If You Belonged Here

Come to Mama

When I was younger--you know, not in elementary school or anything, but younger--I wanted privacy. I wanted to be able to stay out late and walk around naked and put food in the refrigerator and have it still be there when I got back. I wanted to be out from under scrutiny, to make my own decisions, to not have to answer to anyone about where I was going or when I would be home.

Holy geez.

Now I am older. I have a child. I want to go to bed early, walk around without a small person trailing immediately behind me, and if someone else would occasionally replace the empty milk carton in the refrigerator, well, I'd trade a whole lot of pudding cups for that. There's nothing to scrutinize, I'd be happy to have someone else tell me what to do and take responsibility for my life, and I'm not going anywhere so it doesn't matter when I'll be back. Anyway, it would be nice to have someone ask. Maybe even tag along for the ride.

What I'm saying here is that I wouldn't mind living with my mother again. The very thought of it makes me dizzy with possibility. Someone else to cook, someone to do the grocery shopping with, someone to feed Secret Lulu breakfast while I sleep in. Oh, the sleep I would sleep.

I don't need privacy. I know this for a certified fact. Mostly because I don't have any, haven't had any since Secret Lulu came along, and I'm managing just fine. And it doesn't matter if my pudding cup is still waiting for me when I go to the refrigerator to claim it. Secret Lulu will find me. Secret Lulu will shake me down for that pudding cup.

It's what she does.

The walking around naked is an easy sacrifice. Used to be I looked fabulous doing that. I was making the world a prettier place. Now I see the merits of clothing. Especially if the cut and color make me appear ten pounds thinner.

My mom used to brush my hair while I watched television. She would rub my shoulders when she walked past my chair. She bought my favorite cereal. She picked my shoes up from the floor and put them back in my room.

Sometimes. Mostly she yelled at me to put my own shoes away, but sometimes she did it for me. Sometimes. Or maybe I made that part up. Hard telling.

Anyway.

There's something about being babied that you don't so much miss while you're bleary-eyed from staying up to 2 am at a smoke-filled club. Yeah, people used to be able to smoke in clubs when I was younger. But not the whole time I was younger. Just for the first year or so that I was club age.

I'm not that old, people. Just older than I used to be.

There's something about milk that mysteriously reappears in the refrigerator. I do so miss taking someone for granted. Sure you get bossed around a lot, but once you have kids, well, let's just say that being nagged by your parents is child's play when compared to being nagged by the one you parent. The one you parent sees you as an obstacle to get around, over, or through. The one you parent is relentless, determined, and even more effective and less likely to give in when sleep-deprived.

Parents just want quiet, peace, and to not be put completely broke. That's a lot more reasonable than any given toddler, preschooler, tween, or adolescent you might run into in Target. If you don't have children of your own, you'll just have to trust me on this.

So the idea that someone would baby me, take care of me, help me fold the laundry and be happy to do it, well, that's intoxicating. The idea that if I actually got intoxicated, someone would wake up and take over my responsibilities, and protect my quiet--

whoo boy.

The long and short of it is that I just booked a magical flight, a red-eye, and I will fall asleep in San Diego being the mother of the baby and wake up in Boston being the one the mother babies. Just like a fairytale. Only with more practical reality and less happily ever after.

And the flight's on JetBlue. My dream airline. So I'll sleep well.

Oh, the sleep I will sleep.

The Dol: And Then There Were Two

I've never had an abortion. The way I feel right now about the murder of abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller, I think I might just tell you if I had. If I were a less honest person, I might even just lie and say I'd had one, and screw the consequences. 

I wish I could take more of a stand on his behalf, because he was courageous enough to risk his life for women every day, in the face of a self-righteousness so extreme that it believes murder can be done for the glory of God.

As I have watched the news about this story unfold, I have been surprised by the strength of my own reaction. Every news story I've watched has brought tears to my eyes. It makes me so angry I can feel the hard little pit of it in my stomach. 

Do you know where Dr. Tiller was shot and killed? In his church. 

He was in the foyer of his church, serving as an usher, when Scott Roeder walked in and shot him. Someone had to go inside and get his wife, and ask everyone else to please stay in their seats. The other parishioners inside the sanctuary got to hear her scream when she saw her husband's body.

One person did this, but he didn't do it in a vacuum. Dr. Tiller knew--had known for years--that his life was in danger. He frequently wore a bullet-proof vest and sometimes traveled with a bodyguard. He knew his life was in danger because there is an organized movement in the United States to end the practice of abortion by any means necessary. 

