When We Win

When We Win from scoutwillie on Vimeo.

Go, Scout!

Synchronicity -- Wherever You Go, There It Is

There's this:


and there's this:

On, Wisconsin!

Yesterday, it was sunny and warm here in Columbia's district and I raced home from work, past the beautiful Potomac and the fey-thronged Spout Run, to sit in my woodland garden and on my porch. One of my friends who's been center-front in the struggle for workers' rights in Wisconsin called me on his cell phone so I could hear the crowd around Jesse Jackson singing Amazing Grace. We had a great chat (he, on the front lines and I on my porch, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) and then I went to my ritual room and lit incense for today's election. I'm so proud of D and S and R and J and all of my other friends in Wisconsin. I feel gifted to know them.

I had a "complicated" relationship with my dad, who, much as he wanted to be a man of words, was seldom able to articulate why he loved the things that he loved. And that made him (inexplicably, to a kid) angry. I was sitting directly behind him, in the family station wagon, when the radio announced that Dr. King had been killed advocating the rights of union workers. My dad, who spent his life in the union movement, slumped in the front seat and then yelled at me for something; I don't remember what. What I do remember was knowing that he felt an unrecoverable loss at that moment. I think he understood why it was that Dr. King could challenge almost anything except the refusal to pay Americans a living wage. One of my most treasured pictures is one of him -- a few days later, trying hard to recover himself, outside a neon-sign Memphis church -- taken when he went to cover Dr. King's funeral for his union. Whenever I'm tempted to be angry at him for the way that he raised me, I remember that picture and focus on what was great about him. He came from almost nothing and spent a lot of his life doing what he could for the highest cause he'd found. I don't think that cause was fathering a feminist, but that's (many years later, after a lot of shadow work, turned out to be kind of) ok.

So maybe it's understandable that this video, which brings together my present and my past, through the lens of my dad and my friends, makes me cry.

When I grew up and moved away from home, one of the few ways that my dad and I managed to connect was through my critiques of his writing (and his grudging support of mine). He was still editing a lot of union magazines and newsletters at that point, and I kept pushing him to make them less sexist. (Me: Dad, would this joke be funny if it were about black people? Dad: Well, no. Me: Ok, then why is it funny about women? Dad: OK, you write a better joke. Me: OK . . . .) So the irony of the sexist signs carried in this video, often above a logo that Dad designed, isn't lost on me.

To balance that, and just for my dad, who would have cried at reading it, I'll add this:

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? ~S. Truth

Women and men need a victory tonight in Wisconsin.

hat tip/ First Draft

Madison

Thanks to Hraefna, in Canada, for alerting me to this in Comments. The other day, some of my friends from the Madison protests sent me an Ian's Pizza t-shirt. I really treasure it.

The Madison Protests (along with the brave actions of the Madison 14, who will never buy their own drinks when I'm in the room) did something that Saul Alinsky (my parents pushed me read exactly 3 books in my entire life. One, via my mom, was Kon Tikki, which I refused to read. One, via my dad, was Great Expectations, and one, also via my dad, was Rules for Radicals. So you can see, I come by it honestly) said good political action can do: it forced Walker to act precipitously, and it showed his actions for exactly what they were. Forcing a tyrant to act as a tyrant is a powerful political act. And it was effective here.

Now, a judge has stayed the implementation of Walker' act, based on the precipitous manner in which it was enacted and the likelihood that those challenging the act will succeed on the merits of the case once it comes to trial. There's a huge campaign (already halfway there) to recall the Republicans who supported Walker, and Walker, who is entitled by Wisconsin law to one year recall-free, is dead in the water come next year. Yeah, he'll go on to wingnut welfare on Fox or at the Heritage foundation, but he'll never eat lunch in this town again. As I've been chanting most of my life, sometimes on marches and sometimes at my altar, "The people, united, can never be defeated."

I am more proud than I can say of my friends who were there and of other friends who supported them. For a while, following the massive, and massively ignored, anti-war protests, there was a lot of buzz about how protests were old school and could never be effective in the modern world. Well, Egypt showed that for the lie it was, and so did Madison. Never doubt the power of people-powered political action. Never doubt that, as Margaret Meade said, "A small group of thoughtful people c[an] change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Pagans were involved in the Madison protest, both as simple people occupying the beautiful Wisconsin State Capitol, as clergy, and now, via Sharon Knight's participation in this stirring video, as performers.

