Esse Diem is moving...please come, too!

Dear friends, this little blog is packing up and moving over to Wordpress!

I truly appreciate all of you who have encouraged me to write and think over the past year, and I hope we can keep up the great dialogue over in the new space. Seeing your smiling faces on the Google followers widget has been inspiring, and I hope we will still connect, even more often and better, on the new blog. I'll keep using Google reader to follow you.

Come see what's happening over at www.essediem.wordpress.com. Eventually it will become www.essediemblog.com. See you soon.............

What Could Have Been

The Return of the Jedi.....ahhh. How I love the Star Wars saga, and I know I'm not alone. It
resonates for a reason, that simple reason being it rests on the greatest themes of all time.



Lately this image from the end of ROTJ literally keeps appearing in my mind. Trying to figure it out I've realized that I have many friends who are grappling with the permanent scars life is lashing on them. Myself, I have angled to try to convince myself and others that these dramatic and painful events aren't permanent, that we can overcome, that by lending our thoughts and our efforts towards good -- towards The Force, if you'll forgive me -- is the way out.



I've always identified with Luke Skywalker from the "could go either way"perspective. I'm not an Obi Wan, always clear and focused, without doubts and never truly in peril. I recognize and look up to those people, but I could never claim to be them. (Maybe in about 30 years....)



But I'm not an Anakin all the way, either. I battle darkness, and anger, and the occasional conviction that I can overcome what hurts me with more hurt. But I don't really believe that. And I don't want the people I love to ever believe that either.



So I look at my friends in pain, and I see their turning point. And I think about my own. There are clear moments to me when the woman I could have been, the woman I wanted to be, was lost to this life. My personal spiritual beliefs tell me that even if we go the wrong way, we will be restored to who we could have been through love. But you know.....I want to see that person, those people, NOW.

My heart is hurting for the turning point of losing ourselves in this life.

Sisyphus-Cat Tries Again

Every culture has mythology to explain the human condition. There's always a creation myth, a big flood story, and the classic how-much-trouble-can-you-get-in-for-messing-with-the-gods stories. No one does it like the Greeks. In fact, I'd say every time I hear "mythology" I whisper "Greek."

When my sister and I were children, our parents invested in an entire library of Childcraft encyclopedias, and one arrived every month until the set was complete at around 24 volumes. I can only recall with any clarity one of all those books, and that book was Greek Mythology. I absolutely loved those stories, and as sacreligious as it may be to some, I learned more about the perils of being human and the deep warnings of hubris there than from anything I ever read in church.

The two stories that I have carried most closely in a conscious way are Pandora's Box and Icarus. I probably conjure up those lessons on a weekly basis to manage my life. But lately I've been thinking about dear old Sisyphus.

There is a lot more to it than this (and like many ancient stories, more than one version and more than one interpretation), but in short Sisyphus was punished by the gods for having the audacity to think he could play by their rules. His punishment manifested itself as having to push a huge boulder up a hill every day, only to have it roll down to the bottom again before he reached the top and could rest and have satisfaction.

He did this for eternity.

I always thought the old guy got off pretty good when it came to divine punishments. At least he didn't get his liver pecked out by a vulture every day, only to have it grow back again like Prometheus, right? When I was kid I thought, "Well, he knows what he has to get up and do again tomorrow. He knows what's in front of him, and he's going to try again."

Most days, I still feel that way. Sure, there are some days I wake up frustrated that the same struggles I had the day/week/month/year before continue to be in front of me. Those are hard days. But most days, I wake up grateful for another chance to keep trying.

And when you keep trying in the face of overwhelming odds, you kind of stick it to the gods, and that feels pretty good sometimes. I love that about Greek mythology too, that there is a much thinner line presented between all gods and all humans than in Biblical stories. The playing field isn't even, but it's always interesting.

Today I'm feeling very "game on." Which probably means I'm not really paying attention. Oh well.

