Thoughts on Things

Three Fingered Jack Burn Area

I've gone through phases where I've read the news and tried to keep up with things.  In college, I had a professor who encouraged us to read at least 15 minutes a day - maybe with our breakfast or something.  I had BBC News as my home page during college, which later changed to NPR - once I discovered NPR.  Over the past couple years, I've pretty much lived under a rock as much as I can and stayed away from the news for a variety of reasons.  Every time I do seem to open it up, there seems to be a piece of our country that is falling apart, again.

Yesterday, I discovered that the Perkins Loans - which helped low-income kids go to college - was not renewed in 2017.  It was blocked by the Senate at the time.  As someone who could only go to undergraduate and graduate school because of student loans, decisions like that break my heart.  I am waiting for the day when my Income-Based Repayment Plan, which will allow my loans to be forgiven after 10 years of service to a government organization, non-profit, etc. - will be overturned.  I've heard that I am grandfathered in - but again, my heart breaks for future generations of smart kids who will struggle even more to find their way.

Today, I decided to look at the news.  First article that popped up - potentially changing the law so that people born in this country from parents who are not citizens would not automatically become citizens.  I have to admit, I have also always felt this was a strange way to become a citizen.  I've had friends who lived in this country their whole life legally and after college had to return to their home country due to not actually having been born here.  I've likewise met people with foreign accents who have never lived in America, but are citizens because they happened to be born here while their parents were working here.  The pathways to citizenship are a bit strange in America - birth, marriage... what else?

Anyway, what's more disturbing, is that President Trump thinks he can overturn this law with an executive order.  I'm not sure if he can or not, but this is what I find scary nowadays - the idea that a president has this much power, and a president that I personally wouldn't even trust with my lunch money.

And why are we focused on this, right now?

My brother lives in Montreal, Canada. In Canada, a parent can take leave before and after their child is born and receive 80% of their paycheck the first year.  The second year, the parent can receive 60% of their pay.  Childcare is free and the childcare is good.  My brother's children will be able to go to college for free or an affordable price.  They will never worry about basic healthcare coverage.  People in Montreal don't move to neighborhoods because "the schools are good" - because all the public schools are good.  The same amount of taxes get pulled out of his paycheck as mine - high 20s/30%.  My family's property taxes are more in rural New Jersey than they are for my brother, who lives in the Montreal metro area.  Sales tax is higher - but hey, when you're strapped for childcare in this country, who's buying things anyway?

These things, that my brother will not have to worry about - are conversations that I have all the time with my friends.  Conversations surrounding how our kids will go to college, how we will live on one income or afford childcare, what to do about health insurance when a job is lost, how college debt is holding us back from buying houses, how to even save money, etc. etc.  My friend worked practically until her due date, yet my sister-in-law will be able to start taking maternity leave months before the child is born.  Here a woman will use all of her vacation and sick time to have maybe 6 weeks off approved, returning to work - after having a baby - with none of it left.  That's probably best-case scenario.

How do we even do it in this country??

I am also continually amazed by how so many Americans continue to work so hard, living on low wages and believing that if they continue to work hard, things will be better.  I am the same.  It's all we can do - find more work, work longer hours, think of new business ventures - try and make it work.  I found this story a perfect portrayal of the America that I know - the ones who still believe that if you're not making it, it's on you - and that the ones who've made it worked hard to get there.  The ones who are loyal and continue to have good faith in those they believe in.

95% of the people who I have seen "make it" have had help, or there was something that they didn't have to worry about - their parents gave them their first car, grandparents paid for college, parents helped them get their first home, money was left to them by their grandparents, etc.  There is often one HUGE thing that they didn't have to worry about.  Most of us middle class kids have safety nets too - parents who jump in when times are tough, not to mention the ones who just use their parents' credit card until they're 30.  But even then, this help is not sustainable for a lot of us who wonder - or know - that we will never be able to do the same for our kids.