"Are babies in Kansas safer today than they were yesterday while George Tiller was still taking in oxygen? Yeah, is the answer to that question. Maybe the fact that we have a lawless society that has not protected these babies from this infanticide created the Scott Roeders [Dr. Tiller's accused murderer] of the world, who in very John Brown-like fashion, illegally took matters into his own hands. Saying if the system will not deal with an evil, then to hell with the system." 
- Steve Deace, an Iowa radio talk show host

"...He will be the hero to thousands of babies who will not be slain because Scott sacrificed everything for them. So far, the Bible discussion I have seen overwhelmingly supports anyone willing to sacrifice everything in order to physically stop an abortionist from killing thousands of babies."
- Dave Leach, anti-abortion activist, "Prayer and Action News"

"I was cheered by [Dr. Tiller's murder]." 
- Dan Holman, Missionaries to the Preborn Iowa

Holman also went on to say that abortion would justify the assassination of the President of the United States. Holman called Obama "deserving of death." 

(Hat tip to Rachel Maddow's web site, where I was able to find those quotes from her June 2 program.)

These aren't just people with an opinion, these are the American Taliban. 

Just like the Taliban in Afghanistan, these are people who have twisted an entire belief system into such contortions that it doesn't leave room for kindness, compassion, or love. Much less critical thinking or decision-making. If you take peace-lovin' Jesus out of the equation and just go full-throttle Leviticus, you could probably Bible-quote your way to building a movement that justifies murder and that disregards the rights of women. Which is more or less what they've done. Of course, they talk the Jesus talk, but they sure aren't walking the Jesus walk.

These are people who see things in black and white. Abortion is murder. Murder is wrong in the eyes of God. It's our duty as believers to carry out God's punishment here on Earth. There isn't any room for gray, or for the other side of the story. While their idea of God includes a powerful love of the fetus, it is nonchalant (at best) about living, breathing, flesh-and-blood women and girls. 

There are doctors around the country who provide safe abortions for women. Most commonly, abortions are done early in pregnancy. Dr. Tiller was only one of three in the entire country who provided late-term abortions. For that reason, he was a particular target. 

Now there are only two. Two doctors who will use their legally conferred rights as medical providers to treat women who have to do something truly heartbreaking. 

Make no mistake, people, make no mistake, late-term abortion isn't about saying oops. 

Late-term abortions, which make up a small percentage of all abortions, are the stories that will really break your heart. If you read accounts of people who have had late-term abortions, you might start to realize that they should really be the least controversial of abortion procedures. 

We're talking about couples who have dreamed about the birth of their baby, decorated the nursery and picked out a name. They might find out the baby has anencephaly, which means, for one thing, that the baby's brain is partially exposed, because the skull doesn't form fully. The forebrain never develops. Babies like this don't survive more than a few hours outside of the womb, if they survive in the womb long enough to be born alive. 

There are a whole host of other unsavory medical reasons that bring women face-to-face with considering a late-term abortion. They're awful, and they've all been the very real, very personal reality for women out there. Real, flesh-and-blood women.

But screw them, right? They're just vessels. The possibility of a few moments of breath--whether the baby is capable of having any experience beyond pain--is the most important part of all of God's creation. 

There isn't any room there for the grey area, where people in the real world find themselves, where it isn't easy either way. There isn't room for what two people might decide they can reasonably handle. 

There isn't room for mercy. 

There were three people in our big nation under God, just three people who made it possible for women to choose what might be the least horrible thing to live with. And now there are two. Is two enough? Probably not. 

I don't know if I'll ever believe in God, especially not the one that Scott Roeder worships. I'm ambivalent about that. But if there is a God, I'd like to think he would have the complexity to see the grace in someone like Dr. Tiller.

So God bless those two doctors who know that they live their lives in the crosshairs. Here's hoping they'll have the courage to keep on doing it. 

God bless all the other doctors and nurses who provide abortions every day, knowing that if a pregnant woman can find them, so can the Scott Roeders of the world.

May God bless George Tiller's wife, his family, his friends. He was more than a medical provider and polarizing symbol to them, and they'll be the ones to remember him as the human being he was.

And of course, may God bless and keep Dr. Tiller. 

This has been cross-posted at http://dishesbite.multiply.com/.

This has been cross-posted at http://dishesbite.multiply.com/.

the Lloyd: Chronicles of the Travels

(pssst!