Like a Knife in My Heart....

I owe someone an apology. In preparation for our 20th college reunion, my friend Jay said, "It's like a knife in my heart that we're not young anymore" -- and I immediately told him all the reasons he shouldn't feel that way.

Well, I take it all back.

I love this picture representing the feeling, because it's not gory and it's not sad, and in many ways I think it represents strength. The heart still glows around the blade, and the two seem to be in the process of becoming one.

I knew my return to campus would trigger many conflicting emotions, and I thought I was prepared, but truthfully I did not anticipate the cascade of feeling that I think Jay had in advance.....and perhaps we all had before the weekend was over. The realization that essentially the same amount of time had passed since graduation that had passed from our births to when we all first met was monumental for me. It was wonderful to see so many familiar faces, and so many beloved to me. Our lives were different then, and have perhaps become even more different now, but we will always have our Davidson experience during a formative time in our development and that keeps us connected.

What I did not expect was the powerful feeling that this was a turning point.

Going forward, I think I need to not take for granted that Davidson will always bind us, at least to the degree for which I hope and which I need. I am recommitting to these relationships.

The knife may not come out, but the heart will always be strong.

Life's Rich Pageant

Last night I had the privilege of attending the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra's performance of Beethoven's 9th, Ode to Joy.

Prior to the performance beginning, conductor Grant Cooper requested a moment of silence for the fallen Montcoal miners. It was one of the longer "moments" I've been a part of, and it was absolutely silent despite the dozens of people present.

The live performance of classical music is something timeless, unique, and awe inspiring; and the introduction of this particular symphony with a moment of shared grief was not ironic but somehow complete and fully human.

We've all read stories of people attending live music performances during intense and strange circumstances: bombings in London, occupations in France, under the eyes of Nazis, even the witnesses who speak of musicians performing as the Titanic went down to the depths of night and the loss of hundreds of lives.

We humans are a strange lot, and that's putting it mildly. But whenever I feel despair over how very dark and driven by evil our kind can be, I put my mind to this -- We spend years fashioning instruments to make exquisite sounds. We train our voices to express the richness and over the top joy and pain of human emotion. We come together to put our voices and instruments to the task of not only telling our story, but sharing it. And we come together to experience what cannot be said in words, but only played, and sung, and felt.

I don't go to the symphony to hear music. I go to be a part of something insanely gorgeous and strange. I'm thinking about season tickets.

"Road to Hell Paved with Unbought Stuffed Dogs"

My college friend Peter recently unearthed this long-buried memory for me. Fans of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises will recognize the title of this post, but just in case you need the backdrop, here's the set up (www.perpenduum.com/2008/07/happy-birthday-yesterday-hemingway/) :

Jake is being encouraged by Bill to buy "just one stuffed dog" to "brighten up his flat" but Jake declines. Bill tells him "it will mean everything in the world to you after you've bought it" but Jake says he'll "get one on the way back." Few things are more clear than that he has no intention of getting one at all, and Bill drops the famous line, "All right. Have it your way. Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs. Not my fault."

It's been a long time since I did any meaningful literary analysis, and I'm not going to pretend to try now, but I am so grateful to Peter for bringing this strange and haunting passage back into my consciousness.

There are a lot of strange, small things that claw at my mind every day. Things that I can't really explain why I think it would be important, or of value long-term. Things that in fact in the moment are utterly bizarre and meaningless, and that run the risk of making me seem nearly unstable. (I mean really, who just buys a taxidermied DOG for crying out loud?)

But Hemingway is on it....and yes, he was seen as a tad unstable, but maybe that is the consequence of living in the Real. He is known to have said something to the effect of I don't know why everyone says writing is so hard, all you have to do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed...........and that he did.

He bled out this idea that we don't know what is valuable all the time, but that it's the weird little chances we take that lead to our closest touch in this world with what is authentic and expressive and inexplicably imporant. Hell is when we realize we didn't exert ourselves or take chances on something being relevant or meaningful, even if at the time we can't explain it at all.

