An Open Letter to Candidate Romney:

Dear Candidate Romney,

I saw you.  I saw your video.
I saw you speaking candidly and off the cuff about me.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that you didn’t mention me by name or anything, but we both know you were talking about me.

When you were talking of 47% of the population that is never going to vote for you because we are dependent victims who lazily live on government programs like food stamps, I can’t help but take personal offense.  In fact, once you decided to lump in in anybody who is never going to vote for you, you weren’t just talking about me, but many people I love, and about 90% of the people I know.

My children eat because of food stamps, Mr. Romney.  Now sir, I want you to picture a Wyoming cowgirl, a mother, a fighter, a righteous, determined, god loving woman; a Rocky Mountain Grizzly Bear Mamma that would make Sarah Palin’s makeup wearing pit bull shudder.  Picture me staring you in the eyes as I ask you, “What business have you got talking about me and mine like that?”

I am watching you run your Richie-rich mouth on TV right now, with your little flag lapel pin over your heart.  You brag that you will bring “12 million new jobs and rising take home pay.”  Quite frankly, I have no reason to believe you or your failures in arithmetic.  Even if you did manage such a feat, I’d point to the 4.5 million job head start you had thanks to President Obama saving the nation from the failed GOP policies you use as a platform, which nearly caused a second great depression.

You said that you think that 47% of Americans “think they are victims” and you even said it wasn’t your job to worry about us. 

First, I must argue you.  I am not a victim.  I have been beaten.  I have been bullied.  I have been raped.  I have been addicted.  I have been alone.  I have been poor.  I have been homeless.  I have been sick and broken.  I have chosen each and every single time to stand up and pull myself and my family out of those circumstances.  I beat every one of them without any riches to aid me.  I did that without any inheritance, any gifted stocks or bonds, any loans, any rich family, or any elevators for my cars.  I did it because, I am not a victim.  I am an American.  I am the Mom in Chief of my house and nothing less than the very best that I can provide will do.  I am the product of women who forded rivers to fetch the mail after working a hard day’s labor on the Laramie high plains.  I am a force to be reckoned with.

If you don’t believe me, you could ask the doctor who has to take fluid from my spine on a regular basis to preserve my ability to see due to a rare disease.  If you don’t believe me you can ask our Ambassador to China, Gary Locke, who personally invited me to a bill signing when I helped Washington State legislate protection for children in schools against bullying by sharing my own experiences.  If you don’t believe me, you can ask my children who have seen me struggle but always, always, provide for them.  Any one of these people will tell you, that this American is not a victim.

You call me entitled.  I devote every day of my life to bettering the planet I live in with no hope of profit.  I am sorry sir, but you calling me entitled is like the pot calling the dove black.  That isn’t going to work.  I challenge you to stand at my side and let the American public judge, which of us is entitled.  I spend every dime of mine and my husband’s earned income as quickly as it comes in, right here in my town.  Every dime I earn and spend stays in America.  I am the ultimate in job creator.  Who are you to challenge me?

You call me entitled.  Every year on April 15^th I am certain that I have shown every cent that went through my pocket honestly.  I dream of a day when I am well enough off to pay taxes.  I fantasize of the flourish with which I will write my first check to the IRS.  I would give any earthly belonging I have to be self-sufficient enough to be able to pay it forward to the society that I love.    No, you cannot challenge me Mitt Romney.  I challenge you- where are your tax returns?

I fought, I graduated at the top of my class in college, and I pursued graduate studies.  I took loans against myself, believing that this would pay off, but then in 2009 something happened. 

No, it wasn’t Barack Obama’s inauguration; it was a sudden injury to my spine that ended up revealing not one but two severe spinal diseases. .  Since then I have been unable to finish my studies or work.  I’d like to know, Mr. Romney; how many months of physical therapy, how many of my surgeries, how many of my scars must I share to prove my devotion to wanting to be better?  How many of my efforts must I submit before you’ll see me, an American Citizen, as worthy of your worry?  When you tell me to take responsibility for myself, I ask you, what after that?

This evening, when you justified your awful video, you said that you had said what you did because you were reassuring your donators that you could win this election.  I’m sorry that you have to pander to your base like that.  You seem to have sold out your soul.  You have forgotten the eye of the needle with that wealth you’ve got.  You’ve left behind Matthew 24:50.  I hate to be the one to tell ya buddy but -you are not the promised one.  The promised one understands that the 47% that you are talking about, they’re more than low wage workers and elderly people who worked their whole lives and paid into the system, they are the 100% that your God is concerned with when he said “Love thy neighbor.”  You may pay a tithe with your wallet, but it’s obvious you’ve neglected to tithe your heart.

My husband left for work at 7 am.  It is now 9 pm and he won’t be home again for two more hours from his second job today.  I spent yesterday at the emergency room; I have been waiting for two years for social security.  I do not understand.  How much more do we have to work to show you that your call for jobs isn’t enough?  You must also be concerned for the whole nation, and whether we eat, and whether we have medicine.  You must care if a hardworking, devoted family like mine is unable to survive after investing their best efforts.  How many jobs do you expect every American to take?  3?  4?

You simply must stop and consider those you dismiss as beneath you or you cannot be our leader.  It is an unwritten but widely understood rule of the presidency.  I don’t know what they taught you, when you were out there scalping businesses hard won on the backs of people like that 47% you so rudely kick around, but in the real world – we care when Americans suffer.  We care when you forget the young men and women who serve our nation by sacrificing their lives.  We care when Americans go hungry.  We care when Americans jobs are sent overseas and rich men hide societal resources in offshore accounts.  We care that we are being ripped off, even if you find profit and power in our suffering, we still exist, we still care, and we will still stand up.

See?  You called me a victim, you called me entitled, you called me a lot of other things in that video, but on every count - you are wrong.  Just by writing you this letter, I’ve proven I am not your victim.  Just by living my life of hard and dutiful effort I have proven that I am not entitled.  In fact, I consider it a duty as a citizen of this Great United States to shout loudly and proudly - “Mitt Romney is not and never will be my president!”

