A not-too-close acquaintance of mine (spell check is off... sue me!) sent me this.
It's funny.
I laughed.
I'm still laughing.
I hope you laugh, too.
here goes:
From: vendor
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2005 7:53 PM
To: me
Subject: oldie but goodie
Disorder in the Court
These are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place.
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
______________________________
ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How old is your son, the one living with you?
WITNESS: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
ATTORNEY: How long has he lived with you?
WITNESS: Forty-five years.
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan.
______________________________________
This one reminds me of Labyrinth
ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
___________________________________
ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he's twenty-one.
________________________________________
ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Would you repeat the question?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh....
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
_____________________________________
ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh?
______________________________________
ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: But could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
The World According to Oliver (consider yourself)
The war was over. Thousands of relieved parents poured onto the streets in celebration more than of the victory, than the end to the senseless death that had already taken so many thousands. Thousands of children poured onto the streets for no reason better than to shout and run and be free like they hadn’t for years. Three generations had fought for this day, and now it was here and no one had the temerity to point out that victory is when the hard work begins: that day was not a day for sense and logic, but for triumph and merriment. Walking with my mother, dressed in the requisite red shirt and black pants, waiving little blue and white flags right alongside the red and black ones, most of us with the peasant-inspired straw hats so en vogue after the revolution, I was of the people. There is no greater sense of freedom than the first dizzying moments of debauchery, drunkenness and love-making. How more free could one be than that one day, after one persecution ended and the next hadn’t yet begun?
We went back to school. The actual fighting in the cities had only taken one year out of school. Then, there was the literacy campaign, that took most literate men and women of 16 or older and took them to the fields, the jungles and the steppes, to teach those who had so long been kept in darkness the power of the written word, the sense of numbers and the words of the new founding fathers. History is the boon of the victors, and there was so much to rewrite, retell, redo. Thus, then, two years passed before we went back to school, but we went back.
To be sure, an endless debate could start by merely trying to pin down the real reasons for the revolution. Power corrupts those who hold it, but many who don’t lust after it to their souls’ decay—and we had both. Ultimately, Somoza faced thirteen armies, divided into three groups; each group had its own ideology, but mostly everybody agreed on one thing: Somoza had to go. He was not a nice man. He was not a good leader. He did not have the nation’s interests at heart. The United States had installed his father into the presidency many a year before for no better reason than to have a friend in a slightly unstable area. American economic interests required a modicum of stability to facilitate commerce—and (at the time) the possible construction of a canal, as I recall, but that might have been before. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a misunderstanding regarding the nature of that stability, and the Somozas assumed a despotic and tyrannical choke-hold on the nation that Stalin would have envied and Nixon (privately, of course) admired. But stability it was, and as such, met the requirements divinely inspired from the north, and so more money came, and more power, more arms and more dying. The dead, it seems, are ultimately stable—but they are not economically viable—so, per instructions implicitly declared en Anglais, the populace was kept at a happy medium. The suffering of the people of Nicaragua was considered secondary to the ultimate political and economic interests of the cold-war-era United States. The stability of the right-wing regime there was considered an advantage in the on-going fight against the possibility of Cuba exporting Soviet-style communism to the region; many of the Cubans who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion were trained in Nicaragua with the full knowledge of President Kennedy, a liberal and a democrat—go figure. Cute little phrases came out of that: Alliance for Progress. We failed to see Alliance meant really Alignment (ours behind yours), for your progress. Of course, Americans justified this by the use of the eternal trickle-down economics: the ever-better scraps you threw our way should justify the rape of our country’s natural resources—and, to forestall those who’d chastise my use of the word “rape” as a leftist exaggeration, I’d like to beg that if you have not walked on the dead, eroded sands of what once was verdant, life-giving jungle but turns into a post-apocalyptic, war-torn moonscape after American-style deforestation seeking more wood or to drive out “insurgents”, it would be best to avoid commenting on the subject. The killing fields belong only to the dead. The living’s job is to prevent the next ones.