So here goes. Peter, I can't explain why you linger as an important personality in my life. We weren't particularly close friends, we didn't take a lot of classes together, we didn't have a shared social scene. But one thing I do know, my personal road to hell has been missing opportunities to tell people they mattered, they were unique, they stood out and they still enhance my life in ways large and small. That you would pop up with this quote seems about right.

Thanks for doing it, and thanks for reminding me we don't always get to know why something is important, but we do get a chance to follow through.

Skinny Branchin' It Again

So I just found out Glenn Beck didn't go to college. Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh also apparently didn't graduate from college. This explains a lot.

I don't think one has to graduate from college or even attend college to be an intelligent, productive person. It's not that. It's the tendency of these people -- in fact usually the smart ones who might have been accomplished in higher education --to be so reactionary and intolerant and eager to pick a fight over, well, nothing.

I had lunch with two of my smartest friends yesterday, and their analysis of this was rapid and made a lot of sense to me. They talked about how the environment of respectful debate grounded in arguments that were expected to be based on research held to the highest standard shapes a person. How spending at least 4 years in a culture that trains you to only have serious arguments in this realm trains you not to take things personally, to stay focused on ideas, and to understand the problems of philosophy and false argument (the straw man, the slippery slope, etc.).

The dudes listed above are well known for being among the worst offenders when it comes to making everything personal, attacking people and not examining ideas, and gloating and profiting off of pitting people against each other instead of trying to solve problems. I honestly try not to pay any attention to them. They are like clowns to me, but beligerant, ignorant clowns, and who needs that? Some folks have outright phobias against that kind of clown, and for good reason.

Eventually, it does seem they out themselves for what they are. Beck recently ranted and raved against the government collecting taxes from the people, then puffed himself up and crowed that he taught himself that, "in the library!" Um, hello. Do you understand how libraries are funded? Apparently not. They teach you that in college.

My precious home state of West Virginia has 17% of its population with a 4 year degree. I don't care if you have a college degree because I think it's a status symbol. I care because I need you to have one. I need you to be part of a world where you understand ideas, and can hear criticism without going off the deep end frothing at the mouth. There's a lot of criticism that we need to hear in West Virginia (and our personal lives) so we can climb out of a heapin' mess of hurt and trouble.

I'm worried that across the board we don't have the training to hear important ideas and act on them before it's too late. I'd like to reexamine this line of thinking that says "college isn't for everyone." I think it should be.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8078381@N03/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In the Strangest Places

In my underwear drawer today I found a flyer I apparently picked up on business travel when staying at a Marriott hotel.

It was time management tips, and the Number One tip was "The Compass Over the Clock."

The tip goes on to talk about the madness we all perpetrate on ourselves by prioritizing speed over direction.

I haven't been writing much lately, and I miss it. Taking a deep breath and allowing my personal time and my core values to reconnect is always valuable, and has never not paid dividends in all areas of my life.

Compass over the clock. Try it with me? I could use the support!

A Proper Wilderness

I had a lot of fun writing this post for Corporate Idealist; so much in fact I thought I'd cross-post it here to kick off the year. To see the original post, visit http://www.corporateidealist.com/2009/07/a-proper-wilderness/

I’m an unrepentant Bear Grylls fan. His show on Discovery Channel, “Man vs. Wild,” always inspires and encourages me. Most of us will never encounter the challenges and outright risks and dangers Grylls does, but this weekend’s show got me thinking about how we may not be so far apart after all. He used the phrase, “a proper wilderness,” and that feels like a great metaphor for so many people striking out to find their new best careers and goals.

Grylls served three years with a special forces unit of the British army. One can really only officially be on active duty in the army for so many years before one has to start thinking about other things; particular if one has broken one’s back in three places during service! But what if what you do, what you love, what you were meant to pursue and prove and teach, is the very thing you feel required to depart?

