Waiting For That Rocket

As I’ve been public with other places I’m on medical leave for a hot month or two following a significant surgery. If you’ve interacted with me (as an adult) you know I’m going absolutely batty not being able to work.

But look! Here’s this project I started years ago that I haven’t gotten far in…at all…because turns out reading about the deaths of millions isn’t necessarily the best thing for a majorly depressed empath.

However, I’m feeling like this book is still something that needs to happen. So I’m battening down the hatches to start working on the research and annotated bibliographies again so a book can be written about Stalin’s atrocities.

I entreat you for your help. When I start bemoaning being bored? Please encourage me to open a book and sit at the computer?

I’m not going to be able to do this without you. And this is something that needs to be done. Stat.

I’ve been mulling over this post for the better part of a week. What’s happening in Ukraine is abhorrent and just flat out murder. I am outraged. I think it’s disgusting and crimes against humanity.

Here’s a newsflash though.

I thought the same during the Arab Spring.

There are a lot of people raising battlecries and outrage today who ignored the Arab Spring where the same thing was happening. President Bashar Asaad has been doing much the same thing since 2011. Blowing up hospitals and killing people who were trying to help his victims.

So I get it. I get the outrage, but where was the outrage when the same thing was happening to brown and black people? Where’s the attention when the same thing DOES happen to brown and black people?

At least the blocks at borders to refugees that went up in record time during the Arab Spring are staying up in regards to the folks from the Ukraine.

I just … we should always be outraged when a polity deliberately targets civilians. It’s time we indiscriminately berate and cry out against indiscriminate killings whether on an international scale or a scale that’s next door.

Love thy neighbor as thyself is what some guy said. Let’s start working on our governments – of all scales – to legislate this. To get it in writing so it’s not just some hypothetical goal.

Let’s be better.

I know we’re coming off the Olympics right now where we saw many of the greatest athletes in the world compete, but I’m left with thoughts.

When did I start to be interested in sports.

I’m sure wiffle ball and pickle around the neighborhood helped. As did Amanda and Home Brandi befriending me. As did, as always, my parents supporting my interests. But the first time I remember soccer, my sport of choice, being a real interest were the Atlanta Games and the US Women’s National Team winning the gold.

Following that triumph it was like a switch flipped. I wanted to know and do all things soccer. Travel teams, school teams, for a (very) short period of time ODP. I was all soccer all the time.

That was never a question for me once that flip switched.

As I’m watching A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN tonight I’m more grateful for the precedent set by these women than I normally am.

I’m already looking forward to watching this movie, and the 1996 gold medal game if it’s streamable, with my nine year old (swiftly approaching adolescence) niece. She needs to know things can happen when a woman has hopes, dreams, and the willingness to work to achieve them.

Seven years ago I wrote of family for the HuffPo. My family is nigh everything to me. My sisters, my brothers, my in-laws, my pseudo-parents, etc., etc.. I wouldn’t trade one of them for the world. Heck, even when I was a child I recognized how good I had it with my brothers and wouldn’t have traded them then either.

Everything there remains true.

Then I had a eureka moment a couple weeks ago. A lot of the folks I call family I call chosen family. That family is tremendously important to me no doubt, but then I realized I have a couple siblings who I don’t use that qualifier. I’m looking at you Hippo and Tall. You aren’t “chosen” family you’re just family.

I feel so lucky and blessed to have these sort of semantics present themselves in my brain at any given point. You all are pretty swell.

I don’t know if I’ve written about it here, I know I have on Twitter, and now I’m definitely writing about it here.

So. A few years back I got a pipe dream in my head. Ask anyone (at least Stateside) about Josef Stalin and what will come up will be Russia saving the day during World War II and maybe references to that photo from the Yalta Conference with Churchill and Roosevelt. Okay. Great. Fine. That was a thing, it happened. But what very few either know or acknowledge is what was happening in the USSR at the same time as Hitler’s Third Reich. Millions of people were being killed by the State. They were being accused of being traitors, of trying to sow upheaval, they were being accused of looking the wrong way. There were perhaps more ways to end up dead in the USSR under Stalin as there was under Hitler.

But that’s just not what we hear about or learn about. Unless, like me, you search it out.

And let’s be real. There are very, very few heart warming things to be read about from Stalin’s time. There’s some excellent writing and art – that emerged AFTER Stalin’s death – but not too many feel good stories about his time.

What I’m proposing lacks the feel good. But what I’d like to do is open up history so when asked what someone knows about Stalin they’re mentioning more than just that picture from the Yalta Conference.

Why this is coming up today.

