ON DREAMERS

After six months of silence, I finally have something to say.

I woke early this morning, after a phone call at two pm yesterday telling me my father has "days to weeks" to live, and as I waited for the coffee to brew I sat on the front porch thinking.

It was overcast and the sun, not yet up, was already lighting the sky and there was a lazy wind blowing the clouds across the sky, and I sat watching the clouds~ a Pegasus, a bear, an Indian Squaw with her pap-pus, and I remembered laying in the grass as a girl waiting to see what shape and form the clouds would take next and how on occasions it would be my father instead of my sister laying there beside me looking up.

That's when It occurred to me.

My mother is the practical one, the glue that holds us all together, and it was she who gave my sister and I roots, no small feat when you consider we moved about once every year, yet somehow she managed it. And our roots run deep. We know who we are and where we come from and what home and family loyalty mean.

Our roots run deep indeed and they are strong, strong enough to sustain us through the storms life blows our direction.

But it is my father who taught us to dream. He gave us the branches that reach towards the sky, to believe, to try, and though I fail to follow my dreams bravely, it is because of him I dare to dream at all.

I never thought of my dad as a dreamer, but he is, and has been his entire life.

He dared to believe in a better world, in doing his part to make it better, he even had the audacity to hold to his ideals. He followed his dreams and took great risks to make them into realities, and without one single lecture about following our dreams, he taught us how to do exactly that.

God knows where he would have landed if he hadn't been dragging a small town Kansas Main and saw a girl he just had to talk to, for she has been the power behind the dreamer all these years.

But he did, and after less than three minutes worth of conversation, once back in his car, the promise of a date the following night successfully procured, declared to his buddy that he was going to marry that girl.

And so he did.

And now, just a few weeks shy of their golden anniversary, it is time to kiss the dreamer good bye.

Though he is soon to leave us, he leaves behind a legacy of dreamers pursuing their dreams.

A grand-daughter living in Korea, living her dream of other lands and different cultures.

A grand-son serving his country, loving his wife and child, seeing other places and different lands.

A second grand-son standing proudly on his high school pitcher's mound, working towards a college scholarship and ball playing, knowing he can become whatever he dreams with hard work and steadfast focus on his dream.

All three the product of a practical woman and a dreamer.

ON BEING CHRISTIAN

Yesterday a young woman at work expressed her surprise to hear me mention God.

"I just never took you for a Christian," she stated.

We don't know each other very well. She is nineteen and full of the rowdy faith of the untested. A rookie in life's game. She talks a lot, and listens rarely, and we encounter each other only in passing.

I did not take offense to her comment, but I did take exception.

It is true enough, I do not wear Jesus as an overcoat, do not advertise my faith on the walls of my home, nor do I stand on the street corners handing out tracts. I will always wish you a good day but never a blessed one, and through the years my speech has become peppered with expletives of a more raw nature.

I also find it very difficult to hide my disdain for the superciliously religious among us and find them to be, to borrow a quote from Joyce Myers(Yes, Chelsea, I know who she is.)so heavenly minded they are no earthly good.

So, no, you will not find me standing under a flashing neon Jesus sign wearing a 'what would Jesus do?' T-shirt. However, do not make Chelsea's mistake and throw me into the heathen hole, for I no more fit there than I do the ultra conservative Christian one.

Sit with me a while, share your challenges, your fears, your dreams and you will find God at the heart of any advice I impart for he is the core of who I am.

When I was a very young girl, running from my fear of hell's fire, seeking God as an escape route, he showed me his love. It was this love that set my fears to rest and this love I have trusted through out the years.

During years of confusion and false guilt, when I could no longer find my way, his hand patiently lead me back home, back to him, back to grace.

At the end of my marriage, when all that remained of me were bloody, mangled bits and parts, he bundled me up, lovingly sat with me, even as I pushed him away, and gently put me back together, one jagged, shard at a time.

