Dandelyon's Worlds

siege has a cool poem here: http://siege.livejournal.com/720234.html  I've had it open in my browser because it's just so cool, but really, browser windows aren't meant to be open forever.  

And, of course, ysabetwordsmith has new poetry from this month's fishbowl:  http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/1942220.html  She wrote 23 poems during the fishbowl this month, and many have been published by her fans in her journal.  Go check out a few.  She also has a poll you can vote in, if you're so inclined, though that's a separate post.

And finally, haikujaguar has invited artists willing to do work for hire for writers and publishers to post links:  http://haikujaguar.livejournal.com/999976.html  I spent way too much of my writing time checking out artists last night.  Most of these artists also offered to do commissions for people who aren't looking for cover or interior art for their books. 

(The conspiracy to promote multiple open browser windows continues...)

It was back in 2001, and I was worried about the state of the world, and of this country in particular. We had a president who I’d never liked (and who publicly had stated more than mere dislike of my religion), who had paid millions to hide his abysmal environmental record and other aspects of his tenure as governor of Texas; a president who many believed had acquired that office through a variety of underhanded tactics rather than fairly elected (a claim that I thought was likely true, but I tried to keep an open mind). With a born-again President, the more judgmental of the religious right were being more vocal, as if having a conservative President made them feel more free to insist everyone else should believe and live according to their own ideals.

This was particularly stressful at my house, since I live with a transgender woman who does not “pass”, and who suffers from severe anxiety disorder as well; although Milwaukee is much kinder to folks who look different than her previous home (Kansas City), with the renewed vehemence from the TV evangelists and their followers, she was afraid that her presence could bring violence to me and my young daughter. As summer drew to a close, the President had a falling approval rating, in which I found hope. I felt that people were seeing him and his policies more clearly.

We went to a women’s festival in Kansas in September, and took my daughter as well, sending a note to her school. It was a wonderful, magical experience. There was a workshop on sign language by a deaf woman named Ocean. There were drumming workshops by Ubaka Hill, with a sign-language interpreter; the deaf women were loaned big drums or allowed to sit with their backs against a drum someone else was playing, so they could experience the vibrations that they could not hear. There was a workshop on deaf culture and singing two notes at the same time (at which I failed miserably).

There was a workshop for women who’d been sexually abused, right in the middle of the merchant’s area, so I got to listen to part of it as I shopped. That alone speaks volumes about the level of trust and good will at this gathering, that women scarred by violence felt safe to attend such a workshop in the heart-center of the site, with people not participating in the workshop able to see and hear them.

There was a wonderful, beautiful and respectful presentation and art exhibition of nude photographs and sculptures by artists who wanted to express their belief that all women’s bodies are beautiful, regardless of weight or age, scars or natural lopsidedness. The images were beautiful, and powerful, though none of the women pictured looked like a Hollywood model. It took my breath away.

I sold some t-shirts, sang some songs, and did some painting. Angel got the very precious, to her, chance to spend time in women-only space (this festival had decided that people who would sacrifice so much to be women should be accepted as such; this is far from a universal attitude.) My daughter got to run free, and go swimming, and experience a very different bit of life than going to a public school in an American city (albeit a very special and wonderful public school). I took time from packing up, the last day, to go to the ending ritual, where we got into two circles, one inner and one outer, faced each other, and sang to each woman or girl we faced, in turn, “All I ask of you is forever to remember me inside your heart”.

I returned home having been reminded that people can live in harmony and friendship, honoring the beauty in each other despite differences of shape, color, perspective, and culture. And despite the scars of having been hurt, or belittled, or rejected. I returned home with hope in my heart.

And after the very long drive home, sleeping in part while Angel drove and in part in my bed after unloading the car, I went to work the next day. Early that morning, I got an instant message from a friend, who knew better than to send foul language to me at work. I wrote back to chide him, but that was quickly forgotten. It was September 11th.

