A Valentine of Hope and Unity

Somehow I never wrote about attending Obama’s Inauguration this January 20th but those memories surfaced in my Valentine to friends and family that I am putting in the mail today.

Here it is, to spread the good vibrations a little further:

 

A Message of Hope and Unity

   

This comes with my deep hope that this year will bring us a surer notion of just how much we can achieve. And that by working together we can all prove this to be true. Things won’t be easy, but we’ll come out on top.

 

Our family (3/4ths of us at least) felt these certainties on Inauguration Day as we stood on the frozen grass of the National Mall, between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol, in a direct line from Lincoln behind us to Obama in front. We were part of the cheers, and we felt the energy and hope of the country. We sensed – so strongly that it felt like knowing – we were witnessing the beginning of healing, not just for the last 8 years but for the wrongs of racism and slavery as well. It was real. It was happening. I felt it in the blinding sun of the winter sky as I watched a hawk make circles over the National Gallery, in front of the SWAT team on the rooftop. I pretended it was an eagle and wished the whole country could have been there, because it made me forget every worry I’d ever had.

 

It just takes a single moment to create that kind of faith that allows us to see the whole range of possibility in our lives. But that one moment can spur us on to realize our dreams, and to help others achieve theirs. They say it’s easier for friends to help each other in the down times than it is to celebrate each other’s triumphs. But let’s start, this year – now – by doing both.

 

As you know, I started sending valentines instead of Christmas cards a few years ago when I needed to feel more compassion to balance the pain I felt from the tone and policies of the White House. I figured it was up to me to create what I didn’t have. Now we have it, thankfully, in Washington and across the world. But it’s up to each one of us to sustain it, to strengthen it – in our homes, down the street, in our towns. We can start by sustaining one another.

 

I start by saying to you, let me know if you need help, and how. We all need it now. I’ll be there beside you in the good times, too, that with hard work are just around the corner!

 

With love,

 

Mary Ann

 

 

 

Victory Heals Old Wounds

My elation and choked sobs upon Barack Obama’s election told me how many wounds I had inside me that I didn’t know were still there, from protesting against racism in the 1960s and watching Washington D.C. burn after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. But then, I don’t think any of us realizes the full effect something has had until the situations that caused the pain better themselves. Quite simply, my tears of joy triggered and released all that pain I’d held in previously. I was washed in healing – late – but healing can never be too late.

As a white college student, I’d missed the March on Washington in 1963 not only because I couldn’t leave a summer job but also because I didn’t understand the full import of what I was passing up. It would be the next year when I would become a civil rights activist.

 

Now, with Senator Obama running for President, I wasn’t going to miss another chance to be part of history. My volunteering for his campaign took me to new parts of Georgia – my home – and NC where I listened to voters in a trailer park outside Asheville voice their fear about outsiders. That was my first introduction to deep Appalachian racism up close. Though I often seek out being the only white in an African-American environment, I do not enjoy being the only liberal in a sea of conservatism that seems spawned by fear.

 

The best campaign experience was Election Day, when I drove voters to the polls in Atlanta. These images and emotions will be with me forever:

 

- The young African-American woman crossing the street, smiling at me in a line of volunteer drivers, then looking back again to see if I saw her. I’m used to genuine smiles but this longer eye contact was different as I’m usually the one who needs to connect. Election results were not yet in and the world was already different from hope and working together.

 

- The middle-aged African-American man walking towards me as I sat outside a polling place in my car waiting for my voter to finish voting. He was smiling to himself so gently, with a bit of surprise as if the whole experience was surreal. “Are you done?” I asked. “Yeah, all done,” he said, and his smile grew broader as if he was stepping into a bubble of safety and peace. When my voter came out he was grinning from ear to ear, and as he got into the car he gave me a high five. His feeling of newfound empowerment made me feel I was enabling someone in achieving something that was as important as breathing and eating.

 

- And at the end of the day, the young woman who worked in the cafeteria at Atlanta University who, like everyone I drove that day, was a first time voter. We raced around in the dark on endless stretches of highway, lost and determined to reach the polls before closing. With two minutes to spare, she was able to vote a provisional ballot because we had ended up at the wrong polling station. The poll workers thanked me for bringing her, then gave her – the last voter - a round of applause on her way out. The poll volunteer outside gave us both hugs, prompting a confession from my voter that she almost cried she was so worried she wouldn’t be able to vote. What a different election this was!