When my daughter left home at seventeen in an angry teen-aged huff, and my mother and sister assisted her rebellion-the worst betrayal I have ever known-it was God who reached down and pulled me back to my feet. It was his arm on which I leaned, his strength from which I drew the courage to keep going.

In the middle of my darkest night when lose and grief were threatening to take me down, when all I wanted was the pain to stop, when I had reached the end of myself, my strength, my will to live, it was his name I screamed. It was his faithfulness which answered and gave me the assurance I needed to survive.


You will not find me in a church on Sunday, but you will find me at the homeless shelter, sweeping, cooking, cleaning, talking, listening as people open their hearts.

I will never stand on a street corner yelling scripture to the masses, but I will sit and rock tiny, sick babies whose mom's and dad's are too sick either physically or emotionally to do the job their selves.

You will not hear me randomly quoting Christian platitudes to life's struggles, but you will hear me encouraging inner-city school kids to read their poetry, to tell their truths through verse and rhyme.

You will rarely hear me quoting scripture to the life problems you face, but you will feel me sitting silently beside you, my arm across your shoulder for as long and as often as you need.

Christian?

Well, I'll let him be the judge of that.

When I look in the mirror, I see a sinner. No better, no worse than any other, saved by grace, shaped by love.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I'll see you in the New Year.

ON THE SANDSTORMS OF MY LIFE

"Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

An you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."
— Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)

Thanksgiving was spent alone, curled up in a tight ball of fever and illness.

My children were alone as well, Elizabeth in Korea, and Michael in a bar in San Diego, where he celebrated his one year anniversary in the navy with a friend from boot-camp who he ran into unexpectedly.

My extended family spent the day in Alabama tending to the details of saying goodbye to my aunt, my mother's last remaining family member of any consequence, who passed away early Monday morning, after a seven week struggle with cancer.

Ah cancer. The great equalizer. Everyone gasps when hearing its name in connection with their life.

It is the opponent we each hope to never have to face, and yet most, in one way or another, will.

I am at the end of my battle with this Goliath, on the other side of this sandstorm in my life, and I am changed. In ways, both small and large, I am no longer the person who first stepped in, closed her eyes and plugged her ears. I made it through, and the person who stepped out from the storm is not the same who stepped in.

The changes are all encompassing, physical, emotional, and mental.

My arms seem permanently bruised from needles inserted to deliver the medicines meant to cure me. An angry line of sores march down my tongue from tip to throat. My hair is thin, dull, and lifeless, but, I do still have hair, small wonder. I am thirty-eight pounds lighter, which trust me, is not a bad thing, and I have lost all feeling in my feet.

My tolerance for BS is at an all time low. I no longer posses the ability to smile silently while watching as others are stepped on or treated with disrespect. I can no longer hear what others say, I can only see what they do. I've lost my patience with those who are careless with the feelings of others.

As I said at the start of this post, Thanksgiving was not good this year. In fact, it was the worst I've ever known, yet, in the mist of setbacks, death of a loved one, separation from the ones I love most, and silence, I found more to be grateful for this year than any other.

I was sick. I was lonely. I hurt. I felt alone. I WAS alone. I mourned. I was sad. But, I was still here!

I AM STILL HERE!

I live in a small room in my parent's home, but I am able to volunteer with the homeless instead of living with them.

I am separated from my children, a reality that can bring me to my knees some days, but my children are leading lives they love, taking pride in work they find fulfilling. They are healthy and reasonably happy, and though I am separated from them, it is life which separates us, not death.

My work is hard and the pay is obnoxiously low, with no benefits, but in the middle of one of the worst economic times, I have a place to go Monday through Friday and a pay check at the end of each two weeks time. And though the work is hard, it is important and brings to me a sense of purpose and the knowledge that in very small ways, in very small lives, I do make a difference.

I am sometimes disappointed by my friends, but never in them.