Americans get so wrapped up in their political dichotomy they fail to see the rest of the world can’t tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans once one starts talking Dollars.
Shortly after the revolution, the United States did to Nicaragua what it had done to Cuba, apparently ignoring the lesson of the past, and thereby dooming itself to the same results: economic sanctions practically drove the fledgling democracy into the hands of the Cubas, Chinas, East Germanies and Soviet Unions of the world. But the fault, you see, was with Nicaragua. Remember the three armies? The one that had won was the middle one, the one that wanted to build an independent country from any external power. But the United States demands immediate and unfailing allegiance, an oath of fealty a new democracy just now exercising the muscles of its sovereignty would never want. Ronald Reagan could not have wrapped the gift with a nicer, bigger, redder bow. Nicaragua needed money and the United States did not want to help. But Russia was all about helping us—so very friendly, so very accommodating, so very un-demanding of any subservience, at first.
And then, when the other two armies saw the failure of the third, the one that had won at first, they took over. Thus came the communists to power, not with the revolution, but after the Americans stopped sending help to Nicaragua.
Seeing the incredible oppression the new regime was bringing to the people, and the very real possibility of the exportation of soviet-styled communism to El Salvador and Honduras, and possibly to Colombia and maybe Panama, the United States took immediate, if not overt, action against the Nicaraguan government. Most of this was later celebrated in the Iran-Contra hearings, but I get ahead of myself. Remember I just got back to school after two years of forced and not-terribly-appreciated vacation.
It was a nice, private school. We were of the newly-formed upper class. Dedicated revolutionaries against the Somozas, we (as a family) landed nice positions in the new government. Suddenly, we were hot. The new equality brought a redistribution of wealth which, if not necessarily equitable, was somewhat just. After all, what do the victors get if not the spoils? My dad had a friend who ran a hospital. The school required “community service” hours before graduation. My brother and I went a couple of hours to the hospital and helped clean out some trash, file some papers, push wheel chairs around, all for credit. This was to teach us the value of social responsibility. This is the lesson that I learned.
Shortly after we started, the United States’ supported contras, with arms provided by the CIA, bought with money from Iran, bombed the primary port in Managua. A tanker that was waiting to be unloaded exploded; the line that connected it to the gigantic oil-tanks on the port caught fire. Fifty-thousand gallons of refined gasoline make for a hell of a cherry bomb. I never knew how many died—I did not want to know. I avoided the news. I was, you see, in the thick of things: I was at the hospital when they brought the burn victims in. Most were missing pieces, neatly cleaned and dressed to avoid infection. We kids were kept away from most of them—we were there to file, to push, to clean, not to deal with death and dismemberment.
We were specifically forbidden to go into the small room in the back of the burn unit, which made it most appealing. One day, we snuck in. The room was clean and white, every surface kept sterile to avoid any possibility of infection. There were three beds, each cocooned inside a plastic tent, oxygen running to them all the time; each bed pristine, the lights bright, the air cool and constantly running, like a soft breeze, with a slight disinfectant smell. On each bed there was a body. There were two women and one child, at some point, but when I went in, there was only a woman there—at least they told me later it was a woman. Looking through the plastic, I could hardly tell the mess of charcoal and blood on the bed was even human. She felt no pain, they told me when I ran out crying—so much of heir flesh was gone…and bone can’t feel the burn. They did not know why she wouldn’t just die. She had no name. She was just a body they brought in to the morgue, only to realize at the last moment she was still breathing, if only barely. I hope to God she died quickly.
