I Resolve...

Well number one I resolve to write on my blog more! I am thoroughly ashamed that i haven't posted here since September. My most important new year's resolution for 2007 is to get back to my writing, both here and on my novel. But why should this time be any different than the previous six months, when my writing has been half-hearted at best? Well, aside from the idea of not doing what I said I was gonna do one year ago, which is just not acceptable, I made another momentous decision this past week, after having a momentous epiphany that woke me up in the middle of the night and slapped me upside my knucklebrain head.

Something is bothering me. And that something is blocking me from getting down to the nitty gritty and truly writing "naked," which is the only kind that counts. I've realized that I'm afraid to write what I'm really thinking and feeling, afraid to admit what's really roiling around in there. So I made an appointment to see someone -- a professional -- to help me sort out what the deal is.

As i said when I started this blog, I feel like I'm going through some major changes in my life as I approach 50. My kids are almost grown and I have a lot more freedom to do what i want with my time. I enjoy my work and look forward to new professional challenges this year, and feel like in that area the sky's the limit now. At the same time, I plan to consciously control how much time I spend working for pay and devote at least equal time to finishing my novel. I'm so excited about that!

But with this new freedom and lots of new choices has come a restlessness and searching for something, a dissatisfaction with the status quo. I've reacted to this strange sensation, which has been building for the past couple of years, in a number of ways. I've exercised like a maniac and pushed myself in road races and a mini-triathlon; I'm now signed up to run a marathon the day before my b-day in March. I've travelled a lot more than usual -- took a photography course in Florence, Italy; went to Paris with my mom; went to Egypt this fall; and am going to Haiti where my church has a sister parish in March. While I no longer actually GO to church, I really love this committee and the work it's done, building two schools, a church, a health clinic, and now brining clean water to 30,000 people in the village of Medor. I am a proud member of the latrine committee, and that's our next project -- giving 6000 families an outhouse/latrine of their own.

So that's all good. But it hasn't made the restless, jumping-out-of-my-skin, there's-gotta-be-something-more feeling go away. It's hard to explain, and I probably sound like a spoiled brat since i have a great life, healthy kids, good job, happy family and what more could anyone want. Everyone knows once you have good health, a roof over your head and food on the table, all the rest is gravy.

But I feel like a phony, like I'm play-acting most of the time. I feel like a rebel without a cause, pissed off sometimes about nothing but the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm doing, or why.

So that's my plan for 2007 -- to figure out why, to stop being afraid, and to write about it in the novel that I will finish before this year ends. Oh, and also work toward world peace. Amen.

Back to my Novel

OK, so I've completely digressed from the main reason for this blog -- seeking inspiration for my novel. I get sidetracked by my continuing outrage with the current administration, the weakness of the Democratic party (why don't they fight back, for god's sake?!), and my issues with faith and politics.

But back to writing. I met a woman ( a Rhode Islander, one of my people, yeah!) online this week through a mutual friend, who has self-published two novels, won an award for one of them, and is now teaching other aspiring writers how to do the same. She edits and critiques manuscripts, conducts writing classes, and offers seminars in self-publishing and how to turn your writing into a business, as she has. I love her!

Just having a few e-conversations with her has inspired me to get back to my story and stick to some kind of routine. After all, I can't show her my chapters if I haven't written them. So here I go. Check out her website -- she's amazing. Yeah Hannah!

http://www.hannahrgoodman.com/index.php

What's god got to do with it?

Went on a 20-mile bikeride yesterday -- the mall and monuments tour -- and as we were going by the White House there was a huge rally in LaFayette Square by Arabs protesting the situation in Lebanan, as well as in Iraq and with the Palestinians. Many wore bumper stickers on their backs that said I (heart) Beirut.

I also saw many large banners with sayings from the Koran about justice and peace. And I've gotta tell ya, while I have the strongest sympathy for the Arabs in all of these conflicts, I think using their religious beliefs to elicit sympathy and support won't be very successful.

