It is time to drag out the anti-war poetry.

War is Kind
by Stephen Crane (1871-1900)

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep
War is kind.

Horse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them,
Great is the battle god, great, and his kingdom
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose hear hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep,
War is kind.

Dulce Et Decorum Est
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

Bent double, like old beggars under
sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And toward our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Ducle et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Its time to know what we’re asking. And I’m not sure that we know. I’m not sure its okay to send men off to die when we don’t know who the enemy is anymore. Or maybe when we’re just out-gunned with evil. Who sets a trap designed to slaughter those going to the aid of the wounded? Not anyone I’d want to die for. Not anyone I’d want to defend.

So, I’m a little obsessed with ancient Greek myths at the moment.  I don’t know what about it excites me so much.  I remember thinking how boring the Illiad was in high school, maybe it just takes some perspective to really understand it.  I think I’m there, right now.  The point of perspective.  And I’m tired.

I am so tired of the psychotic predictability of women.  I’m tired of bearing the brunt of female volatility.  Its bizarre the way we love to tear each other down, to play the game or whatever it is we’re doing.  Even with good intentions, you can’t escape the ugliness.  So right now I’m really digging Medusa.  She’s not unlike my favorite Hindu diety, Kali.  They are very similar actually.  They are represented with the same powerful mien.  Flashing angry eyes, mouth wide open, sometimes with the tonge lolling all the way out.

I have a lot of sympathy for Medusa actually.  She’s a monster that was created and distorted, and I think very misunderstood.  I know she’s not a real person.  I’m just embracing the ideas here.  Medusa was a young, beautiful maid whose crowning feature was her beautiful flowing blond hair.  As she worshiped in the temple of Athena, she was raped by Poseidon, the God of the sea.  Athena was so offended that her temple was defiled, that she turned Medusa’s beautiful hair into a mass of serpents and distorted her face so that the sight of it would turn anyone to stone.

I don’t know if we are supposed to feel sympathy for Medusa or not, but I see Athena’s punishment of her as an ancient reflection of the way women work.  As a woman, its much easier to take down a woman than a man.  We know where we’re vulnerable.  We know how to subtly get in for the kill.  We know what is important to each other.  And we can’t stand to see (another woman) have something, learn something or accomplish something that we haven’t.  That is a pretty jaded thing to say and think.  But I think it holds true for the most part.  There will always be a few golden treasures, true friends.  And I am privileged to have a few of those.  But I am so tired of the way women usually tear each other down.  Its subtle, and always with “the best of intentions”.

I see the tragedy of Medusa, that she was horribly disfigured, and that that disfigurement continued to be a weapon after she was killed as indication of the potency of women’s powers for ill.

The repercussions of this are further reaching than we can imagine.

We will spend part of Memorial day following a tradition I started when I was in High school.  Ever since I was 16 I have decorated the graves of the men who have served in the armed forces during a war.  Its not much, just a little flag, and just a little token.  And in the cemetery that I have adopted, I’m not sure any of those people actually died in a war.  But its about teaching my children to respect something that I have somehow come to respect.  The value of blood.  Of putting one’s life on the line in the service of our country.

I can’t say exactly how this became so important to me.  My dad was in the military.  My grandfather was in Vietnam.  I suppose growing up with that legacy made me respect the proud history of the United States military.  Right now I have a renewed awe for service men and women.  I read Mark Bowden’s book about the 1993 battle in Mogadishu.  The description was thorough, Bowden spends dozens of pages describing moments of the battle.  My dad knew two of the men who were there.  Air Force PJ (elite medic) Tim Wilkinson and Combat Controller Dan Schilling.  After I read Bowden’s book, I saw on Amazon that there was a book of first-hand accounts that included the accounts of Wilkinson and Schilling. (The Battle of Mogaishu: First Hand Accounts of Task Force Ranger)  Wilkinson was in a team that fast-roped in to help the first downed Black Hawk.  He was among the 99 men who were pinned down over night.  Wilkinson risked his life three times running into heavy fire to retrieve medical supplies to treat the wounded.  Schilling was part of the “lost convoy” who drove around in the hostile city getting shot up until there were more wounded than not.  The convoy made it back to the UN base, unloaded the wounded and dead and then immediately rearmed and prepared to go back out.  One of the comments that Wilkinson made in his account was that its easy to get a man to go into combat the first time.  But the real heroes are those who have gone the first time and then willingly go back in again.  He talked about how in the World Wars, those soldiers were in combat for months on end.  It wasn’t just one night for them, but a droning hellish reality.

