Author Archives: Patricia Wild

January 1, 2013: No Man’s Land

The Boston area was graced with a (moderate) snow storm on Saturday and by now, anyone planning to shovel sidewalks or driveways has done so.

Last night, walking to a Sanders Theater/Boston Baroque concert along a well-known route, I joyfully noticed  a couple of first-time-ever shoveled paths, i.e. sidewalks that had never been shoveled in the past. (Inveterate walkers keep track of such things.)   And I also saw those little gaps—usually about two or three feet long—between shoveled paths where two, adjoining property owners (or the crew hired to shovel) had just quit: No Man’s Land.

[BTW—and this is probably only interesting to me! Recently during a meeting for worship I realized that when I think “war” my mental image is of trenches and Big Bertha and cratered, barbed-wire covered No Man’s Lands et al, i.e. World War I?!]

These unshoveled gaps used to make me angry. “What’s the matter with these people?” I’d mentally sputter. “Can’t they see where their property ends? I mean, thanks a lot of shoveling what you did do.  But now I have to trudge these last few feet through the snow because you’re so clueless?”

But now I’m more, as Dickens would say, benignant. Because isn’t it obvious that our interconnectedness isn’t obvious to most people?

So why not just accept that?

December 19, 2012: Rush to Judgment?

[Here’s another op-ed piece hot off the press—or, should I say, JUST e-mailed toThe Boston Globe.]

Rush to Judgment?

How easy, immediately after the Newtown massacre, to want to blame or to fix. How easy to blame the death of twenty-six people, twenty of them children, on a horribly troubled young man’s “personality disorder” or on our inadequate mental health system. How easy to want to fix our gun safety laws and to ban assault weapons immediately, or to radically improve access to quality mental health services. Let’s fix this nightmare right now, our hearts cry out, while our sadness and outrage are most acute.

But, I’d like to suggest, before we can fix—and there’s plenty to fix—we need to mourn. Individually and collectively we need to pause, to take whatever time is needed to acknowledge our pain and our brokenness. For, I suggest, it is from that deep, sorrowful place within each of us that the hard questions will eventually emerge. It will be our answers to these hard questions, not our all too human impulse to blame or to fix, that must inform our future actions.

Why do I, an ardent supporter of gun safety and accessible mental health care suggest this? A stunned and pained face I glimpsed yesterday among the holiday-shopping crowds at Porter Square is why. That young woman’s public sorrow reflected my own and called to mind the days following September 11th when so many of us were visibly bereft.

On a lovely fall afternoon a couple of weeks after the attack, for example, strolling to the end of Rockport’s Bearskin Neck, I came upon a hushed crowd simply sitting on the jetty’s rocks and looking out over the water. Seated among that silent crowd and looking at their pained faces, I’d felt our shared grief meant something different, something thoughtful, something wise would happen in response to that heinous attack. I believed that our shared grief meant a different outcome from a response engendered by anger or fear or the need for revenge. Eleven years and two wars later, thousands killed, our civil liberties thwarted, trillions spent on The War on Terror; how dead wrong I was!

I also remember, soon after that lovely afternoon, calling Senator Kennedy’s office to say much the same things at much the same length and to hear a young, bored voice on the other end reply, when I’d finally stopped to catch my breath, “So. Restraint?”

Our shared grief can guide us; so can the thousands of voices among us who have lost family members to violence; Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York, for example, or the September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows or the Boston-based Louis D. Brown Peace Institute. Let’s listen.

After Columbine, after the brutal attack on Gabby Gifford and eighteen others in a Tucson parking lot, after Aurora, after Newtown, let’s get it right this time.

December 6, 2012: The Real Story

Have been wresting with another op-ed piece for the last week. And about to throw in the towel.

Which is hard because the prompt for this piece felt right.

The prompt was this sentence from Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree : “The horrors of war had propelled Elmer into integrity.”

Yes! I thought. I totally get that. (although “horrors of war” is uncomfortably close to a cliche, isn’t it.) Yes, I’ll write a piece begging for an honest and courageous conversation about war. A plea for integrity.

But after a week of struggle, it’s feeling like the real story is my own, deeper understanding of the pervasiveness of the military-industrial complex—the subject of this quote from Eisenhower’s 1961 speech: “Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.”

Whoa! (Woe)

 

 

 

November 28, 2012: Far From The Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

When it comes to book recommendations, my friend Lissa is rarely wrong. So when she urged me to go right out and buy a $40, 706 pp. book , I did.