That is how the United States exports democracy. Whatever else you may say on the matter, as of this writing 1400 human voices have been forever silenced just on the American side in Iraq. That is an irrefutable number that must be considered. I make no judgment on the political, economic and humanitarian motives that lead to their deaths, but add to these the countless deaths of those on the other side. Those 1400 bear no guilt, but those on the other side perhaps do, and so we sleep better at night knowing our boys and girls are there doing the right thing. But I have seen the wrong thing done in the name of right. Sometimes, I see it still. So do not dare to tell me that I don’t know why I speak when I speak strongly against any kind of military action. Somebody must. This is not to say that such an action may from time to time be necessary, but rather that it must be taken with full knowledge of the price to pay. Anything less than absolute torture over the decision is inhuman. Those making the decision must be held accountable for that decision every step of the way. The righteous do not mind to die for the cause of righteousness. They welcome sharing in the ultimate price they ask of all those others. It is only the cowards that try to hide behind lies and excuses.
It is irresponsible to dismiss the opposing view by merely exaggerating its points into their most ridiculous worst-case scenarios and thus attempt to call such a view equally ridiculous. Speaking of the anti-war movement as though it were an oily blob crawling its way up from the theatre screen to consume all foolish enough to try to stand their ground, seeks to dismiss the richness of individual experiences. It is not a movement, but a shifting coalition—and often only accidental association of those who for one reason or another feel this country’s interests could be best served by alternative courses of action.
The war in Viet-Nam was not ended by the anti-war movement. The insane numbers of American dead ended that war. The eternally missed goals ended that war. Why do we call the prolonged and bloody debacle of the soviets in Afghanistan a victory for democratic forces everywhere, but Viet-Nam is the failure of the “anti-war movement”? It is all a question of perspective, a fairy tale where we as Americans can do no wrong. The Soviets left and the Taliban moved in. Who wins? If there is a political aspect to American democracy that attracts the persecuted intellectuals of the rest of the world, it is that it welcomes individualism, and thus dissent. It is ultimately patriotic to question the motives of the government: keeping it honest. Questioning or outright opposing those motives is not irresponsible, weak, or pandering to the interest of terrorists. That some seek to silence the healthy debate reminds me how it feels to live under tyranny.
Any global action taken by a superpower like the United States will have both positive and negative effects—regardless of the original causes. Even the most selfish act may benefit others accidentally or deliberately in the accomplishment of the selfish goal. To try to justify the original intent by the ultimate effect is like saying “look at the Japanese economy of the 70’s and 80’s! It’s ok we dropped two nuclear bombs on them.” Any action must bear immediate justification, or it quickly turns into allowing the end to justify the means.
I, and many like me, admire and respect many who propose the opposing view, but I am getting sick and tired of being called weak, afraid, traitor simply because I don’t fall in line immediately behind them. Nothing could insult them more than my having a mind of my own. It is really a shame that their version of democratic discourse is limited to total, unconditional agreement to their views alone. They equate disagreement with hatred for this country. How incredibly irresponsible is that!? This country, born out of argument and debate, that fought to gain its voice from under the tyrannical dictum of the British Empire, where heroes gave their lives so the critical decisions could be made here—here being where every citizen is—now sees this fundamental right brought into question by those who fear dissention. What’s worse, they are now insulting those who have kept an open mind, calling them complacent, slow to act, sheep-like simply because they didn’t fall in line right behind them.
I find it very amusing how they deny the existence of a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” even as they accuse all who oppose them of being on-message, falling in line, being complacent. They don’t associate for the sake of unifying their voice and clarifying their views; they don’t need to! Their point is so patently clear and right that any non-fascist, non-terrorist, non-communist, red-blooded American would just know it to be true—the rest of us are just insane.
I am sincerely disturbed by the nature of the words many who oppose the war are saying. It is true that our troops deserve our support and every effort must be made to eliminate the dangers to which they can be exposed while there. Nothing should be said to endanger them. However, to equate any disagreement with a death wish on our children, our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan and other such places is sheer stupidity. But is not enough that there are destructive demagogues out there taking advantage of the situation to bring attention to themselves (on both sides of this argument) to translate dissent to lunacy. This country’s democracy demands dialog, and those who wish to live under dictatorial, tyrannical, overpowering forces are certainly welcome to move to China. God knows there’s plenty of work there.
