basket weaving by the seat of my trousers

“There were no sex classes. No friendship classes. No classes on how to navigate a bureaucracy, build an organization, raise money, create a database, buy a house, love a child, spot a scam, talk someone out of suicide, or figure out what was important to me. Not knowing how to do these things is what messes people up in life, not whether they know algebra or can analyze literature.” -William Upski Wimsatt (someone please fact check the link between this name and this quote...)

Inspired in part by the above quote and this music (The Lone Bellow)

after spending a weekend sorting, organizing, and scanning 29 years of photos

on the occasion of the anniversary of my becoming a mother

my first poem in a long while

basket weaving by the seat of my trousers

life is a little easier

when we know every human

we meet is flying

by the seat of his or her pants

especially when we remember

we ourselves don't have working navigational systems

or radio contact. it's important to be

in our bodies, and to have faith

in our ability to literally feel our way through

the fog. it is enough to listen,

to listen to your friend, to listen to your heart,

to listen to your own voice while you are talking,

to listen to the wind in the trees, to listen

to the song of love, and to know

every crack in every heart can

be healed

lovingly knit it with threads

of honest kindness. you

are a basket woven

it is your job to keep your basket repaired

to consciously choose

what goes in the basket and what stays

out. your brokenness cannot help

but allow some darkness to seep

out onto others and cause breaks in other hearts,

the brokenness of others cannot help but overflow

onto yours. forgive.

especially forgive yourself for not

knowing. and forgive everyone

who breaks you

for not knowing better. and learn. learn and create

safety.

learn and create nurture. learn and create

a place

where each person can say

what their broken heart looks like

how they plan to sew it up

so it can hold love

to the point of overflowing.

so it can hold

you.

-barbara l. walker 2013 morgantown wv

 (I'm having a hard time doing the above these days.)

 (I stopped eating sugar, and now I have these STUPID things called feelings. Wah!)

Idiom etymology... "by the seat of one's pants"

What We Deserve

I was cleaning out my inbox and came across an email called "what McVeigh deserved" which contained a copy of the letter to the editor of the local paper I wrote a few days after Timothy McVeigh was executed for setting off the bomb in Oklahoma City in 1995. It was June 2001, and I was responding to the onslaught of letters and comments rejoicing in the death of McVeigh as "justice" or "what he deserved."

_______

Dear Editor,

We seem to be stalled as a nation on repetitive debate of a handful of very difficult issues.  I think it is time to go beyond the words and take some action. 

I think McVeigh deserved what every human being deserves:  the thoughtful and expert attention of a healer, or dozens of healers, who could find the good in him and bring it out; who could find the part of him that could see and appreciate and love other human beings just because they are human;  who could teach him how to love himself and express all his feelings in appropriate and non-harmful ways;  who could teach him the skills of non-violent conflict resolution;  who could help him find the power within himself to see and be grateful for the abundance the universe has for him and every other living thing;  to help him find his unique gift inside him to give himself, his loved ones and his community; and to unbury the internal motivation and thoughtfulness and energy to attempt to make amends for his wrong-doing.    Maybe he was beyond all hope of recuperating the full and open heart he was born with, but did anyone try?

Now, I know this would be quite an intense undertaking.  And to multiply that by all the rapists and murderers and spouse-abusers and child molesters sitting in our prisons and roaming our streets and living in our homes is what can only be called an enormous task which requires a long-term commitment to something for which we don't even have the resources.  Yet.  Remember, we mobilized the greatest minds in the world to create a nuclear bomb, we mobilized the money and brain-power to get to the moon, and we still put more and more money, time and energy into "defending our borders."  Tell me, when will this country be safe enough from the fear of invasion to turn our attention and resources to the true healing of our people and our culture?  Or at least to give it equal importance.  About 40% of people in this nation are addicted to something; one out of three women and one out of five men are sexually molested, most before the age of eighteen; but we aren't supposed to talk about that.  Those facts alone are a clear indicator of the poor emotional health of most adults in this country.   Our children are growing up in danger and we pretend to be the safest place in the world. 

According to U.S. culture, there are good guys and there are bad guys and when the bad guys are really bad, the feds kill them.   Except for the rich ones, the powerful ones, the ones we turn into heroes or at least rich authors and speakers.  We, as a nation, need to commit ourselves to creating a cultural shift in order to get beyond the easy solutions:  capital punishment, war on drugs, undermining reproductive rights, etc.  These are band-aids we put on difficult issues hoping they will go away.  I say, DON'T TREAT THE SYMPTOMS, TREAT THE DISEASE.  We cannot eliminate alcoholism by trying to eliminate alcohol, we cannot eliminate drug addiction by trying to get rid of drugs, we cannot eliminate abortion by making it illegal and unsafe, we cannot eliminate unplanned pregnancy and STD's by just saying abstinence,  and we cannot eliminate hate by killing the people who hate enough to blow people up.

Killing is not part of healing, it is part of giving up hope.   I want my children to be safe and free.  Time to train young hearts and minds for the new work, the new frontier, the new race to the moon called Creating A Culture of Kindness and Real Safety, a place where everyone knows how to solve problems with words and patience and hard work rather than fists and guns and bombs and poison.

____________________

Twelve years ago, pre-9/11/01, before lots of the mass shootings, before massive efforts to increase our safety. Still stalled as a nation.

Do we feel any safer yet?  Are we doing any more than we were then to increase the mental health of U.S. and world citizens? I don't think so.

I still believe this. I still imagine a world where sick people can be healed.

I am committed to providing tools for helping broken hearts and minds heal. 

Fighting fire with fire doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere. Let's fight fire with love.