I don’t think we can comprehend what that is, even after a hundred books on the subject. These men don’t feel like heroes.  And in fact, in the mind bending brutality of war, there are wounds that don’t ever heal.  There are things that can’t be spoken of.  There are things that defy description.  Men that come back from war, even without shedding blood–they’ve paid in their blood.  You can’t know and see things without it becoming a part of your body.  The trauma is fed minute by minute, day after day with precious, nourishing blood.  I believe our stories lie dormant in our blood.  As attributed to Plato at the beginning of the movie Black Hawk Down, “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

So every Memorial day, I take my children to a cemetary that is just down the road from the house I grew up in.  Nobody I know is burried there.  Nobody even distanly related to me is burried there.  But you can see on the grave markers to symbol, a cross in a circle.  And most have the war they fought in inscribed on their stones.  I pay respect to these men.  They are only men in our cemetary.  It is symbolic.  In paying respect in that place, I am teaching my children the value of blood.  We won’t know the end of war in our lifetime.  We’re not even close.  But I believe, if we could just try to comprehend the sacrifices.  If we could multiply them millions of times over.  If we could even try to comprehend the enormity of what has been done in the name of freedom… if we could comprehend the pain and sorrow of mothers and of wives whose loved ones paid in blood… I’d like to believe we might get closer to seeing the end of war.  That could take a lifetime.  Maybe it always has.

I just cry.  And sometimes when the words are too big, too full, or too painful… I cry then too.  Life is such a fragile thing.  I know my mom lost a little baby between my older sister and me.  The baby was old enough that they knew he was a boy but he was too small and fragile to survive.  I don’t know what the appropriate reaction is to a tragedy like that.  How can you properly grieve for the child that didn’t get to be?  My mom has never talked about it, with me.  As far as I know, I don’t think she’s ever mentioned it to anyone. And I think that is the worst part of the tragedy.  It was something so personal and so painful that no one got to share in her pain.  No one but her really knew him or felt him.  I don’t know the date this tragedy occurred.  I only know that it was followed soon after, by a pregnancy that resulted in me.

A friend of mine is going through this right now.  At 19 weeks her water broke spontaneously.  Its so sickeningly unfair.  I am too far away to do anything and its so frustrating.  Last night I made two tiny quilts because I didn’t know the gender.  I was hoping against all odds that I could get them to her in time, that she could wrap her baby in something made out of love, just for that moment, for that baby.  Time is so cruel and distended when you don’t want it to be.  And sometimes it just slips through your fingers.  I found out that Amelia Jayne was born this morning, still.  I know that the hospital usually has hand-made things for babies that are born too young.  I just wish that I could have done something to signify the emotions I feel.  That she’s not alone, that its horribly unfair, that her baby has the most beautiful name I’ve ever heard.  Where I am, there is nothing I can do but pray.

Life is a precious, precious thing.  Don’t ever forget that.

I have bragged about this before.  But my husband is amazing.  He operates under the assumption that he can do anything.  And aside from dentistry and obstetrics, he does.  In the east we’re experiencing arctic weather.  It hasn’t been above freezing for days now and that means exponentially high power bills for us.  We have a fireplace with an electric blower that could heat our house but we haven’t put a fire in it yet because we’re afraid of burning down our house since we don’t know when the last time the chimney was cleaned.  I have been suggesting that we get a chimney sweep, but BJay resists such practical suggestions because he honestly believes that he can do anything that I think we should leave to the professionals.  This would be annoying if he was the type of do-it-yourselfer who gets the kitchen sink apart and then destroys it  before conceding to a professional in the end.  BJay does not do that.  There is no job that he can’t master.  And I love that.  So today when we revisited the idea of a fire in our fireplace and getting someone to clean our chimney so we don’t inadvertently burn our house down–Bjay put his chimney sweep cap on an went to work.  Before I knew it he was on the roof and then pulling the fireplace piece out with all kinds of utensils and a shopvac. I don’t know why I doubted him.  I mean if you can drop an engine in your mom’s backyard and completely rebuild a VW vanagon engine from scratch, cleaning a bit off soot and creosote from the chimney can’t be that complicated.  I will definitely let you know if our house burns down over night.  But I have no reason to think it will.  My husband rocks.  He is an eagle scout, after all.  And I believe he is right about the importance of learning to do something yourself.  I mean, there are a few jobs I am going to always leave to the professionals.  Namely dental work and medical care.  But if it is possible to learn how to do something yourself before hiring someone else to do it, you’ve won twice.  You’ve gained knowledge and experience and saved a wad of cash.  And those are things that are getting to be very important these days.