I warn you Mr. Romney, the one thing that I have not, and will not ever lose, is my voice.  I will sound it each and every one of these 50 days until Barack Obama is reelected, we will vote with Compassion and Wisdom, and Empathy and you sir, can keep your spite and your hate and your rhetoric and see your way out.

Sincerely, Sarah Zacharias aka The Bucking Jenny

~For more of my work please be sure to check my blog, my Facebook Page, my Twitter Feed, and my publication archives at OpenSalon.com and AddictingInfo.org.  Also, the days are counting down, click here to register to vote in your area.  The Bucking Jenny proudly supports Obama/Biden 2012.

I Am My Sister's Keeper

Having run this blog now, for about six months, I have been very fortunate to have developed a loving fan base. Unlike my life before the blog, I am thrilled that I have friends and fans to support me and find value in me in my darkest moments. Today, I am having a very tough time, so I am reaching out to you again and I am confident in your response.
Today is particularly difficult to me, because my little sister is suffering. Contrary to the belief she's held since we were six and eight and I whipped her with the vaccumn cleaner cord, I don't actually like to see my little sister suffer.  It was very difficult to leave her alone in Olympia when my husband, children and I left Washington state in 2008.  We followed my parents who had left in 2007.  All six of us now live in south eastern Wyoming, while my little sister chose to stay in Olympia. It is hard, because for our whole lives, my sister and I stuck together.  When I was bullied in high school, she was one of the only people who ever took the whitness stand and stood up for me with the truth.
Laura is only two years my junior. She is twenty six, she has nearly waist length brown hair, a freckled face, a movie star body, and blue eyes that remind me of a New York September sky… so bright, so beautiful, so blue, and yet so melancholy.
Laura and I grew up under the cherry trees of Olympia’s suburbia. We used to play he-man and she-ra in the yard amongst the dogwoods and dahlias. We had a huge playroom in our attic, filled with toys ranging from Legos to Barbie dolls.  Laura was both tomboy and princess she played with the tough guy stuff, like plastic swords and superhero costumes before falling asleep under a pink lace comforter with a teddy bear.
I have never forgotten a particular moment on our back porch when she had one handful of skittles and one handful of potato bugs. The face she made when she wrongly popped ten or twenty potato bugs in her mouth has never been forgotten.
My sister was spunky. She climbed to the tallest points, she ran the fastest, she carried the heaviest loads, she beat every boy in her class at dodge ball and four square, and she did it all in red cowgirl boots. I remember that when she moved out of the family home, all of us were awed as we watched her detach the hundreds of dried roses she’d received from hopeful suitors during high school, which she had hung, one after another, from her ceiling till they covered the whole thing and crowded each other such that it was nearly impossible to discern the posters and paint pinned under them. 
When she was 5 a co-worker of my father was so impressed with Laura that she framed an excerpt from a conversation between them and gave it to our family as a gift that still hangs on my parent’s wall, it reads:
               “I guess just from my gut.” – Laura Wilson’s reply to “Why are you so smart?”
I include these anecdotes because they are key aspects of who my sister is. My sister is strong, courageous, intense, beautiful, smart and she guesses from her gut.
As a preteen Laura regularly attended a local church (even though she had to go alone because no one else in our family shared that particular aspect of faith with her.) She used to take poster board that was printed blue with clouds on it and write prayers on them that she’d hang on her bedroom walls.
She very much enjoyed a yearly retreat to a local religious horse camp for a week or two. It was ideal for my faithful, animal loving sister. From an early age it was always assumed that Laura would work with animals. She loved horses, dogs, cats, hedgehogs, chickens, cows, sheep, pigs, lizards, birds, bugs, and everything else she came in contact with. Animals felt her love for them and would often find themselves in her care. During middle school she would ride her bike a fair distance to the local animal shelter where she would volunteer until Mom and Dad suggested she quit because they were tired of making the trip to the place to explain why we couldn’t take in any given creature that she wanted to rescue.
In high school, Laura took vet tech classes at the local technical school. When she graduated from high school, Laura’s future seemed ultra-bright. She had good grades, she had family support for college, she had a job, and a car.
Up until then I had much disdain for my goody two shoes little sister and her Backstreet Boys C.d.s . I felt it was almost inhuman of her to not have made more mistakes growing up. She never really smoked, or did drugs, or chased boys, or stayed out late, or broke the rules or even got the cops called on her and after the crazy life I’d had I just couldn’t figure her out. I would almost wish tough times on her so she’s stop being so darned perfect.
Now I wish I hadn’t done that.
From my disadvantaged viewpoint as her older sister, I am not sure what happened. I just know that toward the end of high school she stopped going to church, she stopped wearing pink, she stopped telling anyone who loved her about her life, and she changed her group of friends from yuppie college bound kids to the kids who bummed smokes on the corner downtown instead of going to class. I am certain that this progression must have been gradual and maybe even obvious to others, but for me it was shocking and instantaneous. One day she was my sweet innocent annoying little sister, the next day… well she was still annoying.
I now know that at this time in her life that my sister met and lost her first love, a bad boy that I know little about. I suspect that, as with all of us, losing her first love seriously impacted her ability to judge her second. Within only a few weeks of her graduation, my little sister met a new guy, whom we’ll refer to as Chuck. Chuck and Laura fell instantaneously into a dangerous kind of love that only those who are the outside can see clearly. I was disgusted with this kid. He encouraged her to skip college and just get a job. He would belittle and bully her if she didn’t bring enough money home, he hated to be uncomfortable and was very spoiled, but I knew she loved him so I tried to be nice.
I wish I hadn’t done that.
I wish I had never wasted any effort on that guy and I think my sister does too. It’s been something like 8 or 9 years since Chuck entered our lives. Since then she tried making an impossible relationship work because she loved him. Her love ignored terrible selfishness – like buying her an engagement ring, making her make the payments on it, then taking it away hurtfully on numerous occasions. Her love ignored violence like fists through doors, screaming, name calling and to my estimation – much worse. Her love ignored his refusal to get mental health treatment, his bullying her over money, and even sleeping with her best friend while she was in the hospital.
Although my sister lost many, many, pieces of her spirit to this guy, she never gave up. She never gave up her most powerful aspect of her soul - her ability and willingness to love. For years, my sister and I have fought over this guy. One time we actually ended up fist fighting each other when, in a moment of sheer desperation, I tried to grab her and shake her and make her remember who she was before Chuck came around and we melted into a mess of hurt and anger.
It was been hard to watch her hurt herself for someone else. It has been hard to not be able to offer support for bad ideas when all I want to do is support my little sister. But over time, Laura and Chuck sort of evened out. I almost, almost, chalked the past up to growing pains and considered a new opinion.
This was after my family left Laura behind with him, and moved to Wyoming. From a thousand miles away at least, it seemed that maybe Laura and Chuck had gotten things together because they didn’t seem to fight, or suffer such profound moments of desperation anymore. I suppose one might call that the silence before the storm.
It wasn’t long before Laura called one day upset; she and Chuck had been fighting about money. My little sister was sick, she had a immune disorder and a deadly disease known as MERSA, and she had been unable to work enough hours to equally contribute to their living situation, so Chuck was enraged. He refused to feed the puppy he had gotten Laura for her birthday. This argument culminated in a desperate weekend where somehow Chuck ended up shooting his gun out of a moving car in a neighborhood during some kind of deal in an attempt to make money.
Laura called me and for the first time in many years I recognized her voice. It was strong. It was resolute. She was done. She was done being with a man who was so volatile, and dangerous, and domineering. She didn’t at that time reveal the entirety of her reason, she only told me parts of the story – just enough that I understood that it might be time before she could move on physically as well as emotionally.
Two days later I was shocked and grieved to answer the phone, to the broken Laura. I learned the whole story about Chuck's crime as she hysterically she told me that the police had come and trashed her home searching it and arresting Chuck for the shooting. Although she had done nothing to help him shoot his gun or commit his crime, she helped him pay his price.
She lost her job for being late to work that day. The apartment evicted her for the disturbance, Chuck went to prison for several years,  where he was fed and sheltered, but Laura was homeless with their two dogs, and two cats for months and months and months. For the entirety of Chuck’s prison term, Laura stuck by him. She would never really explain to me why she had reversed on her resolve to move on. She was once again secretive and independent. She and her pets somehow subsisted without home, without job, without hope, visiting Chuck in prison regularly, catering to his demanding and abusive family in exchange for rides to see him. She still loved him, she loved her pets, and through that love, Laura survived on nothing but sheer willpower, and the grace of small income here and there through occasional employment.
Last July, while I battled homelessness, my sister was finally able to see past that. She got a job as a vet tech, she got a small apartment of her own, she rescued her belongings from his mother’s home, and she fixed her car. She started to rebuild herself in the form of the woman I always knew she'd become someday.
Then, Chuck got out on work release. He had his phone installed in her house for jail check ins. One night, in mid-July my sister me called again. She whispered quietly, “I’m getting a divorce.” I didn’t hesitate to step out of earshot from the rest of the family in response.
I asked her when they’d gotten married and learned that it was sometime between his arrest and his imprisonment. I asked why he wanted a divorce and found it was because she had accepted financial help from a male high school friend in order to keep her belongings and pets while Chuck was in prison. I asked if she wanted a divorce too. She said yes. So, I did what any sister would do, I told my parents and advised them to find help for her so this guy wouldn’t take her for any further ride. I turned it over to them and my godfather – a lawyer. I thought that that should have been enough to protect Laura. I thought that if Chuck wanted a divorce and Laura was finally willing to walk away, that all they’d have to do was sign those papers and move on.
But I was wrong.
A bully like Chuck doesn’t go away so easy. He served Laura with annulment papers that guaranteed him with nearly every possession that she’d so carefully paid storage fees, and moved, and cared for while he was in prison – including their dog, Brinks. Laura knows that she cannot give up Brinks. For his entire life, she has been his owner. When she and Chuck would fight, Brinks always intervened on Laura’s side. For six years she has given her own food to him, her own chance at a home was lost more than once in favor of keeping him, she’d walk to work so he could see the vet. At night he was the one, not Chuck, who kept her warm and safe, and so she couldn’t sign the annulment, she has to seek a divorce.