 

I have been so inspired by Obama’s hard work and the change in those voters I met that I’ve made a pledge to myself to be more disciplined in achieving my own goals. My biggest challenge, however, will be to not give up on my friends who voted for his opponent. Normally I wouldn’t have known, because I learned long ago not to talk about politics if I wanted to build unity, but this campaign trained me to ask strangers whom they were voting for. And when I carried that practice over to a few friends I learned our values weren’t similar at all, which was a heartbreaking discovery. 

 

Nevertheless, in a day when a biracial man can become President and inspire a country to hope, I should be able to hope that I can give my friends greater room to grow in their own way. With Obama’s bipartisanship and invitation to help in changing America, there is hope they will come around to seeing life from a different perspective, one that fosters working together for the same goal, that of caring for our country and one another.

 

 

 

 

 

Replacing Treasured Sounding Boards

This past weekend I felt the loss of two old reliable sounding boards on public policy and current events.

Both of these individuals were passionate about politics, a passion of mine as well. And both were comforting, intellectual stalwarts to me whose opinion I sought and valued. Though I felt their viewpoints were fairly predictable, now that they are gone I want to know what they think about every crazy twist in the news.

It’s not like I can’t think for myself, but somehow knowing how they stood on certain issues was a gauge to me in assessing the mood of the country; how things were going. That measure helped me keep some realism in interpreting public policy. I had a clearer notion of the path I had chosen to travel when I heard what they had to say.

The first loss struck last Friday, with the sudden death of NBC’s political commentator, Tim Russert. I not only adored him but he was one of the few TV pundits whose opinion I truly valued. How could you not trust him? That teddy bear figure of knowledge, smarts and experience grounded in common sense. He was fun and lively and passionate. But, most of all, real. I believed him and I needed him. I can’t imagine getting through the drama of the conventions and general election without him.

The second is my husband who died four years ago. I missed him more poignantly than usual yesterday because it was Father’s Day. I told my son I wonder so often what he would think about the economy and the election, oil prices, the racist comments out of the Clinton campaign, Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia, and the Supreme Court becoming more rightist (except for a recent Guantanamo ruling). He never missed a word of Time magazine in his 62 years, and read widely on foreign policy. We didn’t agree on much in politics in our younger years. I would disregard the clipping from the newspaper he would hand me on his way to work on election day, about whom to vote for. For all the mock indignation I felt and expressed, now I miss those laughs we had. He knew I wouldn’t listen and even said he married me for my independent streak.

As a Goldwater Republican, my husband became more moderate as the years went by. I, a liberal civil rights advocate of the 1960’s who grew up with my father sending telegrams to the White House on open housing, have become more moderate as I have faced the economic realities of life. There is nothing like supporting oneself to make one face life realistically. My idealism will never leave me, but I know the value of balance now.

So I feel a bit bereft now without my political sounding boards. Change isn’t easy when it hits close to our values and ideals but new folks will arise to take their place. I’ll have to look hard. But they are there.

And in the meantime, I will rely on my own gut a little more strongly. It is guiding me more surely and only because I am listening to it better. These things are vicious cycles, I find. The more I follow my instincts in speaking out on issues, the better able I am to voice those thoughts in fresh ways that connect me to how others are finding their own voice and footing. We’re all in this search for truth together, I figure. Saying what we have to say is all a matter of offering up our thoughts as sincerely and clearly as we can. We lead each other through our encouragement, as Tim Russert was so good at doing.

So I’ll think of these two men – so different from one another - during the conventions this summer, and when I cast my vote in the fall for Obama. I think that what makes someone’s opinion worth listening to is the fact that we feel that they believe in us, and that helps us feel our way into our own issues. And that feeling – that gut knowledge of life and what we are looking for – isn’t taken away by death.

Each of our everyday opinions brings us angst and joy. Though they are our own individual issues, the stuff behind them is universal, with that everyman quality hanging out there, waiting for us to grab onto it and carry it on. In our own way. And in do doing, we become our own people. Our own everyman, and everywoman. Which helps us find replacements for those special people in our lives we knew were unique, and feared were irreplacable.