And yes, Far From The Tree is truly amazing. Worth every penny. (Almost) every sentence is a gem: Like this one from the Introduction: “Though I have gathered statistics, I have relied primarily on anecdotes because numbers imply trends, while stories acknowledge chaos.”

[FYI: The queue to be the next person to read my water-damaged-from reading-at-the-(Palm Springs)pool-copy is, so far, exactly one person. So get in line!]

Andrew Solomon spent 6 years interviewing over 300 parents and their children, families who know all about deafness, being homosexual, autistic, gifted, et al because the children of these families are so; in other words, families whose children were not, as the saying goes, apples that fell close to the tree. He writes beautifully about love and ambivalence, about coping and falling apart. He quotes all kinds of parents, all kinds of studies. He uses words like “shimmering humanity.” If he finds a parent overbearing—this is especially true in the “Prodigies” chapter—he says so. If he discovers a parent whose caregiving overwhelms him with its tenderness and wisdom, his writing about that parent will make you cry.

So get in line!

 

 

November 18, 2012: “Then it is only kindness . . . “

Just back from Superstorm Sandy-damaged Brooklyn and thinking about Naomi Shihab Nye’s Kindness. And about how all over the Northeast, right this minute, people are being kind to other people. At my grandson’s soccer game in Prospect Park, yesterday, for example, a soccer mom casually mentioned to my daughter that arranging a play-date between the soccer mom’s son and my grandson might have to wait awhile because her family’s camping out with friends until their waterlogged, Redhook home is habitable again. “It’s crazy right now,” she explained. Sheepishly.

Displaced families have found refuge on kind friends’ couches and floors. Other kind people are posting schedules on Facebook  for dinners. Or a shower. All over Park Slope I spotted notices for relief-aid fund-raisers slapped onto store windows.

No one’s videoing this kind acts. No one’s keeping score. They’re just happening. Quietly. And, because there IS “that of God in everyone,”as Quakers often say, these lifegiving, generous acts will keep happening. I believe that.

A sweet opening at Meeting this morning: Why not just assume that everyone’s got a traumatized family camping out in their living room? I tried on. Why not assume that everyone’s operating a soup kitchen for their neighbors or are spending their days tending an ailing, confused parent? Instead of wishing more people would get involved with—oh, let’s say Climate Change or Our Criminal Justice System, why not simply assume that everyone is already busily, busily KIND?

(Just tried this on in meeting this morning but, gotta say, this construct has already proven enormously gratifying!)

 

 

November 8, 2012: Bubbles, everywhere

Budget 4 All passed—even though I did not hold a “Vote YES for Question 5” sign on Election Night for 3 hours; my frozen toes sent me home after an hour-and-a-half. (Sometimes the world does very nicely, thank you, without my help!)

A wonderful moment that cold, cold night: Sonja Derai, a F/friend walked past.( Does anything in Somerville actually happen without Sonja?) Elizabeth Warren’s Somerville campaign manager, Sonja was checking in with her crew. And was pleased: “Yup,” Sonja declared. “The whole world’s singing ‘Kumbaya’ tonight.”

Here’s the thing: Sonja knows that Somerville ain’t the whole world.

Here’s another thing: Apparently Romney’s defeat came as a big, big shock to the people who actually believe Fox News.

Here’s the thing: The whole world could be singing ‘Kumbaya.’ OK, maybe not. How ’bout “People Get Ready”? Because no matter what bubble we’re living in, darlin’, we are in this together.

 

 

 

 

 

Election Day, 2012: An update from “The Bubble”

It’s a crisp, cloudless, fall day in the ‘ville, a “weather breeder,” my sailing teacher would have called it, meaning the day before really nasty weather.

And all over Somerville, lines, lines, lines. (and in trash pick-up neighborhoods, pumpkin seeds all over the sidewalks, too.)

Yup. In an overwhelmingly Democrat city in a mostly-Democrat-except -for-those-what-were-we-thinking-elections-when-we-voted-for-Romney-or-Scott-Brown state, people are standing up to 2 hours to vote.

Makes me teary. For real.

Now, to be honest, part of the reason for these lines is that this year’s ballot has a LOT of questions. So voters have to be readers, first. Yikes.