Life, with all its painful, horrid moments is amazing and wonderful, and as I laid curled, alone in the dark Thanksgiving day, I gave thanks, because the biggest change this storm has made is given me an internal recognition of just how much we are given every single day of our lives.

Even the ones that really, really suck.

I hope you find much to give thanks for every day of your life.

ON YEATS

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths.

Enwrought with golden and silver light.

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half light.

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dream;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

ON HOME

Giving birth is the start of the great leaving.

For a time and space you are completely connected to another life, theirs completely dependent on yours, even sharing one blood supply, truly two as one, until it is time for them to leave you. It is with tremendous pain and great labor that the two are separated and into this world another enters. Small and helpless they continue to look to you for their survival, but they grow, begin to take control of their own, teetering little steps towards your outstretched arms, their eyes locked on yours, yours encouraging, cheering them on until they stumble safely against your chest laughing with accomplishment, safe in your protective arms.

Too soon, steady legs keep pace with your own as they step across the threshold of their very first classroom, their small hand clinging tightly to yours, until you place that precious hand into the hand of another, uncertain eyes looking back at yours, pleading with you not to leave them behind. The pain of that first leaving returns and fills your heart as you walk away trusting another to leave behind their own imprint on this life now so dear to yours.

Somewhere along the way of this great departure, their eyes turn and begin to look outward, away from you, towards all the possibilities lying beyond the small, safe world created for their well being, and they step towards all the possibilities, stopping at first to glance back for reassurance and advice until one day they turn to find oceans and continents separating them from you and it seems the great departure is complete.

But, whispers from home drift in and out of their hearts, and one day you both realize home isn't walls and a roof, home are the people who share your memories. Home is the heartbeat you knew before you knew anything else. Home are the ones you love.

This week my home is coming home and for a eight days I will breath them in, I will wake early to watch them sleep and stay up late to hear their thoughts, their plans, their hurts, their successes, and then, once again, with pride and great pain I will watch them go, but I will know they take home back home with them in their memories and in their hearts, and they will leave a bit of home behind to keep me company.

ON LOVE

I teach four and five-year-olds. I love the way their brains work. People underestimate them. They are sharp.

This week I had surgery to remove four pesky little tumors who've been giving me rather a hard time of it lately. The day before I went in, I walked into a classroom full of love. The children had brought me presents and flowers and cards. There were Band-Aid decorated cupcakes and strawberry ice-cream, my favorite, a fact one mother took the time and bother to learn.

I got some pretty good stuff. Books, Starbucks gift cards, CD's, and movies, but my favorite gift by far was a well-worn green and pink frog.

Mr. Kroakers.

He belongs to one of the little girls in my class. He's seen her through some pretty tough times. Been with her since she was tiny, not that she all that much bigger now, given to me because, "You need him more then me right now, Ms. Pamela."

I struck a deal with her, I would take ol' Mr. Kroakers home with me, but only on loan, 'til I'm feeling better, then back to her he goes.

Mr. Kroakers greeted me when I woke up in the hospital. His goofy little smile and all the love he represents made me smile.

Thank you, Mikayla for Mr. Kroakers, he really helped a lot.

ON THE THINGS THAT DIVIDE AND SEPARATE

It seems for as long as there have been societies of people there have been talks of the poor, the haves and the have nots, talks which serve only to divide and separate us.

I have long had a heart for the poor. I walk in poor circles. I am the poor, falling within the national guidelines, my earnings are considered poverty level.

Still, I supported myself and two children for eight years alone, without help. A feat I am proud of.

Life took a turn for me and I find myself now back at home with my parents. My belongings in a storage unit, my entire world now occupying a room 16X18 feet squared, filled with the leftover bits and bobs of other people's lives.

I am ill. Not fatally so, but seriously, and I go to the community hospital for treatments and my father drives me.

A few weeks back, after my treatments, I got back into the car with my father and listened as he went on about the homeless people he had spent the morning observing. They seek refuge at the hospital. He talked about the waste of their lives, and the disgrace which is theirs for allowing their lives to come to such dire circumstance, and after he finished his speech, I could not stay silent.