The stress of this heartache and worry has again drained my strong sister. She has been sick since the week after Chuck returned to her life on work release. While she scrimped change to save for enough money to afford anti-biotic, he came and cleared her house out of all the furniture, electronics and other belongings she’d maintained while he was in prison, calling them his own. Laura didn’t fight. She let him have it all because he left the dog.
Ten days ago Laura lost her beloved vet tech job because she was too sick to maintain employment. She used her last paycheck to buy the dog food and pay rent, and then she had nothing with which to feed herself or see a doctor. I have no idea how she has managed to live and yet she has survived. I suspect that the freedom she has experienced, for the first time since she was a young high school girl, has led her to a better place.
She stopped coughing so badly on Thursday last week. She had several job interviews too. I can only hope that she is able to find employment before next month’s rent is due. On Saturday my sister called me. She was giddy. A boy we’ve known since grade school has returned from war. He has asked Laura to the zoo. Laura, said yes.
I have rarely, if ever, been so happy for my sibling. She was laughing, she was hoping, she was happy – and that made me very happy. Think of this; Laura went from a marriage that she couldn't tell her family about to a fresh start that she could brag about.  That is something to celebrate. 
But in Laura's life, celebration doesn't last long enough.
Yesterday, Laura called again. Chuck found out about her new friend. Chuck was angry and jealous. Chuck did what Chuck always does; he abused her with his power over her by walking into her home and taking Brinks from her.
Yesterday almost broke Laura.
I think that my sister can survive just about any injustice. I think that she can be broken and remade stronger than before. I think that her future is ultra-bright and hopeful. But I think she needs Brinks. I think Chuck knows it.  I know Laura knows it.  Something must be done.
I am the big sister. It is my job to make sure my little sister has what she needs. I cannot protect her from Chuck. I cannot guarantee that the neighborhood warrior who is with her at the zoo this moment will not hurt her. I cannot force a judge to return Brinks. I cannot force change or hope into my sister’s life.
I can ask for help in a simpler mission, and that is why I write today. When I was homeless, and hopeless, and at risk of losing my cats, you helped me.
I am asking for help again, this time for my sister. She only needs $250 to file for divorce and properly, legally, seek ownership of Brinks. The other choice is to sign him away to an abuser who has beaten him before. I cannot stand by and let my furry, four legged, nephew be taken by this hateful man. I think that my sister deserves the right to ask for a real divorce, properly adjudicated, and fairly considered.
Brinks deserves a fighting chance and so does Laura. If she signs the free annulment papers Chuck has provided, Brinks and a piece of Laura that can never be replaced are gone forever. If she stands up for herself, and her beloved pet, I think we have a chance at seeing that little girl, with courage and red cowgirl boots again.
I don’t know how to express to you, my desperatation to get my sister back from this terrible abuser, or what rescuing her dog or even giving her the feeling that she can fight for her dog will help. These things are related, and I miss that girl with a whole heart, and unbroken spirit. I miss my little sister.
Please, help me. I want to send her $250 so she can file for divorce. I want to offer her a chance at a fair, just, and immediate fresh start. She is unemployed and alone, and she doesn’t have it. You know my story. I spent every cent you sent me on school clothes and housing as promised. So, what do you say, have we got 10 people with $25 bucks to give my sister the awesome gift of a fighting chance at getting her dog back?