Today’s economy and the dramatic shifts in the work place have required many of us to take a step back and start thinking about how to answer this question. If you find yourself required to make a change, don’t be too hasty to assume that all of what you loved about what you used to do is now out of reach. Spend some time in self-analysis, identifying not only your hard skills but your favorite pursuits and activities. Think not only about yourself as an individual, but about your skills on a team, and within an organization.

Grylls left the special forces, and one might think he would never skin a rattlesnake barehanded and eat it raw for a living again; yet here he is, still doing what he does better than anyone, and doing that in which he finds the most personal and professional satisfaction. (He earns a nice paycheck as well. Coincidence? Probably not!)

Give yourself a taste of something new and off-the-charts innovative this week, but bring your favorite existing skills. You might just find yourself rethinking what is and is not possible for your own next adventure.

Year-in-Review: The 10 Most Commented Posts of 2009

My friend Dennis Taylor has a great blog, sprezzatura! http://dctadvisors.wordpress.com/, and it is the inspiration for this post -- I thought his taking the time to analyze the Top 10 most viewed posts from his first year of blogging was an interesting idea. http://dctadvisors.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/year-in-review-ten-most-view-posts/

My first post was April 13, 2009 -- I got started really to break the isolation of staying at home with a newborn. Since then, this blog has become much more than that for me, and I hope you've had some fun along with me over the past few months.

I don't track the views, but I do track comments. Let's take a trip down memory lane and see what we learn, shall we? Here's what got people exchanging ideas:

#6 Scarletts and Melanies (October 30) tied with How you Look, How You Feel (June 22)

My female readers could really relate to feeling the big "UGH" after having a baby and wanting to set goals to feel better. They also had a few things to say about how extreme characterizations of female personality are interpreted and misinterpreted on film and in real life.

#5 Meeting Needs, Sustaining Shadows (December 28)

I appreciated the acknowledgement that responding to stereotypes is not always a slam-dunk easy answer. Once more into the breach, dear West Virginians!

#4 The Skinny Branch (December 3)

When Tiger Woods fell from the heavens, I think we all were a little more troubled that we expected. This post was a challenge for me to write, but I'm glad I did. Thanks to all who were brave enough to comment.

#3 Fly Away Home (June 17)

It's uber popular to talk about "keeping our kids in West Virginia." It's less popular to talk about letting them leave. I'm grateful to all who wrestled with this one.

#2 The Tattoo and the Beach (June 1)


This is where I learned that I was, in fact, being an idiot. I'm over 40 years old. I need to get a grip. Mucho props to those who shared their tattoo confessions and resolutions.


#1 Something Wicked This Way Comes (May 29)

Sometimes you just are plain surprised by what people want to talk about....I really just posted this for myself to purge my own frustration with unhealthy marketing and products for young children. I found out I'm not alone, but also that not everyone views what I think of as plainly problematic as a big deal. I'd say what I ultimately learned is that this problem is on a slippery slope -- there are individual small things that incrementally add up to big issues, and by the time you're avalanched at the bottom of the hill it's too late.

Let's be careful out there, everyone. Wishing you a 2010 full of authenticity, peace, and understanding. Thanks for reading Esse Diem. It means a lot to me.

Meeting Needs, Sustaining Shadows

Last week there was a bit of drama in the blogosphere about some ugly stereotyping of West Virginia. You can find all the details on one of my favorite blogs, A Better West Virginia:

http://www.abetterwestvirginia.com/2009/12/23/nbc-washington-not-the-first-to-bash-west-virginia/

(Though it was a negative event, it also led me to this blog, which is also becoming a favorite: Girl of Words, http://www.girlofwords.com/?p=3001.)

It all got me thinking about the phenomenon of people needing something badly enough to invent it, or at the very least to sustain it long past the point of its hey day. Why exactly does the general public need West Virginia to be a wasteland of ignorant hillbillies?