These are just the common things I see, the experiences that I have.  This doesn't include the countless Americans whose lives are shatter due to a cancer diagnosis, getting caught up needlessly in the criminal justice system, a job termination due to someone not liking them that affects their ability to get employed or receive unemployment, a business that suddenly takes a dive, or mental health or substance use issues that strap a family for years.

But the America I know, will keep blaming themselves.  They must not be trying hard enough, working hard enough, praying hard enough, or something.  America, you deserve so much more than this.  We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world - where the heck is it going?

This is just my own personal reflection.  Again, you may have noticed, I didn't even know NPR existed until college.  I grew up in a small, rural, white town, full of beautiful scenery and church-going people - where democrats were a rare breed and might be elitist or defensive.  I grew up with people who depend on each other when times are tough - meals from friends, money from the offering plate, free labor from a neighbor, friends taking care of the kids and picking them up from school.  These are the people who see the world through a framework of work ethic, reputation, and morals - not systems, privilege, or race.  I think it's vital, for the health of our country, that these two worlds somehow merge - as they have for me, at least - because I know that we are all after the same thing.

I'm not some whiney liberal complaining about the world burning, an educated academic sitting in my ivory tower, an environmentalist hippy crunchin' around in the forest, an aloof traveler spouting the best ways to live, an idealist floating above the reality of life and work, or a naive white girl trapped in some bubble.  Or maybe I am all of those things and more.  Who knows.

But what I do know, is that I'm an American.  I love my country and I am working pretty hard to make it out there - whatever "making it" means.  For me, it would be to not have children while still having housemates.  Let's realize this dream!

Thanks for reading and thinking with me.

The Future

The Living

My Winter Break Iceberg is Melting

My friend and I teared up watching the last episode of Gilmore Girls, where the community come together to give Rory a going-away party. The town organized it themselves, with secret meetings, because they must squeeze in a party before their daughter drives away. As we watched the camera span over the faces of the whole community staring and smiling up at Rory as she tried to thank them for the party without crying we almost lost it ourselves. 

There have been many moments like that this break, where I've been a part of the everyday - the quirky, spontaneous, mundane and lovable everyday.  Marie Howe writes about it in her collection of poems, What the Living Do - that everyday, living, thing that we do.  This is written in light of the deaths she has known, in particular for her brother John, who died at age 28.

What the Living Do

Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil fell down there.

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.

It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. 

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss -- we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep,

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:

I am living. I remember you. 

Here at home there are unfinished house projects, trips to the grocery store, bringing in of the firewood - and the winter wind literally just pushed the door wide open a few minutes ago. This break I've done nothing more thrilling or exciting that to experience the everyday - without epic journeys or transforming travels.  Annie Dillard talks about the everyday in The Writing Life:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, or that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order - willed, faked and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterwards as a blurred and powerful pattern. 

The most appealing daily schedule I know is that of a turn-of-the-century Danish aristocrat. He got up at four and set out on foot to hunt black grouse, wood grouse, woodcock and snipe. At eleven, he met his friends, who had also been out hunting all morning. They converged at "one of these babbling brooks" he wrote. He outlined the rest of his schedule. "Take a quick dip, relax with a schnapps and a sandwich, stretch out, have a smoke, take a nap or just rest, sit around and chat until three. Then I hunt some more until sundown, bathe again, put on white tie and tails to keep up appearances, eat a huge dinner, smoke a cigar and sleep like a log until the sun comes up again to redden the eastern sky. This is living... Could it be more perfect?

My winter break was perhaps a combination of these two descriptions.  Instead of hunting, replace it with watching House of Cards and instead of wearing white tails, replace that with staying in pajamas as long as possible.  There seems to be an important balance between enjoyment and work, schedule and free time - enjoying the everyday but also getting away from it.  I'm glad to have gotten away from my everyday for almost a solid month and now may just be ready to do some work again...