How about 5 people with $50?
Doesn’t Brinks deserve Laura too?
C’mon folks, let’s rally around one of the most loving and determine women I’ve ever known… my little sister, Laura. To help her and her beloved Brinks I have set up a temporary Pay-Pal account in her name. To donate for her divorce, and maybe if we surpass $250 - her rent, her medicine, her freedom, and her chance at a new life, please use this Pay-Pal button. Thank you for helping me, help her. ~ Sarah

<---- Click here to help Laura.

Where has Jenny been this time?

Again, I've been asked, "Where has Jenny been?"
As always, I struggle with answering these kinds of questions.
I suppose that a person who doesn't bare her soul on the Internet might not answer the way that I intend to.  They might say, "Well, I was moving."  Or, perhaps they'd say, "I had a family emergency."  I suspect that many who ask - prefer these simple answers.
My far more complicated response is that simple answers evade the truth.  The truth isn't always pretty.  The fact is that a year ago my husband and I were forced to leave student/family housing at the University of Wyoming after I was unable to stay enrolled as a student due to severe health issues.  Loosing the financial aid as well as the cheap housing that included all utilities was a severe blow to our little family.
We left the nice, new, cheap housing on campus last July and found the only place that would take us without good credit that we could find.  It was a small trailer near the river in Laramie. I didn't mind the place, in spite of the obvious water damage, need for repairs, and large rental fee because the new landlords told us that my husband would be provided supplies, given a fair hourly wage and thus offered the opportunity to improve the trailer while decreasing our rent. 


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This is one of the places that I didn't even know the roof leaked into, I had stored my business clothes here for hopes I could wear them when I get well enough to work again, but they are now moldy, ruined and at the landfill.

The landlord ignored all attempts at communication once we signed our lease, did not provide supplies for repair and refused to reduce the rent.  For the entirety of our lease agreement my husband and I fought frozen water pipes, a leaky roof, windows that wouldn't seal against subzero weather, and damaged electrical and plumbing systems.
In May, during one of my attempts to force the landlord to fix the roof, his maintenance man punched my wall in a fit of anger at me calling the group of them slumlords.  Being a woman, at home alone, when he did this in my house, I called the police, making our relationship with our landlord even worse.
After requesting that the violent maintenance man stay away from our home, we again agreed that if supplied with roofing materials; then my husband would fix the leaky roof and we'd pay rent after his labor was deducted.  May rolled into June, with no response to our persistent pleas for roofing materials.  We sent notice that we were refusing to pay June rent till the roof was fixed, and that if it weren't fixed by July we'd leave altogether.
Shortly after Father's Day we received noticed of eviction proceedings being filed against us.  The gas man came on orders of my landlord to shut the gas off because he'd been told that the place was vacant. The cable company received a call that we, the tenants, had left unexpectedly - and they shut off our TV, phone, Internet with demands for large fees in exchange for turning them back on, even when we knew it was the landlord's misinformation at fault. 
My husband and I tried to imagine how we might afford a move while searching for a place that would accept us, our pets, and our poor credit history defined by piles of my medical debt.  When we couldn't find another place in the short time offered by the paperwork taped to our door by the local Sheriff's department - We began to panic. 
We had no place to go, no way to get there, and fear began to sink in our throats till we couldn't sleep at night.  We started packing our belongings for storage, calling friends to see if they'd take in our pets, and asking family if we could stay with them.
I cannot describe the feeling of failure, shame, embarrassment, and flat out revoltion I feel at sharing this tale.  There is no bigger shame than knowing that you failed to provide shelter for your children. 
When I ask myself if I deserve the shame I feel, when I trace our path and look for better choices in our history... I can't help but feel that I have done something wrong in spite of being unable to find what that particular thing could be.  Should I not have gone to the ER those times they report me unable to pay on my credit report?  Should I have told my husband to work more and study less?  Should I have ridden the bus more often? Should I have gone with the cheaper, less liked daycare?  Perhaps I should have stretched a student loan farther, or given up pride and filed bankruptcy?  The "what ifs" boggle the mind. 
Today, I write from my mother and father's basement in Cheyenne.  My cats are in kennel.  My turtles gifted to a friend.  My dog, too dependent on us to separate from the family, is sleeping in a guest bedroom.  My kids are at the library at this moment with the Grandma. My husband is working, always working, trying to earn enough money that we can again find a crappy rental, and be independent again soon.  My father works, possibly checking this blogspace on a break or two, and for now, as always, he provides safe harbor in a difficult storm with his efforts by offering us his home.
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Yesterday, for a flameless Independence Day in the wildfire stricken west, my kids blew bubbles on Grandma and Granddad's back porch.