Who knows? My guess is it's just the same dynamic that drives this kind of thing for all stereotypes -- it creates the illusion of simplicity in a complex world, and makes it "easier" to navigate relationships and situations by discounting the uniqueness of every person and every place. It also feeds a desire to reinforce the idea that "the other" is inferior, and "we" are superior.

Frankly, this illusion means we don't have to work as hard at anything as we would if we were negotiating unique realities on a regular basis. Most of the time, I think we let this stuff go. No one has the energy to fight stereotypes all the time, it's just too exhausting. We roll our eyes, or actually laugh in the recognition of some truth at the foundation of each type, or we get angry but usually we just move on. Not so this time. There is such a thing as going too far, and Christopher Needham went too far.

I'm proud of the bloggers and others who took him to task for his hateful and untrue rant. I'm also interested in watching how we West Virginians who are focused on the future here will learn to balance keeping our nose to the grindstone with being distracted by ignorant morons who want to nail us to the past.

The Best Blogs You're Not Reading Yet

A few weeks ago I received the honor of the "You're Blog is Over the Top" award from TRConnie over at http://wvfurandroot.wordpress.com/ and I've been remiss in my duty to pay it forward.

I'll start by giving it back to TRConnie, because her blog WV Fur and Root is a real treat. I've come to believe her personal hideway is a corner of my own mind, a room where I can really go from time to time to both escape my own realities as well as find comfort in our shared human experiences.

Here are a few more of my faves. Never enough time to read them all as often as I would like, but all have tremendous value in their own unique ways. Check them out:

Health Care Law Blog: http://healthcarebloglaw.blogspot.com/ Bob Coffield is a dynamo at bringing social media, health care policy, and the law together in interesting and relevant ways for even a lay person. You may be surprised to realize how much you want and need to know about this intersection.

The Rainmaking Blog: http://rainmakingblog.blogspot.com/ Pat Kelly, dynamo deux, has a credential-encrusted resume a mile long, and yet hits the sweet spot with practical advice on business success for a range of professionals; from name tag placement to social media to who's looking at your shoes and why, he brings a wealth of value to all of us, regardless of your field or level in it.

Learning and Technology - A Blog for Reflection: http://leekraus.blogspot.com/ You know all those cool new things about applying technology to the learning process that you wish you were wonky enough to keep up with? Lee Kraus will do it for you! I love his "about me" -- "I'm interested in technology, education, and family." That's Dr. Kraus. Also a helluva great guy.

Bad Leader: http://www.badleader.net/ This is my latest obsession. I've been waiting for something like this for awhile without realizing exactly what was missing out there......what to do is all well and good, but sometimes we can learn as much or more from what NOT to do and why. Tight, to-the-point posts on missteps and wrong turns at the top that exemplify the old addage, "If you can't be a good example, you can at least be a horrible warning."

Professional Studio 365: http://professionalstudio365.com/ Emily Bennington is that person you want to be, even if just for a day to see what it's like to always be smart, coiffed, and funny! No pressure, right Em? I love her committed focus to young professionals and she's just at the perfect stage of her life to inspire the very young who want to evolve, as well as the not-really-so-young who want to resurrect their ideals.

In closing, I'm becoming more fond of those blogs that don't try to gross me out or shock me, but that seem genuinely interested in making the world a better place.

These bloggers do that, and for that I say Thank You.

The Skinny Branch

So this is, as they say, me "going out on the skinny branch."

I want to write just a little bit about the whole social response to Tiger Woods and his admission of infidelity to his wife, Elin. And since he and Elin are the parents of two very young children, I think it may not be over the line to say that he has strayed from something much bigger and more significant than just his relationship with one woman.

It's always a shock to realize how imperfect you are, and I mean that sincerely.

Item One that Troubles Me: I know. We all know. Any grown-up aware of your situation knows. You are the last to know.

