Being political

Am I a "liberal"? Hmm, that is a question I have been asking myself as of late especially considering the turn of events in the recent election.

When you run for an office you usually fall into Democrat, Republican or Independent categories or maybe the fringe groups such as the green party or the libertarians (which is not liberal and yes there are many more parties but I to draw the line somewhere in naming them).

Growing up in the late 50's and early 60's the way of the day was you usually chose a party and that is the way you voted. You were choosing a party 'line' or philosophy so there was always a chance that at some point you voted for someone not because you really wanted that person in office but because that person belong to and was backed by the party you followed. 

Politics are confusing to say the least. I was taught at a young age that my vote counted (although there seems to be times the old electoral system counts more) and here is the radical part of my upbringing by fairly conservative parents, I didn't have to 'belong' to one party. I could actually choose a candidate and vote for them based on their merits not their party.  

For years I have declared myself an independent. The only part of that I was ever sure of was it meant I was not associating with either of the "big two" parties, Republicans or Democrats. One problem with this is during primaries you must take either a Republican or Democratic ballot to vote. Yep, I do see that as a problem. I don't want to belong to either but I am forced to if I want to vote in a primary. So I guess I could just skip over primaries and wait for a general election but that could mean someone that I would like to run won't be able to because of the lack of support in a primary. A "Catch 22" right there.

Then I started this odd thought process that I have, exactly what creature is a Republican, Democrat, Independent or a Liberal?

So I looked up the definitions of the "big two" and this is what I came up with -

re·pub·li·can  (rĭ-pŭb′lĭ-kən)

adj.

1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of a republic.

2. Favoring a republic as the best form of government.

3. Republican Of, relating to, characteristic of, or belonging to the Republican Party of the United States.

n.

1. One who favors a republic as the best form of government.

2. Republican A member of the Republican Party of the United States.

 

dem·o·crat (dĕm′ə-krăt′)

n.

1.

a. An advocate of democracy.

b. One who believes in social equality or discounts distinctions in rank.

2. Democrat A member of the Democratic Party.

 

You know what? Neither of these terms really tells me anything. I am not political and I admit it so sometime using a dictionary isn't useful because these terms are just that, terms. They give me no history, and don't tell me what each party believes in. I mean really, I could belong to either party based on those rather vague definitions. 

 

I also looked up Independent which I found equally unsatisfying. 

adjective in·de·pen·dent \ˌin-də-ˈpen-dənt\

1 :  not dependent: as a (1) :  not subject to control by others (2) :  not affiliated with a larger controlling unit <an independent bookstore> b (1) :  not requiring or relying on something else :  not contingent <an independent conclusion> (2) :  not looking to others for one's opinions or for guidance in conduct (3) :  not bound by or committed to a political party.

It works at times. But does it fully describe my political or non-political leanings? Now mind you I am just looking into the broad stroke definitions of 4 more or less political persuasions.  

I think there are many of us that do not think about the political system and those we have voted into office until an election year, a scandal or some other news worthy item comes up about that elected official. We just go along with what is in place, like the electoral college. How many of us actually understand that system, where it came from and why we are still using it? Does it still benefit our country in this day and age of electronic communication? Maybe there should be an updated version of it. Heaven knows, it has never benefited Vermont. The only time presidential candidates come here is if they accidentally cross over the border from New Hampshire. Okay, maybe on occasion one has made a brief trip to the northern section of the state.

Seriously, I have more questions than answers after this debacle, this farce, that was the recent presidential election. How could we even let 2 people run for the highest office in the land with the questionable backgrounds that they both had? Not saying any presidential candidate has been perfect but these 2 topped the loser lists big time and yet one is now our president-elect.

Well the last definition I looked up was liberal and guess what? That one suits me to a tee.

lib·er·al (lĭb′ər-əl, lĭb′rəl) adj.

1.

a. Favoring reform, open to new ideas, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; not bound by traditional thinking; broad-minded.

b. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.

c. Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.

Really a portion of any of the first 3 definitions could fit me but that last says it best. I hope I am open to new ideas, to change when change is needed, not to following a party line just because it is the party line, voting my conscience because I personally feel that is what I have to do and rather than casting my vote blindly, not voting because that is also my right.

I first voted in 1972 the year of Nixon vs. McGovern. Yep, my candidate lost. My Dad and stauch Nixon supporter called me to tell me his candidate had won and I returned the favor when several months later there was a movement to impeach Nixon and he left office. 

I can't say over the years how many of my votes have gone to winners or losers but they have been used to vote my conscience and as I said, sometimes my conscience has left the 'tick' box empty. 