Iraq is nothing like Viet-Nam. Viet-Nam is already lost. We can still win in Iraq. Let us, however, as responsible Americans, bring out into the open all our motives and democratically discuss what course of action will accomplish our humanitarian goals while minimizing deaths.
Dissent is difficult; it is often seen as unpatriotic, and those who don’t like it often bring out entire libraries of patriotic talk about falling in line behind the leader to bring about peace. But I have lived under tyranny, both communist and not. I have seen my friends and my parents’ friends die fighting for freedom. Many in my family died to free our land. I have lived through a war and know how necessary it can be. Some things are worth one’s life. One of these things is the freedom to dissent, to vote, to matter in a democracy.
Anything else is Un-American.
We went back to school. The actual fighting in the cities had only taken one year out of school. Then, there was the literacy campaign, that took most literate men and women of 16 or older and took them to the fields, the jungles and the steppes, to teach those who had so long been kept in darkness the power of the written word, the sense of numbers and the words of the new founding fathers. History is the boon of the victors, and there was so much to rewrite, retell, redo. Thus, then, two years passed before we went back to school, but we went back.
To be sure, an endless debate could start by merely trying to pin down the real reasons for the revolution. Power corrupts those who hold it, but many who don’t lust after it to their souls’ decay—and we had both. Ultimately, Somoza faced thirteen armies, divided into three groups; each group had its own ideology, but mostly everybody agreed on one thing: Somoza had to go. He was not a nice man. He was not a good leader. He did not have the nation’s interests at heart. The United States had installed his father into the presidency many a year before for no better reason than to have a friend in a slightly unstable area. American economic interests required a modicum of stability to facilitate commerce—and (at the time) the possible construction of a canal, as I recall, but that might have been before. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a misunderstanding regarding the nature of that stability, and the Somozas assumed a despotic and tyrannical choke-hold on the nation that Stalin would have envied and Nixon (privately, of course) admired. But stability it was, and as such, met the requirements divinely inspired from the north, and so more money came, and more power, more arms and more dying. The dead, it seems, are ultimately stable—but they are not economically viable—so, per instructions implicitly declared en Anglais, the populace was kept at a happy medium. The suffering of the people of Nicaragua was considered secondary to the ultimate political and economic interests of the cold-war-era United States. The stability of the right-wing regime there was considered an advantage in the on-going fight against the possibility of Cuba exporting Soviet-style communism to the region; many of the Cubans who participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion were trained in Nicaragua with the full knowledge of President Kennedy, a liberal and a democrat—go figure. Cute little phrases came out of that: Alliance for Progress. We failed to see Alliance meant really Alignment (ours behind yours), for your progress. Of course, Americans justified this by the use of the eternal trickle-down economics: the ever-better scraps you threw our way should justify the rape of our country’s natural resources—and, to forestall those who’d chastise my use of the word “rape” as a leftist exaggeration, I’d like to beg that if you have not walked on the dead, eroded sands of what once was verdant, life-giving jungle but turns into a post-apocalyptic, war-torn moonscape after American-style deforestation seeking more wood or to drive out “insurgents”, it would be best to avoid commenting on the subject. The killing fields belong only to the dead. The living’s job is to prevent the next ones.
Americans get so wrapped up in their political dichotomy they fail to see the rest of the world can’t tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans once one starts talking Dollars.
Shortly after the revolution, the United States did to Nicaragua what it had done to Cuba, apparently ignoring the lesson of the past, and thereby dooming itself to the same results: economic sanctions practically drove the fledgling democracy into the hands of the Cubas, Chinas, East Germanies and Soviet Unions of the world. But the fault, you see, was with Nicaragua. Remember the three armies? The one that had won was the middle one, the one that wanted to build an independent country from any external power. But the United States demands immediate and unfailing allegiance, an oath of fealty a new democracy just now exercising the muscles of its sovereignty would never want. Ronald Reagan could not have wrapped the gift with a nicer, bigger, redder bow. Nicaragua needed money and the United States did not want to help. But Russia was all about helping us—so very friendly, so very accommodating, so very un-demanding of any subservience, at first.
