ElementalMom

• If I'm gonna win NaNo, I have to crank out 20K words in the next 24 hours. I'm gonna have to pull out the whole bag of tricks. #nanowrimo #

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• @coffeegirl2000 Happy Birthday Emily!!!!!!!!!! in reply to coffeegirl2000 #
• Big, big thanks to everyone out in Silver Springs & Carson City, NV, who are pitching in to help Mom out. So so so grateful. #
• RT @changedotorg Vulnerable Nations Make 'Global Survival Pact' | Stop Global Warming | Change.org http://bit.ly/2l7Zf7 #
• Hit 13,050. Only 4K to go to get back on track. Wish me luck! #amwriting #nanowrimo. #
• I just wrote to the end of my battery power! Time to make dinner while the (mental and computer) battery charges. #nanowrimo #
• Another 1500 words and I can fall over. Y'know, until tomorrow. #nanowrimo #amwriting #
• Classic Week 2 NaNo pain. Just not feeling the wordcount love. #amwriting #NaNoWriMo #
• @rozsavage If a woman who has rowed through oceans feels strongly about them, I'd call that testimony, not propaganda. in reply to rozsavage #
• Ohmygosh, my hero, John Vigor, has a blog!!! http://www.johnvigor.com/Blog.html YEAH! #johnvigor #sailing #
• Quit… hitting…wordcount… function…. aaaaaaaaaargh! #amwriting #nanowrimo #
• @coffeegirl2000 YAY KENNETH! We have *no* idea what you did, but we are fer sure proud of you!!! in reply to coffeegirl2000 #
• Heading to NV to say goodbye. #

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I was recently turned on to Ginmar’s amazing blog A View from A Broad, and I have to say that her voice, as a female veteran, is blunt, direct, and extremely refreshing in this era of prevarication and political correctness. She takes on insanely difficult topics, but does it in such a way that the conversation tends to be elevated instead of guttered.

Today’s post, Cots, Cooks, and Clerks, has a lot to say about Veterans, and Heroism that no one but another veteran could say with any authority. Go check it out, and tell her I sent you.

Really.

Those of you who read my Facebook or Twitter know that things with the Bear have, once again, gone downhill.

I had no idea how much downhill there could be in one person’s story.

Those of you who have read this blog for a while know that I’ve been posting about the Bear’s health sliding for quite some time. I keep thinking he couldn’t possibly take any more, and then he does. And then the whole thing gets less like a triumph of modern medicine, and more like some evil Frankensteinian sideshow.

To cut to the chase; at this point, he can’t walk, he’s hallucinating, he’s incontinent, he’s on between 15 and 20 medications at all times, he isn’t eating, and about half the time he can’t remember who my mother is.

Several months ago, when we were out there visiting, he sat there and told me that he had no reason to live. Surrounded by me, his grandchildren, and his wife of 30+ years, he just cut loose with that particular bomb. He went on to talk about how all his pleasures were gone, and really, there was just nothing left for him at all. And considering what he was overlooking, I heartily agreed with him.

And yet, he keeps fighting. Because fear is a powerful motivator. He is terrified of death.

Years ago, when this whole medical debacle first started, some idiot gave him morphine, which he is allergic to, and he spent three solid days hallucinating. And what he hallucinated was standing at the gates to hell. Because of that, he is trying to put off dying as long as he possibly can.

Personally, I don’t believe in hell. And up until that morphine, the Bear didn’t either. He was completely atheistic, to the point that one of my childhood memories is the train of  local ministers who brought their students to the house, to try to “crack” the hard nut of the Bear’s lack of faith. It was a challenge, he was a teaching opportunity for every theist for miles around. He laughed at them all.

I have a Buddhist friend who also believes that there is no afterlife of any kind. To her, death is just the end of suffering. I’ve tried reminding the Bear that he used to believe that. It does no good. But then again, he spend most of his life telling everyone that he didn’t need to take care of himself, because when the wheels started falling off the wagon, he was just going to end it, without all this namby-pamby medical interference. He scoffed at people who received heroic measures to maintain life.

The Old Testament doesn’t have a hell. Hell is a New Testament creation, designed to frighten people into behaving well. But what happens at the ugly conflation point, where hell wasn’t scary enough to help someone lead a less hateful and chaotic life, but is so scary that they then cannot allow themselves to die? What happens to your soul when all your life you have criticized a set of choices, and now find yourself in the middle of them? What happens to your body when you can’t let yourself live because you’ve ruined your body, but you can’t let yourself die because you think there’s some great punishment coming for the rotten choices you’ve made?