I haven’t done any research or writing in months. I haven’t cracked a book, opened an article, or talked to a friend about it. When one finds their country under the power of a despot it’s hard to read about how bad it could get.

So. I’ve put all these pipe dreams on hold. I haven’t read anything, written anything, talked about it with anyone. Whatever.

Today I talked about it in the future tense.

I got out my tablet so I could read some words and take some notes.

I don’t know what this means. If it means anything. But I can’t help but feel it significant.

And this is the internet. So I’m allowed to just ramble about it.

I know there are people not just in THE world, but in MY world who question the existence of “white privilege.”

Let me learn you.

White privilege is thinking you’ll get a “Black Lives Matter” tattoo and then changing your mind because it would create challenges and difficulty in town and the work place.

I recently moved to a much more conservative community. A community whose Biden signs may, almost, equal the number of Trump signs in Portland. Maybe. I might be overestimating that.

But I’m making the choice whether to (or not) get a BLM tattoo in order to make my life less combative. My black friends don’t have that luxury. They’re kind of stuck being black.

I’m going to be thinking deeply about this for awhile. If you’re someone I typically bounce thoughts off of be prepared for more bouncing.

I like hearing smart people talk, particularly when it’s about something they’re passionate about, but that’s not always the best way for me to retain information. It’s something where, as often as I’m told something, I won’t retain it.

That being said. If I write something down I’m far more likely to retain the message. An example. I recently re-enrolled in Become a Master Writer, a course put together by a friend to help her writer friends become better. To sum it up it is a lot of time spent copywriting writers from all spectrums to learn writing from the masters. One has to copywrite in hard copy not just typing something so it means one is processing in a different way than just hearing and seeing something. What’s remarkable about this is that I did this this morning. The piece being copied talks about the beginning of being a writer and looking for more from your writing.

I’m lucky enough to have folks telling me often that I’m a good writer. Heck, sometimes I tell myself I’m a good writer, but because I’m a precious snowflake my issues are all unique and I start to doubt that I’m a good writer the moment I finish reading the piece I’ve written.

Today I hand wrote a piece saying, “It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, [between thinking and knowing you’re a good writer] and your work will be as good as your ambitions.” After writing it out the goal is to listen to a partner piece. Because in my venerable age I now follow directions that’s what I did.

I weighed my comprehension of both messages. Writing and reading has me thinking, “Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can be better.” Listening had me talking with the baristas at Bryan’s Bux. Had me talking with some of the other customers. Had me wondering what the hell I was doing thinking to be so presumptuous that I’m a good writer.

I think, once I remember to bring a ballpoint pen with me (as opposed to a Sharpie) and remember to do further sessions, that maybe I’ll start to find the power to do more writing.

I want to be a writer who believes I’m a good writer. I want to be a writer that (heaven forbid) makes money from my writing. I want to be a writer that can be held up as an example of good writing.

Maybe these are things I can do.

Thanks, Elisa.

I’m posting for the first time in a while, politically for the first time in longer. I’m sorry if this offends anyone – regular reader or happen upon – I’m sorry? You’re welcome to your opinions? But so am I.

If you’re reading this you likely have a working knowledge of my political alliances, but you also hopefully have an idea that I’m open to opposition. I think differing points of view, meeting in the middle, only makes the structure having the conversation stronger.

It’s my opinion that having Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court isn’t just a move to build a stronger structure it’s a move to undermine many structures.

I’m not even bringing Dr. Ford into this (though her story has merit, strength, and I believe her), but I just don’t feel Brett Kavanaugh is capable of sitting on that bench unbiased. I wouldn’t have wanted a leftist on the court under Obama or Clinton. I don’t want a rightist on the court under Trump.

By stacking the deck in any particular way for generations to come we’re not doing anything “to pass the world on a little better than we found it.” [Quote courtesy of “Crackpots and These Women” episode of the West Wing]

So. If you know me in any way or, at the very least, follow me on social media in any way, you know that one of my hopes and dreams had been to write a book about Stalin’s despotism. Particularly it had been to write it in time for publication around the centennial of the Russian Revolution. Well. That ship sailed. We’re now 8 months past that anniversary let alone 18 months past research, drafts, and publication solicitations.

Oh woe is me. This is horrible.

Then the last couple weeks have happened between our unfortunate commander in chief and the equally despotic Russian “president.” My hopes and dreams have been revitalized. World circumstances break my heart, but this is something I can do. Despotism happens, and maintains, because those noticing what’s happening don’t speak up.

It’s time we who do notice don’t go quietly into that dark night.

So. Brace yourselves. I’m going to be posting more about Stalin and his despotism. Hopefully to help teach people about what can happen if power runs unchecked.