Current Events & Vacillating Emotions

It would be very fair to describe my temperament as mercurial.

In fact, I once described it to a therapist as analogous to a singer who has an incredibly broad vocal range- like baritone all the way to soprano.

But never before has that been truer than in the first two years of the presidency of the 45^th President of the United States.

Take the vacillation of emotions in this week of current events alone.

Monday morning, I woke up and turned on the news to see the horrific image of the lifeless bodies of two Central American migrants, Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria, who had died over the weekend while trying to cross the Rio Grande into the US, leading to this New York Times cover story:

Then, Tuesday morning, I woke up and turned on the news to see yet another woman has come forward (this is now the 16^th!) and reported the current President sexually assaulted her (in this case the victim reported rape) in the mid-1990’s, and this was the Washington Post’s headline on June 25, 2019:

“Latest sexual assault allegation against Trump draws muted political reaction.”

Irate.

Despair.

Breathe.

But then…Hope. 

Thursday evening, my friend texted me this image of a cross walk next to a town park with her words “A little bit of light in the dark” underneath:

Which was then followed by learning that the Supreme Court decided this week, in a close 5-4 vote, that every human being “counts” in the United States, and  therefore, when the population of the United States if formally counted again in the 2020 Census as required by the Constitution of the US,  every human being in the US will be “counted,” regardless of citizenship status, by not adding the question about citizenship to the questionnaire.

Phew! What an f-ing roller coaster of emotion this week!

I recently heard an interview on NPR with the founder of StoryCorps, Dave Isay, about a new project they are working on called: “Stonewall OutLoud.”

The StoryCorps website describes the project as:

our national effort to preserve and celebrate the voices of LGBTQ elders

as the 50^th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots (a poignant moment in the LGBTQ Rights Movement) is commemorated in the US.

And in sharing about this special project with NPR, Mr. Isay chose to quote a small section from Dr. Maya Angelou’s poem “On the Pulse of the Morning” read at the 1993 Inauguration of the 42^nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

That just covers it all, doesn’t it?

Irate, despair, hope…

(And for the full poem, On the Pulse of the Morning, see below.)

Perhaps this is how it is right now- and I don’t just mean in my own neurotic head.

Perhaps, these are the times we are living in, or maybe we always were…I’m not sure.

I guess as long as I choose awareness as my preferred state of being, I’ll just have to get more used to using my broad emotional range to hold the vastness of human experience, from heartbreak and suffering to victory and triumph.

(I’ll also take breaks as necessary, and I hope you do as well.)

May it be so.

On The Pulse Of Morning

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon.

The dinosaur, who left dry tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow.

I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness,
Have lain too long
Face down in ignorance.

Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.

Across the wall of the world,
A River sings a beautiful song,
It says come rest here by my side.

Each of you a bordered country,
Delicate and strangely made proud,
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege.

Your armed struggles for profit
Have left collars of waste upon
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast.

Yet, today I call you to my riverside,
If you will study war no more. Come,

Clad in peace and I will sing the songs
The Creator gave to me when I and the
Tree and the rock were one.

Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your
Brow and when you yet knew you still
Knew nothing.

The River sang and sings on.

There is a true yearning to respond to
The singing River and the wise Rock.

So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew
The African, the Native American, the Sioux,
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh,
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher,
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher.
They all hear
The speaking of the Tree.

They hear the first and last of every Tree
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River.

Plant yourself beside the River.

Each of you, descendant of some passed
On traveller, has been paid for.

You, who gave me my first name, you
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then
Forced on bloody feet, left me to the employment of
Other seekers--desperate for gain,
Starving for gold.

You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot ...
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought
Sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare
Praying for a dream.

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am that Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
This day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,
Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.

Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,
Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out and upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, and into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.