Yes, I am a "Liberal" with leanings towards Republican, Democrat and Independent. I can see the usefulness of all the parties if they make us stop and think about what we are voting on or who we are voting for. We should not longer 'toe the line' because one party or another says this is so. We should be flexible and try to see the whole picture to see who really would be best for any office. From our smallest towns to the largest cities, we should have people in office that care about the people not in office. Which I realize is a bit of a utopian idea but I have faith in humanity. We have done well so far, but are in need of some major reality checks. America is not perfect and what happened before the election with the backstabbing and vindictivness of the candidates and after the election, with tensions flaring between those who consider themselves winners and those who consider themselves losers only serves to divide the country and make us look foolish to the rest of the world. 

Trump may not be 'your' president, but he will still be president and lets honor that office. But let us also keep our eyes wide open to the man in office whether or not you voted for him. His words condoned many actions that people have spent years fighting against. Let's not slip back in time and lose all the good that this country has bought forth to the world. 

I am proud to be a Liberal American. I stand by the immigrants, as 2 generations ago my family were immigrants, I stand by those who are disabled, as any one of them could be my son or my daughter, I stand by LBGTQ because I was taught that God makes no mistakes, the list goes on and I am there, because I am an Amercan and damn, proud of it.

 

 

To iron or not to iron

 

ironing - noun

the act or process of smoothing or pressing clothes, linens, etc., with a heated iron.

Unless you are a seamstress, a designer of clothes or a quilt maker chances are you do not know, or are familiar with or indeed use an iron.

An iron is an electrical device that once plugged in and turned on creates heat which you use to press clothes or material with. That is the simple explanation. It can create steam if water is put in it's reservoir, it also has a variety of heat settings dependent on what you are ironing. For me it is a way to go back to my childhood. 

When I was young, being one of those baby boomers or mid-century antiques, clothes, linens, indeed most of the material that touched our lives was not made out of polyester or even contained polyester (or any of the other wonder materials of this day and age). Most clothing indeed the sheets on our beds required ironing. A time consuming process of taking said iron to the items in question and pressing out the wrinkles that washing had put in. No matter how good you were at hanging things out on the clothesline or quickly pulling them from the dryer (yes we had one, infrequently used), everything seemed to wrinkle.

Ironing was an art. You learned which items may need a little sprinkle of water then were rolled up and set aside for a few minutes before ironing and which items you could immediately press. There was a moment of satisfaction as a pile of handkerchiefs neatly folded and press stood in a pile waiting to be tucked in my father's top drawer. A sign of relief as the good tablecloth graced the table at Thanksgiving dinner without a crease or wrinkle in sight. The delight of putting on a sparkling white cotton shirt that felt soft against the skin because of the diligent hand of the person who spent time pressing it.

Yes, I still take a moment of joy when I press a linen shirt that dried outside feels rough and scratchy, but with the application of heat and steam becomes supple and soft. I love it when I sew and press a dart on a bodice so it fits nicely against the skin, or flatten a seam so a dress falls softly or a hem is barely visible. 

I don't have to do it. I know how to grab a cotton shirt out of the washer, throw it in the dryer for a few minutes till the material is nice and hot and then hang it and watch the wrinkles fade at the material cools and air dries. I could always wear material which never wrinkles and requires no care other than to wash and dry it. But when I iron something there is a fragrance when the heat and steam meets the material. It brings me back to the basement in my childhood home, ironing my dad's handkerchiefs, (he had to have a fresh one daily to tuck into his suit pocket), learning how to sew with my mother and generally living, what was then, a much less complicated life. 

Most homes nowadays don't have ironing boards or irons. Women and men don't know this art. They have never pressed a sharp crease on a long sleeve dress shirt or a pair of pants. They don't need to know and most don't care to know, but it is one of those small things along with so many others that are disappearing in this world of modern technology. 

The "good ol' days" weren't always good but they did have some redeeming qualities, maybe ironing is not one of them but to me, the memory is a special one. I didn't always want to iron and a lot of times I complained and whined about it, but I did it. I accomplished a small thing and it taught me that sometimes those small things count. They can make someone happy. Every time my father opened his drawer and saw those hankies, neatly ironed and stacked in the corner he knew I cared without me saying a word.