I don't believe that I am any better than this man, or better than any other person. I was raised in a faith tradition that says all are flawed, and to tell yourself otherwise is to head down a dangerous and arrogant path. So please, stop educating me, and stop acting like admitting you are human is some Big Revelation to anyone but you. It's insulting. I encourage this conversation with yourself, but truly you are the last to know. We know.

Item Two that Troubles Me: As a society, we are more and more likely to say that this failure is not relevant.

I believe that the only the two people in a marriage who know what it is and what is going on (and sometimes not even then) is, well, those two people. I myself have been divorced. I am not interested in encouraging judgement on the highs and lows of other people's relationships. But I'm also a little freaked-out that we seem to have swung from making adulterly an offense punishable by death, to shrugging it off and saying it doesn't have anything to do with "us."

When we say as a society that it is irrelevant, and everyone votes in their online polls about how they don't care about his personal life, it feels to me like we are turning our backs on a very sad and vulnerable situation. We are saying, look, just play golf, and you -- the Mrs. -- quit complaining, there is plenty of money in this for you, the kids will eat, and it will all be fine.

I'm pretty sure no on in the Woods' house is fine. And it's painful to me that the public choice seems to be to say it's none of our business and who cares, or to make jokes or attack the participants in some way.

On Father's Day, the NY Times ran a beautiful feature on this family: how they loved each other, how it was a dream come true, how they inspired other people in so many ways. That was about 6 months ago. I don't think I'll ever forget that picture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/sports/golf/14woods.html?_r=1

Please don't think I'm saying I have the answers. I'm not saying that.

But I am saying that if we can't stand up for the fact that it is a big deal when a family is permanently scarred by these kinds of choices and events, we are in worse trouble than I already thought.

Photo credit OSU: http://www.flickr.com/photos/osucommons/3528718369/

Engage with Grace

Thanks to my friend Bob Coffield at The Health Care Blog who is encouraging this important coversation in families. Asking you to take a moment this weekend to discuss your desires for how to live the end of your life as meaningfully as possible--If you want to reproduce this post on your blog (or anywhere) you can download a ready-made html version hereMatthew Holt

Last Thanksgiving weekend, many of us bloggers participated in the first documented �blog rally� to promote Engage With Grace � a movement aimed at having all of us understand and communicate our end-of-life wishes.
It was a great success, with over 100 bloggers in the healthcare space and beyond participating and spreading the word. Plus, it was timed to coincide with a weekend when most of us are with the very people with whom we should be having these tough conversations � our closest friends and family.
Our original mission � to get more and more people talking about their end of life wishes � hasn�t changed. But it�s been quite a year � so we thought this holiday, we�d try something different.

A bit of levity.

At the heart of Engage With Grace are five questions designed to get the conversation started. We�ve included them at the end of this post. They�re not easy questions, but they are important.
To help ease us into these tough questions, and in the spirit of the season, we thought we�d start with five parallel questions that ARE pretty easy to answer:

Silly? Maybe. But it underscores how having a template like this � just five questions in plain, simple language � can deflate some of the complexity, formality and even misnomers that have sometimes surrounded the end-of-life discussion.
So with that, we�ve included the five questions from Engage With Grace below. Think about them, document them, share them.



Over the past year there�s been a lot of discussion around end of life. And we�ve been fortunate to hear a lot of the more uplifting stories, as folks have used these five questions to initiate the conversation.



One man shared how surprised he was to learn that his wife�s preferences were not what he expected. Befitting this holiday, The One Slide now stands sentry on their fridge.



Wishing you and yours a holiday that�s fulfilling in all the right ways.

(To learn more please go to www.engagewithgrace.org. This post was written by Alexandra Drane and the Engage With Grace team. )

Why He's Leaving West Virginia....and Why You Should Care

Sometimes the most helpful thing I feel like I can do with this blog is to use it to highlight the words of others.