Step in Time!

I am empty of anything interesting to say.  I don’t even know what to say when my mother-in-law asked me what I’m up to.  I’m just settled into real life.  I am adoring my sweet children.  Hannie is just wrapping me around her sweet little finger.  Gabe and Hannie are becoming closer to equals and they have started to fight.  Its cute and disturbing at the same time.  Gabe is excited for the day he gets to go to school as much as he’s excited for when Hannah can talk and play with him.  Asher is not enjoying school this month.  Its just such a drag in comparison with Star Wars lego video game.  Hila has had her 2nd oral surgery to fix the other side of her crumbling teeth.  Sweet girl, she was such a champ.  I am keeping up with my normal chores and the house is in fairly good shape.  Beyond that, not much to report.  Boring is good sometimes I guess

1. I have had a hard time trying to blog the past few weeks. I have been insanely busy, but who isn’t. And that never stopped me before. I love this time of year. I usually sink into a slight depression after Christmas because I hate that its over. This year I am not where I should be. Its more than just feeling rushed. Its more than getting older and having time move at lightening speed. I am preoccupied with what I hope will turn out to be a minor health concern. My salivary gland started swelling on my anniversary. Since then it seems to be swollen all the time. I don’t know if it is a lump or not, but there is a constant mass on my jaw just under my ear. I know it is fairly common to have salivary gland damage from RAI. But the thing that is nagging at me is the possibility of it being more cancer. I basically sailed through thyroid cancer without suffering much. It always felt too easy. Wouldn’t it be ironic if curing my thyroid cancer caused another more serious cancer? What if RAI is the cause and solution to all my problems? Which brings me to the other sad irony, Doctors aren’t my friends. It isn’t something I take personally, but when you need someone to just look at your weird lump there doesn’t seem to be anyone available. My Endo washed his hands of this because (he says) it has nothing to do with thyroid cancer. My primary care Dr., conveniently, is on vacation for 2 weeks. My nuclear medicine Dr. is willing to see me, but the earliest I can get in is Jan 29th. Waiting a month and a half does not put me at ease about the whole thing. Maybe, hopefully the swelling will go down by then… I just don’t know when I’m being melodramatic or just intuitive. Two of the 3 surgeries I’ve had in my life to remove some kind of lump have resulted in cancer. Those aren’t good odds, really. But then maybe that means I’m due for some good luck.

2. I really enjoyed going out to lunch today with the little ones and BJay. For some reason I just couldn’t stop hugging Gabe. Who knew it was so lovable and endearing to see a 3 year old eat a cheeseburger?

3. This is one of my favorite poems:
THE CINNAMON PEELER by Michael Ondaatje
(Author of the English Patient)

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler’s wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
– your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers…

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter’s wife, the lime burner’s daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner’s daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler’s wife. Smell me.

Before I was married, the poem was about ownership and possession. I was naive. Now that I’ve been married forever I see it differently. The beauty is not the mark of scent, it is in becoming marked by the scent. In a true partnership, you gain something positive from loving and being loved. You accept all kind of beautiful gifts that change you, enhance you, make you better and stronger. (And you hope that you are returning the favor.) Jealousy looses its grip. A few years ago I met the woman my husband loved his whole childhood and adolescence. He fully expected to marry her after his mission. I wanted to meet her. I don’t think I had any expectations how I would feel or how I would measure myself against her. I was surprised to find out how evolved I’ve become. Years ago when love was about possessing someone I may not have seen her as a person. But as an adult, I fully understood why he loved her. Why he has that place in his heart for her. And that didn’t diminish his love for me at all. What we are as husband and wife has evolved. I carry the scent of that love with me everywhere. When I approach a problem I think of his counsel. I try to anticipate his feelings. I still love this poem. I’ve grown to appreciate it even more. Is it me or are Indian writers just more poetic?

