Emotional Calm

Ok, so I like to think I have emotional calm. Believe me, dear God, I really want it. Where are you, inner calm, so illusive? Why is so much in life in need of attention? Why do I have 8 animals in my care? That little bitch Susamina gets out at every single opportunity. Does she not know coyotes love to suck the marrow out of her small petite bones? Does she not know her boundaries are only for her own good? Damn boundaries. Boundaries interfere with my emotional calm, to tie it in here.....
There is a slight balance to be achieved in life and where does it exist?
I have had one HELL of a week and would appreciate never having one like it again. My emotional calm was challenged.
I did spend the sunset with my family at Emma Wood though and that made life a bit more beautiful.
My firecracker Molly has a fever and snotty noes. I am not sure why (I am assuming undisclosed flu/cold like ailments), but she woke crying a few times last night. I gave her motrin, but she continued to fuss, almost a whiny fake, pay attention to me Mom cry after being asleep for almost a hour. So I put on the Beatles and I sang. I still suck at singing, but I still really like it. I always feel bad for he kid's in my classes with my singing. I enjoy it though, so much, as well as whistling. I enjoy whisting, drumming too, harmonica too, shakers, whatever ends in my hands, making music. Making music was not done in my house when I was raised. We had it in the car, and sometimes on the record player or 8 track, but to make it was not encouraged. So, I digress, but I sang to Molly, and she stopped whatever her whining issue was and lay still and rested, eventually slept, to me, singing the Beatles. She rocked at the beach though (as Beth would say). Today, she had a three hour nap and Molly does not nap. She ran, played shoveled and laid on the rocks like a lizard. Connor and I, and Byron in and out, did s a puzzle while Molly was napping. The darn thing was 300 pieces of the States and their capitals. I re-familiarized myself with it, just in case it comes up sometimes in class.
Going now, to bed, to bath, to play, to visit, to whatever I want because I want to.
Happy Saturday and Happy Easter, to those practicing humans.
Love live the spirit of Jesus Christ!!!

Calm

Newsweek Article, an interview with the Dalai Lama excerpt:

Some images of the recent casualties have been graphic and disturbing. Have you seen them? What was your reaction? We heard you wept.
Yes, I cried once. One advantage of belonging to the Tibetan Buddhist culture is that at the intellectual level there is a lot of turmoil, a lot of anxiety and worries, but at the deeper, emotional level there is calm. Every night in my Buddhist practice I give and take. I take in Chinese suspicion. I give back trust and compassion. I take their negative feeling and give them positive feeling. I do that every day. This practice helps tremendously in keeping the emotional level stable and steady. So during the last few days, despite a lot of worries and anxiety, there is no disturbance in my sleep.

Ache

I am really missing my Grandma lately. She pops into my mind very often. I still miss her so much. I am grateful for Molly, another sweet, kind and strong female. I wish Molly could remember her.
I read PostSecret. It is a blog where people anonymously send in their secrets. I can not do it justice by describing the post, but i will try. It is an ultrasound picture of twins. One is named and the other just says girl. The writing says: She is only three weeks old, but I lose sleep thinking about how I will have to tell her one day how her twin sister did not make it.
I sent the card to my friend Rebecca, who was close to me when I was pregnant with Molly and her sister and she hit the nail on the head. It felt like a punch in the gut. Ouch.

Women & Courage

This is the story of our Grandmothers, and Great-grandmothers, as they lived only 90 years ago. It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards

grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?

Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO 's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use--or don't use--my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'

HBO released the movie on video and DVD. I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.'

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.
We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for
by these very courageous women . Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party - remember to vote.



****This is not my writing, FYI, I plagiarized.