Dita Parker

Sunday, September 21, 2014

A history of violence

Temperature: Fall is in the air/Everywhere I look around/Fall is in the air/Every sight and every sound... But thanks for letting summer linger for so long, much appreciated.

Eating: apples in any form/recipe you care to imagine

Drinking: now why didn't I think of that? Cider, sweetie darlings!

Watching: Losing Iraq (2014). Warning: graphic content, as in death, not just destruction.

Listening: to Mama Rosin

Reading: gearing up for see below

Writing: about to be tested for a project so wish me luck because I want this gig. “You want me on that team. You need me on that team. Who's gonna do it? You?

Feeling: how to explain the world to your kids? Russkiy Mir, the Russian World, a neighbor for whom life, the economy and everything is a zero-sum game, a neighbor on a mission to not just peacefully cohabit but to oppose, to challenge. Or ISIL. Being asked is it true a group intended to pick a random Norwegian family, invade their home, kill them and put it on the internet? Are they coming here? Could that happen to us? Having to ask your children not to look at graphic pics or watch any videos, not even on a dare, ever, please promise me, because once you do you can't not see them and there are things in this world you don't want to recall, trust me, it's bad enough you know these things are happening to someone somewhere. The mother in me just wants to shield them and the woman in me just wants to bulletproof them and the human in me just wants to make them understand that it's their world too and that their voice and choices matter, so use them wisely and make them conscientiously. Destruction is easy. Building, restoring, preserving. That's what I hope they'll always focus on.

Pacific Day of Peace, dearest denizens, wherever you are.

http://www.un.org/en/events/peaceday/

Friday, September 12, 2014

Lore

Written words. Which ones last? The wisest, most notable ones? Who's to make that choice, that distinction? So which ones do last? Those that have been shouted out the loudest for the longest time? Wrong or right, from the mouths of megalomaniacal masters of the universe or salt of the earth, they've passed The Test: social proof. Do they last? Words that by some quirk of fate weren't destroyed in a war or natural disaster, a pyre or purge, ethnic or cultural?

Human history is a story written in the hindsight tense. Arbitrary. Unfair. Crap-shooting. Often apologetic, usually not. Countless words go unrecorded, unheard. There is no preserving or restoring what's already gone. But not all is lost. Myths and fairytales are a lingua franca. They have a common ancestor somewhere in history. We are cousins, you and I. Distant, perhaps, but cousins all the same. Many fables and morals are cousins, as well. We migrated and the stories migrated with us. We changed with the times, so did the stories. But something in them, in us, stays. The same questions will always be asked. Who? What? Where? Why?

Coming into a story, even midstory, you're instantly pulled into the story. Admit it. You feel the need to find the answer to those whos, whats, wheres and whys and stick around until The End. Even if it's not your usual fare. Even though you have better things to do. Even when you know it won't be all that memorable. But does that stop you from watching or reading? Nooo. Because you've got to know.

This in-built inquisitiveness of ours has survived war, famine, floods, societal and cultural upheavals. Stories? Weave them into the collective unconscious and they do the same. What if? What next? Where will it all end? Victory and defeat, allegiance and disobedience, candor and betrayal, valor and cowardice, fear and foolhardiness, love and indifference, truths and lies, actions, reactions, consequences... The stuff that humans and the very best stories are made of.

Monday, September 1, 2014

Nothing gold can stay

Temperature: June was cold, July was hot and August was rainy. September? We'll see, won't we. We can keep arguing about what is normal but climate change is a fact. And things are getting worse instead of fixed.

Eating: an ugly ass but oh so fresh whatever-greens-I-could-find-plus-some-cottage-cheese salad. Heavy lunches put me to sleep.

Drinking: green tea with honey to ward off the flu in the family. Totally works. Does too!

Watching: my firstborn grow right past me. So I'm not the tallest building on the block but come on, he was a baby three minutes ago!

Listening: to Bebel Gilberto's Tudo

Reading: something that read out loud, sotto voce, would put you to sleep

Writing: something that read out loud, sotto voce, should make you forget about sleep

Feeling: Love, so much love I can't give to those it belongs to because they're gone. You want it?