Well, even though the elections didn’t go the way I had hoped, I say Happy Thanksgiving for to all Americans, along with the wish for all of our lives to get better. I have decided to try to keep a dairy only the Daily Kos so see if I can expand the orbit of my life just a little. So here goes
I wish Happy Thanksgiving to the America in which I was raised. Being 52, I remember things that youngsters have only probably read about. Some good; some not so good, but throughout it all, I was proud to be American, something which I have not felt for 8 or 9 years.
I was raised in a little town called Santa Rosa. When I went outside to play the air smelled like trees and flowers and grass. I didn’t think about how blue the sky was, because it just was. We were warned not to talk to strangers, and to always say please and thank you when we were guests. The politics were not much different than today, the issues were in some way similar, but the intensity, the speed which issues are brought to our attention, and the language and the stakes were different. We were warned about the ‘bomb’ and the ‘Reds’. There was loud yelling about the end of the world or people fomented fear about that the young people were going to ruin America, and the liberals were going poison the averages American’s purity.
My Dad had to cross over the kids who were protesting at the college he taught at because of the War. Luckily, they liked my Dad because he was against the war as well. He and my Mom told us the truth as they knew it. My father was a Historian, and both were called Kennedy Democrats and instilled a faith the United States Government was a part of our family. A relative who sometimes needed our help, but more often than not helped all Americans, sometimes with an unseen hand, behind the scenes, and sometimes seen in various ways, various personalities, and uniforms.
Now when I go outside, when my kids are outside the smell of flowers or the trees or grass are not there, what wafts though our olfactory system are fumes from the local Fast Food joint, or the vapors of gasoline, often the smell is unrecognizable, unnatural. If I’m lucky, when I walk my dog in the park, I smell a hint of pine or elm for just moments. The day sky looks strange to me, I can’t put my finger on it, and it’s not just that it’s not as blue or the clouds do not catch my imagination. Perhaps it’s the traffic or trails of the traffic in the atmosphere. But I know exactly what strong with the night sky, the stars cannot be seen because of all the lights of the cities, town and hamlets.
And the American Government, that has suffered as well as the environment. And people, Americans, they have changed in a way I could never have imagined. I except human beings to change, that’s just a given, but this is powerfully different and not in a good way. I have to think how I can articulate my feelings about those facts. I know one thing, I won’t have any answers to make it all better. I learned as a mother things can only seem to be made ‘all better’ by a kiss, a thought or a word.
The world changes: That is just a plain fact. Humans get older and the orbit of our lives sometimes seems smaller, sometime seems larger. My history, the things I want to write about define the orbit I have taken, and maybe will somewhat alter my present and future trajectory.