After packing everything but our clothes into a five by ten foot storage locker, my husband and I hung our heads as we drove by houses with three car garages full of stuff.  We looked at these accumulations of wealth, and then to our children in the backseat.  We didn't say a word to each other as the wheels on our car rolled on toward Cheyenne. 
In our shame, it didn't matter that we both know that the reality isn't what my children are taught every time they turn on the television or listen to their peers at school.  The reality isn't that the whole world has three car garages full of stuff and we've got nothing.  The reality is that the whole world would be lucky if they had only what we had in that car.  If they had only the four brown eyes of my two sons, my husband's leathery hands of hard work and devotion, or my determined heart and soul to drive them to a family home with Granddad and Grandma waiting, they'd be luckier than anybody with a full garage of stuff - or three.
Poverty, and physical illness are insanely difficult burdens.  To carry them wears on a person's spirit.  It confuses even the most resolute and pragmatic amongst us into feeling desperate and ashamed.  I've been thinking, about all the people who ask "what happened?" to me and my family during this difficult time, I think I know why they prefer a simple, "family emergency" answer:  They don't want to find out that "what happened" could easily happen to them. They don't want to know that a fate filled roll of the dice could strike them with physical ailment or financial ruin. I can't say that I blame them for preferring a blissful ignorance... But ignorance doesn't change fact. 
The facts remain the same as I reported them in one of my first few blog posts.  A person, at any given moment in time, can always fail desperately at survival.  I attribute little fault to those who stumble, who suffer poverty, physical limitations, or worse.  I blame society. 
I blame society not because I am convinced society is responsible for the fall of those who suffer... But because I believe that society is responsible for the net that catches them and maintaining enough empathy to have a strong resilient net. 
Society should understand that the fall is a fateful one.  Chance, more than any other factor in my experience, determines success, wealth and the accumulation of stuff that our society currently holds in high esteem.  Chance also, more than any other factor in my experience, determines failure, poverty, and the lack of stuff on which society places such a heavy burden of shame.
I, in my travels, refuse to offer anything but empathy for those who suffer the fateful fall of chance's dice.  I know that but for the grace of love and luck... I could be a whole lot worse off and so could my kids.  With that thought, I leave you, my faithful readers... till another day.

For those who are interested, my blog has been a saving grace for my family and you can help too.  In the two weeks since we received the order to leave our home devoted readers have donated nearly $500 dollars by using the paypal button at right.  All funds generated between now and our goal: a move out date of August 1st 2012 - will be reserved specifically for the purpose of getting us into our own home ASAP.  We fear that delaying beyond August 2012 may jeopardize my husband's employment, the ability of our sons to start school on time, and even the our vow to keep our pets furever as promised.  All donations are graciously accepted and the more donations I get the sooner I get back online reliably for daily political articles! 

Post Script Regarding Father's Day - For Grampy

Over Father's Day weekend, I had planned to post articles for my Father and Grandfather, but fell behind due to poor health.  Of the two, I was worried that Dad would be hoping for a shout out, since I know he reads my work most often.  I was surprised on Sunday morning, when my Grandfather opened his Father's Day card and asked if he might be getting a blogspot mention like I did for Granny on Mother's Day.  While  I had thought about what I might say in an article about my Grampy many times, I had managed to psych myself out, and put it off for fear of unjustly representing him till it was too late - I got sick and I let him down. I am saddened that I didn't get over my fear of failing and honor him the way I should have, the way my heart meant to.
Now, here it is... the Tuesday after Father's Day and this moment at the kitchen table with the Father's Day cards and his slightly disapointed look hasn't faded a bit.  Instead, the wise advice that he gave me has festered.  You see, when I told Grampy that I hadn't finished the posts I'd meant to write him, he didn't ask why, and I didn't offer excuses.  Still, he seemed to know, and he talked for a moment about how I didn't have to put pressure on myself and my writing, he urged me to choose brevity over elaborate ordeals as he described his own troubles with beating words into their correct place on a page.
Those words festered deep.  Long have I known that while I may be gifted with an occasional turn of phrase, I certainly do not fall easily into brevity or simplicity.  At first, this desire to heed to Grampy and write something short, simple and sweet for him seemed impossible.  How can I do justice to someone like him, briefly?  How do you do justice to anyone without pouring out their life story like a jigsaw puzzle box?  Isn't every piece necessary to understand the whole puzzle?  These questions pestered me for days until...

My father took this picture of Grampy's horse, Sis, while we visted this weekend.  He emailed it to me yesterday, and I opened it in the cool of the evening last night.
Suddenly, I realized that I had found the single puzzle piece of brevity that might characterize my grandfather for us (just a little late) this Father's Day:
In my youth this lane wasn't so shady.  The trees were small - they couldn't reach each other or canopy yet. It's humbling to see that shade.  My grandfather made sure that lane was there, providing safe passage and harbor for the family home- I don't even know when.
If we're lucky, my sons and theirs will walk ponies down shady lanes like this.  They'll sort lambs from the cedars. They'll watch white cotton fall from the wood above and catch shelter from the bitter windy snows of January.  They'll bask in the shadows of love and foresight and plant fine trees of consequence and stretching shadows.
They say that true wisdom is a man who plants trees in whose shade he knows he may not sit. The fact is, we all plant trees, and they'll all cast a shadow. This shady lane challenges me just as my Grandfather does with his very existence: What shadow will your actions cast? In what shade will your grandchildren walk? I can only hope that, my grandsons and daughters will have the fine privilege that I have had, and that they'll walk in the holy wisdom of hugging cottonwood branches.  Happy Father's Day Grampy -  I am so sorry I am late.

Mother's Day Special - Part 3 of 4 "Granny"

Here is an image of one of Granny's special meals.  I believe that this is Thanksgiving 2010.  Granny is at the head of the table, Grampy is to her right, my husband Tim to her left.  I am in the purple next to Tim.  Across from me is my mother, Tammie.  Notice how beautifully Granny keeps her fine farmhouse.  If I am not mistaken, the blue and white table clothes is and Afghani piece collected from their travels.

