there it was

I'm up here in North Dakota. I've been hearing lots of stories and there's one that Papa used to tell that I want to pass on. I think it's better told in person, but this will do until I'm sitting around a campfire with you.

One day Papa and my uncle Greg were bank-fishing on the Missouri River and they met an old German-Russian farmer. He was fishing, too, and they sat down to visit awhile. The old farmer started telling them about a coyote he had seen near some sheep that he was looking after. He said something like this: "So, I saw this coyote and figured I better go after it. I tracked it through the trees, into a gully, and up a hill. I saw that coyote cross over the top of the hill and disappear down into the valley below. I followed, going through the gully and climbing up the hill. I got to the top and looked down into the valley for the coyote. And sure enough, there it was--gone."

book of faces

I lied awake most of the night. I just couldn't sleep. It felt like the entire night I was awake, my mind was all over the place and sleep just wasn't happening

Last night, as I was cleaning up the house a bit before I went to bed, I came across one of my high school annuals. I started flipping through it and ended up looking at it for quite awhile. I realized I have forgotten a lot of names but I remember the faces. It was pretty crazy looking through all those photos and names. It brought back a lot of memories. In a lot of ways, that period of life wasn't the greatest (probably for a lot of people); I mean, there were difficult times and looking back at my life, I'm sometimes not all that happy about how I was. But there were lots of good things, too. And a lot of experiencing and learning and growing and important times with family and friends.

While I looked at the photos of old friends, acquaintances, and people I just sort of recognized from going to school together for years, I wondered what they are doing in their lives now? Who knows? There are endless paths, I suppose, and no way to really predict or know where someone will be and what someone will be doing. Or what their interests might be or what unexpected situations might have arisen or what new ideas and thoughts someone might have encountered. I guess I didn't know that stuff about a lot of the people pictured in the yearbook even when I was going to school with them.

March 19, 2008: Five Years of War and Occupation in Iraq

This month marks the fifth year of the US occupation of Iraq. Five years ago, our government invaded Iraq and began an assault of horrific violence that continues to this day. The implications of this invasion and violence will long outlive the imperialist occupation, however long the US demands it continue.

Most of us are already familiar with the numbers, even if we can’t really grasp their enormity and significance: likely more than a million Iraqis killed, 4,295 “coalition forces” dead, and around 4 million Iraqi refugees.

Of course, the very fact that we know the precise number of “coalition force” casualties (overwhelming US) indicates who is in power, who dictates what is and isn’t relevant. This is no surprise—no one doubts the overwhelming hegemony of violence enjoyed by the US military and the political and corporate juggernaut that supports it. Likewise, no one should be surprised that the US possesses a monopoly on the depiction, via mass media, of reality as regards its current experiment in occupation.

The US’s other occupation, that of Palestine, is indication enough of how “reality” will be dictated by the state voice-piece that is the corporate media.

While all of the above is very nice to point out, with all of its numbers and explanations, the truly important is still just some insubstantial unreality that we fail to connect with: the people and lives so intimately and unalterably affected by this war and occupation. How can we express the true reality of this? We want to talk about the real “cost” of war when we can’t even get away from quantifying lives and relationships. As we all know, we do not see our own existences as numbers, nor the existences of those close to us (our partners, parents, siblings, family, friends). We don’t perceive these lives as tools to either support or discredit political actions and paradigms. Instead, they are an intimate and vital part of our lives, real and necessary components of living a life of meaning and import.

Until we are able to understand the lives of others in this same sense—to know that every one of the individuals killed as a result of this country’s war and occupation existed in a beautiful web of interconnected significance and meaning—we will continually allow these actions of imperialism and murder to occur. In fact, they do not “occur:” they are perpetrated, they are done by people. As such, they are not some incomprehensible phenomenon, as unpredictable and uncontrollable as a tidal wave or forest fire. They are premeditated, constructed, and designed actions with specific intended goals. Until we stop these actions, we are implicated in both their implementation and their outcomes.