Thank you, Tim and Chip. Your speaking up will still be with me. 

 

 

Thoroughbred Racing Has to Stop

I could not watch the Kentucky Derby as much as I used to glory in the beauty and exhilaration of the Triple Crown. 

Ever since Barbaro broke down, I’ve sworn that I could and would not support horse racing.

My son asked me if I was going to watch and I told him no. And I didn’t. But I checked the results online. Despite fearing the worst, I was stunned to find that the worst had indeed happened. Again, and multiply that by thousands. The runner up, a filly named Eight Belles, broke two front ankles and was euthanized on the track.

How many deaths will it take before this sport of bringing beautiful animals into the world to suffer and die is halted? It’s like bringing Olympic athletes into the world to face death. Russian Roulette: salvation or death. What kind of rush could such odds bring anyone? Sadistic, truly.

What does it take for you to hear us, breeders, owners and trainers, who indulge in this cruelty? If you don’t have hearts, think of those of us who do.

Larry Jones, Eight Belles’s trainer, said in a Reuters article ( 5/3/08 ) published in The New York Times, “We couldn’t be more proud of her effort…. The main thing was she never had to suffer. She just went out in a blaze of glory.” I can’t believe breaking two ankles and literally breaking down wasn’t painful. Just proof that denial is what keeps the industry alive.

Hear us, Larry Jones, and Eight Belles’s owner. Hear us, Gretchen and Roy Jackson, and Michael Matz. None of you are exempt. At the very least you are guilty of a grave injustice and withholding of compassion. Cruelty to animals is cruelty to your fellow man. How dare you think we feel as you do, that it is alright to subject animals to the torture that is horse racing. 

I can’t take it. It hurts unbearably. Another talented and beautiful life gone. Wasted. Thrown away. Ravaged. Do you not see that you are waging war on the animals you profess to care for? Why is pain and death the ‘life’ you choose for them?

Nothing hurts as much as the deaths that didn’t have to be. In Iraq and Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, and on city streets. Do you not see that our country is on overload? It takes the same amount of work to create something constructive as it does to tear down, whether from violence, apathy or neglect. The effect is the same.

Your actions, horse racing industry, diminish all of us. This is indeed a tragic day.

Sharing My Roses with the Aphids

 

 

In celebration of Earth Day, I’m writing about my friends the aphids. They are attacking my New Dawn rose bushes. These two rhapsodic rose bushes are climbers, growing higher every year. If you count their spilling over the trellis and arbor, which I keep adding on to, they are about 16 feet tall at this point, with more life in them than all the new trees and bushes I have planted in the last four years. The buds, only visible the last few days, are growing. It will be a few more days before they open.

 

I was so excited at dusk last night to see if they’d started blooming that Mocha cat and I went out onto the screen porch after dinner, and I noticed – horrors of all horrors – that the aphids had returned. I’ve been looking for them, while trying to think positive thoughts that maybe they’d stay away this year. I really thought I’d headed them off with a few preventive whiffs of rose bug poison. But no, there were a few tell-tale headless stalks visible but undeterred, thankfully, from reaching for the sun.

 

If I’d been successful in ordering liquid garlic to spray instead of pesticides, I’d probably be OK. But the company turned out to be fraudulent. And I’m just not willing to load the air with pesticides, so it may take a few more years to conquer this battle. But, in the meantime, I’ve decided to be at peace.

 

“Live and let live!” my husband used to say about vermin. The kids and I didn’t pay much attention to this bravado until he said it one evening about the roach crawling across our map of the world in the family room. Then we cringed at the grossness. I said it seemed a little irresponsible to be that passive, even though I hate killing any creature. “World traveler,” the kids named the poor little guy, groaning and giggling at the same time it made it across several continents, safely.

 

That memory is now long gone, as I breathe in and let the pale pink roses warm my heart. I asked the protecting guardian of wildife and nature, Ariel, to spare me a few blooms. 

 

And so in a spirit of compromise on Earth Day, I am conceding to the little bugs. We share a gentle love and discriminating taste. I should be able to give up a few decapitated stalks in the midst of boundless beauty. As for the carpenter bees that have been digging holes in the arbor, I’ll tolerate them, too, until I find a green solution.

