Musings about Lincoln and Obama

It's no secret that I love Barack Obama. There has been so much criticism of him the past few months -- mostly because changes are not happening fast enough for some people -- especially progressives -- which I more or less am. Patience, I say ... it is important that when important changes take place, that the ground work is carefully laid, and that the structure of success is well-conceived.

Two weeks ago I finished Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin. What a wonderful tome. For it is indeed a "tome", but I relished every page. I read the book because it was often referred to during the presidential campaign as being influential on Obama. Clearly Lincoln was a great role model for our current President -- from announcing his candidacy from the same place in Springfield, Illinois to using Lincoln's Bible on Innauguration Day. And there are many ways in which he reminds me and others of the 16th American President up to and including his own Cabinet Team of Rivals. Like Lincoln, I believe that Barack Obama is a man of great patience and one who understands the importance of seizing the right moment.

I read with great interest, for example how Lincoln was able to bring about the Emancipation Proclamation when the time was right, when the Congress would pass it. No one knows for sure if Lincoln's intention from the beginning was to end slavery in every state of the Union -- it was a long and drawn out process and the timing of its acceptance was a matter of knowing not only when, but how.

I think of this often now. My greatest political wish is to have single payer healthcare. I have not been happy with the plan put forth by Obama during the campaign. And many of us are not sure what to think about an alternative 'Public Plan' and none of us want the 7 year trigger -- that is ludicrous. However, over the past several days concern is raining down because 'Obama is looking at the 7 year trigger'. Obama is smart -- he has to look at the plan -- if only to know what it says in order that hopefully when he says "no" he can give definitive reasons why it is a bad idea -- because, as he famously put it to one television reporter "I like to know what I'm talking about". The best way to defeat an idea is to understand the idea and the ramifications of that idea.

A few weeks ago at a Town Hall Meeting the first question he was asked was about why Single Payer health care wasn't part of the current discussions. He said that if it weren't for the fact that we were a country that had in place an insurance based system and if the country could start from scratch, Single Payer Healthcare is what he would want. I can't exactly explain why but that admission on his part made me think that maybe, just maybe he was trying to work our way there -- one step at a time.

And it also makes me think that it is important for all of us to work toward that goal with him so that he has plenty of back up. In Lincoln's day he didn't have the luxury of the people at his finger tips. Politics was at the mercy of the politicians much more than it is now. Obama said, "We are the people we have been waiting for". We got him elected and with us he/we can succeed in making the changes that we want happen. If Lincoln managed to get the Emancipation Proclamation incorporated into our Bill of Rights, we can manage to help Obama get every American healthcare for all and I believe he is on the case.

It's Almost Always Being 40.

We have been inundated with friends and relations going through 'difficulties'. Rarely are the reasons simple, straightforward, etc. In fact, it's probably never simple or straightforward! And it's always sad. And almost always, but not always, bitter, childish and futile. And the other thing almost but not always one of the people involved is around 40!

Lets face it if you've been married/together any length of time you've probably run out of fingers and toes to try to count how often you've wondered what you ever saw in your significant other, partner, husband, wife. But arguably the worst breakup is a marriage breakup with children.

It's hard on the children because, of course they are children, and it's hard on the parents because so often they revert to being children themselves. And that really does piss me off! There is something almost obscene about a 40-year-old, or a nearly 40-year-old or a just past 40-year-old reverting to childhood. Especially when they use grown-up words like appropriate, for example. I've just been told, in no uncertain terms that my behaviour was inappropriate because I had dinner with the enemy. It is obvious that the meaning of the word was not understood and that its use was inappropriate. What I believe was really being said was "Please give me reassurance that you still love me, you do, don't you?" and "You love him more than you love me, don't you?" and most of all "Help me!" All because when you are 40 what the f--k is this all about really hits you hard. And the answer hits you hardest of all: yes, this is it ... this is all there is ...

We become inappropriate and at the same time we become pathetic! We want to prove that we are still young, that we are not over-the-hill that indeed life does begin at 40 ... And so it's time to begin all over, start again -- off with the old, on with the new -- blah, blah, blah.

And so in a mad dash we throw it all away, let the chips fall where they may, the hell with it. Unfortunately most of the time, the other person has a different perspective and doesn't have a clue where you are coming from. And you, the mad cow, are not inclined to explain it or understand it yourself. So it all gets nasty. The vendetta is sprung. I've always admired Yoko Ono greatly for her understanding of what John Lennon was going through when he went off for a year of dallying and to him for knowing enough to go back. And I've also admired Prince Andrew and Sarah for remaining best friends and for putting their girls first.