The rest of that day, and that week, seemed so very surreal, the images in my head so very different, almost like different worlds

Smoke rising from a shared campfire,
smiles, and live music,
animated sign language,
creating and sharing beauty,
gifts of healing received with honor
talk of building bridges together
There were so many contrasts, so many many things that showed me that how we see the world, how we look at each other, and how we choose to act, individually and collectively, creates the kind of world we live in.

I read once that we are faced every day--every time we can do one thing or another--with the choice to act out of love, or out of fear.

The contrasts in my experiences that September seem to embody the extremes of both paths. There’s no guarantees of a good outcome either way, of course. Love and trust can be abused just as fear and hatred can be exploited.

But I know which kind of world I would rather live in, and which risks I would rather take, both personally and as a country.

 ysabetwordsmith  in a post titled Cities and Nature, Ugliness and Fear, provided a link to an essay called “Ugly” by Dave Pollard.

I think that essay is more than a bit extreme. It made me feel sad for Mr. Pollard. Of course, the passages about the beauty of a natural ecology I agree with wholeheartedly. And I (with my many allergies and sensitivities to chemicals) also find that I’m healthier away from the pollutants that are so prevalent in cities, despite the fact that mammals (excepting only humans) and birds and pollens and molds are allergens for me. I wholeheartedly love all of the wilderness locales I’ve had the privilege to visit.

But I also feel, very strongly, that improvement to the quality of life for people—and for that matter, for wilderness—means that we must start by finding the beauty that is already in cities, and nurture it, feed it, celebrate it. And, to the extent that we can, turn it into a healthier and more beautiful place.

I have a relatively large bit of land in a city, which we have been planting with tulips and irises, roses and lillies and wildflowers, morning glories and purple coneflower, hibiscus and honeysuckle, mints and melisssa (lemon balm), purple ruffles basil, chives and sage. A few vegetables (purple “green beans”). Lillies of the valley, wood violets, red clover, dandelions. We have an old mulberry tree and a couple of new ones, and a pair of beautiful Rowans. An ancient Lilac and some very young ones. A young Oak. A compost pile, which is fed the leaves of many neighborhood trees after they’ve been mulch for the roses over-winter, and grass clippings, table scraps, and weeds. One year we let a huge thistle grow in our yard, and had finches (even goldfinches). We’ve seen possums and raccoons, butterflies and even dragonflies. Not everything works as planned; we tried to plant milkweed for the butterflies, but haven’t seen any sprout; we brought in preying mantis eggs; the egg cases hatched shortly before several days of huge windstorm and we haven’t seen any. But the egg cases did hatch, so the critters could still be out there, somewhere. This year, we have chicken hawks nesting in the neighborhood, which may be why we haven’t seen much in the way of finches or other small birds.  And the squirrels that had been trying to dig into our eaves have been keeping to the trees (yay!). Dig into the ground and there are worms, and sometimes beetles. Pull weeds around the roses, and you may find a spider guarding her egg-ball.

It doesn’t stop at our property line. I’m told that when the roses are blooming, you can smell our yard two blocks away. I’ve pulled up mint that invaded the roses, and given it to neighbors to grow. (The mint that invaded the lawn just gets mowed—what a glorious scent!) An oak that came up in my hand, acorn still attached to the root in an early Spring weeding survived being potted, and was given away as well, to be planted...somewhere. Last year we were the only house in the neighborhood with fireflies; this year the whole neighborhood has them. And the birds have been dropping morning glory seeds—this year, I see them amongst the roses in the front yard, so I can only wonder where they’ll show up next year.

I’ve been working a lot on the inside of the house lately, so I haven’t been writing much about the outside, but I’m pretty pleased with the tiny ecology that now blooms there.

So, in response to that essay, I feel the strong need to say, we don’t have to let our urban yards be only bare lawns and gray sidewalks. We don’t have to let our cities be ugly and unhealthy. But if we think of them as irredeemable, we won’t put in the effort to make our small plots of land, our buildings, and our lives, beautiful.

As a last thought, I also want to share CJ Cherryh’s words, as best I remember them from a long-ago Chicago con, that if we value nature at all, if we want any wild spaces to survive, we need cities. If people were all spread out, there would be no wild places left at all.