 

As life so often brings us full circle, I am reminded of ninth grade when we had to memorize a poem. I chose Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Flower in the Crannied Wall” which I still remember after all these years:

 

Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower–but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is. 
 

Now that I’m wiser, I don’t yearn to know so passionately why things are the way they are in the universe. I’ve fought too many battles, demanded too much control, and sought too many answers. I just want to enjoy my roses.

 

With triumph over the aphids no longer my priority, I can settle in quite nicely to co-existing with both aphids and bees. It makes me wonder how they adapt to making do with humans. Maybe setting an example of mutual respect is no effort to them at all. Maybe they, too, think that it only takes a handful of pink patches at dawn and dusk to fill their heart’s desire, and their stomachs.

 

Looks like my husband had it right all along by picking the important battles. A few missing rose buds are the right savory touch to enticing me to contemplate changing my position on how much I fight with nature. Or how much I resist anything unwelcome.

 

 

 

 

The Search for a People’s Leader

When I meditate about the loss our country has endured from the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago today, I feel grief first of all; grief and anger that we have had to do without his vision, dignity and courage all these years. Others have taken up the mantle but not as comprehensively, passionately and effectively.  

There is great promise in the leadership of Barack Obama, though his vision of social and economic justice and equality and its implemention is broader, more concrete and less theoretical than Dr. King’s. No one could accurately call him a black leader; he doesn’t focus on race, and he fights for the rights of all races.

In the span between 1968 and today, blacks had to move on without receiving the justice and equality they sought, and many of us sought for them. It has come bit by bit, especially with the Civil Rights Act, but not in the hearts of every American citizen and therefore not in practice.

And in that same time,  from when Dr. King was assassinated until now, Barack Obama was growing up, a child not just of America but of the world, his path made easier by the legacy of Dr. King as he says but more from the hands-on experience of living abroad, of seeing the clash of cultures close up and of learning the importance of their respecting one another and working together.

I mention Dr. King and Senator Obama because they have been the ideal leaders during my lifetime, with the exception of President Kennedy. The ones that inspired me to care, and to speak out and say that fairness and equality still don’t exist. Dr. King’s legacy reminds me I can’t give up hope; he wouldn’t have until economic justice has been won. 

I feel frustration, too, which comes from enduring the incompetence, arrogance and dishonesty of President George W. Bush. Since Senator Clinton has adopted many of his traits, especially his dishonesty, I ache for Dr. King’s character, demonstration of heart, and openness and I yearn for his leadership.

But is it gone? I believe it remains not only in his legacy but also in his hope for us which hovers above our continued need of the ideals he fought for.

Perhaps it is the example of character and leadership of Dr. King and Senator Obama that accentuate the falsehoods of Bush and Clinton. For without integrity it is impossible to lead; the definition of a leader is one who inspires others to courage and action with the interests of the country at heart… not fixating on approval ratings or special interests. 

However, legacies aren’t enough in themselves. They only pave the way, serving as silent leaders, demanding action from each of us. 

When I yearn for a transformation of Dr. King’s message of nonviolence, and an example of his straightforwardness and sincerity in the flesh, I look beyond these false and destructive ‘leaders’, elected and not, who underestimate…in their rush for acclaim and their quest for power at any cost… the intelligence and perception of voters. I listen to my own heart and to the heart of my brothers and sisters and it motivates me because the audacity of their not understanding what Americans want and need is frightening. But there is strength in voter numbers, and Americans are catching on, finally. 

Setting things right after the death of a people’s leader, and making unactualized dreams real, is not just about developing better programs or policies. Wounded hearts have to dare to feel again, and trust has to be restored, which takes constant effort on the part of us all to forgive one another for the past. 

I pray that we will all keep striving for unity as we continue our pursuit of justice and equality. One option we have is to stand behind Senator Obama’s capacity to attract experts whose answers complement his own, and accept his invitation to in essence fulfill Dr. King’s legacy, thereby creating a new moral and economically fair order.

Remembering the words of Dr. King, timely today from its unfinished business, gets us closer to achieving the goal of dignity, jobs, education and food on the table. It is asking so little that all Americans have enough to keep them healthy and happy. By inching, together, towards these rights and their fulflllment, we gain a mile, and in the meantime, our own dignity. 

 

A Good Speech Heals the Hurts

Yesterday was one of those off days, thankfully rare, with two bad interactions in yoga class.