The future past

I was born in a time now called 'mid-century', one among many in a group called 'baby boomers'. I have one foot on the deck of the Starship Enterprise and one in a 1975 Ford Galaxie. I am among those who watched the first moon landing and saw the computer go from the size of a football field to a device you can stick in your back pocket. We ate butter, lard, cookies and cakes and never heard of  lactose intolerance or celiac disease. We ate vegetables grown on local farms that were not GMO and Monsanto was a good place to work. We caught fireflies in the summer, and thought our world would go one forever.
We didn't have integration, we believed in politicians, we didn't know what recycling was, we let banks and Wall St. rule our economics. We thought doctors were gods and cancer was a word whispered in dark corners. Drug use was unheard of, alcoholics were people who just drank a bit too much, hitting a woman was wrong but not corrected, and bigotry, not just of color prevailed.
We drove in cars without seat belts, rode bikes without helmets, we were told no and corrected when we did something wrong. We were punished when we broke our parents rules, going to our room really was a punishment, there wasn't a TV, computer or gaming station to keep us amused but there were books. Hard cover and soft cover, not on Kindles or Nooks. Comic books cost a dime and were not 'graphic' novels.
Our parents did not 'hover' over us. We went out at daybreak during the summer and came home when the streetlights came on. We ate what was given to us and were thankful. 
H.G. Wells told us of worlds and times beyond our own. Orwell wrote "1984" which painted a desperate picture of the future for our race. Roddenberry told us that space was 'the final frontier', it wasn't and isn't.
Baby boomers came in all colors, sizes, background and ethnicity. They found nature and a hole in the ozone layer. They modernized and mechanized our society. They gave birth to Generation X who are now the parents of the Millennials.
We were and are not perfect, just like our parents before us. We struggle every day with the world around us. With instant news, the horrors of war, the bombings, the deaths of innocents is up front and center.
We were not given things just because we wanted them.
Wars have been fought through each generation to insure the freedom of the next generation. We now question wars fought on foreign soil as to why any generation should lose members in a war that politicians think we need to fight.
The world, our county, our people are in a state of constant flux. I am not saying my life, childhood is better or worse than any other. What I am saying is we have missed the point. Each generation has something to offer. We need to look behind us to see what is ahead. Take the best that there is, apply it to the next generation and surely there will be a change for the better.
We are trying and we continue to try to bring the best forward, to not lose the best of the past because it is old or different. To embrace all because we can and should.
One final note, I am not saying that bad things didn't exist way back in the 'mid-century', they did and they continue to. What I am saying is we have let the bad rule too much of the good in this nation, in the world. We forget with instant bad news that there is a lot of good news that needs to be told.
We are letting fear rule us. From being afraid to letting kids get bumps and scrapes to fearing opening our doors to strangers to much larger and darker fears. We can't go back to 'simpler' times but there are lessons to be learned from all pass generations, good and bad, they are what makes the future either bleak or amazing, as in what could be.
 

Death

I dreamt about death last night. Not my death or the death of anyone I knew. Just about death.
I am at the age that the conversation of death is more and more in the forefront. Obituaries are filled with people of my age dying, so I think about death. Not every day or every minute, but in passing, fleeting thoughts.
We live with death every day. We dine with it, read it, watch it on our TV's. We are surrounded by death in our daily lives and yet we choose not to acknowledge it except when we must. 
When we are forced by the death of a loved one (whether the death be human or animal) we use words such as 'loss', 'passed','crossed the rainbow bridge', for the life of us we cannot seem to say a person (or animal) died. I did not lose my parents (that would be careless), they haven't passed from one room to the next, sadly, they died.
The dead are celebrated, venerated and mourned in a variety of ways, from the 'Day of the Dead'  when people go to cemeteries with food and gifts to spend the day with their families, both living and dead, to building pyres to cremate the body of a loved one and scatter the ash to the wind.
From our first inhaled breath to our last exhaled breath, we are surrounded by death. The trees that grow feed on it, the flowers we see are there because of it, our world exists because death is a constant. It feeds and grows the community of man.
Death is here just as life is here. They are one in the same. How we acknowledge and understand this 'union' is up to us. Some choose religion as a gateway to understanding life and death. Faith is a very important part of life for many people in the world. It gives those people strength to face the uncertainty that we call life.
I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, angels, heaven, hell, well a lot of things. But I don't say that there isn't a possibility, just like I think death is not the end. No, I don't believe in reincarnation, going up and down the old ladder of life depending on how you lived your previous lives. I do believe in nothing is final. The body may have died but certain aspects continue on. If you are buried in the 'good ol' fashion' way, pine box or canvas wrapping, no chemicals involved, your remains go back to the earth. Trees, grass, flowers all exist because of that nourishment or think of this, every breath you ever breathed is contained within our world. It goes around and around, gets breathed in and out again, year after year, century after century. No, you are no longer a sentient being but you are here.
There are those among us that leave behind the written word, paintings, sculptures, heroic acts, their 'accomplishments' during this thing we call life. Then there are the millions more that just live their lives. They don't have 'accomplishments' to mark their life here on earth other than the fact that they were here, but it is because they were here that the breath of life passes on. The solider that breathed his last in some battlefield has given breath to a child born on a farm somewhere far away from war. My last breath, whenever that may be, will start a child crying as it emerges into this world. That is an amazing thing.
I am surrounded on a daily basis by the beauty of death in the wonder of life. From the flowers I grow in my gardens to the sound of the song birds outside my door, it is truly amazing.
This is not to say death doesn't hurt. That it doesn't break you heart and make you cry when someone you love is no longer there. When you cannot gaze into their eyes or hear their voice. Death creates voids and life fills them. I guess that is why I dreamed about it last night. It is spring and the world is awakening from a winter sleep. Life is all around me, green and glorious, loud and noisy on a quiet dirt road in Vermont. I won't always be here but I have a deep and abiding faith that the world will be because we humans accept death not as ending but just a change. Something we fear and embrace because it is the beginning and ending of all we know. 

