Years ago, driving home from the college in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania where I taught Spanish, I was overtaken by an immense sadness. I had the idea that something major threatened, a storm, one of those earthquakes that destroy everything. On the other hand, on my way to work I had passed a row of flowering trees, something so beautiful, that I almost fell to my knees, crying, breathless. At the time, my five children were far away. But in the long run, children are always far away, involved in their own things. And that is as it should be; five separate lights in a twirling planet.
I live now, as I did then, in constant activity, between causes and my music, and unceasing political activism. Sometimes I am so very tired... Because every day now, as then, there is a new disaster. Jim reminds me that our job is to do what needs to be done, without an expectation of results.
But my question, always, was and is why are some of us "bleeding hearts"? In a world going to hell, why aren't more people outraged, joining a revolution, going on a general strike? What moves me to scream, sing, mobilize people; is it the result of a chemical "imbalance," such a wonderful explanation in our times?
At home, there are constant attacks on the working class, on the programs that constitute a contract between our generation and the generations past and future. There are so many wars that one loses count; outrages particularly against children, the Palestinian children, the Iraqi children... Unending propaganda, the tea party on the march, with its prejudices against anything different. A continuing attack on the environment, brutal laws against minorities, immigrants, the poor... Every day more poor roaming the streets, without health insurance, more people that do not have enough to eat, or where to eat it, in a country that throws away, on a yearly basis, billions of dollars in weaponry, with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the entire planet, again and again and again, ad infinitum.
Outside the trees are flowering; the sunsets are breathtaking, walking along the San Leandro Marina. My daughter’s new baby, Dax, smiles in Culver City. Emma is singing somewhere, and Anna is pondering the varieties of fish, while Liam and Cameron are dreaming in game language.
At the wedding maybe we will have boleros, maybe an inspired violinist playing something or other. And later on, we will visit Cuba together. I have always missed my native land; I cry when I see photographs, so I have warned Jim that I will be one of those people that kisses the ground when the plane lands. I want to go before the Florida vultures invade the island and fill it with Walmarts and McDonalds...
I continue breathing the music and the trees. This has been a good week. Song, music, sunlight, and everywhere you look, flowers and other growing things.
As Rilke said, I want to keep my demons, because with them live my angels too. Outside, there are always new flowers.
This, then, is life, bitter and sweet, or, as the song says, quite simply life. I am in love with a man and with life. This has been a very good week.