This is why Purgatory is far more frightening than any other option. This inability to move forward in any way.

Ironically, I know a man who researched NDEs, Near Death Experiences. It’s his contention that the problem with people who fear hell, fear death, is that all they have to do is go backwards, into acceptance and forgiveness, in order to get out of the increasingly ugly path of Purgatory. I’ve talked to the Bear about that too, but that’s not an option either.

He can’t move forward. He won’t go back. He isn’t living, but he can’t die.

My mother… that’s her tale to tell, not mine. But I know that I’m exhausted from the strain of being ready to come help, and the waiting is agonizing. I can’t imagine how much worse it is right there at Ground Zero.

I have no idea how much more his body can take. I have no idea how much more my mother’s soul can take. I’ve personally done everything I can think of to do practical, useful things, and in the meantime, play with my children, love my husband, and take joy in what’s around me. Yesterday, I spent most of the  day at the garden with the kids, painting tires beautiful colors, and smiling at dandelions. It’s not quite enough, but it’s a start. I imagine most of the real emotional work of this Last Great Act of Chaos and Mayhem on the Bear’s part is going to suck us all as dry as we let it, and I’m trying hard not to feel like I’m somehow evil for not letting myself slide into being wrought.

It’s not over yet. I have no idea how far from over it really is. With the miracle of modern medicine (snort), they could keep his body animated for quite some time. I am breathing, and distancing, and hoping that when it’s my time, I make choices that do not agonize everyone who has to be around me.

• Staying up late, banking some more wordcount against whatever may come tomorrow #NaNoWriMo #
• 1,725 on top of my 1,690 from earlier. Not a bad wordcount for starting #NaNoWriMo G'night! #
• Incredibly spiffy diagram of biological scale. Zoom in! http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/ #
• Holding good thoughts for all my Sun peeps getting cut today. RIF does NOT equal RIP!!!!!! #
• Ohmygosh, @350.org is following me!!! I feel all celeb! Guess it's time to tweet what I think about climate change. #climatechange #350.org #
• Remember, remember, the 5th of November… #
• @truthrisinguk Your point? http://bit.ly/33fPI8 is one response. @MiningFan @Garden27 @delayoscillator in reply to truthrisinguk #
• The hospital just called my mother to bring a roll of paper tape from home to use on The Bear… because the Hospital doesn't have any. #

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I know I have some devoutly Christian readership. Guys, please, you *have* to do something about this. I got it from Matt Taibbi’s blog, which is excellent:

Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed

“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”

via Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus – Bloomberg.com.

I didn’t believe this story was true at first — thought it had to be a spoof. But it turns out to be true. The great banks of the world have gone on a p.r. counteroffensive in Europe, and are sending spokescrooks in shiny suits into churches to persuade the masses that Christ would have approved of the latest round of obscene bonuses.

Go ahead, read the whole thing. I’m not even Christian, and I found myself being offended beyond belief.

This is just delightful:

I adore Sharon Astyk. I read her blog semi-religiously, and she’s the closest thing to come to convincing me that moving off the boat and onto dirt might someday be an OK idea. So whenever she cranks out a new book (as she’s been doing lately), I pounce on it.

A Nation of Farmers, her second book, is fabulous. You can stop reading here; the rest of this post is just me babbling.

Sharon sees the same signs as I do, that things are changing, faster than our culture’s capability to keep up. But unlike most of the other Peak Oil/Depletion folks out there, Sharon sees this change as opportunity. Hers is, considering the subject matter, the most optimistic of viewpoints. Her answer, in a nutshell, is that we have to fall back to our agrarian roots, focus on maintaining our food supply, and build communities around each other.

You get done reading an Astyk book, and you come away thinking that the complete fall of the American Lifestyle as we know it would probably be a good thing. And if she had her way, we’d end up eating better when all was said and done after all. She has brilliant ideas about, and arguments for, taking charge of your own food supply here, now, no matter where you are or what your circumstance.

Everyone, absolutely everyone, should read “A Nation of Farmers”. It might be what’s between you, and feeding your families in the future.