Scott Finn, award-winning investigative reporter, is moving his family to Florida. This loss for our state resonates in many places for me. The most painful part is that it removes all plausible deniability that our state legislature "gets it" at all. Things connect, they are not isolated issues. What is in the best long-term interest of the state of West Virginia is what is in the best interest of children and families.

"......the purpose of this essay is to get you to realize what a serious problem autism is for thousands of families in West Virginia - and to get you to do something about it."

I hope you'll give five minutes to this well-written op-ed on a subject that, if it has not touched you yet, will:

http://www.wvgazette.com/Opinion/OpEdCommentaries/200911210272

Storm Brewing

Sometimes in the middle of a beautiful sunny day, there is a terrible secret.

Sometimes when our eyes are full of delight and our hearts are full of love, we can be blind to the actual climate of a situation, and those clouds can come roiling up out of nowhere and, well.....you just wished you'd checked The Weather Channel.

I had a tough experience this weekend watching a dear friend verbally attack someone else that I love, and it all happened at what was supposed to be a nice event. After a little reconnaissance I figured out what happened, but that didn't really make it any better. It got me thinking about the difference between how a person feels and how they act.

I don't really want to argue about the feelings. You can't tell people their feelings are wrong. (You can, but it makes things worse.) But I might want to have a conversation about the actions. I'm debating this because I was not directly involved and it may alienate me from the person who said some inappropriate things. He's in a very stressful emotional state to begin with, and I don't want to upset him more. But I have not been able to stop thinking about how unkind the words were and how far out of kilter they were with the actual situation.

I did call the person who received the aggression, and extended my regrets that it happened. That might be enough.

It might not.

Photo credit Zevotron, http://www.flickr.com/photos/randomurl/842016056/

Scarletts and Melanies

A friend of mine recently mused, "In this life there are Scarletts, and there are Melanies." What followed was the predictable rush of women to assert that they were Scarletts, they had gumption, they were independent, and one may fairly assume that they were captivatingly gorgeous as well........



But my friend and I got into a side conversation about Miss Melly, a character who as I grow older I find all the more incredible and in fact the true bad ass of Gone with the Wind. (I noticed right away that my friend never judged one or the other, but it was immediately assumed she was lifting up Scarlett as cooler and more preferable.)



If you recall, Melanie's portrayal as "mealy mouthed" and basically a big loser comes only from Scarlett, her chief rival for Ashley Wilkes' love. If you discount Scarlett's obvious bias against her and just judge her on the merits of her actions and her approach to life, she is a complete rock star.



She is incredibly kind. She never has a bad word to say about anyone, and in fact rushes to Scarlett's public defense, calling her "sister," when anyone else would have let her crumble under the much-deserved public scorn she heaps upon herself. She knocks out a Civil War childbirth with no medical help. She is able to talk Rhett, rendered incoherent and insane with grief, off the proverbial ledge when his child dies. I have some vague recollection of her dragging a sword to Scarlett's rescue when she can barely walk herself. There is more, but these are my favorite memories of Miss Melly in Gone With the Wind.......



I don't need to tell you what a repulsive person Scarlett O'Hara is. Yes, she is stubborn. She is a fighter and a survivor. But she wouldn't know love or friendship if they slapped her in the face, and unless someone is serving her in the manner she wants to be served and worshipped, she has no use for them.



So yes, I think I might want a Scarlett if I need someone to do absolutely anything necessary to never be hungry again. But I want a Melanie beside me in life for the long haul.



Thankfully, I have many.


No photo credit, I probably don't have permission to use this, but I thought it a lovely photo of Olivia de Havilland.

That's right, she said Tooth Fairy.

Well, actually it's not "right." But it is what she said.

This morning a friend of a friend compared climate change due to pollution as the same thing as believing in the Tooth Fairy.