Each side claims it is right and is the biggest victim here. Israel believes it is under constant seige from people who have stated over and over that they want to obliterate the country, and that it doesn't even have the right to exist. The Arabs are enraged by the Palenstinian struggle, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They believe their bible urges them to rid the region of infidels and they will be rewarded in heaven. Meanwhile they're slaughtering each other daily in Iraq because of different versions of that very same religion.

Despite that, and although Hezbollah did start things by kidnapping two soldiers, Israel's extreme overreaction is unconscionable.

The Christian right sides with the Jews because it firmly believes the rapture is coming and it will take place in Israel. So they cynically support the Jews against the Arabs, but think only they will be lifted up to heaven during the rapture because THEY are the truly righteous ones.

Political leaders (including Bush and his cronies) use religion and fear to further their own true ends, which are always land, money and power. Just look how rich and powerful Bush and the “Christian” right have become.

In the end, hundreds of thousands of innocent people -- mostly poor women and children -- continue to suffer and die, and war still seems to be the only answer. It's hard to believe we're still fighting and killing each other, as we've been doing for millenia, without learning any new lessons.

If everyone, especially political leaders, would just leave God out of it, and focus on the effects on human beings, on how we live together, how we treat each other, on what is right and on how to really achieve peace, maybe we could begin to solve these longstanding problems. As Sam Harris pointed out in his great book, The End of Faith, history and the present day shows that God is the problem, not the solution in any of these cases.

It seems so obvious. Yet unfortunately not a very popular -- or winning -- political opinion these days.

Amen Amen!

Sister Joan is awesome, and this says it all:

From Where I Stand by Joan Chittister, OSB
Aug. 4, 2006

Vol. 4, No. 15

What a couple of weeks this has been!

First we got a presidential veto of legislation designed to enlarge embryonic stem cell research capabilities which begins a major moral discussion for us all.

Then we got the continued pummeling of Lebanon -- men, women and children -- in retaliation for the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers and with the tacit blessing of the United States for the doing of it.

Finally, we're getting signals that Syria might be next in line for U.S. chastisement, no questions asked, no excuses acceptable, no holds barred. Whatever that implies.

And, on top of all of that, British officials and U.S. Pentagon generals warned of the rising threat of civil war in Iraq. British commanders called the next six months "crucial" to the outcome of the war we started there. Which translated means that more lives will be lost.

So what are we to make of all of that? What has happened to the world as we knew it? Has the United States lost its way in the world? And if so, why?

For years we've been saying, "It's the economy, Stupid." And I figured they must be right. Living immersed in the urban poverty around me, I never even thought to look any further for an answer. After all, it's world poverty that so often leads to wars. Give people financial security and we'll all be more secure, right?

But it didn't happen. Instead, things got financially worse and they got militarily worse, as well.

Obviously, the answer to today's social struggles was even bigger than poverty. So, someone else analyzed it differently for us: "It's the American Dream, Stupid," they said. And that seemed to make sense, too. If we could just get to the point again where we all concentrated on living out the dream that had guided U.S. policy for so long, life would be normal again, right?

But, though we have talked about the American Dream in every election for years, society simply goes on deteriorating -- here as well as everywhere else. The poor get poorer. The middle class has stalled. Patriotism has become militarism. Economic success has become corporate greed. And, most troubling of all, morality has become particularized -- which means that some of the Ten Commandments are being taken seriously, but some are not. Some morality is being politicized; most is not.

Evolution and cloning and same-sex marriage and abortion have become legislative hallmarks of U.S. morality. Torture and preemptive war, lack of universal health insurance, disregard for the care of the elderly and the welfare fraud of the wealthy (called tax breaks) are called "social issues," not moral problems. Yet all of those things have to do with the quality of life, the dignity of life and the sacredness of life.

Obviously, the "dream" is getting muddled.

