BRIDGING THE GAPS

Painting by Max Pechstein,

You don't have to be a Princeton professor of George Kateb's stature to figure out that "...the human condition is likely to have far more pain than satisfaction or pleasure or self-realisation." Hard as it might be to accept the idea that life can be, at most, tolerable, as Kateb puts, judging by my my experience and that of people I know well, he is right on target. The question, then, is how to deal with such a gloomy prospects. "The point," says Kateb, " is to live one's life... never to think that you can lead the good. ..two things define a tolerable life....work and love..." What we one must do, he adds, is "..find something you like to do and do it as well as you can...as long it is not indecent, cruel or exploitative...care for people other than yourself... work and love."I have no trouble finding work I like. That credit for that goes to my family whose interests and skills  are many. Thanks to my maternal grandmother and my parents, I am as  happy preparing a meal as I am planting a garden, crafting a piece of silver jewelry, a  polymer clay sculpture or a story.In a way these occupations are interconnected. They feed my creative self figuratively and  literally and always, as I pursue any of these interests my sustaining force is love--love of my daughter, of my family, of  the man in my life, of friends and those they love. This is the easy love, the love that blossoms all by itself. The hard love, the love that takes a painful struggle to cultivate is the love of humanity in general and of those whose values are in total opposition to mine. For example, I have among my acquaintances on a social media list, folks whose political views  I do not share. Often these views are based on religious affiliation, as if  only followers of certain dogmas were entitled to fairness and compassion. I struggle against this mindset as I try to grant each individual the respect I would like to deserve. Nevertheless, when someone lumps an entire people together and ascribes evil character traits to all political opponents, I have to struggle very hard not to reject that person along with his views. Being a citizen of the First World  brings with it many privileges. It also brings the unbidden wrath of many for whom everyone my country, my political party, my socio-ethno-religious  group is by definition a  no-goodnik. 

I confess that I often feel like retreating into my warm and cozy shell where none of this nonsense  can reach me. Why care that a republican  calls Democrats "scumbags" and that  that the American government and/or Israel orchestrated  9/11?  At times I feel like shaking the silliness out of some of these  folks. That is a feeling that does not last. Ours is a damaged world. It does not need any more anger. I can live kniowing that Life can be tough, as Kateb says. I can apprehend some people occasional awfulness and go beyond it. No matter what happens, there is always love and work. There always tikkun olam,  the opportunity to mend the world a bit at a time. Without it, there would be no point in being human.

GIVING THANKS

"There are means that cannot be excused.  And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.  I don’t want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood.  I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive." Camus 