A friend reported she had lost a book I loaned her. No apology, just “I have no idea where it is. Maybe if I had the title.” I didn’t remind her that I had given her the title of what I thought it was. We had been discussing this for seven months and I should have let it go long ago but I couldn’t get past her nonchalance.

The yoga class was intense. With my stiff back, holding poses for a long time isn’t something I adore. One man announced it was ”the hardest class” he’d been to with this instructor. I smiled at him, glad to have company. In the locker room,  when I ran into a circle of ladies complaining amiably, I said, “I’ll go tell the instructor,” thinking that I could represent all of us. Since he was a friend he might listen, and didn’t teachers want to know when people were dropping out and why? I marched back into class, nabbing him before he left, and told him that there were a bunch of folks who were struggling. His reaction caught me off guard. “I don’t have a problem with them. People always tell me my classes are too hard,” he said, turning his back and walking away.  

I was dumbfounded; it never entered my head he wouldn’t care about helping his students’ progress. I’m sure I could have presented my case more smoothly, too, though I tried not to sound accusatory.  

Driving home, I narrowed down what was bugging me: one person had shown a tinge of accountability and the other none, while neither showed empathy. For some, it’s too threatening to admit a mistake; and for others, they can’t get beyond themselves. 

Then the most amazing thing happened. I found the healing I needed while reading a speech in The New York Times. Not just any speech but one of the most majestic, truthful and heartfelt speeches I’ve heard in my lifetime. It was Barack Obama’s Speech on Race, (delivered March 18, 2008). It meant more than a warm hug or a friend saying, “I hear you, it’s OK.” Imagine that, a speech with that much healing power… for small hurts that couldn’t even measure up to significant subjects like race and unity and equality. 

Obama’s honesty, openness and insights on race in America brought tears to my eyes, his words demonstrating such directness and understanding of universal pain that it soothed every doubt and fear I have about the future, not just my present petty concerns.

How phenomenal that a speech that cynics could label as purely political could bring so much hope. But it did because we have to heal to make room for hope. If it had that effect on me, there’s no doubt it hit others, too, as being history in the making. I count it as one of the most important speeches of all times, up there with the Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King Jr.’s I Have a Dream. I was reminded first of King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail thinking, “I’m living this event, not looking this speech up in the library years later.” I was cheered by the timing because David Patterson’s speech just the day before, upon his swearing in as Governor of New York State, had inspired me similarly.

Healing can come from the least likely places, though the events are not random. Gestures of healing don’t have to come directly from the person who hurts us, but they do need to contain directness. I was reminded of my favorite words of sympathy from a friend after one of my husband’s parents died years ago. The friend saw me outside church, walked up to me, looked me in the eye and said, “Mary Ann, I don’t know what to say.” Nothing could have comforted me more. He gave me all he had, most of all honesty.

It wasn’t just empathy I needed in yoga class but honesty and forthrightness, two little triggers that help us feel supported so we can find the courage to forgive, move on and seek the solutions we desire. When it didn’t come from “friends,” it was my duty to be honest and kind to myself, as I need to do regardless. Always.

Notes from a Campaign Worker

Last weekend was not one of my usual weekends. I made phone calls for Senator Obama before the Texas and Ohio primaries because I knew I’d blame myself for not trying harder if he didn’t get the nomination. 

I came away learning a few new things about human nature, campaign strategy and geography, and having a few old things about leadership and character affirmed.  

The first obervation: most people are secretive about whom they vote for, even when they agree with you.  

The second: campaigns seem to target not only the hard-to-win constituencies but also the surer bets, contrary to my thinking they went after the most challenging prospects. 

The third is about geography: there’s a town in Texas called Wichita Falls, which I didn’t know. I made calls there, as well as in Canton, Ohio in the Southeast which is conservative, a fact which I also didn’t know. This comes from the olden days when Virginians migrated to southern Ohio and New Englanders migrated to the big cities in northern Ohio, like Cleveland and Toledo. Having lived in a steel town, Middletown, in the western part of the state as a child, it was fun to update my bearings.  

The phonothon logistics of the Obama campaign were web-based and impressively easy, with a script and all. I started calling in Houston. I heard that the campaign was targeting Katrina evacuees and I hoped that that was the case. My results were mixed – mostly cordial, though two responses were so rude I had to fight back tears. 