The past few years I've heard horror stories of betrayal and unhappiness in marriages. I've been amazed at acts of forgiveness and magnanimity as well as endless acts of bitterness and revenge and pettiness. Sometimes I've thought a marriage could be saved, but wasn't and sometimes I've thought it couldn't be, but was. It's all about your character and character is about the past ...

In the past, marriage was a sacrament. Most people have no idea what a sacrament is, means. It means it was and by some still is, deemed holy. And if you don't know what holy means, I suggest that if you were to find out, you might also find out that life as it is at 40, is not "all there is".

Susan Boyle: Yes, Yes, Yes

Well, I sure hope Susan Boyle will be OK, once the media get through with her! I wish they would stop talking about her being 'ugly' (which she isn't -- at worst you could say 'plain' if you go down that road at all). But hey, beauty really is in the eye of the beholder!

What struck me the most the first time I watch her on YouTube was that as soon as the music started her whole look changed: she was transformed. What we saw and heard was real beauty, the kind of beauty that moved many of us to inexplicable tears. For goodness sake, Simon Cowell looked positively angelic; he was transported to another world -- as were we all. Suddenly Susan's body stood straight, her gestures were perfection. In those moments I would not have changed one atom of her. The audience -- that was really amazing as all were carried away with the sheer beauty of the whole thing.

So before anyone decides that she needs to be 'made over', maybe 'anyone' should think again. I hope those that are in charge of 'minding' her take good care of her. I read a little while ago that she didn't go to her church yesterday and hasn't been at her 'local' for days -- sounds a bit like being imprisoned to me and I hope she is in charge of the keys!

Here I Am again!

Now I'm visiting, before I was living -- interesting change of dynamics. On the one hand, looking out the kitchen window a little while ago, it felt as if nothing at all had changed. I still know where everything is, the details of day-to-day life are the same -- the weather is as grey as last March, the boys are a few months older, but not altered very much, and so on. But now my life is in England and this is but a brief sojourn.

In May, if all goes according to the plan, I will be in France again, after missing a year. Last year was the first year since we bought the little house, that we didn't get back and I missed the annual renewal of my psyche. There are many others who also spend the warm months in Aynac in the Lot and then leave it to return to cooler climes and their other lives. When the summer is a good one with lots of sunshine and regular evening showers -- after midnight -- the Lot is Paradise. Our little fermette, with its small orchard and cosy fire, not to mention a sumptuous terrace that bathes in the sun and cools in the shade is perfect for us and a pleasure for those who share it with us.

In the meantime, there are suitcases to pack (and re-pack), a birthday to celebrate, family to see, banquets to share and money I don't have to spend! I look out the window here and see buds on the cherry tree starting to open. Yesterday I could see the yellow promise of forsythia on Cooper Point Road and remembering the loveliness of last year hope I might have just enough time to see it again before I leave.

A Sense of Time or a Sense of Place

I went to a very good lecture last Wednesday: Reading the Ordinary: Walking the M62 by the Rev'd John Davies, Vicar of The Good Shepherd, West Derby. He walked from Hull to Liverpool in 2007 as a sabbatical project. Since the Theme of this year's Lenten lectures is Religion and Pilgrimage it was interesting to look at this experience as a kind of modern pilgrimage.

Davies carefully explained that he did not literally walk the M62 -- to do so would have meant certain death! Rather, he used the highway as a marker to guide him through alternate roads and pathways and took his time -- over two months to complete the journey. He wanted to experience people and places and the spirituality of those people and places in a new, perhaps mystical, way. I was particularly interested in the Ghost of Ghoul and the idea of the spirituality of 'place'. And also of the end of his journey being Liverpool, where he grew up and how much he wanted to experience his 'home town' with new eyes. He seemed a bit uncertain as to how successfully he had done that.

I have often felt that that places do have a spirituality and have often mused about that aspect of churches and particularly cathedrals. Canterbury and Chartres particularly resonate for me, York Minster does not. I love old houses, old towns and cities, because of the spirituality of place that I experience: a mystical sense of being connected to the passage of time. Rome is for me the most sensational and most mystical of experiences. I've yet to get to Greece or Egypt, but expect the experience could possibly be overwhelming for a time!

