Our stars, our stripes.

Let's take back the flag, darlings. We, who are women of color and children of immigrants. So-called patriots have besmirched our red, white, and blue so it reeks of xenophobia and fundamentalism.

We refuse to be had. We'll tear our spangled banner free from its redwashed associations and put it back where it belongs: in the shimmering mosaic of an international, interfaith, interdependent humanity.

In order to form a more perfect union, let us reclaim what is rightfully ours. This flag is ours.

(This post was inspired by Roger Cohen's column in this morning's New York Times.)

Rhapsody on a Windy Night

It's getting chilly in New York (and everywhere else too I suppose). And I've been returning home later and later every evening. My nightly walk to my apartment along lamp-lit 29th Street evoke a certain mood. I want to write about these cold, windy nights and the yellow orbs of street lamps as I see them through the smudged lens of my glasses. But I don't have the energy to write at the moment. My supervisor says I need to sleep more and wake up earlier. (ha) So, I let T.S. Eliot do it for me. I have drafts and half-drafts of posts about a variety of topics, ranging from politics and music to men. And believe me, they are not all melancholy - some aren't even that thoughtful. But with barely enough time to shower between work and sleep, I share this poem as a reminder of how poetry, a beautiful song or a thoughtful image can illuminate even the most dismal of days (or nights).


TWELVE o'clock.
Along the reaches of the street
Held in a lunar synthesis,
Whispering lunar incantations
Dissolve the floors of memory 5
And all its clear relations
Its divisions and precisions,
Every street lamp that I pass
Beats like a fatalistic drum,
And through the spaces of the dark 10
Midnight shakes the memory
As a madman shakes a dead geranium.

Half-past one,
The street-lamp sputtered,
The street-lamp muttered, 15
The street-lamp said, "Regard that woman
Who hesitates toward you in the light of the door
Which opens on her like a grin.
You see the border of her dress
Is torn and stained with sand, 20
And you see the corner of her eye
Twists like a crooked pin."

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach 25
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard, 30
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.

Half-past two,
The street-lamp said,
"Remark the cat which flattens itself in the gutter, 35
Slips out its tongue
And devours a morsel of rancid butter.
"So the hand of the child, automatic,
Slipped out and pocketed a toy that was running along the quay.I
could see nothing behind that child's eye. 40
I have seen eyes in the street
Trying to peer through lighted shutters,
And a crab one afternoon in a pool,
An old crab with barnacles on his back,
Gripped the end of a stick which I held him. 45
Half-past three,
The lamp sputtered
,The lamp muttered in the dark.
The lamp hummed:
"Regard the moon, 50
La lune ne garde aucune rancune,
She winks a feeble eye,
She smiles into corners.
She smooths the hair of the grass.
The moon has lost her memory. 55
A washed-out smallpox cracks her face,
Her hand twists a paper rose,
That smells of dust and eau de Cologne,
She is alone
With all the old nocturnal smells 60T
hat cross and cross across her brain.
"The reminiscence comes
Of sunless dry geraniums
And dust in crevices,
Smells of chestnuts in the streets, 65
And female smells in shuttered rooms,
And cigarettes in corridors
And cocktail smells in bars.

The lamp said,"Four o'clock, 70
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair.
Mount. 75
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life."

The last twist of the knife.

It's the only path to righteousness, he said.

Every now and then I kid myself into believing I've moved beyond worrying what others think of me - but then I catch myself. True, my recent dedication of self and vocation to social justice issues has put off old friends and family members. But I'm still starstruck by other forms of prestige, especially now that saving the world is in vogue. Top business schools offer special programs for "social entrepreneurs." A popular website, idealist.org, hosts Graduate School Fairs for the Public Good all over the country (I attended the one in San Francisco a couple weeks ago). Even in choosing a placement organization for my year of service in the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, I persuaded myself that working for a slick, business-minded nonprofit organization was the wisest choice.

Nowadays I conjure up ways to pay lip service to my concern for others while keeping safely within the bounds of the reasonable and acceptable to other people. Like joining a cohort of sorely needed young leaders on the nonprofit Executive Director track. Or going to an Ivy League grad school. Or spinning a comfortably legitimate profession into an opportunity to do good. Accounting, say, or law. I don't care much for medicine, but it's a good example since people are always making lofty claims about why they decided to go to med school. Underlying my cautious plans is an ever-present, ever-human fear that I might never amount to anything. I squirm at the thought of leaving my fate to the whim of God and reckless circumstance.

My vocational vacillation reminds me of the frustration I feel with politicians who make lukewarm statements that they know in their hearts to be wrong. We've all heard their faithless words; we've watched them pay for votes with compromises. Sure, maybe the other guy is worse, but where do you draw the line? When do you flip the switch between staying likable enough for others' approval and having the courage to make unlikable decisions?

If you never want to settle for half-truths and tepid compromises, you may well have to get used to a new direction in life: down.

I've begun to suspect that the world will get no better until each one of us finds the humility to give up our quests for personal glory (your name on a brick, as Dr. Manning used to say). Until then, we will perpetuate the systems that legitimize us and appease our fearful egos. We will find excuses to look down upon our neighbors' differences and miss the value and dignity of each human being within.

Downward mobility is a lonely and lightly trodden path. But there's a freedom in it. I don't have to plan or predict where I'll be in a year, who will be a part of my community, or what will become of me. My life need not follow anyone's tired but true formula. What would happen if I surrendered control to the God I claim to trust? Could I let myself be so vulnerable? What would happen if I lived by heart?

Looking for a lazy afternoon and a hug

to help me deal with the "ever-changing climate" of my heart (and the North)

"I bare my windowed self untamed and untrained
Dreams that hardly touch our complexions truest faults
If room enough for both my drowsy spirit shall fall
Bold waves tumble to the season of my heart
You have offended my faith and my trust
Until all is lost into the beauty of the day" (thank you JM for feeding my sentimentality)

Beautiful yellow, orange-hued afternoons, purple-pink sunsets that fill my soul with contentment and contemplation have all but ceased to offer themselves for my enjoyment since I arrived in New York. I yearn for simple things: true friends, a lazy afternoon, late night conversations over tea, a warm shawl to share and the understanding of meditational silence between two people who love unconditionally and profoundly. Relatively, of course, I am lucky. Most of the people I love are a few hours bus ride away, within the same country or always available telephonically. But my effusive, affectionate heart wants a sister, friend, family to embrace right now, both physically and emotionally. I am a fragile being in need of receiving and bestowing the multitudes of love and affection that I feel.

More-than-a-snapshot memory: Cindy, Alia and I once drove to Lake Murray at 3 AM. We lay next to each other on top of Cindy’s car listening to everything and nothing, relishing our nostalgia and ignoring the commencement of journeys that would take each of us in very different directions. Inside the car the radio was softly playing. Lyrics of songs drifted to our ears and mingled with the sound of crickets, lapping water, the rustling of trees and distant conversations. “It’s not always rainbows and butterflies, it’s compromise that moves us along. My heart is full and my door’s always open, you can come anytime you want.” Everything in that moment thankfully suited the mood of our still, but magical starry night. With a few hours left to go before my departure from South Carolina and another long journey back to Virginia, we found an exquisitely beautiful reminder - lakeside and in harmony with the beauties of nature - of our friendship’s core. And for me, preserved in that memory is the reminder of what true friendship is and how the world lends itself to cultivating such moments when you really need it. Thank you, God, for every blessing.