In Wichita Falls near the Oklahoma border, everyone I spoke with seemed to be retirement age. If their terse responses of “NO” when I asked them if they were caucusing were any indication, they were Republicans.  

It was fascinating listening to scores of voice mail recordings made by chipper husbands that said, “We’ll be back soon.” They mentioned the wife’s name, too, as if presenting a show of cheery unification against burglars or the unknown… like terrorism and campaign calls. Every time I left a message – which the Obama campaign instructed me to do in Texas but under no circumstances in Ohio - I couldn’t help picturing an idyllic scene of the family dog helping the couple unload groceries in the kitchen as they listened to my message. I prayed it would prompt them to open the ice cream on its way to the freezer and talk about some key issues, like consensus building. 

Making campaign calls to strangers is an awfully intimate kind of calling, much more so than the phoning I used to do in fundraising and headhunting. Because politics is so passionate, and it’s such a humongous responsibility to represent a candidate, it’s nice to find common ground with the person on the other end of the line.  

I had actually planned to campaign in Houston in person, even purchasing a plane ticket. But I decided not to go when the pet sitter fell through and the campaign organizers said I would be campaigning on my own near my motel, most likely. An hour’s search on Mapquest for campaign headquarters and a motel spawned a serious fantasy of driving the Houston perimeter. Like Chevy Chase in the movie European Vacation when the family circles a rotary in London until nightfall, unable to get off, Dad shouting out, ”Look kids, there’s Big Ben!” at each rotation. I could get lost and go in circles at home and it would be cheaper.

In truth, this decision was agonizing because I don’t like missing out on the energy created by teams coming together for a common purpose. But I figured a solitary experience wouldn’t resemble the teamwork I enjoyed while working in the Atlanta Olympics, so it made more sense to make calls from home. My prime objective was helping Obama, not being part of the action, I reminded myself. 

One special call, however,  made it all worthwhile. It was from Latrice in Houston at 10 pm on Sunday night. I’m not even sure she knew why I had called; she said she got my number from caller ID. She talked about the Obama phenomenon and how “awesome” it was to hear him speak after the Wisconsin win. Connecting with this instant friend who shared his views made me feel I was at that rally, hearing my candidate in person. Our kinship was proof that his message brings unity and hope.  

I bested my call goal by 30%, feeling good that if I missed a great adventure in Houston I was living with the consequences of my decision like the candidates do every day, a lesson I always need to relearn.   

Now that these primaries are over I’ve hit a snag. How can I be a tolerant person and allow folks, in my heart, to vote as their heart tells them to? I certainly want to. But it’s difficult when the campaign of one of those candidates – a female - is adopting a style that has been labeled as duplicitous, racist, attempting to instill fear, and of a victim mentality. I don’t support such tactics even though they originate from the candidate herself feeling threatened. 

I come to the conclusion that voters, like mankind, see what they want to see, depending upon one’s values and experience. I choose to tout the strengths of an inspirational and character driven winner, Senator Obama, the role model for how to be inclusive and transcend the fray of animosity. Though he is being goaded to fight back, I don’t believe he will lower himself to her tactics.  

We each make our own decisions about how we want to live our lives, and one thing is clear. If we don’t fight for what and who we believe in with respect, we suffer the consequences.  

One of the Democratic candidates is an example of division and the other is an example of solidarity. While we can learn from bad examples about what not to do, it is far simpler to go with a visionary who has both heart and strength. Those qualities represent the part of our ‘experience’ that not only counts, but that also inspires others to rise above the temptation to be petty and unfeeling, a temptation that is nothing more than indulging in an entity that is minute, yet damaging, called ego.  

A Cheer for Obama

This post will have no rhetoric. No preaching. Just an old-fashioned whoop of joy BEFORE the primaries today that we have a candidate like Barack Obama to vote for. It feels better than I can possibly describe. Close to mellowness and a rush all at the same time, and without either emotion canceling out the other. Maybe White House ’leadership’ had to get this bad before we could recognize pure vision and hope and talent and courage.

Let’s hear it for Obama…Hip hip hooray!!!