Tomorrow I will celebrate Thanksgiving with very good friends. In preparation for this event, I developed a  recipe for cranberry preserves that includes fresh berries, sugar  an orange, allspice, cinnamon, vanilla, and rum.Among these ingredients, only the sugar and orange and rum have an Old World origin. Allspice, cranberries and vanilla are all products  of the Americas. The  corn pudding recipe I made up for the occasion, is a blend of corn, eggs, bread  crumbs,  coconut milk and spices. Again, this fuses Old and New World elements--corn from the Americas, eggs whose long history seems to begin in Asia, wheat from  the Middle East's Fertile Crescent, nutmeg  from Indonesia and cinnamon from Vietnam and Madagascar.  The coconut milk is a nod to my  Brazilian heritage.
As a rule, Thanksgiving centers on food and the table usually  is one of the places where  diverse cultural influences harmonise. That is where the outdated concept of the melting pot as a model for the ideal  society  works best. Fusion cuisine,  which both recipes exemplify, are nothing new. For centuries, cooks have been operating on the principal that the combined elements from diverse cuisines are arguably more appealing, flavorful and satisfying than each individual ingredient. Unfortunately, the same does not always  hold true to social experiments. The perfect society that might have evolved from a peaceful gathering of Native Americans and Pilgrims  never came into being. The superior technology of the new arrivals to the Americas, their value system, their mores, as well well as the germs they brought from the Old Old World all contributed to the tragic decline of  the Native American populations.These are, in my experience, facts rarely mentioned on Turkey day. I think that they should be.
It isn't that I dislike festivities. To prepare food to share with beloved friends is among the activities I find most rewarding. To celebrate a holiday dedicated to the awareness of how fortunate I have been in making a new life among Americans, is  for me, time well spent. But as I bask in the warmth of friendship and as I  feast on the opulent offerings of the generous land that is now my country, I cannot forget  the Native Americans who shared their food with apparently harmless newcomers.
I lived in the Dakotas when I first came to the United States, in 1971. There, a gained a new perspective on Turkey Day thanks to people of conscience who boycotted Thanksgiving, in solidarity with the Lakota and Mandan peoples. Three years earlier, Native American activists Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, Herb Powless, Clyde bellecourt, Harold Godsky, Eddie Benton-Bania and  Oglala Lakota Russel Means-and  others had founded the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1973, the year I moved from North to South Dakota, 200 AIM activists occupied the area around  Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála (Wounded Knee Cree in the Lakota language),  Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke, Pine Ridge Reservation, in Shannon County, Sd. That area was the site of the infamous 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre in which US troops murdered approximately 300 Lakota men, women and children.
There was a token Lakota student at the School of Mines and Technology, in Rapid City, Sd, where I took classes. There were none in a position of authority at the school and anywhere else in Rapid City, as far as I know. I met Lakota people in substandard motels--the only available rental space since a flood devastated the poorer areas of town. Later at a day care center where I volunteered, I met many others who taught me  the difference  between the accents of Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations, half a dozen sentences in Lakota, , what it means to have an owl call one's name--not good--and how to ignore overt  racism. These were not the Lakota warriors, they were women and children submerged in the struggle of daily living among hostile white. I heard from some white people that the Lakota were lazy drug users who could never succeed because whenever one did, his relatives would eat him out of house and home.I protested ineffectually that there  were different concepts of ownership. I won neither hearts nor minds.   I had my own battles to fight, one of which was resembling a  Lakota than I resembled  blond, big footed descendants of German and Scandinavians settlers.

The occupation of Wounded Knee lasted 71 days . Today it is largely forgotten. Although some progress has been made since then in the field of Native Americans' rights, 97 percent of the residents of Pine Ridge live below the poverty line. True, Russel Means got to star with Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans, but all in all, it does not seem to me that Native Americans have a whole lot for which to be thankful.

DEMOCRACY IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT

Portland, Oregon policewoman pepper spray a peaceful Occupy Portland demonstrator. Photo by Randy Rasmussen

In 1964, when  a military dictatorship aided and abetted by the American government took over my native Brazil,  I was absent from  the barricades. For most the next fifteen years during which  the army kept its collective booted foot on the neck of the Brazilian people, I was trying to make a life in the United States. Those were the years of Civil Rights marches and protests against the Vietnam and while I sympathised with protesters,  I wasn't an American citizen and that seemed a good reason to tend to my own business. I took classes, kept house,  tried to figure out how to fit in my new community, and that was that.
I became  an American citizen in 1976, following a visit to Brazil. I was on my way to my parents' when I had  a very scary encounter with an agent of the Sinistra, Brazil's legendar had played in putting the Brazilian  junta and its underlings in power. Having applied, I had five years in which  to change my mind--during that interval I could have opted to keep Brazilian citizenship. I had no second thoughts.This was the land of the free, right? I had had just enough of ioppression to see the glory of freedom. So,  I studied the American Constitution until there came the date of my interview with the INS. On the appointed day, I went to the local courthouse where a grouchy Migra desk jockey asked me  patronising questions such as,
"What do we celebrate on the Fourth of July?"
 I wanted to be quizzed on the  Constitution, but at the time I did not think that it was ever politic to  argue with suits.  Consequently, I made no hue and cry when this particular suit  insisted that I rethink my negative answer as to whether I would fight in a war. He did not even offer me the option of signing up as a medic.
"Go discuss this with your (American) husband or you are not going to be naturalised.," he said. I refrained from saying that the husband was a conscientious objector. As for the obvious sexism, those were dark days when women who fought for equal rights were dismissed as bra burners. I rethought the question. Soon thereafter I joined  half a dozen newly mintedAmericans and their families at a Chinese restaurant where a civic association bought us a meal. After dessert, a jolly member of the association handed me an American flag. That was that.
 Or not. Here and there I ask myself if there is such a thing as a real naturalisation--the word irks me anyway. I was not unnatural when I was a Brazilian citizen. Thing is the authenticity of my American citizenship often seems to be in  the eye of the beholder . In my experience, there are plenty of beholders out that who think that the only real Americans are those who happen to be have been born in The USA. Largely, in this country of immigrants, neither my birthplace nor my Brazilian accent seem to matter much except when the enlightened people I meet make concessions to my cultural heritage. They are, I am glad to say, the majority.I have not met the other kind since my ex-husband's divorce lawyer suggested. ten year ago,  that I go back to tBrazil,  where, he argued, I could live very on my share of the spoils. I suggested that he returned to Scotland, home of his immigrant forebears.  for all I know, he did.

