See the Stars.. Especially in the Darkness

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This is not a good day, but a determined day.

Struggle is not putting it mildly, not an easy thing to bear up although you know it is happening to others. It does not do well for me, to know people are having difficulties to & stand there or turn away. It does not encourage me, but I understand & I have great empathy that there are millions, yes million, in one of the richest countries in the world, that may at moment face homelessness, or no power to stay cool or even the price of bus fare to survive.

I have to care for a personal matter that if not address will reverberate for a long time to come and there seems to be at this moment very little in my power to alter it. What I do know is how to be focused and not look to the right or to the left.

My world is crashing around me. Thank God I had a bit of a respite with seeing the family to restore some of my energy otherwise I might have gone screaming into the wood which would not have been a very pretty sight!I saw this quote ironically on a rerun of the TV show Cold Case upon my return done by a young boy who needlessly died due to an accident, but whose death altered in a huge way two other lives.

Apparently he carried this quote around when he felt the greatest fear & unsure that he could do it.
The quote was by Ralph Waldo Emerson "When it is darkest, man sees the stars"... Of course I have to rephrase it now to say the word "woman". since I am looking upward to find those stars.

I think of a comment in the movies The Color Purple where Celie tells Nettie "I don't know how to fight back... All I know is how to stay alive"

I like many others 12 million strong sell off our belongings as much as we possibly can to stay afloat, I think that this is the worst I've ever seen in a number of years. But I am determined. It has to be done.

As I was making this decision and bemoaning my own fate, I look at a 69 year old woman who lives above me that not unlike me, lost everything and sleeping on the floor, not even a plate to have her meal with or a chair to sit on during the day. I share what I had with her. I am saying in both her case & in mine, we've spent a lifetime working, doing the right thing, raising families, having vibrant lives with family & friends only to find ourselves through no fault of our own in the autumn (or if you prefer-late summer :=) like this.

Yet we are not alone, but right now that is not helping. Not ungrateful nor unappreciative, there is simply a bottom line. I am 10 years HER junior & yet I watch this woman get up everyday with determination & mad chutzpah continue to find a way & I can do no less. I will not find myself at age 70 sleeping on a floor nor anyone else if I can help it.

It makes me think of a quote from Susan Taylor in essence saying one of the worst things in this world is "being old, poor, black & female". Its a hardship no one should wish on another . I do not see myself as old. I cannot afford to get old. But I do know how to fight back even when tired, my determination has not abated, it is simple also knowing when it is time to yield to know when it is indeed bigger then yourself.

Where have we come in this world that we can allow things like this to happen? No, I am not talking about government, nor politics, no matter what side of what the fence, pasture, park, suburb or battlefield you may attest to. I am speaking of us as intelligent, capable, caring, loving human beings who know what we must do.

But will we? Without excuses, justifications or denials?

I can say our collective vision as a community & nation are skewered. When we can leave millions to a dog which has no clue (and I am not beating up on people who love their animals), but we can watch people do w/o the basic substances of the day something is wrong. When someone can call themselves "poor" & "suffering" because they had to put their Jaguar in the shop or watch a neighbor throw away boxes of unopened food in the trash w/o a blink of an eye. Or getting that manicure/pedicure/facial & yet see their fellow man do w/o, something is so wrong.

We have to do better...

I have to do better...

We have to become more conscious of our fellow humans that shares the earth with us.

If my blog does nothing more then inspire someone to see humanity a little different, without judgement, derision, without robbing them of their dignity, then I will be happy in putting this out there.

What I need today at this time in this place is to see the stars and grab a'hold of one of them.

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