as high as the heavens are above the earth...

...so high are My ways above your ways, My thoughts above your thoughts. isaiah 55

Unpredictable

So I was walking along the beach with my late brother-in-law's fiancee, who has been mourning his sudden death since February. The ocean was calm, much calmer than it's been for the past week, and we were enjoying the sun and the gentle tide that only occasionally came up as far as around our feet, softening the sand and cooling our toes. She was talking about her fear of swimming in the ocean, there having been a rash of riptides and much talk of near misses and sudden rescues.

And I said something like, "yeah, the thing about the ocean is that it's so unpredictable."

At which moment, a wave jumped up over us, seemingly out of nowhere, to soak our clothes, the case I was carrying for my phone, the skirt I had wrapped over my shoulders.

Okay, God. I get the message. Unpredictable, indeed.

East End Observations

We are spending the month of July on Long Island's East End where we spent 10 years living until a few years ago. It is nice to be back in the lovely yellow light of the Pine Barrens Region. When we pull off Route 27 and make the turn onto the road taking us south to Montauk Highway, I can't help but wonder what this landscape must have looked like a thousand years ago, unsettled and unspoiled: at dusk it is particularly beautiful. The dark navy silhouettes of the scrub pines against the slate sky. A Sacred place.

At the 7/11 in the early morning the shape up crews await the construction trucks that will come deliver them to work for the day. Workers ride up and down Montauk Highway to get there early enough to put in a full day, riding silently in their dark tee shirts and blue jeans. I wonder if it has gotten ugly here, as in so many other parts of the country. There has always seemed a symbiosis here - don't ask, don't tell. For the most part, I always thought they were given an honest day's wage for an honest day's work. In the boom times, the construction and landscaping businesses offered work - lots of it - from spring through late fall. Now, however, during times like these I wonder if these individuals feel as though they must retreat further into the shadows. If the sight of the local cops, looking for anyone DWL (driving while Latino) and deputized for immigration violations makes their hearts beat just a little faster.

When I lived here, I initiated an ESL program in the local Catholic parish. I think alot of Juan and Pedro, two "wise guys" who sat in the back of class with smirks on their faces, but who showed up week after week and listened to learn - and then attended Mass. Timotea, the petite mother who was smart and no nonsense, Augustina, who was tentative and nervous, never thought she would learn the language and who worked busing tables in a local joint my husband and I used to eat at. Maria, a beautiful woman with long dark hair who worked in a plastics factory and Adan, a construction worker who stayed after class one day to ask me how he could start paying taxes. Andres, an older man who back in Guatamala made huipiles and brought me a beautiful textile one day that still hangs on the back of my chair in my living room. In exchange, I downloaded a CD of songs for him and printed out lyrics, because they all loved when I brought in music. I still wonder what he made of Stevie Wonder's "What the Fuss," or "Plastic Bag" from Mike Ladd's "In What Language."

I look into the faces of the immigrants I pass in the street and in restaurants and delis looking for a familiar face. I wonder if they have found their way or if life's circumstances continue to challenge them every step of the way... I think of my privileged life and the opportunities and options that are stretched before me like gems on a mirrored platter. I forget, far too often, to be grateful for the luxury of choice.

amo Molotov

Now why don't you look down
to where your feet is planted.
That U.S. soil that makes you take shit for granted.
If not for Santa Ana, just to let you know
that where your feet are planted would be Mexico.
¡Correcto!

iraqi woman and a cup of coffee

Copied this excerpt from an article in the ny times back in 2002 as the u.s. was on the cusp of moving in to occupy iraq. I thought the war was a disaster then. Just how great a disaster we had no idea.

I still think of this woman occasionally and when i remember, i say a prayer for her.

I don't know what made me think of her today. Perhaps knowing that for five years now, i can walk into any hair salon and "pamper" myself. Knowing that they'll offer me a cup of good coffee and i'll sit, waiting, with a "woman's magazine" on my lap, my only source of stress at that moment deciding whether to try a new hairstyle or not. Knowing that for some inexplicable reason, i am "entitled" to this indulgence because my country has the strongest weapons to ensure that its women remain pampered (and passive).

I hope this smart, brave doctor has found that quiet place to sit and read a woman's magazine and drink her coffee.

"At the Ibn Al Balady hospital for mothers and children, Dr. Alhan Rashid, chief of pediatrics, gave a tour that included a stop near six incubators, most more than 10 years old, for premature babies. They cannot be replaced, she said, because of the penalties. ''They are working half and half,'' she said. A cautious woman, she sidestepped as too political any questions about how the hospital might be preparing for war: there is a generator, she allowed, and it is tested regularly. While referring any specific questions to a psychiatric hospital, she said the pressure in Iraq was hurting the nation's health.

''Always this talking about war -- war, war, war,' she said. 'It is bad for people.''

She did not want to talk about anything other than medicine or the penalties, but in the end she did. Nothing would make her happier, she said, than a flow of magazines and books, not the cheaply printed pirate versions, from the rest of the world. ''I like to read a very beautiful book,'' she said. ''I like to read novels and magazines.

'I like to read Women's Own and People to know what is going on outside of the country,' she added.

To top it off, she would like to read them and relax with a cup of coffee. ''That is very nice,'' she said."