Parents

Have you ever really thought about it? That we parents were once children and our parents were once children and so it goes?
We, as children never think about our parents being children. We see the pictures of them, young and carefree, out exploring the world or sitting with family members at a Christmas dinner but we don't think of them as being young. We see them at a sort of static point in our lives. We see them as parents.
My parents have been dead (I am not PC in using the word dead, it is a fact. I did not lose them or any of the other euphemisms for this condition) now for many years. As I think back now that I am heading off into the sunset myself, I realize that I didn't know my parents, not as they were before me, when they were young newlyweds, before they met, or growing up. There are a couple of stories and a couple of black and white photos that show them before parenthood, before me.
Why is it we don't ask our parents if they had dreams or aspirations before becoming parents? Are we so self-centered (as children) to think our parents had reached their goal in life, had climbed their personal Mt. Everest? They became our parents, how glorious is that???
As proud as I am of my two sons (you know who you are), I remember vaguely having a life before them. A very different life than I live now, especially since my husband and I have gone up one step in the parenthood game by becoming grandparents.
I remember lazy summer days after being released from another torturous year of school. I had a hard time in school and wasn't the best of students. I often heard the phrase that 'I didn't apply myself'. School was boring. Back then the teachers as a general rule, were trying to push square pegs into round holes. Girls were suppose to be housewives, that kinda 'woman' thing and boys, well they got the fun jobs and supported us girls. It was before the sexual revolution, before women started demanding equal rights, it was still the time of crinolines (look that one up), gloves and hats.
I didn't like crinolines, hats or gloves. I wanted to play with trucks and climb trees. I wanted to do what the guys did. Do my kids know that about me? Do they know that if given a chance I would have been a heavy machine operator, or a welder? Oh the things I would have done if I had only realized I could have done them.
Do they know that I had many, many confrontations with my parents? That I couldn't fit into what they thought I should be and that this sense of failure dogged our relationship until they were gone (okay one euphemism)? No they don't. Because in the parent/child relationship we don't talk about these things but as parents our childhood experiences can easily become that of our children and our own relationship with our parents can become the one we have with our children. It's a cycle that repeats itself and sometimes you can't see it until your child has left home.
What do I want my sons to know about me? There was a lots of smiles, laughter and love in my life growing up. Yes, there was a lot of teenage angst, bad girl attitude and screwing up on my part. We had issues, all parents and children do. Maybe some of ours were a little more difficult because my parents were not my biological parents and biology, knowing where you are from, links to your past, does play a part in accepting who you are in life.
I have finally found at this time in my life that I am okay with who I am. I will never be skinny (Reubenesque is the word for my curves), there will always be something to overcome either physically or mentally, I will never have a perfect relationship with my sons or my daughter-in-laws because there is no such thing, the sun will rise and it will set. I will shed tears over those who have died and who I miss. I will always wish I had made that snappy comeback or I told someone how important they are in my life. I will not live my life in regret. I cannot change the past but I can choose on how I wish to remember it.
I am doing a project right now in which I am going through the many slides my Dad left me. I am only choosing the ones with smiling faces and happy memories. I don't need the scenic vistas or faces of people I don't recognize. I do need to see those faces so dear to me growing up. The small group of aunts, uncles and cousins, sitting at the picnic table in our backyard, or visiting at someone's house or even gathered around a table for a long ago Christmas dinner.