Close readers of this blog may remember that I collected signatures so that one of these questions would appear on the ballot. Budget 4 All, it’s called. And that, indeed, enough signatures were gathered and, yes, it’s on the ballot. Question 5 in Somerville. Whooppee! [see my August 2 post]

Later, today, just as the sun goes down and people are getting off from work, wearing my “Fund our communities not war” button, high performance long underwear and 2 pairs of socks and boots, I will join  supporters of Elizabeth Warren (Yay!) and Question 4 (a local tax to support more Somerville open space; yay) outside my very own polling place to hand out little cards re this initiative.

Ain’t democracy swell?!

 

November 4, 2012: Can We Talk?

[Written—because I HAD to—the day after Hurricane Sandy]

Can We Talk?

  Mid-morning yesterday a loud crack sent me to the window. A huge limb from one of the Norway maples next door had snapped off and crashed onto my neighbors’ third-story roof. The limb’s extra length and girth meant that despite Hurricane Sandy’s increasing winds, that thing wasn’t going anywhere. Solidly wedged between the remaining tree trunk and the roof, that broken limb did not budge. Believe me, I checked. Repeatedly.

My neighbors on all three floors, I noticed, had shut their blinds; a good policy. Better to not watch the other wind-challenged Norways next to their building flail and flap, better to keep something between themselves and exploding glass should another branch smash through their window.

But even after I’d stopped watching that broken limb every five minutes, I kept my curtains and blinds open. Indeed, as the storm increased, I lay on my bed and watched sheets of rain and bending trees and the occasional bare-headed hurricane-worshiper dreamily walk past. Windows rattling, I allowed myself to think about man-made climate change.

There are some ideas so huge, so overpowering, so engulfing that we can only let the tiniest bits into our consciousness. Sometimes, under only the most ideal of circumstances, when we’re absolutely sure we are safe and strong and willing to do so, we can allow a larger piece to penetrate our defenses. Once, years ago, for example, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, in the quiet of Quaker meeting, I contemplated War; I allowed myself to imagine War’s toll as thoroughly as I could. And when I discovered that, despite the enormity of pain and suffering I acknowledged, I hadn’t shriveled up and died, I began to try thinking honestly and comprehensively about other horrors.

That’s what I did, yesterday. I truly contemplated Sandy or, more accurately named, Frankenstorm. I allowed myself to truly acknowledge that because of warmer ocean water, this monster storm was not a once-in-a-lifetime freak show by nature but man-made. It took all my courage and all my meditative practice; it took hours.

This morning I was scheduled to stand with others at Government Center to silently ask: “Why aren’t we talking about climate change?” I’d planned to wear my yellow slicker, maybe put a piece of duct tape across my mouth, maybe hold photographs of my grandchildren. But the vigil, which had been held around the clock since Saturday, ended early because of Frankenstorm.

So this morning  I write this, instead. And because this monster storm has taken out my Internet connection, I will mail this to The Boston Globe. Because today the question is so much more pressing: “Why aren’t we talking about climate change?”

October 25, 2012: “Don’t Blame Me . . . “

So, here’s the first op-ed piece I submitted to The Boston Globe:

“Don’t Blame Me . . . ”

            Remember those heady, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts” days? Remember, post Watergate, post Nixon’s cringe-worthy “I am not a crook,” how proud we were to tell the world we lived in the only state Tricky Dick didn’t win in 1972? That George McGovern, principled, fierce opponent to the Vietnam war and Nixon’s Democratic opponent, died on Sunday at the age of ninety recalls those smug bumper stickers—when hailing from Massachusetts was something to brag about.

These days? Not so much. Sure, MA progressives can crow about our same-sex marriage first-state-in-the-nation record. And we’re tickled pink that Massachusetts’ health care insurance reform law (aka as Romneycare until it wasn’t) inspired Obamacare. But a recent, shameful scandal worthy of Watergate sullies our state’s we’re-not quite-the-rest-of-you reputation and may ultimately prove that, indeed, Massachusetts is exactly like Texas or Louisiana.

This is not about our hapless, 69—93 Red Sox. This is not about The Whitey Bulger Affair (The title of a 2004 MA House Committee on Government Reform report, “Everything Secret Degenerates: The FBI’s Use of Murderers as Informants” perfectly sums up that scandal.) This is about our very own drug lab scandal.

