Friday Round-Up: Ricochet

I bubbled up with grief at the news of Justice Kennedy resigning. The 5th vote on 5 to 4 decisions that kept choice legal would now be gone, replaced by a 5th on the other side. Access to legal abortion, a fundamental right of self-determination for women, is on the chopping block. I’ve talked to college students about the time before Roe v. Wade, in their view, a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. But now they won’t need me to come tell them how it was in the old days. The old days will be here again. Be careful, my young friends, don’t make any mistakes. You don’t want to know what could happen next.

I lay awake at night thinking about the babies and children separated from their parents by the U.S. government. They’ll be so traumatized, someone told me today. Yes, I know. I raised three children who lost their parents, two before they could put language to their experience and one who could describe every detail. They are adults now, resilient like buck thorns that can grow anywhere. They are so tough, my kids, because they survived the worst thing that could happen to them. They lost their parents. So, yeah, I think about the children flown all over the country by strange people to strange places, children people are forbidden to hug, children who only know their mother by her name. Mama. And I know there will be a river of hurt in their lives, a river, wide and deep. Yes, I know about the river.

Our dog, BowWow lives. He, who has been on death’s door more often and for longer periods than the ubiquitous Pizza Hut flyer rubber-banded to our mailbox, defied death by pretending to be a healthy, rambunctious dog just hours before his planned appointment with his Maker on Monday morning. He still looks at us through his gauzy, cataract eyes, walks into doors, and calculates every step as if it’s his last, but he prances on his hind legs when it’s treat time, walks around the block with his beloved Minnie, and sleeps through the night like a well-trained baby. So he lives. Who knows for how long? We’re hoping he just drops dead of his own accord and leaves us out of the planning.

I swam a half-mile with my friend, Karen, today. The pool, an enormous Olympic size pool that is typically split in the middle into two 25-yard sections, was today one long expanse. So we were swimming 50-yard lengths. Swimming is both calming and empowering. You can swim away fear and fretting, I know that to be true. But to do that, you have to keep going and not sink into feeling that it’s too far, you have to think about the stroke that you’re in, how beautiful it is, how far you can reach, how each stroke moves you along like magic until you are at the place that seemed so far. I was reminded of that today.

I will be joining a “Families Belong Together” March tomorrow. I need to be with the people who feel the hurt of those families on the border as if it was their own family; I need to be with people who will stand out in the damn sun and be a body that can be counted. I need to put on my big hat and suffer through the heat and not be lazy, not be a sissy. I want to be in that number.

You know that old song, “When the Saints Go Marching In?” My dad played the trumpet (and the trombone and the piano) in dance bands when I was a little kid. When I was older, he’d blast this song on his organ, playing so loud, the cupboard doors would shake.

We are traveling in the footsteps
Of those who’ve gone before
But if we stand reunited
Then a new world is in store

Oh when the saints go marching in
When the saints go marching in
Oh lord I want to be in that number
When the saints  go marching in

And when the sun begins to shine
And when the sun begins to shine
Oh lord I want to be in that number
When the saints go marching in

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Photo by Jeremy Liew on Unsplash