On, Wisconsin!

Well????

Mr. President, I will personally buy you a pair of shoes, if that's what stopping you from keeping your promise.

/hat tip to FireDog Lake.

I Am So Proud of My Friends in Madison

Thank you, Scout!

On, Wisconsin!

Labor Day Poetry Slam

TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIME
~R. Frost

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

Picture found here.

Labor Day Poetry Slam

Factory

BY CHARLES SIMIC

The machines were gone, and so were those who worked them.
A single high-backed chair stood like a throne
In all that empty space.
I was on the floor making myself comfortable
For a long night of little sleep and much thinking.

An empty birdcage hung from a steam pipe.
In it I kept an apple and a small paring knife.
I placed newspapers all around me on the floor
So I could jump at the slightest rustle.
It was like the scratching of a pen,
The silence of the night writing in its diary.

Of rats who came to pay me a visit
I had the highest opinion.
They’d stand on two feet
As if about to make a polite request
On a matter of great importance.

Many other strange things came to pass.
Once a naked woman climbed on the chair
To reach the apple in the cage.
I was on the floor watching her go on tiptoe,
Her hand fluttering in the cage like a bird.

On other days, the sun peeked through dusty windowpanes
To see what time it was. But there was no clock,
Only the knife in the cage, glinting like a mirror,
And the chair in the far corner
Where someone once sat facing the brick wall.

Picture found here.

Another Poem For Labor Day

Here's my other, second-favorite poem for Labor Day. It's by Langston Hughes.

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So, boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps.
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now—
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

I've done a lot of work in my life that felt a lot like scrubbing splintering stairs. I've done work I didn't want to do, work for which I wasn't really suited, work that I did for no reason in the world except that it paid the bills, kept a roof over our heads, put shoes on my child's growing feet, gas in the car, bread on the table. I've worked for bosses whom I despised, systems that I knew were broken, structures designed to kill the spirit. Throughout all of those times, I focused on how warm and safe Son was, how beautiful was the blush on his well-fed cheek, how well I was investing the money in my plan to ESCAPE.

On Labor Day, may we all send out energy to the universe so that all people may find fulfillment, dignity, and joy in their work.

Picture found here.

A Poem For Labor Day

TWO TRAMPS IN MUD TIME by Robert Frost

Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.

Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.

A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.

The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.

Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
The judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.

Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.

But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.


I've always loved the close of this poem: Only where love and need are one/And work is play for mortal stakes. Isn't that what really, really good work feels like? When I'm writing a brief and I really believe that I'm right and the other side is wrong, when I'm fighting for a cause in which I really believe, it's just so damn FUN. When work is play, for mortal stakes. When, in Kipling's words, [Y]ou can make one heap of all your winnings. And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss, those are some of the times when one can feel truly, truly alive.

Maybe I'm wrong; maybe this isn't a general experience. Maybe it's just me. Law is, by nature, a v competitive blood sport and that's a huge part of its attraction for me. I just adore the actual spade work of the law, reading the cases, seeing where the other side exposed its flank, choosing the right word, drawing blood, winning. It's, no doubt, a sign of how singularly unevolved I am that I just get such a rush from it. Writing what I know is a good brief, winning in a way that leaves the other side longing to settle, getting the Court of Appeals or SCOTUS opinion that makes good law for decades and decades into the future, that's almost as good as v good sex, as good as the skilled and knowledgeable cooperation w Nature that is good gardening, as good as cold, crisp air on an early Winter morning, as good as bright stars on a late, late Autumn night. Practicing law often reminds me of a line from Dune: Some days it's melange; some days, bitter spice." But on it's best days, on the days where they leave me alone, let me read the cases, let me play the Glass Bead Game, and let me write . . . on those days, it's such a gift and I have so much fun doing it, I can scarce believe that they pay me to have this much fun.

What do you love about the work that you do?

Picture found here. Warning: Wingnut site.

Because