And then, when the other two armies saw the failure of the third, the one that had won at first, they took over. Thus came the communists to power, not with the revolution, but after the Americans stopped sending help to Nicaragua.
Seeing the incredible oppression the new regime was bringing to the people, and the very real possibility of the exportation of soviet-styled communism to El Salvador and Honduras, and possibly to Colombia and maybe Panama, the United States took immediate, if not overt, action against the Nicaraguan government. Most of this was later celebrated in the Iran-Contra hearings, but I get ahead of myself. Remember I just got back to school after two years of forced and not-terribly-appreciated vacation.
It was a nice, private school. We were of the newly-formed upper class. Dedicated revolutionaries against the Somozas, we (as a family) landed nice positions in the new government. Suddenly, we were hot. The new equality brought a redistribution of wealth which, if not necessarily equitable, was somewhat just. After all, what do the victors get if not the spoils? My dad had a friend who ran a hospital. The school required “community service” hours before graduation. My brother and I went a couple of hours to the hospital and helped clean out some trash, file some papers, push wheel chairs around, all for credit. This was to teach us the value of social responsibility. This is the lesson that I learned.
Shortly after we started, the United States’ supported contras, with arms provided by the CIA, bought with money from Iran, bombed the primary port in Managua. A tanker that was waiting to be unloaded exploded; the line that connected it to the gigantic oil-tanks on the port caught fire. Fifty-thousand gallons of refined gasoline make for a hell of a cherry bomb. I never knew how many died—I did not want to know. I avoided the news. I was, you see, in the thick of things: I was at the hospital when they brought the burn victims in. Most were missing pieces, neatly cleaned and dressed to avoid infection. We kids were kept away from most of them—we were there to file, to push, to clean, not to deal with death and dismemberment.
We were specifically forbidden to go into the small room in the back of the burn unit, which made it most appealing. One day, we snuck in. The room was clean and white, every surface kept sterile to avoid any possibility of infection. There were three beds, each cocooned inside a plastic tent, oxygen running to them all the time; each bed pristine, the lights bright, the air cool and constantly running, like a soft breeze, with a slight disinfectant smell. On each bed there was a body. There were two women and one child, at some point, but when I went in, there was only a woman there—at least they told me later it was a woman. Looking through the plastic, I could hardly tell the mess of charcoal and blood on the bed was even human. She felt no pain, they told me when I ran out crying—so much of heir flesh was gone…and bone can’t feel the burn. They did not know why she wouldn’t just die. She had no name. She was just a body they brought in to the morgue, only to realize at the last moment she was still breathing, if only barely. I hope to God she died quickly.
That is how the United States exports democracy. Whatever else you may say on the matter, as of this writing 1400 human voices have been forever silenced just on the American side in Iraq. That is an irrefutable number that must be considered. I make no judgment on the political, economic and humanitarian motives that lead to their deaths, but add to these the countless deaths of those on the other side. Those 1400 bear no guilt, but those on the other side perhaps do, and so we sleep better at night knowing our boys and girls are there doing the right thing. But I have seen the wrong thing done in the name of right. Sometimes, I see it still. So do not dare to tell me that I don’t know why I speak when I speak strongly against any kind of military action. Somebody must. This is not to say that such an action may from time to time be necessary, but rather that it must be taken with full knowledge of the price to pay. Anything less than absolute torture over the decision is inhuman. Those making the decision must be held accountable for that decision every step of the way. The righteous do not mind to die for the cause of righteousness. They welcome sharing in the ultimate price they ask of all those others. It is only the cowards that try to hide behind lies and excuses.
It is irresponsible to dismiss the opposing view by merely exaggerating its points into their most ridiculous worst-case scenarios and thus attempt to call such a view equally ridiculous. Speaking of the anti-war movement as though it were an oily blob crawling its way up from the theatre screen to consume all foolish enough to try to stand their ground, seeks to dismiss the richness of individual experiences. It is not a movement, but a shifting coalition—and often only accidental association of those who for one reason or another feel this country’s interests could be best served by alternative courses of action.
The war in Viet-Nam was not ended by the anti-war movement. The insane numbers of American dead ended that war. The eternally missed goals ended that war. Why do we call the prolonged and bloody debacle of the soviets in Afghanistan a victory for democratic forces everywhere, but Viet-Nam is the failure of the “anti-war movement”? It is all a question of perspective, a fairy tale where we as Americans can do no wrong. The Soviets left and the Taliban moved in. Who wins? If there is a political aspect to American democracy that attracts the persecuted intellectuals of the rest of the world, it is that it welcomes individualism, and thus dissent. It is ultimately patriotic to question the motives of the government: keeping it honest. Questioning or outright opposing those motives is not irresponsible, weak, or pandering to the interest of terrorists. That some seek to silence the healthy debate reminds me how it feels to live under tyranny.
Any global action taken by a superpower like the United States will have both positive and negative effects—regardless of the original causes. Even the most selfish act may benefit others accidentally or deliberately in the accomplishment of the selfish goal. To try to justify the original intent by the ultimate effect is like saying “look at the Japanese economy of the 70’s and 80’s! It’s ok we dropped two nuclear bombs on them.” Any action must bear immediate justification, or it quickly turns into allowing the end to justify the means.
I, and many like me, admire and respect many who propose the opposing view, but I am getting sick and tired of being called weak, afraid, traitor simply because I don’t fall in line immediately behind them. Nothing could insult them more than my having a mind of my own. It is really a shame that their version of democratic discourse is limited to total, unconditional agreement to their views alone. They equate disagreement with hatred for this country. How incredibly irresponsible is that!? This country, born out of argument and debate, that fought to gain its voice from under the tyrannical dictum of the British Empire, where heroes gave their lives so the critical decisions could be made here—here being where every citizen is—now sees this fundamental right brought into question by those who fear dissention. What’s worse, they are now insulting those who have kept an open mind, calling them complacent, slow to act, sheep-like simply because they didn’t fall in line right behind them.
I find it very amusing how they deny the existence of a “vast, right-wing conspiracy” even as they accuse all who oppose them of being on-message, falling in line, being complacent. They don’t associate for the sake of unifying their voice and clarifying their views; they don’t need to! Their point is so patently clear and right that any non-fascist, non-terrorist, non-communist, red-blooded American would just know it to be true—the rest of us are just insane.
I am sincerely disturbed by the nature of the words many who oppose the war are saying. It is true that our troops deserve our support and every effort must be made to eliminate the dangers to which they can be exposed while there. Nothing should be said to endanger them. However, to equate any disagreement with a death wish on our children, our friends in Iraq, Afghanistan and other such places is sheer stupidity. But is not enough that there are destructive demagogues out there taking advantage of the situation to bring attention to themselves (on both sides of this argument) to translate dissent to lunacy. This country’s democracy demands dialog, and those who wish to live under dictatorial, tyrannical, overpowering forces are certainly welcome to move to China. God knows there’s plenty of work there.
Iraq is nothing like Viet-Nam. Viet-Nam is already lost. We can still win in Iraq. Let us, however, as responsible Americans, bring out into the open all our motives and democratically discuss what course of action will accomplish our humanitarian goals while minimizing deaths.
Dissent is difficult; it is often seen as unpatriotic, and those who don’t like it often bring out entire libraries of patriotic talk about falling in line behind the leader to bring about peace. But I have lived under tyranny, both communist and not. I have seen my friends and my parents’ friends die fighting for freedom. Many in my family died to free our land. I have lived through a war and know how necessary it can be. Some things are worth one’s life. One of these things is the freedom to dissent, to vote, to matter in a democracy.