In college I fell in love with India.  There was some unexplained connection for me.  All it took was one slide show of the busy, chaotic streets of Bombay and I was hooked.  I was transformed.  I was 19 and living at home and I knew that had to go to India.

When I made it to India (a few months later) I had the opportunity to have a religious tour from one of my traveling companion’s friends.  He was a Sikh by birth but fancied himself a religious scholar. When he was explaining the pantheon of Hindu Gods he said something I still find quite remarkable.  He compared the entire pantheon of Gods and Goddesses to the Christian concept of the Trinity. (Something that strengthened my belief that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are separate beings.)  If three beings can be one, why not a thousand?  Why not a hundred thousand?  There are all these ways of approaching God, all these different aspects of God but really they are all One God.  I love the artwork and imagery of the Hindu Gods.  One Goddess that I think westerners find particularly interesting is Kali.  The mother Goddess.

Our vision of mother is a little more…gentle.  The “dark mother” is about female power.  She is an incarnation of the Goddess Durga, formed from the sweat of her brow during a fierce battle.  Durga is companion to Lord Shiva and protects the earth from evil.  In the battle Kali was born into, she was so focused and fierce she actually went a little nuts and started a homicidal rampage. (As evidenced by her belt of human arms and severed heads.)  To stop her from destroying everything, Shiva threw himself at her feet.  Kali was so startled from her rage that she stuck out her tongue and this is how she is depicted in most Hindu images of her.  Why this (sometime) homicidal psychopath resonates with me?  Motherhood is powerful.  When I had my first son I understood Kali.  I described my feelings to other people in a non-Hindu way by explaining that having my newborn son made me feel fierce and primal, like a mother dog.  I finally understood why mother animals growl at you when you want to touch their babies.  There is this primal protective feeling you have for your babies.  I may have got an extra dose because when I have a newborn I never tire of holding them.  I feel physically on edge when someone wants to hold my babies.  Like I might go unhinged or something.  Not everyone can relate to this feeling.  But I feel like I must be some kind of normal because this imagery was picked up over a thousand years ago.  Kali is about the unexplained power of women.  We bleed without being injured or feeling significant pain.  We birth children, an absolute feat of physics.  And most importantly, as mothers we have the power to calm, comfort and sooth our children with touch.  With our hands and arms we solve almost every trouble a child can have.  With my first baby, being inexperienced I let people talk me into making my baby learn how to sooth himself by dumping him in his crib and walking away.  Its a good practice I think, teaching babies to put themselves to sleep.  But I am not cut out for it.  I much prefer rocking my babies to sleep.  I love watching them drift off and I love being the last thing they see before falling to sleep and the first person there in the morning.  They are only babies for such a short time.  When I got cancer I felt my mortality.  I was confident that I would survive, but being mortally flawed just gives you a new sense of time.  Of what you may not have.  What I love about being a mother is that my children run to me when they are upset.  I love that they want to climb up into my lap when I’m blogging.  I love that when they are afraid they want to be near me.  It will not always be so.  There will be a time when they won’t want me.  That is just the natural order of things.  Time is just speeding up faster and faster and I am not afraid.  My magical mothering powers will only last so long.  Then they’ll move on to another deity.  Hopefully the one I’ve taught them about.

I am not a Hindu but I get it.  I’m entertained by the stories and I find the artwork beautiful and moving.  One of my treasures I brought back from India is a soapstone sculpture of Sarasvati, Goddess of learning and wisdom.  I love what it represents.  And I love what Kali represents to me.  The very pit, the deepest darkest stores of love and energy that awaken with motherhood.

One of my favorite blogs had a topic recently that really made me think.  Cara Ellison’s Pink Rage post made me process my own feelings about the pinking of October.  First of all, let me say that I hope that the Susan G. Komen foundation really is close to coming up for a cure for breast cancer.  I deeply sympathize with people who are affected by breast cancer personally or by association.  I was very surprised to find that spending money on pink things in October doesn’t neccisarily mean that your money will go to fund breast cancer research.  Also I find it a little curious that a good number of people assume that the pink products they buy go to fund ALL cancer research.  In some cases, it might.  The Pampered Chef donates $1 for every pink product you buy in October toward The American Cancer Society.  But most likely, when you buy something pink after the first week in October NONE of your money ever makes it to the Komen Foundation because there are caps to corporate donations.  I won’t pretend to be an expert on how the money goes… I just know that there are a lot of cancer survivors who are annoyed at the way companies are making huge profits using cancer as a marketing scheme.  Does all this pink stuff everywhere make us more aware of breast cancer?  Possibly.  I mean it makes us aware that we should give money to someone in hope that someone else is really doing something about it.  There are probably better ways that our money can actually help people who are suffering with cancer though.  The Komen Foundation is about finding the cure (and I hope they do some day) they aren’t about helping families pay for treatments, groceries or childcare.  Those are things that immediately affect anyone with cancer. There are organizations who do that.  I didn’t really know that before reading Cara’s post and the comments that followed.  One comment that was very enlightening came from Mathew Zachary: (Who turns out to be a concert pianist, check out his site.)