A postscript after voting: I will never forget the feeling of standing so alone in that voting booth…being myself…voting my heart’s desire….and seeing that one name all alone on the page. Barack Obama for President of the United States. It felt unreal and I got chills followed by tears that rolled down my face. It was the impact of that wonderful African name! Is this really possible in America? Can it really come true? Have times changed enough for crazies to not be threatened by the courage of this tall athletic figure who can speak from his core? That name rang out such courage! Never in my life have I had such an emotional feeling voting. Now I pray for his safety, his nomination and his victory.

Finding Our Balance When the World Acts Crazy

Last week there was so much discord and tragedy in the news that I felt I needed to plant my feet a little more firmly on the ground to balance myself. The more off kilter the world seemed, the more I felt I was losing hope.  

I don’t need the world to be rosy all the time, certainly, but there is something very elemental about emotional survival and how it affects mood, productivity and health. The defining moment hit me when I was trying to rise above the fighting between Presidential candidates - which felt childish and ego-filled, on top of Wall Street’s quivers, the bloodshed in Kenya, and the tragic and mysterious death of talented actor Heath Ledger. 

How do I stabilize myself when things get bad? The answer is the same whether my imbalance is caused by something external - world events - or from my feelings about a personal situation. Balance resides somewhere between reaching out in care and protecting oneself with distance, as well as between pitching in to make things better and saving time to get our own work done. The answers are tricky because balance is different for each one of us. 

I see two advantages to feeling off balance. It can fuel us to action - to help others – and it can force us to focus on what’s really important; get us to be selective in choosing priorities as to how we spend our time and energy.

It helps me to follow my passion in my career, my relationships, the community I build and, most of all, the values I hold because if I’m off track in any one of these then I won’t have a solid foundation and I’ll be buffeted by ill winds when they come.  

If I choose action as a means of addressing my imbalance, I am giving of myself to better a situation. The thing that needs correcting can be external or close to home, it doesn’t matter.

Regarding the devastating election violence in Kenya that is turning out to be ethnic cleansing, I am at a loss as to how to help. I worry about my entrepreneur who runs a tomato stand in Nairobi, to whom I made a loan through Kiva. She may not even be alive, according to reports from that organization. 

As for addressing the squabble between Senators Clinton and Obama, I can volunteer. I have signed up to campaign for Senator Obama because I cannot not support a true leader who unifies a divided country by inspiring citizens to action. After the assassinations of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr., I never thought I’d live to see another.

Helping just one individual through a troubled time is enough to connect us to the world. One small phone call or smile or favor can create hope at both ends as it restores balance. Our good intention is paid forward. Taking initiative empowers us and enables us to get beyond ourselves, reducing our feeling of helplessness. 

Still the question remains: how do I stay in the world in a committed way without feeling affected by what happens? Action isn’t the only wise response. Since my life is a microcosm of the world, how do I shake off the shaky feelings?  The only answer I keep coming up with is to just keep trying to get involved in things that interest me on as many different levels as possible.

Finding balance is deeper than the conceptual. It comes from feeling grounded. There are many restorative and prevention tricks for strengthening our root chakra and relying upon ourselves. I start by accepting that I am responsible for getting myself up and running and that I can’t depend on uppers from the world around me. I use yoga, which builds balance physically. I do several other forms of exercise which release tension. And I practice meditation which depends upon breath, as in yoga, to restore balance emotionally and spiritually. Creativity feeds and restores me, too, grounding me by transporting me out of the limitations induced by my concerns.

I see the condition of being out of balance as advantageous because it forces me to be more intentional about how I live my life. The values that help me stand on my feet are the same ones I stand up for on a daily basis. They guide me in the right measure of giving – how much I should dole out to others and how much to myself, getting me attuned to the universe in the very ways I’m lacking. 

They say that success is to be found by just showing up… being present… going through the motions. I gain by simply planting myself in front of my computer, and taking breaks by doing tree poses on the yoga mat. Being in the moment brings peace and peace is balance.

Feelings of imbalance can come from estrangement or separation - from not being connected enough to the world - in addition to being overwhelmed in one area or many. I can create my own ‘good news’ by expressing my caring. It puts anguish and fatique into perspective. Caring should never be so great that it renders us inoperative, however.

To survive long term, our priorities must be to take care of ourselves. Being off balance pushes us do that. And though balance is only a means to an end, it is mighty enjoyable in itself.