Growing up in Olympia, Washington meant spending summers in Wyoming.  When I was fifteen, my sister and I flew from Seattle WA to Casper WY where our paternal grandparents, whom we call Granny and Grampy, picked us up and brought us home to their farm near Ft. Laramie for a month long visit.  I remember climbing off of the plane, after a hair raising transfer in Salt Lake City, and smelling the sage after a long day's travel.  Grampy, in his cowboy boots, picked up our bags and even though we were a thousand miles from the place we slept the other 11 months of the year, Laura and I knew we were home.
From an early age, Laura and I had come to expect, at very least, a visit to the farm in the summertime.  Occasionally we had been treated to a Christmastime trip too.  The year we flew together was our first and only trip without our parents.  It was a unique bonding experience for us to have with Granny and Grampy.  For Laura, who was more outdoorsy, and animal oriented, it was a chance to work the farm with Grampy.  For me, more of an inside girl, it was a nice chance to be with Granny.
While Grampy and Laura would be out working with the horse or irrigating, Granny and I would be doing something like baking bread or going to town for mail and groceries.  That summer she taught me how to get bloodstains out of laundry.  She taught me what brand names are worth paying extra for, and which items are just as good generic.  She also taught me how to make a maple flavored syrup, an egg-less chocolate cake, perfect wheat bread, and my favorite stuffed bell peppers.  She showed me how to sort the dinner scraps between the burn barrel and the Llama, and not to waste ice cubes that fall on the floor (throw them in the dog water dish).  Right now, it seems like the educated feminist in me should be including more complicated or superior things in this list of fine lessons.   But that's not so. 
The feminist in me is proud.  She recognizes that the many lessons that I learned that summer, are the few shortcuts to life I know.  That month was a crash course in surviving motherhood that I never knew I was going to need.  I learned that if I ask, the butcher will cut the pork-chops that are on sale in half, doubling the portion for the same price.  I learned to have my groceries double bagged in paper if I have a ways to drive after shopping, which is common in Wyoming.  I learned how to make strawberries, lettuce, green onions, bell peppers and melon last longer, by storing them properly.  These things save me money.  They literally equate to more food on my son's plates.  I could go on, and on, honestly, but I won't.  I will only say that I have learned so much by simply shadowing my Granny that I pity the other 7 billion people on earth who don't have MY Granny for a Granny.
So far, I have described to you, a woman that could be many American grandmothers I suppose.  Let me tell you more, maybe then you'll see why my Granny is literally 1 in 7 billion.
Granny was born in 1930 into poverty to an orphaned woman who had been raised by a woman I know only through family folklore as Aunt Bertha.  When Granny was very young she too was handed off to Aunt Bertha and her husband, Uncle George.  I'd explain these circumstances but I'm not sure I understand them, and if I am only going to speak well of people, I am only going to speak of George and Bertha Nash, who raised both my Great Grandma Walker and her daughter, my Granny, as their own.  The Nash's raised many children, and I am told that George and Bertha treated Granny as their daughter and my father as their grandchild.  Their love has been  beacon to me, in spite of the fact that they have been dead since long before my memory, I still feel it.  I am grateful that in them, my Granny had a fighting chance.
Granny was very young, I think 19 or 20 when she married Grampy.  Two years later, in 1951, my aunt was born, followed in 1958 by my father.  In the early 1960's Granny and Grampy bought the farm near Ft. Laramie.   A few years later Grampy got a job with US A.I.D. working in 3rd world countries to teach the locals to farm and live more efficiently.  They started in Kunduz, Afghanistan in 1966 and traveled for several decades to places like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Vietnam, Laos, and more. 
Now seriously folks.  Stop and take a moment and try your best to put yourselves in my grandmother's shoes.  It's 1966.  You are a young woman who has lived in rural America, near friends and family for your entire life.  You have a 13 year old daughter and a 7 year old son.  You don't have the internet.  You don't have a cell phone. You have no way of knowing what you are getting yourself into, none of your friends just came back from war there, this place isn't a household name yet.  Still - you pack your entire life up, and travel to the other side of the planet to support your family and country.
Can you imagine?  Can you even try?  I know I falter at it.  I try to think what it might be like and I realize that no matter how many times I hear the stories, I know that I haven't got the guts to even begin to find out what that kind of culture shock must be like.  Granny amazes me because she kept the four of them alive in places that I'm not sure I could have managed the same.  She remembered to boil the germs out of the water, and scald them off of restaurant silver and flatware.  She managed to make edible food out of the markets of 60's and 70's Kabul, and Kathmandu.  She traveled the globe something like 30 times, covering some difficult terrains, navigating the most inhospitable climates, surviving strange an unknown cultures.  In some locations she was my father or aunt's home-school teacher.  For some towns they lived in, she may have been a nurse, a social worker, a confidant,or an adviser.  She was a western woman, of some means, in places fallen with poverty, disease, and a lack of education.  Though it is difficult to quantify here, it is clear that she was far more than a housewife. 
I imagine that in some of those rural places, of 3rd world 1966, she was the only impression of American women that many of the people that she interacted with ever saw to that point in their lives.  At the height of the cold war, the importance of this cannot be denied.  When the history books say that we had people out there winning the"hearts and minds" of foreign entities, they don't mention it, but they are talking about folks like my grandparents doing the winning.   I have nothing but admiration for the guts and grit that it took to choose to change the world in this manner.  In a time when many women were spending their time making meals, keeping a home and doing laundry, my Granny was doing that too, only while traveling the globe, raising two kids, representing our country and changing the world.  She reminds me of that quote, "Ginger Rodgers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backward and in high heels."  Well, let me tell you this my fine readers,  I feel that it is absolutely appropriate for the feminist in me to point out that I grew up listening to tales of how my grandfather was some kind of cross between Indiana Jones and a Wyoming Cowboy...  With that in mind, it seems more than fair to say that my Granny did everything that he did, except backward and in high heels.
Thinking back to that visit home to Wyoming at the age of 15, I remember that one day I got bored with quiet farm life.  My solution was to write a letter to a friend back in Washington, telling outright lies about a totally fabricated relationship between myself and the son of a man who had worked with my grandfather on some cattle that day.  Granny was cleaning my room and happened upon my passel of lies.  She was mad.  I was mad.  At first I blamed her for reading the letter.  Then she told me something I've never forgotten.  She told me that I ought not write something if I don't intend everyone to read it.  If I don't mean it - if I don't want to sign my name to it with honor, I should never put it on paper.  I learned then and there, that the written word, as well as the spoken word, must always have integrity and truth.
Ironically, a decade and a half later, I hope that she understands that I truly did learn this lesson when she reads this blog-post.  I hope she understands that I have nothing but the honest and heartfelt intent to honor her here.  I will proudly post this on my page, and in effect, sign my name to the sentiments of this article.  If at any point in my life someone asked me what woman has the highest moral character, who is most likely to choose the right answer among difficult choices, who is most honest, most dignified, most stylish, best at entertaining, best at housekeeping or cooking, best at thoughtful analysis of news or politics, who I'd pick to travel the world with me or go to just to go to Macy's, I'd pick my Granny.  She truly is 1 in 7 billion. 
I pity the rest of you, who haven't got a Granny, like my Granny.  You are missing out on a fine woman. If in my lifetime, I am able to be half the woman she is, I'll be content in my efforts.  If one day, I have a granddaughter, I only hope she is something like my Granny.  If she is, she'll be lucky and smart enough to know it.

