Accidental Activist

 An election year note: Accidental Activist or not, that's how it was.  I found myself doing much more than I ever thought I would - in brave ways - and am fine for it - and maybe finer than some for having done what I could, for seeing it as a human responsibility and acting on that consciousness. My Godmother made the room collapse in laughter the day she said I was a "female Forrest Gump" in that I just happened to be on the spot when some interesting things took place and I was compelled to help.  Great - but they left out the Apple Stock for me and emptied me, financially, in the Recession instead. Hmmmmm...

 It is clear that many say, with reason, that we have we lost sight of it all and been "do nothing"!       My team may be aging, and many think it is right to do nothing.  Sometimes it IS right to do nothing and let others lead.

But most of the time, we can do a thing - the right thing.

• All I had to do was nothing, and my late husband would have lost his health , college and his life twenty years sooner than he did.
• All I had to do was nothing, and our son would have died before he was quite one day old.  
• All I had to do was nothing, and our daughter would not have been born.  
• All I had to do was nothing,  and in civic response work,  and others would not be here, or failed the need to get going on a fine new path.
• All I had to do was nothing, and assorted groups and clubs for books , children and sports and design home and cuisine and health would not have happened at all.  
• All I had to do was nothing and I might have been killed.
• All I had to do was nothing, recently,  and there would have been no  SilverSneakers supports from our HMO , when mobility IS life always and truly, as we age.

Making this list helped me to act today.  Send me YOUR list - smile , because you may not have realized that you acted - and helped.

For my children:  it's not your fault - you didn't do it:   when I opted for all the good things, I was surrounded by good people, good schools , SAFE schools - 'dope' was a name for a buddy acting dumb - and there was plenty of prosperity to support me in the grand new things opening up in those days.   I skipped and sang down the street in safety and peace. When I was challenged, help was there, never an issue and soon happy days restored and the good things.

My poor children!  They knew the good things in early days and even much better.  But just as they reached adulthood, personal worldclass issues:  they have had to deal with every form of poverty , setbacks in the entire economy and violence - not only far away in a war- but on their streets and in their classrooms every day.  

And then, as if we were not dopey enough, they want to legalize narcotics?  Suicide for an entire nation is possible.   

Worse: our very happiness and prosperity and success CAUSED some of the issues we howl thru today from true abscence of malice and innocence.  Growing up in times of prosperity and love and freedom and plenty, our grownup children feel rudely awakened that things are not simply "automatically super"  -  and this happens every several generations, till things degenerate so badly that"wailing cries shake the very heavens" .  And then , compared to the suffering , taking up the tasks to recover the good days,  seems fairly easy.

There was a "Do Nothing Congress" , during Harry Truman's Administration, and others were called so, before and since .  And they were right.  They are saying so now.  But why blame congress, when it is we - the people they represent - who need to ACT. Our leaders are not feeling our support and our support is their life blood.

On the sunny side of serious recession, and there is plenty to cope with - Brexit, Terrorism and more - no safe place beyond our home and some do not even enjoy that much.   And all these issues won thru to us when we were financially impaired, and so, guilty of caving in to the pressures and going silent.

At the moment, all the other national leaders get to taunt us about our Failures.   

• Failure to use our amazing resources as we should
• Failure to get our money in order.
• Failure to law and order in order - to legislate at the federal level,  to disarm in the populated areas , arm our police with cams for evidence , and kevlar to save their lives and nonguns, so as not to KILL someone every time there is a "moment".   Shame to those who say it is not do-able. It MUST be do-able.  
• Failure to get public safety in order: for example, thousands die each year because no one will take up true updates to Occupant Safety and Escape Technology, for tall buildings and planes.  Architecture and Aeronautics are seriously remiss - they have cost lives in their failure act on this one issue. As is media for helping them suppress even commentary and calls for action.
• Failure to better define the Presidency and the rules for candidacy and election proceedings to reflext the times and needs. Right now, we idly watch how they can break every good rule and win, anyway.   

Yikes!

But, GOOD NEWS:  Americans are reeallly bad about Failure of any kind.

We think ourselves a winning entity.  Winning through does not just happen.  All we have to do is NOTHING. 

We have been oppressed by national misfortunes but that is over and we can restore the good. 

Act.

The Angels and the Bloomsday Soliloquy 2016

Page 7 of the hard cover original of this book , now in its 60th Commemorative Edition, where I found the best of Bloomsday! in 1963. Thanksomuch school chum!

What do they call it when you see the most beautiful thing!  It is a glimpse, out of context, perhaps, but you feel redeemed, renewed and more alive than before you met.   But the high turns to  horrified, when the entire image reveals itself!   OH!  And then, just as passionately  one is  "RE-redeemed", when insight and the angels come to help?  There must be a word for it.  Let me explain, and  ask me for clarity where it gets obscure:

Tomorrow is a literary holiday - more popular each year:  "Bloomsday" - honoring James Joyce and his hero, Mr. Bloom - June 16th , the Day after my parent's wedding anniversary.    So many beautiful things go unnoticed, but  Bloomsday is celebrated worldwide.    

