Last night I had a very bad dream in which my October Social Security Retirement Check did not come. The rent was due, the cupboards nearly empty, and prescriptions needed filling at full price, because of the donut hole.  My phone calls went in useless circles, and the penalties for late rent payment began to pile up.

Then, still caught in this nightmare of a dream,  came a letter in the mail that informed me that due to the need to help the market stay afloat, there would be no further SS checks for an undermined length of time.   The second letter I opened was from HUD, notifying that all Project based Section 8 housing funds were also needed for the bailout and would end effective immediately.

I need that housing subsidy in order to afford a place to live.
I need that SS check to survive: it is my only income.

It is my only income, because I had to use all my savings long ago while waiting for Social Security Disability to be approved, and then to pay for medical expenses while waiting out the two year period before Medicare would kick in.  Disability caused by a back injury that could only get worse as I aged, and did, until I could no longer work at all anymore by age 55, after 40 years in the work force.  I didn't have a lot  of savings anyway, because as a single mother widowed at age 29 and raising two kids alone, you just can't save up a whole lot of money.

It was a tremendous challenge, learning how survive and enjoy life on such a small income in these times. If forced me to reevaluate everything I thought I knew about what is truly the important in life. And I managed it. I managed to create a brand new, extremely fulfilling life.  

The dream wouldn't stop. In it, I sat frozen in disbelief, facing the end of the road.  After all those years of working so damned hard, raising my kids on my own, paying taxes and being a productive citizen, this is how it will end?

Oh I know my kids wouldn't allow me to end up on the streets. Somehow, one of them would carve out some small space for me in their very small houses, if it came to that. They wouldn't  let me starve.  But oh my gawd: they don't want me to live with them one bit more than I want to live with either of them! No matter how much we love each other, it would be certain disaster.  And who knows how long either of THEM will have jobs houses TO share, as much debt as they are both carrying and with their own savings now at such risk, also.  

Am I really still in America?
Is this really happening?
Please let me wake up.
Please let this all be a very bad dream.    

I woke up. Yes, thankfully, it was a bad dream.  
But after spending an hour on the internet reading about the bailout and the sick, terminally corrupted political system in charge of things, there is no way NOT to know it is very possible that my very bad dream could well be a premonition of what could yet come.

I've faced potential homelessness before, but I was still young, fit, and able to protect myself. Now I am old and disabled. Still, I could probably last on the streets for while, because I know where the homeless vets hang out, and I'd go to them with full confidence that they would help protect me as best they could.

If I am destined to be left to die on the streets by this wonderful country of mine, this land of the free and home of the brave, who better to die along side, than these old forgotten soldiers who gave their lives for this country, but just haven't died yet.

May the force be with us all.      

On the streets, men who use women for sex can be arrested for being "johns".

In Washington, men who use women like "John" McCain does get standing ovations.

 

VP pick Sara Palin frightens me.  

She frightens me because I fully understand the power of ultra conservative, fundamentalist women and I know how many of them there still are. All I have to do is go sit in a diner in any small town in Minnesota, and listen to nearby conversations for a half hour to know that things are not than much different today than they were in the 60's, for women born and raised there.

Or I can simply stay home and spend time in the Lobby of this large senior apartment complex, and listen to my "good christian neighbors" bemoaning the lack of morals, those "godless gays", and how "The blacks are everywhere now!"

(Hey, it could be YOU someday, TOO!)

This is my 67th Fourth of July and this is a Eulogy.

I need to lay to final rest, once and for all, the last tattered shreds of my love for and blind faith in this land of mine.

To lose a long beloved one, is very hard. Even harder, is having to admit that that long beloved one never truly existed in the first place.

As if only yesterday, the memories of being literally filled to overflowing with a such deep and abiding love of America I could hardly contain it are still fresh for me.  

Every soldier I saw on the street was a part of my very own child's heart: I loved them all so much, I embarrassed my mother terribly by inviting every soldier I met home for dinner. I had to do "something" for them at age six..anything..to show them how much I loved them all.

I remember that I cried off and on all day on the 4th of July, as I watched the Parade, hearing the Parade Drums, seeing the crisp formations of soldiers pass by, simply overwhelmed with pride and yearning to be a part of them someday. I'd find a way, even if I was "just a girl".  

Memorial Day and the Fourth of July were the most important days in the year to me,  much more special than Christmas. The whole world stopped back then, to honor these days of gratitude for those who sacrificed their lives for our beloved America, and to celebrate her with all we had, on Independence Day.

Some of those memories are permanently etched in my brain.
Memorial Day at Evergreen Cemetery, the whole town present, the crisply uniformed ranks, the solemn boom of the 21 gun salute, the planes flying over in missing man formation...and oh, all of the flags proudly flying against the verdant green, on the graves of all those who sacrificed their lives for us....

