Day by day

Yesterday my daughter woke us, frantic and near tears.. She began to
pray; then asked me to pray for her. Today she tells me she asked me
because if she closed her eyes she'd have cried. She crawled between
us, burning hot, and said her tummy hurt. She flinched when I pressed
lightly on her abdomen. Her fever registered 102. A doctor visit,
and we were on our way to Childrens Hospital for an ultrasound. Not
appendicitis, after all. But they want to do a Cat Scan next week. A
cluster of lymph nodes was "enlarged". We are left with vague
inferences and gnawing worry.

Sunrise

This morning my daughter and I sat up in bed watching the sunrise. A
fire of rose, red, and orange, plumes of clouds in long streaks, dots,
mounds, puffs, blankets. The moonrise last night had us all
spellbound, kin to moths and candles. This morning the sun decided to
remind us who gives the moon her shine.

When we wandered downstairs to watch the sunrise in the dining room,
my daughter started crying, then weeping, chanting, "I don't want the
sunrise to go away. I don't want it to end." I held her in silence
until the sunrise defied her.

To Dream of Honor Killing

Last night I had a series of nightmares, more nightmarish perhaps because each time I'd partially waken from the dreams I'd go right back into them. It was perhaps my brain's way of saying "I have to exorcise this. I have to resolve it and cannot let things stay as they are in this dream."

My dream? At first it didn't make sense, then after I woke up feeling emotionally beaten and let the images sink it, the subject became clear. It was a dream version of being the victim of an honor killing. Sure there were some old Bond Movie elements of international intrigue and diabolical groups of subversive scientists, but that's probably what made the dream manageable and kept me from waking up screaming. The truth of the dream was the horror of being unjustly accused of sexual infidelity, of being blamed for acts involving your sex organs that you did not willingly commit, of being labeled guilty and responsible for something so attrocious happening to you and against you and completely out of your control. Of your family shunning you when someone else perpetuated a horrific and brutal rape of your body, mind, and spirit, of your family looking at the evidence against you and failing to see beyond the surface, of seeing only what the perpetrators want them to see, how they want them to see. Of at first believing that indeed you are responsible, of the intense guilt that leads you to say "I'm sorry", and being condemned and rejected by those whom you love most and who have (you thought) loved you most. Of trying to kill yourself to end the pain of the hurt and rejection, to silence the confused images and thoughts in your head.

And then of having someone heretofor unknown to you, some advocate, someone dispassionate and logical looking at your case and saying, "I believe you," and then trying to help. Of the one person you love most, your husband, coming cold and disbelieving, full of rage and hate to the place your are being held and treated and listening with hardened heart and ears to the scientist who shows him how to look at the evidence in a different way. Of your husband finally seeing the attrocities you endured as true attrocities and then, awash in his own guilt of what his rejection of you has done to your sanity, his going to observe you through a window as you thrash about in a nightmare. Finally, his going into your room and holding you to calm you down so that you can sleep for the first time since the event. Of him watching as you endure surgeries, counseling, and physical rehabilitation, participating where he can. Of him wondering if he will ever have the woman he loved back again or if he will only have a vegetable or someone beyond his ability to care for. Of his steeling himself for a life of marriage to someone he never sees except on visitation days.

Thankfully, in my dream, there was a husband who came back, who loved. The family did not. And of those who tried to kill me, one was arrested and sentenced, one was killed, and one remained free and unfound.

The dream mixed stories I've read recently about women who've been drugged with rohypnol and raped, of others injected with various test drugs and diseases like lab rats to see their reactions.

Rape takes so many forms. Even in our so-called Western, modern society, victims are still accused of the crimes against them. In states that enacted laws to protect victims of domestic violence by requiring police to arrest someone in every DV case they show up to where a physical injury is apparent, the stats show that most of the time the true victim is the one arrested because the predator knows how to use the system and uses it to further abuse the victim.

It is time men stopped claiming to be powerful out one side of their mouths and to be the victims of women's sexuality (i.e., not responsible for their own male sexuality) out the other side. If you cannot control and discipline your desires, if you must scape-goat someone else into being guilty of all your misdeeds, then you are pathetically weak, evil, and offensive.

What is amazing to me about cultures that uphold (or at least do not work actively to abolish) dis-honor killings, if the men in these families were really strong (not just full of empty bravado and bullying at the expense of others with less power) then when a woman in their families was said to have misstepped sexually, they'd tell those who would question their family's integrity to get lost. They'd stand strong and firm with their family, including the women of the family. And no, rape of a woman by a man would NEVER be considered the woman's fault, because these men would have the honesty, integrity, responsiblity, and HONOR to accept that men are responsible for their own sexuality and evil, and that rape is not an act of sex, but of brutality and violence, it is an act against a woman. It would even be an improvement if they realized it was an act against the woman's family, and that the perpetrator, the MAN deserved their wrath and rejection.

Sharing

Yesterday we got to clean and organize the attic of El Centro de la
Raza. Anthropology of sorts. An adventure that brought up memories
of Narnia. Seeing, asking, and filling another's need. How wonderful
to cover my pants in dirt helping another.

Then last night an impromtu invite to visit a friend turned into an
evening of sharing stories and thoughts.

Today we got to celebrate a friend's buying his first house. What a
joy to share with him and meet new folks.

What blessings befall sharing.

Pigs

Frankenswine at Madison and Western or 1st in Seattle. Thanks to the
artist who made me laugh.

