"But I don't think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret of happiness, but only reached now in middle age." — Virginia Woolf
It is with a deep breath I come to the confessional. A deep breath because
I'm trying to breath big today. It's been actually two weeks since my
last confession and it was on the day that I should have been making my last
one that I was feeling really crummy. By Wednesday morning I would be well on
my way to feeling much worse. Today I went back to work. Only for a half day
and I confess that when I left the office at 1 pm, I was pretty worn down. Pneumonia
is a pretty nasty thing; of that I’m a believer.
I took a nap after getting home and feel a little recharged but I kid you
not once I put my head on the pillow, I crashed and burned.
I confess that I have no exciting holiday stories to share. Just the one
about the guy who did not travel across town with family to have dinner with
other family members and that story is full of coughing up stuff you don’t want
to hear about, or while surrounded in bed by dogs who are looking at you like “why
must you keep up that annoying cough and by the way, what’s with the piles of Kleenex
wads?”
Oddly it seems there were moments this past week when in my general state of
physical decline I had some flashes of brilliance (unless I was being
delusional) about several aspects of a manuscript I’m working on.It seems some clarity paid me a visit. And if
they were only delusions I’m willing to except that/them anyway. I vaguely
recall someone in the past saying you don’t
have to be crazy to be a poet but it never hurts.
So really, with the kind of week I’ve had I confess that you just have to
find the silver lining by getting a hold of the frayed ends and pulling on a
strand just to see what unravels.
Oh, least I forget… I confess that I lost weight over Thanksgiving. There is
that to be thankful for.
Rumours of my demise are understandable but incorrect. While I have no idea where the expression sick as a dog came from, that would be me on the right. By the time I left work last Tuesday I was dragging and feeling a little under the weather. I attributed it mostly to sinus stuff. I had scheduled a vacation day for Wednesday. Add that to the Thursday & Friday holidays + another two days for the weekend and Walla! You have five days off! Wrong... Ok, they were days off but hardly qualify as vacation, holiday, I don't even think you can call it a momentary pause in life. No, Wednesday it became pretty evident things more just under the weather.
Basically the 5 days were spent in bed. No journey to Thanksgiving with the family. I only left the house for trip to Doctors and then another trip to the ER. Results pneumonia. Checked back in with the doctor today. I plan to go back to work tomorrow - at least for a half day and see how I do. I get worn down pretty easy. I'd like to say that I read a book or two over that time, or wrote a reams of poetry. I did try some writing but maybe have one worthwhile draft from it. I wasn't in the best mood for writing.
That would also be my excuse for not doing Confession Tuesday or Knock My Socks off Wednesday.
For some days now I have been meaning to take the time to post about the recent string of police and security response to peaceful assembly. I've seen some footage of incidents on cable news and read a few accounts and I am saddened by the turn to aggression by many of the authorities in the past week.
Even where we have previously seen police take a responsible attitude toward protesters there has been a shift in the response to their peaceful assemble.
Have we forgotten the lessens of the late sixties and seventies? The brutality on the streets during the Nixon years only heightened the tensions in this country. The response with force to peaceful assembly
(a guaranteed constitutional right) is indefensible. Spraying protesters who are sitting in rows with pepper-spray and clubbing individuals is only going build a toxic climate in this country.
We seem to growing very lax in terms of many of our constitutional guarantees. When law enforcement abridges the right of peaceful assembly it is a fundamental attack upon every one of us, not just those in a particular location protesting a particular cause. We don't have to be associated with that cause to be the victims because the erosion of on person's right of assembly risks the protection of our own right does do so on this or some other cause.
Someone explain to me what threat is posed by this assemblage because the threat that is posed by police with batons and pepper-spray on a peacefully assembled crowd, that threat I understand. The latter risks bodily harm, risks unhealthy tensions between authorities and citizens, and it jeopardizes the very constitutional rights we all have as citizens of this country.
Above is one video shot at UC Berkley that demonstrates the response to assembled students.
I am outraged by this. I'm old enough to recall the Nixon years when young Americans were coming home from Vietnam in body bags by the thousands and brutality of those times. Do we really have to repeat this? Have we not progressed in the year that have followed?