Then came the 4th of July. Independence Day. Time to truly celebrate the birth of this Great Nation: the Home of the Free and the Brave. I am feeling frustrated as I write, because I sense there are no words I could use, to bring anyone back there with me who has never once experienced this kind of Patriotism, the kind that  seemed programmed into ones very DNA.

Another memory is also etched permanently and so vivid it can still bring tears. Standing at full attention, saluting, as the crisp, perfect formations of Soldiers marched by, my own heartbeat in total synch with the Parade Drums. Every cell of my six year old body yearning to be a part of this, filled with determination to BE a part of it, someday, even if I was "just a girl".

So odd it seems, that memories like that not only refuse to die, but refuse to even fade, after all these long hard years of discovering that nearly all of it was a bald face lie.

This discovery took forever..and was, in a word, simply excruciating, every damned bit of it.  It was like getting my heart torn out of my body, one small bloody bit at a time. (Except during Viet Nam, when half of it got butchered and buried along side my brother in a very short time)

And it has meant giving up the very foundations my life was built on.  The love of a land where I "belonged" to something so vast, so grand, something that would always be there for me, take care of me, something so good, ... to  spend the rest of my life without that foundation at ALL. I am now a  "person without a country" because the country I thought I belonged to simply never existed  

"My Country 'Tis of Thee.." I sang out so proudly, for so long,  along with everyone else.."Sweet Land Of Liberty...of Thee I Sing!"

There is, I don't think, any safer more wonderful feeling a human can ever have, than to feel THAT  much belonging; THAT  much love for ones country.

So when I run into older right wing patriotic types now, the ones who WILL NOT SEE...and WILL NOT CHANGE, yes, I understand them. To expect them to change, is to expect them to willing cut out their own hearts. Not all of us can do that and still survive, or are willing to even try. Then factor in the effects of right wing fundamentalist religion,  ..and it's easy to see why maintaining the status quo is their life's work.

 I don't believe most of todays (ah hem) "leaders"  who have systematically torn down even the illusion of what America was and is, are old "cellular level" Patriots like this.

I think most of THEM  are greedy, power mad, souless, sociopathic  BASTARDS who are smart enough to have learned how to exploit and harness up all us old patriots, and exploit the hell out of us for personal power and gain.

And until "WE"  ALL DIE OFF...(everyone who was raised with that almost cellular level of  patriotic programming, about the history of this country, and those so well programmed by war-like religious fundamentalism,) and are replaced by enough of you, who were born into lifetimes where you had a damned chance to form your own beliefs..not a hell of a lot is going to go in any direction other than the one we're heading in right now, big picture. That's just how it looks to me from here.

So now must say my final good by to that America I once believed was my very own Heart-Land.  It was but an beautiful illusion, inserted into my soul.  

I can no longer sing  "My County, 'Tis of thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, of Thee I Sing!"

But I can still sing, in a softer, sadder voice,
"My Country, Yet To Be...Sweet Land Of liberty...of Thee I Sing.."

And I am singing it, to all of you.

Take her. She's yours now, such as she is.

Don't hate us too much please.
Most of us did the best we could, with what we believed was true.

Remember that America, as she could be, and as I believe she is intended to be, is still in the womb gestating. She has not yet truly been "born" yet: the labor is long and it is hard, and it is going to take all of you to get this baby delivered.

It won't be an easy birthing and I don't think it can be done with old methods and systems long in place, either. Those belong to an era that is passing by. If every there was a time for innovation, for blazing new pathways... it's now.

Me, well, I'm fine now. Us humans are remarkable in how much we can adapt to "whatever is", given time enough to get past all the phases of shock, denial, depression, bargaining and finally, to acceptance and peace.

I trust you. I can make my exit knowing you will do your part in this birthing process.

(Not perfectly, however. You will bumble and stumble and get lost and try to kill each other off..just as we did!)

I still can hear the fetal heartbeat of this land yet to be born and I believe she is still viable.

And somehow, I just know I will get to see it, wherever the hell I end up..even if only as dust on the wind.. :)  

 

Fathers Day is not an easy Holiday for some. Maybe you had one who is no longer here and this is a sad day.  Maybe you never had one at all.  Maybe you had one who was not good to you, or hurt you.  Maybe you had too many of them, and none of them were able to act like one, like me.  (Original papa split before I was a year old, Step dad # 1, an abuser, Step dad # 2 a miserable, rigid, abusive alcoholic and disciplinarian.)

In any case, I do not know what it would have been like to have had a real "Dad", and there is a place inside  me that feels that still.  To this day, when I see a father being tender and loving with his child, there is a nostalgia: I would have liked to have known that feeling, that love, that that safe, sweet, strong solace.