As for the spoils, they  were sufficient, but not lush enough to buy neither a  house in the Hamptons or a teeny weeny yatch.  I am very much one of the 99 percent. That, and the fact that I have seen oppression at work keeps me from wishing to be a mere spectator in the OWS movement. I might not join the protesters at the barricades. Not yet, anyway. What  I will do what I will do is  to try to generate support for the cause. Starting a petition to ban  PERF (Police Executive Research Forum) from dictating policy and brutalising  peaceful OWS demonstrators.
You can read about PERF here,
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/19/1038054/-Confirmed:-Police-Executive-Research-Forum-(PERF)-coordinating-Occupy-raids
To sign the petition, please follow this link,
http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-and-state-governors-stop-perf-involvement-and-use-of-force-at-peaceful-ows-demonstrations

TO SEE AS A CHILD

"Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different." Katherine Mansfield

Time that hangs heavily on one's hands is poisonous. It depletes body and soul. But properly put to use,  uninterrupted time is a  luxury.  A bit beyond high noo, chronologically, I often have long hours in which to  reevaluate  failed expectations, misplaced hopes, unworthy accomplishments. Empty hours generate regret and regret is corrosive. It  makes one literally eat one's hearts out. Never a great fan of passivity, I resist making every hour a husk of what might have been.  I think it is only fair that long life compensates me for its attendant losses with ability to  rediscover the beauty of ordinary things.  I want to to look at the world with the critical awareness of an artist.  I want to grow rich in joyous experiences of the commonplace. I am more than  willing to pass on the hunger  for higher social status, financial gain,  for recognition, for power, to the younger generation. What I want most, at this this stage--smack in the middle of my sixth decade-- is  to grow rich in joyous experience of the commonplace. 

What that means, in plain English,  is that I want  to notice the sheen on a lost luna moth wing, the crenelations inside an ivory-coloured  snail shell, the ethereal quality of seed heads about to take flight. I want the a transformative gift of being able to  elevate  ordinary objects to a higher sphere, as Pablo Neruda did, in his ODES TO COMMON THINGS, 

"Not only did they touch me,

or my hand touched them:
they were
so close
that they were a part
of my being,
they were so alive with me
that they lived half my life
and will die half my death."

 I f I only glance at  the discarded  skin of head of garlic,  what registers in my mind is something fit for the compost heap. When at it slow and deliberately and it is a flower, a fairy's ball gown, an opalescent jelly fish,  a seashell,  a miniature balloon.

As a child I saw the world creatively. By midlife, this connection with the remarkable seemed to desert me only to return now that I have the leisure to be an active observer.  I can  become the thing I see,  as children and artists do.  I want to meet my world with every sense open to  the wonder of everyday things. I know that there is nothing new  in the idea of transformation through engagement. I choose to see Wittgenstein's duckrabbit  as two or more distinct images.

I become the thing I see is a refrain throughout Katherine Mansfield's writing. Her journals are full of detailed word painting only only an observer can execute.  I think, however, not of literature, but of life. Garlic skin/seashell, grapefruit/flower are two examples of how  my new awareness results in re-creation, and recreation. that is my goal. Mu goal is to see as a child does, intensely, passionately. Children  are able see  solidity in shadows and immateriality in solid objects. To them the universe is always in a process of becoming. Artists whose inner child is alive and well,   see beyond  the obvious. That is one of the best antidote to the poison of empty hours.