I am not a terrible critic and I am very Irish, but James Joyce's most famous book is on my hate list.  I hide from it.  Then feel worthier for having won through it.  There is a story that explains:  

I first read the romantic  Molly Bloom's Soliloquy, the final passage of the book, as an excerpt in the iconic, "The Family of Man"   ( The show and book were the famous 1955 MOMA NY Photo installation )  used as a caption, to clarify a famous romantic  photo.  

Taken out of context it is brief and breathtaking in its strong , profound simple Beauty! 

"...and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes...." 

What more could there be?!! 

I swooned. I was just seventeen and it was just a bit before meeting my late husband, a fine Irish Prince, then and always.  English major or no, finding the thought/words for that upcoming "moment" needed help and this excerpt did it!    Soon, I would be able to finally say YES and I prayed to say it even half as right as the words in the caption:  I was in class, but  The passage made me want run and read the rest of "Ulysses" , immediately! 

Ever kind, loving and watchful, the good Sister saw that I wanted to read the whole book, and she gave me one of those looks:  super discrete , nun's eyes down, and catching mine sideways, wordless but definite, " you don't WANT the whole book yet...not just yet", nodding ever so sharp/subtly - no. 

So I skipped it!  

Thrilled to read the excerpt again and again;  I would swoon and soar and, soon after, as I prayed, the right words were there on the right day when I met the man of my dreams,  at the dance,  the one I'd seen in my mind's eye four years before.   It was HE!  ...looking back at me with the same expression!      He said , "Hi , let's dance! "  heaven!  But   afterward, when he said "let's go neck" , my holy romantic reply was NOT quite the one , but the quick stall,  "We need to talk."  :-)And   Inspired?  Sighhhh..no.  But we'd known one another five minutes...really!  He won thru it and liked me better for it and the talk was the Good Talk and full of promise and more.

I realized that my rejection at first,  only made the excerpt truer - since,  it wasn't SO long after, at my cue , he "asked again"  and  we were okay to say yes and the rest is no one's concern but "ourrown".

...and then we were busy and I FORGOT to READ THE BOOK.... and got away without reading it for thirty years!     

Till my husband's sudden early death.

Irish angels must have helped 'back then ' but now it was "Dies Irae"  - "Day of Wrath" and , no grace and no skipping things.    Uncanny and cruel, now,  Such things FOUND ME, like  bills of a sort to pay, that I'd skipped out on, merrily,  so long ago. 

And, sadly yes - one of the things was the entire book "Ulysses" by James Joyce .   It just fell into my lap one day to read. 

I remembered the excerpt and cried , and then I sighed and then I started the book and reminded the angels that I was still grieving, because  "Ulysses" was NOT pretty...but I hung in and finished it....sad duty. 

I did not cry at the end...the in-context reading of the famous Molly Bloom's soliloquy ends the book.....and it was SICKENING - my blood stopped!   James Joyce's telling was an extreme contradiction of the nearly holy, lovely excerpt that I found in "The Family of Man" book in 1963.

Since the lovely words were so powerful to me, this "update" in their meaning was powerful, too.  I was numb and sullen and sluggish and sickened and  angry -  with my husband dead, one more and one more thing to deliver sorrow. Unfair. 

I struggled and in time I felt redeemed - because I could see the beauty in the soliloquoy - no matter the context and I was grateful,  and I understood sister's recommendation, long ago - thank you Sister!   A good thing was done in that.

But I ask YOU and  YE GODS!   Why  MUST the artist aim at the worst interpretation of the way of life,  to twist beauty into deliberate ugliness!   How degenerated !     WHY??  With so many stunning paths to find and make and follow and actualize  - so many good things - why choose the other???  So many true reports of it all, told in ways that inspire and give life!  Why the evil?

MISTER JOYCE!  Your gift, your destiny to be Dream weaver and empowerer for the grandest things our human limitations allow.  Was it his desire to help us to find our own redemption in spite of the writings?  Or his conceit? Or .....

 If the artist is of the Irish persuasion,  it is not merely an option but a mandate to empower for the best.  And they feel their approach does DO it!   Sometimes, in the taking up of this path, the lights are found, and then it proves worth!   Sometimes.  Not so cheery a prognosis. But we do it and that too is value!

I am quiet and grateful that my truth is its OWN redemption.  And most of all, grateful that I did not need to read the entire story too soon - that I found the beauty in an excerpt, in a heartbeat, and the glimpse lasted for thirty years, ready to glow again if called up.:-D

Thanks Angels!!!! 

elle smith fagan Bloomsday 2016 vigil note.

Molly Bloom

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG