"our enemies are the very air in disguise"

Lately I'm adding one more crazy subject to my list of shit to learn.
I want to understand economics but not to further the notion of free market capitalism as a blessing (because it isn't!). Rather, I want to try and figure out the exact point to which human beings are translated into terms such as "GNP or GDP", "productive" or "non-productive," "viable or non-viable." The title of this particular blog refers to Ani di Franco's song "looking for the holes" but the song of hers I've been lovin lately has been "brief bus stop" from the same c.d. "not so soft" I especially love the lines: "but i said i don't know if i can wait for that peace to be mine and she said, well we've been waiting for this bus, for an awfully long time"

Life sometimes feels like a "brief bus stop" in which you want to hold on to experiences, people, love, whatever but you can't. They have their own things to do, and perhaps the point is not to simply catalog each moment in your heart and mind wherever you can find room but to cherish them NOW because you never know when this person or that person might leave "too soon"

For some reason, the ("brief bus stop") song reminds me of my mom and the many times in my childhood we went without food only to spend the little money we did have going out to eat. It was her way of trying to make it seem like we had the world! So we'd go for "Mexican" or "Chinese" and come home to a trailer without heat and food. As a child I was really (oddly enough) very practical and though that if we just saved money and worked more, we could pay our bills and live like everyone else(so I thought). Now I wish my mom was here so I could hug her and say thanks for trying your best to make the best of stupid situations and endless medical bills and the sorrow of your child (my six year old brother) dying in your arms. As a teen, I blamed her when I had to work 12 hour shifts my senior year in high school, damn near failing. I hated how we could somehow always afford her drinking and smoking habits via living on ramen noodles and pepsi and how I couldn't afford clothes that actually kept me warm in cold months. I think about how hard it must've been for her having to beg my stepdad for grocery money and be beaten for begging. I remember vowing to never beg anyone for anything because of it. Now, I just wish she were here so that I could say I love you for everything you did and every tiny encouragement. My mom is the only person who has always believed I could do anything and who taught me how to "make-do" until I could do better and how to be humble and proud all at once. Her unending social commentary on the stupidity of "reagonomics" and the absolute bullshit people with AIDS suffer through, has always inspired the social critic in me. I think this is why I gravitate toward courses at BSU that are taught by teachers willing to push, to question, to criticize and not just reiterate "socially acceptable" knowledge. My mom, a human being that some jackass in D.C. will never see as "productive" or "economically viable" even though she works sixteen hour days welding trailers. She is still a statistic in that she remains in her seventeen year marriage with a man who prefers to hit her rather than kiss her. And so, distance has become a survival mechanism for me.
I walked away from her and the craziness of her life after her husband threatened to hurt my son and I have never gone back. School affords me ample excuse but I don't know if I could go back. I haven't resolved my hatred of my perceptions surrounding Alabama or for her situation itself and the judgement that comes up every time I think about both. I do say I love you as often as I can in every letter and I hope that one time it will actually get through but perhaps the most important lesson my mom taught me is that you can't save people from themselves nor can you truly "walk in their shoes" despite the many times you might feel inclined to give them yours. :)

We can always see the flaws in others but how often can we learn from our own, how often do relationships offer us that mirror moment to see ourself as the Other, as the begger, as the batterer, as the victim?
I argue often about how much I hate elitist thinking and yet, it is so easy to look down on or judge people whose lives are distant, different and incomprehensible to me. I think THAT is the moment where people are translated...in the silence, in the safe distance from white picket fence SUV-ville to that rat and cockroach infested trailer or park bench with the no-loitering sign or the guy who stands out on the corner with his need money sign religiously, as I turn up the radio in my brain and hurry by.

If we can't bridge the distances that keep us comfortable how can we hope to turn structural inequality on its head?? Can't we move to a space of gratitude? I want to say to someone, anyone,everyone, hey you are so much more to me than an afterthought. I am always aware even if I don't say it. I am aware of you and I think despite whatever society might think, you are truly beautiful. Thanks for your time. Thanks most of all, for simply being you. Oh and I don't really care how utopian that might sound. I think the fact that to fear the slam of thinking/acting/dreaming "utopian" is yet another excuse, another fence that we need to bulldoze straight through.

peace!
jen

"I think my body is as restless as my mind and I don't know if I can roll with it this time" --"roll with it" Ani di Franco

"We can't sit back and let people come to harm. We owe them our lives"
--"looking for the holes"--Ani di Franco