60,000 tainted samples, 34,000 affected cases; such numbers grant First Class scandal status. No one yet knows the full impact of this criminal justice nightmare yet one thing already seems clear: thousands of cases will be thrown out and thousands of inmates will be released. So re-entry, i.e. finding an affordable place to live in a safe neighborhood, a decent job, and, if applicable, staying clean and sober, never easy in the past, just got that much harder for all of Massachusetts’ former inmates.

Early days, as this scandal unfolded, it was tempting to wonder: “Why should I care? I don’t deal drugs. Neither do my friends. What’s this got to do with me?” When a possible link between a drug lab employee and a Norfolk County prosecutor surfaced, however, this scandal became everyone’s story. Prosecutors are a key part of our criminal justice system. Even the whisper that the Bay State’s system has been co-opted affects us all.

A 2009 Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) study explains why:  “Prosecutorial misconduct is an important issue for us as a society, regardless of the guilt or innocence of the criminal defendants involved in the individual cases. Prosecutorial misconduct fundamentally perverts the course of justice and costs taxpayers millions of dollars in protracted litigation.”

Further, The NCIP report stated: “Those empowered to address the problem—California state and federal courts, prosecutors and the California State Bar—repeatedly fail to take meaningful action. Courts fail to report prosecutorial misconduct (despite having a statuary obligation to do so), prosecutors deny that it occurred, and the California State bar almost never disciplines it.”

In their July 2, 2012 report, “Wrongful Conviction and Prosecutorial Misconduct,” John Floyd and Billy Sinclair concluded: “We strongly suspect these alarming NCIP findings, suggesting the lack of disciplinary action in cases of prosecutorial misconduct, will be similar in the remaining 49 states.” Like Texas. Louisiana. Massachusetts.

Every day, of course, from the Berkshire Superior Court to the Falmouth District Court, honorable prosecutors ably perform their jobs. But this possible link between Annie Dookhan, who allegedly tainted those 60,000 samples and George Papachristos, who has recently resigned, is a flashing red light.

Let’s not ignore it. Let’s contact Attorney General Martha Coakley and David E. Meier, appointed by Governor Patrick to investigate this scandal, and let them know that we demand a thorough and rigorous investigation.

October 16, 2012: How do we say “NO!”?

On the other side of way too much busyness—life doesn’t string out our Must Dos over a reasonable amount of time, does it—and feelin’ good. Feeling present. Feeling liberated from those Must Dos (until a bunch of them gang up on me, again.)

So able to sit and to be and to ponder.

Here’s a sampling of what’s now rattling around my less-stressed-out mind:

First, the promised report re sharing NO! with Friends Meeting at Cambridge children. It didn’t quite happen. Or should I say, MY plans didn’t happen.

What did happen was that I had a brief interaction with 3 JH/HS students re the upcoming Textron meeting for worship. And one young man pushed back, declaring that 60 or 70 Quakers sitting in silence outside a factory that produces cluster bombs “a political demonstration.” Hmm. THEN he said, in effect, “And, besides, that’s those people’s job.” Double hmmm.

What would you have said to him?

Second: Vis a vis gearing up to submit op-ed pieces (one of the inconveniently-timed but amazing things I did this past weekend was to attend an all-day symposium at Simmons given by the Op-Ed Project), am pondering a bunch of stuff! For starters, “Do I, a white, privileged woman, have the cred to write about our racist, immoral criminal justice system? How do I, in 750 words, say ‘NO!’ to our status quo Tough on Crime mentality?”

Now do you see why I need some time to wade through such questions?

 

October 12, 2012: NO!

Next Sunday, Friends Meeting at Cambridge will be worshiping on the sidewalk in front of the Textron plant—they make cluster bombs—in Burlington, MA. Knee to knee, we will conduct a meeting for worship on folding chairs and under the sky.

In order to prepare Meeting’s children for this, I plan to read David McPhail’s NO! this Sunday.

Although I think this book is pretty amazing (I’ll blog how it was received on Monday), something that a young F/friend said years ago seems a better take: Nora, maybe 5 or 6 at the time, her big sister, her mother, my three daughters and I had been standing silently on Boston Common on a chilly, damp Good Friday as participants of FMC’s yearly Good Friday vigil. All five daughters under the age of ten, after a couple of hours, the two moms had whispered that our daughters’ silent participation definitely needed to rewarded. So we left.

Crossing Tremont Street in search of hot chocolate or some other treat, Nora had something to say: “My witness isn’t against war,” she announced. “It’s for peace!”

So, yes: No!

And, better: Yes! Yes!