Obviously, the problem is not simply the economy now, not only the diminishment of the dream. The problem now is that "It's inconsistency, Stupid."

We are living with two different moral systems. As a result, we are confused as a nation about who we are and what we do and why.

For instance, the White House announced recently that the president vetoed the bill that would have allowed embryonic stem cell research because "he thinks murder is wrong."

True, the next day, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow changed the language to say that what the President really meant to say was that stem cell research "involves a destruction of human life."

But the situation only proves the point. We are into terminal inconsistency here.

The administration presents itself as moral -- as "pro-life" -- but what does that mean?

The words change from day to day.

The ideas change from day to day.

The policies change from day to day.

The explanations change from day to day.

Inconsistency reigns.

Unfertilized microscopic cells are called "innocent life." The 25,000 Americans they stranded for days in Lebanon under siege are not, it seems.

Innocent or mentally challenged prisoners on death row are not considered defensible at all.

The 14,000 Iraqi citizens killed since January -- by us, because of us -- in this great war of liberation, are, apparently, not lives worth saving.

The people who die from the weapons we so blithely provide to countries around the world under the guise of "foreign aid" and "security" are not.

The babies in the United States that are dying from lack of proper medical care because of lack of universal US medical insurance are not.

The adults whose lives will be shortened because they can't eat well, live well or die well on the present minimum wage are not.

There is something inconsistent about all of this, something so skewed at its moral base that we can't even begin to talk about it rationally.

It's not that embryonic stem cell research is itself a clear-cut moral issue and should automatically be acceptable. In fact, there are lots of reasons to question it -- both one way and another.

Can it add to the quality of life of those innocents who are already living in great pain or disability? It certainly seems so.

But, on the other hand, will it also lead to "laboratory pregnancies" for the sole purpose of harvesting embryos for research? Surely it could.

Will it lead to pregnancy for hire? It's naive to say it won't.

Could it lead to petrie dish experimentation designed to produce monsters as well as healthy life? Of course it could.

Will it lead to black market activities for cells -- as is now the case with organ transplants? More than likely.

But that's not the point. The point is that when you are making life and death decisions on the basis of what life is "innocent life" and what is not, you are treading a very fine line. In fact, you are stretching what has now become an extremely tenuous concept, the very definition of life itself.

From where I stand, it seems that it is time to stop the glib answers and face the real question: What exactly is 'life?' Is it only "potential" life that must be absolutely protected, that is the only really 'innocent' life, or must the same standards apply to the living? And if so, what does that mean to our economic policies, our foreign policies, our social policies and "The American Dream" of life and liberty for all?

Until we answer these questions, how can we ever possibly arrive again at any kind of stable and universal moral standards -- no matter what we call ourselves?

Catholic Hall of Shame

After a lifelong struggle to hold onto my faith, I recently became an official -- and permanently -- lapsed Catholic. On top of the usual questions and skepticism about whether some supreme being could possibly have a hand in the senseless wars and poverty and cruelty in the world, the ongoing and relentless pedophelia scandal was the final basket of straws. Check out the latest:

http://www.ncrnews.org/abuse/

Unbelievable! And these are supposed to be the good guys -- lord help us.

Exercise!

Exercise is one of the keys to happiness, IMHO. It is not a chore, it is a gift! If you make it a priority, like work or any other must-do thing, and do it every day, or almost every day, you will feel better, look better, BE healthier and avoid depression, low energy, etc. If possible, do it for an hour and do it outside, where you can also watch the seasons change and get the sun on your head, with its vitamin D benefits. And mix it up -- do cardio, running, weights, games, biking, swimming, power walking -- use your muscles!!

Sign up for races so you have a goal to work toward, and one more reason to get out of bed early. You can't believe how many people do this. I often look around the crowd and think, shoot, if this guy or that woman can do this, I can do it!

And check out this website: www.bodybyginny.com. This woman has transformed entire neighborhoods in Arlington, McLean and Vienna, VA with her brand of boot-camp style exercise classes. There's even a sample workout. Yeah, Ginny!