So today I just wanted to come together with others who may also have missed having a Dad, for whatever reason, (even if there was a man around who claimed the title, but who could not be one). This is loss we can share and not carry all alone.

On a brighter note,I also dropped in to say Happy Fathers Day to the all great fathers here I have come to know and admire so much. Please know how very important you are to your sons and your daughters. Not one second of the time you spend with them, really seeing them, listening to them, loving them, will ever be really forgotten.    Bless you all.      

These thoughts come solely from personal observations of, and experience with groups of all kinds, in many different venues, over many years, rather than on any academic basis, so as such, are totally subjective. However, studying human behaviors has been a lifetime fascination for me, and one I have delved deeply into, online especially, over this past ten years.

When people "group themselves up" in any setting, they all bring baggage with them. Every single one of us have bags full of unresolved issues of one sort or another, some we know about, some we don't. So, there we are, in the midst of a group, and as we interact on more and more intense levels, some of those suitcases will pop open, and stuff will spill out..it is inevitable. Conflicts arise. Misunderstandings, mis-perceptions, over reactions, projection super defensiveness, attack/counter attack..you name it, it is GOING to happen, in any group, sooner or later, no matter how "cohesive" it seemed to be at the start.

I am very sad and I don't want to sit alone with it.

I've tried hard to convince myself I'm really not all THAT attached to this blogging community: after all it's just a blog, not real life.

 But I wouldn't hurt like this, over "just a blog". I only feel this sad when I am losing people I truly care for, with whom I've shared a special time and place that has become part of my life. A place that feels like it is slipping away from me even as I write.  

 

 

I love to swear.
I love the satisfaction of yelling `GODDAMMITALLTOHELL!" when I hit my thumb with a hammer: it helps it hurt less.

I love the word "SHIT!" spit out forcefully, when something goes unexpectedly wrong.   (I will never have a tombstone, but if I did, it would simply read "Oh SHIT!")

Or "SUNUVABITCH!", which is almost as good as "SHIT!"

None of what you will read here came as any surprise to me, because I've worked as an RN Case Manager in Home Health Care, and had ample opportunity to see how private business gouges the hell out of the taxpayer, by exploiting the illnesses of vulnerable and aging Americans in order to make the most profit possible.

But I have a brand new clear and current example to share to illustrate this, now that I am over 65, disabled, on very low income, thus qualifying  for some services myself.

Congratulations to Nancy Pelosi, Our New Speaker Of The House, and now third in line for succession to the Presidency of The United States.  This is indeed a landmark day for women in America, the land that lags far behind other so many other countries in granting women an equal seat in places of power. This event is also a symbol of hope for all Americans.

Speaker Pelosi was born only a few months before I was in 1940.  What a powerful  woman she must be, to have gotten to where she is, after not  entering politics till after her own prime career in parenting was finished. What a joyous day it is for me to see a woman: an Elder and a Grandmother, in such high office.

Post office closed.

Oops. That means old Mildred's rent check will get delivered one day too late to avoid the 25.00 late fee, which will mean she cuts back on groceries next month, so she can still pay her utility bill and drug co pays. It means a lot of rent checks may get there late, and lots of 25.00 late fees no one here can afford. But hey, they should have sent them in earlier.  After all, they knew it was a Holiday weekend, right?  

I've met so many exceptional human beings in my time here on earth, and in my storytelling here, I've introduced you to many who have enriched my life in years past. But I never ever dreamed one of those exceptional people I'd want to write about would carry the title "CEO".  (Goes to show: never say never, huh?)

You all know of her, she paddles around in this pond right beside us: NancyL. I have not asked her permission to write this either: I know better. But she is one of the people in my present life that has done SO much to revive  my ability to continue hoping for a better future for all out children and thus, our world.

I seem to have my holidays a bit mixed up here, because my thoughts this morning are all about being thankful for so much I couldn't possible name it all. And you couldn't find a one of them in any store, much less wrap it up in glitzy paper. I have to just let it spill out, ok?

I am so damned glad there are places like this pond full of critters, and I want to thank you for creating it and maintaining it for us, Boo. I especially wish for you a return of your health, as soon as possible, please!

I am so very grateful to have met all of you here, and for all of your comments and caring extended to my work here. To have a place for my voice, like this one still feels like a near miracle to me.

When I sort of "crash landed" here a ways back, I was absolutely determined to NEVER attach myself to any so called "online community" again, dammit! Yet, here I still am, with a reminder as recent as a few hours ago, when I couldn't access Boo, of how much I would miss this place and all of you, if you disappeared for good!

So I'm thinking maybe we don't really always choose our community connections: sometimes it seems they choose us, and before we know it, there we are, attached again!  

So one of the things I will be celebrating today, quietly in my own mind, is this place and all of you, and having been blown into this little pond by too many freaking flying pies.

Ho Ho HO!