"Dad, these people you are talking about, these people you hold in such poor regard, these people are me."

"How in the world can you say that?"

"It is the truth. Can you not see that?"

"You are nothing like these people, Pamela, nothing at all like them."

"Dad, the only thing standing between me and the streets, are you and mom."

"NO! That is not true!"

And though I did not have the heart to continue to argue with him, I knew he was wrong and I right.

The statistics are staggering.

One out of eight people in America are homeless. That's 35 million people.

1.4 million of those without homes are children.

Families with children are the fastest growing category of homeless making up 38% of it's population.

40% of homeless men have served in the US armed forces.

22% of the homeless have serious psychiatric disorders.

One out of three Americans not on the streets are living asset poor, which is to say they lack the assets to survive three months were they to lose their earning ability.

The majority of poor are working poor. Most work two and three jobs to try and get ahead, try to keep their heads above the water, and are like I was, quite literally, three paychecks away from the streets.

I make it a habit to connect with folks who view the world through a different lens than I, believing it is important to stay aware of the other side, to meet regularly with those who hold vastly different views from my own, and the attitude I hear over and over again pertaining to the poor among us is one of disdain, like my father, a mindset that says they must have done something to deserve it, and I get it, get their need to say this. It is two fold I think.

First, if we blame the poor for their plight it leaves us free to continue our lives uninterrupted and unaffected. If we actually saw the problem and acknowledge it, we might then be compelled to do something about it, and we are, after all, leading very busy, productive lives. We made good choices. WE have OUR shit together.

Secondly, if we stopped and acknowledged that perhaps many of our poor, our homeless, are people just like us, hard-working, blue-collared, family-valued people who, by no fault of their own, find their lives up-ended, then we must accept the fact that this too could happen to us, and if we were to accept this fact suddenly life gets very serious and cold. It is easier to believe that if one takes steps A,B, and C, one gets to D and avoids E, F, and G. The illusion of control brings comfort. I fully understand that, however, this is a comfort I firmly believe our nation can no longer afford to hold.

It has become impossible for me to sit smiling when I hear someone say, no workie no eatie. It is glib. It is arrogant. It is a dangerous and ignorant mind set.

Since I was fifteen-years-old I have worked for money. I have never been without a job of some sort except for the last three months of my pregnancy with my daughter and the last four with my son, due to complications which required me to be on bed rest . For the past ten years, I've worked two jobs and went to school, so please, do not talk to be about hard work. I know hard work. I know days that start at two am and end at ten or eleven pm, going from job one, to job two, and then on to job three, raising two kids the best I could in all my spare time.

Save your glib arrogance for the country club crowd and come take a walk with me, let me show you the women I know, women just like myself who want the best for their kids. Who get up everyday and work long. hard hours, taking them away from their kids in the early morning hours and returning them late at night, their bodies tired and sore and not enough hours left to get the proper amount of sleep before their lives require them to rise and do it all over again. Come and sit at my friends' table, share a cup of coffee and some hard truths with them, then look into their faces and repeat, no workie no eatie.

Go ahead.

I dare you.

The cold hard facts are 1.4 million of our nations children will fall asleep in a car, in a shelter, or on the streets tonight.

What will you do about it?

SURVIVING THE AMERICAN DREAM

by Pamela Black

Credit

won't get me far,

living

out of a car,

dreaming

under the stars,

smothered by poverty

No one

can see my pain,

make-up

helps hide its shame,

lifetime

of dirty stains,

painted by poverty.

Paying

for others' crimes,

knocked down

too many times,

trying

to toe the lines,

laid down by poverty.

Good life

now there's a game,

surviving

is not the same,

trying

to just stay sane,

choking on poverty.

Rebirth

the preacher said,

tired

of lies I'm fed,

fresh starts

are all but dead,

drowning in poverty.