Two down, one to go, Part 2

The two-down reference (see previous post) is to the fact that my second child, who turns 17 in a week, is on an amazing adventure of her own in Cairo, Egypt. She and a friend are visiting one of my oldest and best buddies who works at the American University in Cairo. She is graciously hosting the girls, and has arranged for them to take basic Arabic lessons every morning, and work with Sudanese refugees at a nearby church in the afternoons. Aside from that, they'll visit the pyramids, souks, Muslim and Christian Cairo (two very different day-long tours, apparently) and go to a resort that looks like Shangri La on the Red Sea. They'll also visit her friend's large extended family in Malaga, Spain for a week after Cairo.

My daughter plans to interview the refugees, learn about the nightmare in Darfur and write about it for her college entrance essay when she returns. She'll also be exposed to a level of injustice and human misery she surely couldn't conceive of before, which I think most teenagers, and in fact most clueless Americans, would do well to see.

So that leaves my youngest daughter, the feistiest of them all, who finishes school in a week and will go off to the same camp as her oldest sister for the month of July. My husband and I will have ten days without kids before the middle one returns from overseas to work for the rest of the summer.

These short empty nest trials are a good thing. It takes a while to get used to the eerie quiet and realization each night that we don't have to wait up or check on anyone. There's a weird lonely feeling, even though we've yearned for this type of freedom so many times over the years. There's also undeniably a sense of total freedom. I don't have to come home after work, don't have to attend sports or school functions or drive anyone anywhere, don't have to make dinner if I don't feel like it, can go downtown or to a movie or wherever I bloody well want.

But what DO I want? What now?? That's the interesting and somewhat/sometimes troubling question...

Two down, one to go

My oldest child graduated from high school on the first of this month. Due to a serious bout of senioritis, this normally good student just quit doing the work and barely passed her final semester. After all the the other things I've worried about most of her life -- and I excel at worrying! -- this was unexpected and most unwelcome. When she walked down the aisle at the National Shrine with her perfectly straightened hair and big smile, I felt far more relief than pride!

So we came home, had a party, she packed up the next day and went off to her job as a camp counselor for the rest of the summer. In August she'll be home for a couple of days and then off TO COLLEGE. All my worrying about her grades obscured this important fact until she drove away and I walked by her room, now empty but for some boxes to be stored in the attic. Ohmygod, she's gone!! Every time it hit me for the next week I burst into tears, including in public and while lying awake in the middle of the night. This child who has been my constant companion, physically, mentally and emotionally for almost 19 years has flown the coop and all I could think was, "There are so many things I still haven't told her. So many things I forgot to share!"

Of course, she hasn't exactly been an open, willing receptacle for my many pearls of knowledge these past few years. In fact, her most frequent expression lately was, "OK, can you stop talking now, you're annoying me." For some reason -- probably those pesky traits of independent thinking and rising to a challenge that I've tried to beat out of her all these years, ha ha -- she just wasn't dying to hear all my sage advice and warnings of what to avoid as she sets out on this new adventure -- go figure!

So I've decided to begin a penpal relationship with my daughter, almost assuredly one-way. I'm going to write her a nice long letter once a week, the old fasioned way, with pen and paper. That way I can express myself to my heart's content, share all my hopes and dreams for her in a nonthreatening way that she can't interrupt. And she can enjoy getting a real letter in the mail (a rarity anymore) and regale her friends with how crazy her mother is. She already told me to keep it clean as she intends to share them with her pals -- apparently even my emails have been a source of great amusement during her summers at camp. Last year, when she started dating a fellow counselor, I sent several frantic emails about remembering who she was, not doing anything she wasn't absolutely comfortable with, and above all being careful. She responded with lots of LOL's, called me psycho and said they had only been going out for two days so I could relax. But you can never be too careful or proactive, that's what I always say!