Apparently as Americans we are continuing to exert our God-given right to believe whatever we want to believe, regardless of what research and science demonstrates. The person commenting was implying that "believing" in climate change was the same thing as believing in the Tooth Fairy, and that sooner or later everyone needed to grow up and stop making things up.

There are so many levels of frustration I have with this there is no room or time to go into it all, but here are some questions I have:

1) Why would anyone want to "believe" in climate change? What possible advantage does this provide to anyone in any way? It's making my life pretty damn inconvenient. Oh, wait......

2) Why are we still using words like "believe" when discussing science?

3) How can a person seriously argue that people are not having a negative impact on planet Earth through our rampant consumption and disposal?

4) I don't care who you are, if you're not a scientist do you seriously think your opinion overrides the peer-reviewed research of some of the best-trained minds in the field of biology and other related sciences? When did we decide the mood ring should drive public policy?

Another person commented on how the "enviro-tards" have the audacity to think that humankind can defeat nature, but I think that's missing the point. Yes, the Earth will go on. Nature will absolutely win......but here's the kicker: If we don't literally clean up our act, people and everything we currently know and love about life will be gone. Not in the lifetime of anyone reading this, but eventually.

If you're down with that, carry on. I'll leave a quarter under your pillow for you in the morning.

Photo credit: westerndave http://www.flickr.com/photos/westerndave/101849734/

WV, I WILL CREATE......

West Virginia, I WILL CREATE……the next generation of West Virginians who think, who do, and who love our state. I think so often about the opportunities we have every day with young people in our lives to teach by example. About everything. Do we show them how much we love West Virginia? Do we show them that love for WV, like love for anyone or anything, is not about selfishness, or jealousies, or holding so close there is no growth? I need to not just say, but do.

My child holds me accountable every day for 1,000 things. I see her study my reactions, my tone of voice, my interaction with others, my comfort level in every situation. We all have so much opportunity to create the future through our purposeful interactions with children, both our own and all of those around us.

I WILL CREATE…..a new future by showing these children that seeing the world is not betraying anyone or anything, that getting more education than the generation before you is not being unfaithful to family, that being willing to lead sometimes mean being willing to be marginalized, and that the good fight is always, always worth it.

Posted originally for A Better West Virginia

http://www.abetterwestvirginia.com/2009/10/07/invigorating-the-creativity-of-west-virginians/

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/giuliana86/3556230992/

The Dream is Always the Same

As Tom Cruise famously quipped, "The dream is always the same."

I'm on campus at Davidson College. It's a beautiful late fall afternoon with slanted gold light. There's that sweet smell of some blooming evergreen shrub and the soft sliding sound of insect legs rubbing together. I belong there.

Then I have a moment of panicked recognition. I'm about to not belong there. I'm in my senior year, all the tests are taken, profs are packing up classrooms for the summer, and my dorm is being emptied. No one is kicking me out exactly. But it's over.

I become intensely aware that this summer I will not go home and come back. I will just go home. (Dream editor's note: Apparently my subconscious is not concerned with seasonal continuity; I think the opening of the dream in autumn must be a metaphor for something drawing to a close.)

Now I am awash in all that I have taken for granted: the friends, the freedom, the opportunities, the culture of intellectual investigation and honorable debate. My mind races to bargain my way out.........what if I do this, what if I say that, how can I make this not be real. I belong here! This is my life. This is where everything makes sense, where everything has a purpose.

This is where I make sense.

But because the dream is always the same, it always ends the same way. I stand on campus with underclassmen milling around with their backpacks, and see that they are oblivious to my reality. They have one more year, or two or three. My heart feels like a stone in my chest. I know I can't come back, but I don't know where I am going or how I will cope with the fact I can never return, not really. I can come back to this physical place, but this Place is no more.

Like a play the curtain of my mind draws shut. I wake up, knowing full well I will relive this moment over and over again for the rest of my life. I focus on bittersweet gratitude, squeeze my eyes open and closed, and pull myself up.

Photo credit by Muffet: http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/281377918/