It's me, Polly.

I don't usually introduce guest posts but this one seems to require it, so there you go. the Lloyd is cousin to The Dol and Pandora maybe nineteen years old--give or take--and gone hobo. Pandora stole his memoirs, if that's what you call this bare-bones vagabond history, and got his permission to post them here. the Lloyd has promised to be more entertaining next time.

Since the file was text only, and the paragraphs were way to long to be blog friendly, I added as many paragraph breaks as I dared and, in one case, italics. the Lloyd may or may not feel his artistic integrity has been violated.

Whatever.

On with the show.)

I am known by many as the Lloyd, and these be the long-awaited, yet highly condensed, chronicles of the travels which I undertook starting sometime in March and ending about the end of April.

I met a decent-sized bunch of friends last year at the local community college in Redding, and quickly grew very much attached to them, especially the three who appear most in these subsequent tales, which admittedly are quite lacking in detail (largely due to the copious procrastination involved with writing any of this down). These three are, for the purpose of the reader, What, Jester, and Ben, the names they use on the road. We all four decided independently to drop out of school, and upon realizing this, we figured we might as well do some traveling.

We started by heading west on Highway 299.

We had no expectation of all being picked up at the same time, but it happened anyway, first just outside of Redding, then again as I was napping at Douglas City. The second ride took us to Weaverville, where we camped atop one of the tallest hills for the night, and then in the morning we got ourselves the rest of the way to Arcata, by way of "Crazy Leg" Greg, so called because he was missing a foot, possibly as a result of being a Vietnam vet (though I'm not entirely sure), and Julian Real friendly.

Arcata was interesting.

All kinds of people, some fun, some dumb, some utterly ridiculous, and a few worth hanging out with. Anyhow, we played music in the square or the park or both every day, and so every day we ate plenty, and every night we tromped up into the woods to sleep. After a while of that, it came to pass that our buddy Rico was having himself a birthday party on Clam Beach, so Jester and I joined him, as What and Ben had met up with a friend who lives in Eureka and were hanging out with her.

First night was calm, and that afternoon What and Ben caught up with us, and we had more fun with Rico, and then the sun went down. It was a dark and stormy night. Angus was angry, and he took it out on us, pushing and pulling at the sides of the tent so that they would make contact with things inside in order to leave the water which had been outside inside. Sleep did not come easy, and did not stay for one solid stretch.

Once, as it left again in the wee hours before noon, we saw a flickering, as from a dying fluorescent bulb, and upon further investigation realized that it was the static of the sky. It was more than lightning, though not as bright, as it covered the whole sky at once, throwing photons everywhere. It was St. Elmo, setting fires once again.

Simply beautiful.

The storming all ended about two hours after daybreak, so we started a fire of our own and dried everything out the best we could and went back to Arcata for a while longer, just the four of us again.

So we tired of Humboldt, and went down to Mendocino, that is, Willets. We split into pairs on this occasion, so Ben and I ended up waiting a night, which got us frosted, and most of a day for What and Jester, and in the meantime found someone we had met in Arcata, a drunken poet who called himself Sonny D.

We spent a couple more days there, then decided, for whatever reasons, to go to Fort Bragg. Ben and I decided one more day with Sonny was plenty, and decided to head to Redding, so What went with us, and we left Jester to do whatever it was he felt like doing, which turned out to be following us three hours later. Two and a half days and several rides (including one with that guy Dave) later, we were in Redding. We made a trip to Chico and a trip to Shingletown in a borrowed van.

Then, on April 17, Jester and I went on a walk from Anderson (where we had been staying with my parents) to Redding, so we could hit the 299 again. It was the first of three days of an enormous amount of walking, as the riding on the 18th got us to, but not through, Weaverville, and the ride on the 19th got us to the north section of Arcata, but we needed to get to the park. However, we got through it without our legs falling off, and the next day was quite festive, we saw most of our friends from Redding and Arcata and had much fun and merriment, with the only downside being that I lost my harmonica.

Most people were gone before we were, but we and Ben got some rope training for tree-sitting, which we have not yet done, and I possibly never will, as I could just as easily find a tree to stay in that nobody cares about, and therefore not be bothered. But anyway, then we went to Redding again, Ben and I together and Jester with some kid named Dakota. Ben and I stopped our travels at Keswick, where a friend lives, and so on and so forth.

That's all, folks!

It'll be much more fun when I return from New Mexico this summer, because I intend to write things down as they happen this time.