Here's a friend's theory about sex for busy people with longtime mates. What do you think? I'm putting it in my novel so you read it here first...

Oranges

For many women and even some men, sex is like an orange. Did you ever
pick up an orange and think, "I should eat this orange, because I like
oranges and they're so good for you. But it's such a pain to peel the
whole thing and tear off all the white stuff and break it into wedges.
And the juice will run and my hands will get sticky and messy. And then
I have to clean it all up -- it's just not worth the trouble."

But then you do peel it and pick off all the white stuff and break it
into pieces. And when you pop one in your mouth and the fresh juicy
tangy-sweet flavor explodes like a little firecracker, you think,
"Man, I really DO love oranges. I should eat them more often!"

Interesting feedback -- thanks, DZ and Inyda -- one sees salvation in a good martini, the other in a good workout. Of course, most of us already do both, and for good reason. Just got back from my morning boot camp and the endorphins are flowing -- there's no better way to start the day. As much as I hate dragging my warm and very comfy butt out of bed at 5:05 most mornings, when I get back at 7:00 I always feel better -- full of energy and ready for the day -- than if I had slept for those two hours. On the days I skip, I usually wish I had gotten up.

That said, there's no substitute when hashing out the meaning of life, or just trashing it, for drinkypoos with the witches, and you know who you are. You are the awesome, funny, smart, passionate, overwhelmed and hardworking women with whom I LMAO every week and without whom life would be a very gray place. Warning, barf alert: I don't know what I'd do without you guys -- thanks for being so full of fabulosity!

What I really want to say, but might throw up myself, is you guys are the wind beneath my wings lately. Gag, retch! At the Georgetown U. graduation the other day I heard a great commencement speech by Ken Burns. He said he asked friends their advice when he first started getting invited to make such speeches, and one he tries to follow is, "Avoid cliches like the plague." I loved that. I often think in the worst cliches and despair at my highly unoriginal brain. But cliches became cliches for a reason, right? Sometimes it's hard to find a better but new substitute. Ergo, tripe like the above...heartfelt and sickening.

aMUSEme

Friday, May 19, 2006

So I went to a conference at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC today called "Beyond Blogging" -- it was awesome. www.beyondblogging2006.com. I learned that the best way to understand blogs is to create one and use it. I'd been toying with the idea anyway, and want to explore it for the nonprofit organization I work for as well, so here goes:

I am Karen Bate, a P.R. manager in Arlington, VA; aspiring first-time novelist; and mother of three teenaged daughters whose cyberlives I barely comprehend. As one heads off to college in the fall, I must learn to IM as well, since my older (ha ha!) wiser friends tell me that's the only viable way to keep in touch with them once they leave this nest.

But I digress. I hope with this blog to find muses and musings from women of a certain age going through the same life transformation I am -- biologically pre, current or post menapausal, and psychologically either suffering, searching or already enjoying their new "seasoned" selves, as Gail Sheehy so wonderfully calls them. www.gailsheehy.com.

Do you ever feel like you want to jump out of your own skin? Do you wonder if, now that the kids are grown, the career is solid, and the marriage is either going strong, on autopilot or just plain over, this is all there is? Is there a second act? New challenges, new horizons? Or have you already discovered a new passion, a new love, a new life? And how do these changes affect the people around you, your husband, kids, friends, colleagues? What's it all about, Alfie??? And how can I get there without making a complete fool of myself, falling on my face and scandalizing the neighbors?

My novel -- so far nameless -- is about a 40-something mother of three (she does have a name, Liza) who works for a difficult, high-powered woman in DC and juggles the kids, a husband struggling with alcoholism, and her own sense that she's become unmoored. I've based her loosely on a close friend, but also include bits from my own ideas and experiences as well as many others. I think the most fun I've had is listening to -- and suddenly noticing more -- all the great quirks, opinions and takes on life my fabulous friends share with each other all the time. Please weigh in and join the fun. I'll steal your best ideas and take all the credit!