I’m taking some time out from my NaNoWriMo writing time to tell you precisely how fantabulous the Oakland Dia de los Muertos festival was. Cause OMG.

Where to start? OK how about this. I was alone with three kids walking a mile and a half (cause that’s how far I had to go to park) through a dingy Oakland neighborhood. We got to the festival, which unlike years past, took over four or five square blocks (more like six if you counted all the unofficial stuff in the neighborhoods), and was packed wall to wall with pretty much the entire East Bay hispanic community. I was strongly in the minority, and I think that’s something that more gringos should experience as often as possible. You learn a lot when you stick out like a sore thumb. The kids and I were there for almost four hours, and had a blast.

We ate ghastly food; polish sausages, garlic fries, horchata, cotton candy. We listened to Aztec music danced and sung by folks wearing bunny skin bikinis and huge pheasant headdresses, we listened to Spanish rap performed by three crotch-grabbing hooligans, who turned out to be singing about respect, family, and unity (I swear, my Spanish was improving by the minute, trying desperately to catch what they were saying). The little boy next to Kestrel had a popsicle that was melting too fast in the heat, so he shared it with Kestrel to get it eaten faster. So I gave his mom some of my wet wipes. =)

Too many gorgeous epiphanies to go into. So here’s the short form:

• I am pretty sure the media talks about Oakland the way it does so that rich folks fear poor folks.
• OMG I love hispanic culture. So polite. So inclusive. So child-friendly. So used to living crowded, but instead of “me first”, was all about “all together”. I got jostled and bumped into constantly… and always there was the apology, the steadying hand. I felt utterly safe; I am quite sure, having BTDT, that I would not be so safe in a similar anglo gather.
• The festival was going to be canceled this year due to lack of funds. So this whole humongous thing was a result of the vice-mayor, who is hispanic, sending out a call to the community to figure out what it could do to make it happen anyway. And so with lack of funding, they put on an event, sourced by the people, for the people, that was approximately quadruple the size of the old one, and completely free. The games were free, the face painting, paper cutting, paper flower making, dancing; every single cultural thing was totally free. I think there’s a big big message there.
• I had taken Aurora off my back to play with her while we listened to one stage show, and she threw a fuss when I went to put her back on my back, and instead of the normal hostile looks (Oh my god shut that kid up!) I instantly had four offers of help and two grandmas offer to hold her. Have I mentioned how nice it is to be around the child-friendly?
• The altars were spectacular. There was nearly a block of them, back to back, all different. At least five of them were interactive, and one of them was for women, so I wrote a card for Charlie and put it on display. There was one for the people who have died in the desert crossing to the US… hugely powerful, and so very sad. Some were powerful, some were artistic, such a huge range. Amazing, and such a great exercise, sorta like “write your own obituary”, but “envision your own altar”. What kind of altar would my family build for me? It’s a big question.
• Exposure to diversity matters. I felt totally comfortable, but I think that’s partially because I got what was going on. I went to Olvera Street all the time when I was little, and I think that part of growing up Californian is marinading in hispanic culture of many flavors. I mean, I’ve done the altars, I’ve had picnics on the graves of my ancestors. Rowan and Kes were having a great time, because *I* was having a great time.

I could probably keep babbling, but I have wordcount to get to. Suffice it to say, I am totally on Cloud 9. I’m sad that we weren’t in Mexico this year, but since we couldn’t be… I’m very happy that we were in Oakland.

• another nutty day in the making. #
• RT @symplesolutions: Police log "domestic extremists" http://bit.ly/7A1r9 amazing that some people still don't see what's coming #
• Can Tom Morello and Co. shut down Gitmo, since Obama won't? http://bit.ly/3jrfp7 #gitmo #
• RT @worldschooler: Interview on Yi-Tan about unschooling w/ Sandra Dodd and Tammy Takahashi. http://bit.ly/2rKxM GO TAMMY! #
• The best desktop art ever: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/wallpapers Seriously cool stuff in there. #
• Unbelievable. Please support John Unger! Cause corporate greed sucks http://bit.ly/VDAik #
• Gardasil researcher reveals "It's a big public health experiment". Her conclusion? It #
• the gardasil vax is unnecessary. http://bit.ly/KXPoa #
• On the Day of the Dead, missing Charlie, and Marla, and Grandpa, and Dad. And holding the door for those who need it. #
• NaNo wordcount managed for today. #

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