So, the US occupation of Iraq enters its sixth year. For the last five years, as well as during the lead up to the invasion, we have failed to stop the predictable outcomes of imperialism. This is not surprising. We have failed to create a society in which these actions are unallowable and truly reprehensible. Instead we continue to recreate a system in which occupation, war, and mass murder are just an expected, albeit unloved, occurrence—a necessity to keep the gears well oiled and the machinery functioning. To stop the occupation we must stop the machine. And to stop the machine requires that we both attack it and stop participating in it, while creating something else that truly embraces love and autonomy over fear and domination.

it takes a second

A good day has been happening. Right now I'm listening to a record on a record player my brother gave me while I was in Chicago. And it sounds really good.

and we love to wear our badge
and we love to fly our flag

Yep. War. A good album I haven't listened to in years, since I gave my sister a cd that I had had of it.

And before that a tape of classical music I found in a dumpster. Speaking of dumpsters, I ate a fantastic dinner tonight and it all came from scavenging garbage cans. I cooked up some broccoli, onions, sweet potatoes, and carrots and fried tofu and mushrooms. It was delicious.

This afternoon I found a book at a nearby thrift store. At this thrift store there are big bins on wheels that are full of books, most of which I have no desire to read. But rummaging through the haphazardly dumped books sometimes results in something interesting. Today I found this book called Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology. I started reading it late this afternoon and it's great. It's making me think (like books should).

I'm also reading a book by Ursula K. Le Guin called The Eye of the Heron. It's also a great book so far. I have really liked the other books I've read by her (The Dispossessed being one of my favorites but also The Left Hand of Darkness, The Telling, Rocannon's World, City of Illusions, Planet of Exile, Very Far Away From Anywhere Else, Word for World is Forest, and The Beginning Place); she is an amazing writer and thinker. The book I'm reading now is, in a large part, about nonviolence and authority/hierarchy.

through the woods

I've been away from home for a bit. I was up in North Dakota again. My grandfather was in the hospital and not doing well, so I went up to see him and other family. I took the train to Omaha were I met my brother (he came from Chicago to pick me up) and we drove together to Bismarck. My sister and my parents were there as well.

Papa (that's what my siblings and I call our grandfather) started doing a lot better the day after my brother and I arrived. A respirator that had been in his throat was removed and the following day he was taken out of ICU. After awhile, he was eating solid food again. We went to his room several times and he was talking and looked really good. He was tired but getting stronger, I think. He's not out of the hospital yet but, as my Mom says, he's out of the woods. Which makes us all happy.

My grandparents' new place was looking more like their home and it was great to be there with my gramma and my family. It turned out to be a great chance to spend time together.

I rode with my brother back to Chicago. At some gas station along the way we picked up an interesting fellow I had met in the bathroom. That sounds like the beginning of a strange story, doesn't it? Well, it was a bit strange but I won't go into too many details here--I really don't think I could do the experience justice. Just for a tiny glimpse of the trip: this guy, who called himself the Leprechaun, had three fractures in his right leg (he showed me the medical paperwork). He had cut off his cast because it had gotten wet earlier in the day. He had come from Duluth after apparently getting into a fight with the members of his band. You know what--I just can't figure out a way to talk about this guy and that night. There was fog so thick you could only see one dash of the centerline ahead on the road. And he kept talking and talking and was either not at all what he appeared or insane. We finally, finally got to Madison where we were going to take him to a hospital. He was trying to get to Maine, where he said his brother had just been murdered. He devised a plan to go to the hospital and get his leg recasted and then somehow get the hospital to get him a bus ticket to Maine. Judging from how he got us out of a hairy situation in some small town in Wisconsin, I don't doubt that he somehow succeeded.

Anyway, we got into Chicago late, around 2:30am and headed to my brother's apartment. I slept a bit and got to see my niece in the morning, which was a lot of fun. Then I got on the train and headed back to Colorado. On the train I finished reading the first of the old Han Solo books published in the late 1970s. It was pretty fantastic for what it is and I really enjoyed reading it. By the way, the train, for those of you who haven't ridden on it, far surpasses the bus in terms of comfort. Wow, is it roomy. And you can get up and go to other cars and, when in your seat, actually stretch out your legs. There is some bad smelling air freshener that's pumped through the vents (which might explain the level of insanity and strangeness I perceived on the train....maybe it's something in the air). And on the way out to Omaha, I was questioned by police who then arrested the man behind me for transporting fifty pounds of marijuana. I really don't like cops, especially when they're questioning me, so I didn't enjoy that but both the trips were really very nice.

And that's my story of the trip to see Papa.