“I encourage everyone to read this essay – “What Would Susan Do?” Link: http://imtooyoungforthis.org/media/costofliving/wwsd.pdf

Matthew Zachary
12-Year Young Adult Survivor
Founder, CEO
I’m Too Young For This! Cancer Foundation
http://stupidcancer.org”

Now I can feel better about NOT donating money to my kid’s school for breast cancer research.  And look in to organizations with a lot more transparency.  Unfortunately there are a lot of different cancers out there, some more deadly than others.  If you don’t know to check our breasts regularly by now you have to have been living under a rock.  People out there with goiters that are trying to convince themselves its not cancer–get it checked out!  I lived with a swollen thyroid for 10 years that turned out to be full of tumors.  Just because your Dr. does an initial exam and ultrasound does not mean you are home free for the rest of your life.  Stay on top of it!  Luckily thyroid cancer is one of the least deadly cancers to get, but its the one I know most about.  Most importantly, take care of your body.  Do all those things you know you should be doing.  Stop eating and drinking and smoking that stuff you shouldn’t.  Life is a precious, precious gift.

A blogger friend of mine has been off gallivanting in Europe and yet still had time to blog and post pictures of her whirlwind trip.  I on the other hand have been right here between my house and the kids school mostly.  I signed up for a project that the school has done for the past few years.  The idea is to give children the gift of giving.  Before the holidays they have a little gift shop where the children can come to buy gifts for their families and they are wrapped there on the spot and labeled.  Parents can send in money with their children, or if they are unable the children are given “reindeer bucks” to spend at the store instead.  The challenge for those who have put it on is to come up with enough gifts (and the goal has been to have everything handmade) for a budget of $1000.  That seems like a lot, but when we’re looking to make or beg over 5000 gifts, it becomes a challenge.  We do have community support and parents who donate gifts every year.  But the bulk of the inventory is generated by a core group of a half-dozen people.  I signed up to be one of them.  Well, I guess I just showed up to a planning meeting and became part of the project.  I wanted to help this year because I thought it was so sweet to see Asher excited about the gifts he had picked for his family last year.  Plus I’m cheap and crafty.  My assignments have been to 1) come up with gift ideas using trash, or more politely–recycled goods.  2)Be the treasurer of our precious $1000.  The first weekend I could hardly sleep my mind was just buzzing with ideas (some of them quite ingenious, if I do say so myself).  Most of my ideas involve plastic grocery bags, film roll cases, baby food jars, and lunch bags.  If you have any ideas for craft items for MEN especially that can be made for under .30 PLEASE share!  I’m also volunteering in Asher’s class twice a week to read and do centers.  I’m excited to be completely out of my comfort zone.  I’ve had to communicate with people through all of this.  Most interactions have been pleasant, but some have not been.  Its good for me, I think.  And I’m enjoying being a person again.  I get so annoyed when moms complain about losing themselves to motherhood, but it really is true.  It does happen.  I didn’t realize it until I thrust myself into a different environment and rediscovered that I do have talents and creativity and organizational abilities worthy of the praise I’ve gotten over the past few weeks.  Its nice.  But there is also the balance.  While all that praise is nice and working on this project is good, I still have to notice when Gabe and Hannah feel neglected and take a day off of nonstop errand running and back and forth between home and school.  (I take them with me, if you are wondering.  Asher’s teacher is really great about it, in fact she encouraged me to.)  Today I’m home and Hannah is getting a much needed long nap in her crib.  I sent BJay to read to Asher’s class.  They will love him!  So that is what I’ve been up to the past few weeks and why my blog has been so neglected.  Can you believe its already October?  Where does the time go?