boundaries, a breeze across our faces.

I once was lost, but now I’m found…

the painted prophets were there, too, holding breath i didn’t know they had, straining their ancient ears as to not miss a note. then the moon and all the stars arrived. time crumbled and the heat together with any cold in the world vanished. we were suspended, all of us, hanging there together inside the cupped hands of some vast, unfathomable…

Was blind, but now I see.

2 Comments

North Haven, Spain, Italy, France, Spain, North Haven

this is me tapping my fingers before heading to New Jersey to catch a plane. then Europe. i have my pre-judgments. but i’m trying to stay open-minded. i won’t worry about what i wear. i’ll smile at everyone i see.

i’m so lucky. blessed. happy.

see you when i get back. or maybe you’ll see me first.

Infinite Jest

i’ve been struggling with the idea of biography. are some ideas so brilliant that they transcend their author? or is the brilliance in how the idea reflects the person who reflects the world?

Thomas Jefferson was a slave-owning jackass whose own life didn’t live even an inch up to the ideas he set down in the Declaration of Independence. Keith Jarrett’s piano floats me into another stratosphere, even though i know cough drops are handed out at his concerts because he is known to walk out at the hint of even involuntary audience noise.

but then there are other artists whose work seems completely dependent on their biographies.

i was reading an article in The New Yorker on David Foster Wallace awhile back. he killed himself on September 12 of last year. his wife found him hanging above their patio.

my writing professor gave me one of Wallace’s books, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, after my junior year, and i’ve tried to read it a few times since, unsuccessfully. too many words and not enough periods. so many complex thoughts stuffed into each neverending paragraph. reading his stuff was like trying to solve the Times’s Sunday puzzle while hungover–absolutely exhausting.

but now that i’ve read about his life–his depression and his failure to maintain the balance between his own intense expectations and real happiness–the “stem-winding” sentences make perfect sense. i need to pick the book up again, just so i can spot the sadness between the lines and study the way he’s trying to navigate the dark maze that he is simultaneously building.

i did the same thing with Elliot Smith. not a day after he shoved a knife through his own chest, i was absorbing every song i could find, trying to find hints to why. it was like listening to the ghost of a child who couldn’t quite remember what it was like to be alive.

from the article about Wallace:

“A typed note that Wallace left in his papers laid out his final novel’s idea: ‘Bliss—a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious—lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.’”

the man wrote and he wrote well, but i never gave him any patience until he died dramatically. what does that mean?

Wallace once wrote in a letter to a friend, “I will be a fiction writer again or die trying.”

hmmm.

Comments

Happy Independence Day

Photo: Rick Alfaro

Comments

Ten Things

i’m grateful for today, so far. (i desperately need to remind myself…)

1. six and a half hours of unbroken sleep.
2. fresh cherries and pineapple slices in the refrigerator for breakfast.
3. an hour of calm reading time with coffee before work.
4. Lauren’s voice didn’t sound like a grating box of Lucky Brands, and she was glowing from her seven and a half hours of unbroken, albeit CR, sleep.
5. the resuscitation of a long forgotten mix on the way to work, with songs from a nostalgic, bygone era.
6. traffic at the I-95 merge kept me held up for awhile,  giving me even more time to enjoy that mix.
7. morning Zen chat with Wendy.
8. Chik-Patty Sandwich from Edge of the Hood on a full hour lunchbreak.
   (bonus: free sample of Reed’s Ginger Beer)
9. the amazing opportunities for patience and compassion presented by a last-minute phone call from my boss, the sudden loss of much-needed fonts, and the five-minute lag-time between the moment i press “print” and when the document actually prints.
10. dark chocolate-covered almonds.

and it’s only 3:14 in the afternoon.

Comments

just to say hi

it happens sometimes when i’m not paying attention. memories creep in from distant places. the smell of Chapel Street early this morning; steady rain on the windows after the sun goes down; Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea from the ipod on shuffle; tu me manques on the tv. bystander details from an innocent June day saturating all the photos i didn’t save or never took.

in my head i found you there and
running around and following me

it may not be much of an image, sometimes not even a face. sometimes it’s just a presence filling the space like in a dream where a stranger is pictured but you recognize them as someone you know in real life. sometimes it’s just a name written in someone’s particular script in the air in front of me.

but they’re there, and they don’t notice me. and of course that’s all i want. i want them to look up from their faraway lives and say hi.

that’s why i’m writing, of course.

i want them to remember me like i sometimes remember them. that ride home from the Valley, that photo taken on the Turnpike, that storm over Seaside Park.

but i suppose the best i can do is wave to them from here, whether anyone is looking or not.

i haven’t forgotten you, and i don’t think i ever will.

baker baker baking a cake
make me a day
make me whole again
and i wonder if he’s ok
if you see him say hi

Comments

in defense of blogging

a few days ago i gave a friend the link to my blog, and she said, “i’ll check it out, but i tend to think of blogging as pretentious.” i responded, “i’ll admit it–it is pretentious and attention seeking, but i can only write when i know i have an audience.”

the whole exchange stuck with me for awhile. how is blogging any more pretentious than playing guitar and singing at the local open mic? than displaying photos at the local coffee shop? than submitting a manuscript for publishing?

presumptuous, maybe.

the artist who displays or performs presumes that someone out there wants to experience their art. they hope to be seen and to convey some sort of message. some might be more pretentious than others in their artistic intentions, but i don’t know if the mere act of displaying their art is in itself pretentious.

i don’t blog to feel important or to magnify my self-worth. but the fact that i know that (at least three) people will read what i write brings mission to my writing. knowing that someone out there is waiting to read what i write gives me a reason to start and finish. it gives me a reason to edit and polish.

when i know someone else will be looking, i have to be totally accountable for my words.

i don’t think art created with the audience in mind is any less pure than that which is created never to be seen or experienced. i think it’s just different. once an artist decides to create for an audience, the audience immediately becomes part of that art, long before anyone actually experiences the piece.

i would never claim to be an artist, or even a writer. but i see a lot of things that i want to share, and i have a lot of questions to ask and a lot of muddled thoughts to sort out.

i put it all out there, here, in hopes that someone might want to walk beside me for a paragraph or two, silently or not. you bring me comfort and inspiration, even if you’re not really there.

5 Comments