Mother's Day Specials Part 4 of 4 - "Mom"

Here is a picture of Mom.  I like it because she's got her winning smile, her Wyoming shirt, and a nice scene of Mt. Rainer in the background. 

When I was in fourth grade my mother was unable to make some commitment at my school because she was working for a local community college, teaching people in a local prison how to read, after which she had to go take her graduate school entrance exam, known as a GRE.  On the day in question, I was perhaps 9, and I told my teacher that my mother could not attended because she was in prison taking her GED. 
This was the first of many mix-ups that occurred as my mother began to pursue her masters degree in public administration.  I remember that as her studies went on, our family purchased our first computer, a large PC, which I used to play CD ROM games, and once forged a letter to my 5th grade teacher claiming that I had permission to bring home and keep two chicks hatched during a class science experiment.  It was two days before my mother found the chicks living under a heat lamp in my bedroom closet.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I often helped out by cooking simple meals.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that for the two or three years that my mother was in school,spaghetti and bean soup made up our diet for those two days a week, nearly every week that she was registered in classes. 
Back then, the popular t.v. show was Home Improvement.  On Tuesday nights, while my real life mom was in class, my sister and I would sit up and watch Tim's wife Jill act out the difficulties of being a mom of kids our age and trying to go back to school.  We experienced many of the same ups and downs.  Like Jill, my mom suffered the tragedy of having her kids erase her homework from the family computer.  Like the tool man's family, my dad, sister and I stood ever so proudly with my mom at her graduation.
My sister and I always remember when Mom won an award from Mike Lowery, then governor of Washington State, for her excellence in education.  I believe it was called, "The Governors Executive Fellowship Award."  On the day that we went with Mom to watch her accept the award, Laura and I were to wear matching shorts outfits.  In the hurry and nervousness to prepare, we switched our outfits.  As a result, my shorts were way too short, Laura's were much too long.  I don't know how my mother feels about this distortion in her special photo with the governor, but to me, it says that my mom, for one day perhaps in our entire lives, was too excited to look twice at Laura and I and I'm okay with that.  I'm actually more than okay with that.  I like it that way.  For once, Mom got something for Mom and she deserved it.
Of course, once she graduated, Mom's education changed the finances, the aspirations, and the entire course of reality for our family.  We went from watching her substitute teach, do other people's taxes and run a daycare on the side, to hold nationally recognized award winning positions.  She became a leader in her field as a fire information officer, as a fire prevention officer, and an outreach education worker.
She would often take me, and sometimes my sister, to work with her.  She let me watch her lead.  This made a big impact in my life.  Instead of walking into the world with a chip on my shoulder, wondering if I should be listened to, or if I was worthy of respect as a woman, I had the pleasure of watching her work and I knew from moment one that the men that she bossed, as well as the men that I might one day boss, were lucky for their feminine leadership. 
When I was 19, and living on less than $300 dollars a month,  without any education, and without gainful employment, Tim an I found out we were expecting our first child.  Because of my mom, I knew what to do.  Along with every doctor or insurance form I filled out that spring, I also filled out college applications.  I was determined to raise my child with the power of my education, just as my mother had.  By the time I was admitted to school and classes were starting, my son was only a few days old.  In fact, my son was 8 days old the day he and I attended our first college classes.  On our first day, I was traumatized.  I was terrified.  I was still learning how to nurse, and ended up having to feed the baby in the middle of my first college class.  When it was time to pick up and take a walk around campus for a tour, I was despondent.  I wondered if I was where I belonged.  I struggled with my belongings and my baby as I waddled uncomfortably behind my peers toward the library.
As we went through the different sections of the library I paid far more attention to my new son than anything my teacher or the librarian said.  I worried to myself, if I was exposing him to germs or other risk that might scar him for life.  I started to plan a hasty exit... and then, we entered a special room in the library.  Every book was bound in the same green leather that matched our school colors.  It was the thesis room.  There, on the shelf with the W's.... Under my mother's name, Tammie Wilson.... I saw her thesis. (Every time I think of this moment, or tell someone about it I cry)
My eyes welled, with shame I imagined how many times Mom must have wanted to give up.  I remembered how much opportunity she brought us by pressing onward.  Still ignoring the teacher I ran my fingers over the spine of my mother's bound thesis and I breathed in the knowledge, effort and determination of that book and that room.  Then I cupped my hand over my son's skull and kissed his forehead.  I said a little prayer and made a promise in that moment.  I promised not to give up, and prayed that my efforts would be worth it.
For years I hauled my son and eventually his brother, in my belly, on my breast, on my hip, in a stroller, in a sling, and on my back with me.  We took college course after college course together till I was finished.  Unlike my 4th grade self, they may not remember that this happened, but they will know it happened.  They will know that our family of four (like me, my sister, mother and father before us) sacrificed for education.  They will know that we believe in it with every core fiber of our being.  Neither I or Grandma ever gave up. 
I can think of many fine lessons that my mother has taught me, but this is the one I'll thank her for this Mother's Day.  Without her dedication to education, I don't know where I or my family would be.  I don't know if I would have made it through even one day of college without her.  Her example, as always, drove me through a difficult situation.  I am proud, damn proud, to be half her. 
Thanks Mom.  Happy Mother's Day. 