Cold

Autumn cold has snapped Seattle. It seems so sudden this year. Like the Whomping Willow in HP3 dropping its leaves in one shake. The leaves are still on our trees, but the summer was so brief and cold and wet compared to other years and Indian Summer skipped us completely, so it seems as if all the leaves have changed color and dropped in one swoop. I'll take a walk later to remind myself that Winter doesn't begin tomorrow.

Fall brings up another season of thought: storing nuts for winter (getting chores done), going back to school, "activities". Sometimes I think we all think we grow up in the Fall. We put on serious faces and get to work. But inside I feel the flutter of butterfly wings, of childlike whistfulness and adventure. Wanderlust sticks a grappling hook in my gut and says, "GO!" Sentimentality tickles my feet and says, "rake a leaf house in the yard." We don't have enought deciduous trees to yield enough leaves for this feat. Perhaps I'll plant some.

I see hints of the same flutterings in other adult eyes and wonder if they, too, would like to rake leaves and leap into them.

In any event, I am determined to make it to October without turning on the furnace. Bundle up familia. Get cozy.

Venus or Mars

A bright planet hangs in a clear, black-blue sky this morning. The
mountains offset as pure blackness, sharp angles haloed by a scrim of
light.

Too early to rise, but worth it.

Sent from my iPhone

BEIGE

Please, please explain the phenomenon of new homes with BEIGE VINYL SIDING? Some seem like nice, reasonably-sized houses; others are McMonsters taking up every scrap of land from one set-back to another on a piece of property. Some have simple layouts; others loom box-like and ill on the road-side. The most fascinating (in the same sense as watching a train-wreck) of these new structures are those with interesting, even artistic design elements. You watch them rising from the ground with curved staircases, archways, nooks, high-end wooden doors, picture windows... and then, right as the builder finishes up this new architectural being, he suffocates it in BEIGE VINYL SIDING.

Is the government giving this stuff away as surplus? Is there some hope that the beige, vinyl siding manufacturers are all going out of business (and therefore will never ever make this stuff again) and are selling their inventories off at 10 cents a piece?

It's HIDEOUS! H-I-D-E-O-U-S!

If your architect does this to your home, report her. Surely there is a license revocation procedure for installing BEIGE VINYL SIDING.

I understand budgets (boy, do I). So I understand leaving the stuff on your house if it was already there when you bought your house (and you are therefore too broke to replace it). But these are NEW houses. Presumably if you're building a new house, you have money or outstanding credit (hint, loan agencies) and are interested in a solid housing investment? For those of you with style and fashion challenged senses, BEIGE VINYL SIDING is the equivalent of ill-fitting, low quality polyester pantsuits from about three decades ago in prison green stretched over a form three sizes too large.

For all you new home builders out there: Spare the eyesore. Raise your property values. Lift your spirits. Love your neighbors. Use a real color. Use a natural material.

For all of you already in a home with vinyl, beige or otherwise, well, be thankful for having a home, plant lots of trees and flowers, and paint the inside of your house in vivid, beautiful colors. (And resist the urge to spray paint those new beige things going up all around you.)

Okay, I feel better now.

Techno-love

We celebrated 7 years on the 7th, a remarkable feat, not eclipsed by a recently celebrated 50 years in June of another couple we love. Different eras. Different worlds. Different people. Human commitment to companionship in a check-out line gee-gaw world confounds the senses and challenges the spirit. And rewards. Can I do this? I can do this. I will do this. I am doing this. This is. I am. You are. We are.

As we create sacred space in our houses or attend worship services in sacred places, commitment creates that sacred space in the soul. Not just marital commitment. Commitment. Maybe what commitment really is is discipline or stubborn willfulness. Admittedly, sometimes it takes both. But often it is neither. It is something else.

There's no guarantee with commitment. The stakes are higher, though, because the investment of self is greater. And the returns can rally and slump, climb and fall. The dividends come from mines deep in the earth where earthquakes tremble and lava threatens to burst. The ore would scratch diamonds.

Back on topic: Techno-love. On the 7th, my husband conveniently took us for coffee at a shopping district in which an Apple Store abides. Then, due to great shame at the state of my ancient Smartphone (I'd had it since the technology launched), talked me into an iPhone. I'd say it was love at first sight, but it was more like fear at first sight. Not fear of the features. Honestly, the thing works flawlessly and intuitively. Fear of beating it to a pulp, a la the much-loved Smartphone. Honestly, that Smartphone endured. No, it E-N-D-U-R-E-D. And there was the price. Despite the price drop, the phone's a luxury. One I am grateful for. I've used it like a workhorse since it came out of the box and signed a service contract.

Thanks, sweetie.

Talked into it

Talking comes naturally in our family. My first word (the only thing input into my baby book) was "cookie". Prophetic, to the point. My brother-in-law has commented more than once on our family's ability to carry on several conversations all at once, loudly, and with great animation of face, vocal inflection, and hand gestures. It is a verbal free-for-all. This does not translate well into normal society but as rudeness, disinterest, even arrogance. It isn't (well, it may be rude, but not the other two). It is instead word-fiesta, the pleasure of word flow. Admittedly, it needs damming most of the time. A word dam? Perhaps a renewable energy source.

Our daughter spoke her first word at 3 months. There were witnesses. Here's how it came about: I handed her to my mother and walked into another room for a short break. My daughter turned her head to see where I'd gone, stared at the room into which I'd departed, and said with apparently great intent, "Mama." I heard it from where I was. It so startled my mother she nearly dropped the baby.

All this to say, my husband's recommendation for a blog name - "debosays" - works pretty well. Now let's see where it goes.