Which brings me to a recent observation. Now that I am grouped among the 'elderly' and as I see my generation giving way to the younger, as I more and more often join with the 'grumpy old men and women' of this time, I conclude: I belong to my time and my time belongs to me. And I wonder if that means that I belong to the time more than the place. I can certainly adapt to different places over a period of time, but that sense of who I am, that is I think more to do with the time that belongs to me. So my question is what part of our natures can transcend our time -- our place in time?

A great deal of the discussion following the lecture was about the pilgrimage home -- what is the wish/need to do this. Davies commented at one point during the evening that he was glad not to have found the answer to that ... it would have been interesting to hear more about that. I do not have a sense of coming from one place as much as I have of belonging to three places: New England, Southport, and Aynac, France. New England is my 'home place' and if I have to describe myself I would say I am a 'New Englander', rather than a Connecticut Yankee or a Vermonter. Unlike most people, I lived in different states growing up, but from the age of 2 until 18 I lived in New England.

So does that mean I have been deprived or does that mean that I have been liberated -- or is about something else altogether?

Have enough already

I ask myself all the time: Why does anyone need to acquire multi-millions of dollars -- or pounds or euros year after year. What do people do with that sort of money after the houses are bought and the life-style acquired? Isn't all that money just too much for any one to handle -- Now I grant you that it's nice to be rich enough to have beautiful homes, and lovely clothes and not to have to worry where or if the next dollar is coming and to be able to travel in comfort and have beauty treatments and so on -- but surely the millions we are hearing about -- even billions in some cases -- well it just doesn't make sense (cents?) to me. Oh and I'd like to be able to eat out wherever and whenever I want, too.

I grew up thinking a bonus was for work well done, goals not only met, but exceeded. Silly me? I'm not thinking about $1,000 or £1,000 bonuses given to workers who should have been paid more to begin with -- I'm thinking about millions being paid to executives who are already being paid millions. Now, I do have to laugh when I hear government officials and ministers saying that these people will leave and go elsewhere if they don't get paid these generous amounts ...

Now I bet you anything, I am not alone in wondering, with current catastrophe we are in the midst of -- why we shouldn't be happy to see the back of them and who in the hell would want to hire them anyway, considering how "well" they've done to get us where we are now!

No one knows how bad things are going to get for all of us. Like most people I could use more 'dosh' right now, but at least we are retired and our pensions are probably going to remain stable -- in some way we are the 'rich' ones -- the ones with 'enough' -- the ones who can still sleep at night and feel comfortable in our own skins because we are satisfied with our lot.

Weather and cocoa or not etcetera

I am so cold. The central heating is blaring away, the meter is whirring around as the gas flows and the radiators heat up -- but this old Victorian house and my study and the kitchen in particular are refrigerators. The ceilings are high and the walls are not insulated and neither are the floors. Now by New England standards the weather here is quite mild, but the houses in America were built for extreme cold.

Before the economic crises was recognized as such -- say last year -- I could go shopping and the stores would be so warm you could hardly stand it! But not anymore. The stores are cold, too -- though not as cold as this house -- though I could be wrong about that as I don't continue to wear my coat around the house (usually) ...

With a little luck we'll spend the summer in France and the weather will cooperate and spew forth sunshine and warmth. Chances are the English summer will be disappointing -- I have almost never ever been too warm here. (Save for shopping in downtown London). Time now for a nice warm cup of tea. Oh hell, I just realized -- I forgot to get cocoa yesterday! This always happens when I forget the shopping list -- especially when I remember putting the list in my handbag -- only to find when I get to the supermarket, that I must have remembered from last week! Life is being forgetfully confused. Darn -- cocoa would be just right right now ... Tea it is then ...

I have to laugh at the British newscasts this week -- There has been unusual amounts of snow here ... first there was headline news about schools and whether or not it was necessary to close them and now it's all about running out of salt and grit for the roads!!! Number one news stories. I haven't heard it said yet -- I'm just waiting for it -- "... to make sure it never happens again ..." so far the public has been spared that -- at least within my hearing. Southport has only had a few flurries even though all around us there are apparently piles of the stuff. I actually like the snow -- probably because I've barely seen it for so many years. England's climate is really quite boring -- never VERY VERY cold and never VERY VERY hot. No such thing as spring or autumn here -- it's either summer or winter -- thus 'midsummer' is on 21st June and 'midwinter' 21st December -- which until I came here I could never understand.