Mad at Joe and Ruth

Watching the Presidential debate on Thursday was absolutely excruciating.  It's always hard to listen to Trump's bloviating hyperbole, but when Biden had a brain freeze in the first few minutes, I just couldn't watch any longer.

I admire and respect President Biden.  I think he's done a good job against staggering odds, and I will vote for him again this year.  Even at his worst he's better than Trump, and I know he'll surround himself with smart, skilled, experienced people.  But right now I am really mad at him that he didn't step down and allow a rising Democratic star come forward.  I'm thinking Hakeem Jeffries, Katie Porter, Adam Schiff, Pete  Buttigieg, and there are probably others I don't know about.  After all, I'd never heard of Barak Obama before he came forward in 2008.

Can't Joe recognize that he is failing both physically and mentally?  Weren't there people advising him to step down?  I don't know, maybe he plans to step down during his tenure (oh please let him have a tenure) so that his VP can take the reins.  Maybe there aren't any Democrats who want to be President during this time of upheaval, division, discord, and rancor.  I have no idea what goes on behind political doors.  I just know that I wish, fiercely, that Biden had stepped aside.  He just doesn't seem up to the job.

I'm mad at RBG, too, despite being a huge fan of hers.  Why oh why oh why didn't she step down during Obama's term so that he could appoint someone to the Supreme Court?  She knew she was sick and old.  What was she hanging on for?  I understand that even with another liberal on the bench, the Court would still have a conservative majority, but it would be a heck of a lot more balanced that it is right now.

The two big issues I'd like to see addressed are term limits for the Supreme Court and the end of the Electoral College.  I guess if I'm going to complain, I should take action, huh?

PapaWeese

This morning I woke up thinking about my paternal grandmother, PapaWeese. I don't know why she would be on my mind.  I haven't thought about her in a long time.  She died when I was 15, almost 60 years ago.  I hadn't matured enough by then to be able to see her as anything but my old-fashioned granny PapaWeese.

 (How that name came about, by the way: We called my grandfather PapaFrank, but my sister, the first grandchild, fumbled MamaLouise, which turned into PapaWeese, and it stuck.)  

I can still call to mind the smell of their apartment on Sawtelle Blvd., a fragrant combination of mothballs, face powder, PapaFrank's cigarettes, and whatever PapaWeese was cooking.  I remember her playing the piano while we sang.  She was a professional piano player, used to play at the USO and for silent films.  She was so skilled, she could change keys without blinking in the middle of a song.  She wrote poems, some of which were published in the local newspaper.  She always pretended to take an interest in whatever my siblings and I prattled about.  I know she belonged to a lively bridge club.  This morning, though, I found myself wondering about her as a person.  She was certainly always cheerful when my family came visiting, but was she happy?  Did she enjoy her life?  Did she have dreams she wasn't able to fulfill?

PapaFrank was nice to us kids, but had a stern visage, and was very private behind his eyes.  I believe he was not successful in any kind of business.  In fact, my dad didn't seem to know what his father did for a living.  I remember him saying something about PapaFrank selling gloves door to door at one point.  They lived through the Depression, with creditors banging on the door.  They were probably poor even into their old age.  

I really don't know why I'm thinking about this now, but for some reason, I am wishing I could talk to PapaWeese woman to woman and ask her how she felt about her life and her marriage and how her children turned out.

And I realize that I'm part of the last generation that will remember her and PapaFrank.  My nieces and nephews didn't know them, and have probably only heard of them as distant figures who used to be part of the family.  And so it goes, and so it must go.  I know that.  I just wish I had known her better.  I hope she was happy. 

How would I defend my life?

This morning I woke up thinking about the movie Defending Your Life.  The premise of this movie is that when a person dies, she goes to Judgment City where scenes from her life are played before a panel of judges.  If the judges determine that she (or he) has evolved beyond a fear-based life, she is allowed to move on to the next level (whatever that is).  If she is still driven by fear, she must return to Earth for another opportunity to evolve. 

This got me wondering what scenes from my own life might reveal.  Outwardly I'm committed to being fearless (although I realize that's not really possible; it's not about living without fear so much as not letting fear make the decisions about how one acts).  I even have a sticker on my bedroom dresser that says "Not Afraid".  But is that how I actually live my life?  Am I courageous?  How much do I allow fear to limit me?

I have occasionally made daring leaps in my life where I may have looked fearless but really wasn't.  For example, dropping out of college and moving to Los Angeles when I was 22 seemed bold, but I have always known that my family is there to catch me if I start to fall, so I wasn't taking much of a chance.  A lot of people said I was brave to leave Los Angeles after 26 years and move to Seattle without knowing anyone, or knowing the city, or having much idea of what I would find here.  But that move took no bravery because I was moving toward an exciting new possibility, an opportunity to make new choices, to reinvent or rediscover myself.  Sweet Hubby and I got married after a long-distance courtship and didn't really know one another much at all.  But that also took no courage because somehow I knew that this was going to be a long and happy partnership.  I don't know how I knew, but I did, with a certainty that precluded doubt and fear.

And then there are those moments that have fully demonstrated my cowardice.  When I was flown to Incheon, South Korea several years ago to see a festival of performances of my short plays, friends suggested that I use the opportunity to rent a car and explore the country, which I was most likely never going to visit again.  I absolutely didn't want to do that.  The idea of driving alone through a country where I can't speak the language or read the road signs and don't know the rules and laws quite intimidated me.  I have girlfriends who have gone camping alone in the wild.  That doesn't sound at all enjoyable nor safe to me.  I have said 'yes' to a whole lot of stuff I wanted to say 'no' to because I was afraid someone would think less of me.  Looking at these scenes, I see myself as terribly fearful.

So when have I ever been truly brave enough not to let fear stop me?  In this moment, the only time I can think of was shortly after I moved to Seattle, which was just before the war in Iraq was declared.  I went to a resistance training to prepare for a protest event at city hall, and volunteered to be one of the people to take a position that could possibly lead to arrest.  I wasn't arrested, but I didn't know I wouldn't be when I volunteered.  So that's one time, one moment when I can claim fear didn't stop me.

I suppose, like most people, I'm a mix of courage and cowardice.  But thinking about all this has got me thinking that I need to be more aware of those times when I have a chance to choose between the safe action and the bold action, even in those small moments that don't seem to matter much, such as saying 'no' when 'no' is my answer.  I'm going to have to think about this some more.