Mother's Day Specials Part 2 of a few - "Robin"

A few weeks ago, in the early spring of Washington D.C. a woman and artist I know only through Facebook, Margaret Scott, posted a series of images that I've saved to share with you this Mother's Day week.
Let us start at the top.


and work our way down
 

to the bottom....

Margaret explained that what we are looking at is the hard, but fruitless work of a Robin attempting to build a nest on her sister's front porch.  I read her sad words, "The robin was simply unable to build its nest. I suggested to my sister that we have had a very dry spring and so she watered all this debris."
 

A few day later Margaret again posted- "The robin was finally able to build her (rather sloppy) nest. Took this picture this morning. She's all moved in. All it took was a bit of water to hold her home together."
 
With these images fresh in your mind, let's talk.
This is a Mother's Day special, but let's start with all the daddies who make the choice to help build the nest, who labor to feed the hungry child, who rejoice and weep both when the nest is empty again. To me, their labor of love is twice as sweet knowing that they have nothing tying them but love and a determination to see their child well.  They have no umbilical cord.  They have only feet and hands and heart.  This is gives them a choice.  They are not bound by any physical matter, and they may use their feet to run, but they can also use their hands and heart to love.  It's a choice.
Think about the hidden gift in planning parenthood, and in sexual and economic education and freedom for women.   It gives mothers this choice as well as fathers.  It gives them feet. It gives them the same physical ability to say no and walk away from parenthood as men. It also gives them the ability to plan, relish and treasure parenthood when they are ready to choose it.
The ability to say "No" makes the "Yes" and the labor, the effort, the love... twice as sweet.
To say yes, when you don't have to, to live a life shoving nesting material where it simply will not stay - until it does stay - that is a gift of love that I find quite touching. I think every family deserves to be the result of both parent's saying yes, and choosing to devote themselves in this manner.  (I'm not blind to the other side of planning parenthood, that's not what this post is about. This post isn't about something ugly. It's about something beautiful. The determined and forever love of a parent for a child.)

Contrary to anti-abortion advocates, it is my experience with the four women that I know who had an abortion, that each respected life and motherhood more than almost anyone else I ever met.  Each of them had their own terrifying and gut wrenching tale.  Each made a choice they wrestle with even as they discuss it with me, but by the end of the tale, they always admit, it was the best of awful choices.  All four of these women went on to be great moms.  Not one of their kids ever was neglected, unplanned or unloved.  Once these women said yes to parenthood, they jumped in with both feet and the children that resulted were happy, healthy and loved by two parents.  Once those women made the commitment to having children, they built damn fine nests.  To me, that's true motherhood and it has been a beautiful thing to watch.


I have seen motherly love come in many forms.  One woman is raising her sick sister's daughter.  She is a single mom with a child of her own, and raises this little girl all by herself.  Why?  Because she decided to.  She said, "I choose to love this child no matter what," and so she does, everyday.  That's motherhood.
Another woman, loved her child so much that she chose another family to raise him.  She knows this boy only through pictures, yet, having been the one who watched her belly swell with him, and her water break with him, and a piece of her soul disappear with him: I must admit that she loves that little boy as much as I love mine.  Having seen the gracious and loving arms of the woman who accepted that little boy, I also think that she loves him that much too.  How lucky is he, to have twice the motherly love?  Two women made the choice to give their heart to that child and he is going to be better for it.  That is motherhood.
Yesterday I heard of a high school friend with a complex medical issue that she was just diagnosed with weeks before he impending birth of her child.  She found out that she cannot deliver naturally, and that she cannot have any anesthesia or they will die.  This means that she is facing a very painful c-section to deliver her son.  I don't know how much of this is final, or fact, or what the logistics are, I only know the upset words of an honest friend.  Even if the specialist finds a solution and this never happens, what she said about it did happen.  She said, "It'll be ok.  It's just one day in our fabulous lives."  That's motherhood.
Or what about my new friend, also due in a few weeks, who has been on bed-rest since before Easter with painful contractions, suffering extreme symptoms of MS that hurt badly.  She can't take her MS medicine because it will hurt her baby.  So she waits, hoping for a full term and healthy child, in misery.  Even though I know the enormity of this burden must at some times seem flat out unbearable, she smiles, she laughs, she jokes, she spends her time and energy worrying about how to relieve the stress of her illness on her four year old daughter.  She spends not a moment worrying for herself.  That is motherhood.
Let us talk about the struggle not with spectacular things, but with grocery lists and dental appointments and paying the rent on time.  There are the moms with episiotomy scars, hietal hernia's, broken pelvic bones, multiple miscarriages, failed adoptions,and other physical and emotional scars gained in the pursuit of motherhood that few will ever understand.  Let's pause for a moment for the moms who skip their own haircuts to buy soccer uniforms, who give up their Thursday book clubs to join the PTA, who pump breast-milk in awkward places at work on their "breaks" and miss first steps so that their children have safe and warm homes or college funds.  That, my friends, is motherhood.
The truth is that all moms are like Robin, above, they spend their whole lives, every single day, shoving nesting material where it will not fit, till it does.  They spend restless days shoving fat worms in hungry mouths, dreaming of the nostalgic day that they will fly away and the nest is empty, and then those silly moms ache at an empty nest. 
The fact is, that motherhood is the single most beautiful struggle on the face of the earth.  When you give a women the choice in where, when, and with whom she becomes a mother, well, that doubles it's power.  That makes the most beautiful thing that ever was- somehow even more impressive - don't you think?