Anything else is Un-American.
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
Una y otra vez
Al principio, pensé que no era mío. La enfermera me enseño un paquetito bien apretadito, ya limpio; solo se veían su pelito café claro y sus ojitos grises. Su carita, todavía hinchada por las hormonas a las que el parto lo expuso, lo hacia parecer si no blanco, chino. Dicen que casi no lloró al nacer. Yo llegué unos minutos tarde—ella nunca dura mas de dos horas en parto (ya ha tenido tres hijos) y el duró una hora nada mas. Para cuando llegué del trabajo al hospital ya había nacido. El nació casi a las diez de la mañana. Todavía en el cuarto donde todo sucedió, los encontré ya calmados, descansando, sonriendo. Me senté en una silla al lado de la cama—ella entre dormida y despierta; el bien despiertito, sus ojos investigando el mundo nuevo a donde lo habíamos traído sin pedirle permiso y sin darle explicación.
Lo saludé y le di un beso. Traté de hablarle usando el nombre que habíamos pensado darle, pero no funcionó. Después de meses de entrenarnos, mi hija nos había convencido darle otro nombre—traté el nombre nuevo, y ese si lleno mi boca bien: Andre, dizque fuerte, y aunque no físicamente, ha demostrado que su temperamento es así. El niño es un santo, calmado, aguantador y al mismo tiempo travieso y juguetón. Le doy mil gracias a Dios por traérnoslo, aunque trajo con él tantas dudas.
La historia viene así:
Lo debí haber sospechado desde el principio, pero se me escapó. Ella nunca fue muy romántica. Aun cuando nos casamos y después nació mi hija, ella quiso ser una mujer muy liberada, lo cual no era suficiente para sospechar nada. Queriendo yo mismo ser progresivo, acepté su manera de ser. Trabajé como idiota para pagarle su escuela. Cuando salio de la escuela, le di trabajo. Según yo, todo iba bien. No me di cuenta hasta que la niña tenía tres años.
Un día, salí del trabajo temprano para llevar a mi cuñada a visitar a su novio. La muchacha era amable conmigo y siendo el jefe, yo tenía mas que suficiente tiempo libre para llevarla. El muchacho, también árabe, me caía bien; en aquel entonces, él estaba trabajando en construcción a mas de una hora de distancia, y el carro de mi cuñada no aguantaba el viaje. Durante el viaje, ella le habló tres veces para avisarle donde estábamos, y para platicar un rato. Por supuesto, la plática siendo en mi carrito, me era imposible evitar oír todo lo que ella decía y la mayor parte de lo que él le contestaba. La mayor parte de lo que dijeron era el usual intercambio entre enamorados, con besitos y otras caricias verbales—pero un par de los comentarios me hicieron un poco sospechoso. El le preguntó de mi mujer, de su horario, de cómo puede ser que yo tenga tanto tiempo libre, que si no le preocupaba que pudiera yo aparecerme sin avisar, y esas cosas.
Para la tercera conversación entre ellos, yo ya sabia de que estaban hablando, y sin mucha interrogación, conseguí que mi cuñada me diera los detalles de la infidelidad de mi mujer. Resulta que un hombre preocupado por proveer lo que su familia necesita y trabajando hasta dos turnos al día no le da suficiente atención a su mujer—y mujeres que no reciben atención en casa la buscan en la calle.
Un año. Después de cuatro, estaba dispuesta a tirarlo todo a un lado por las caricias y un poco tiempo de un extraño que conoció una vez que salio con sus amigas a un TGI Friday’s. Atendían la misma universidad. Mientras yo trabajaba para pagarle sus estudios, ella andaba de manita sudada por toda la ciudad con su nuevo novio. Todos nuestros amigos sabían. Toda su familia sabía. Todos. Esa noche me lo admitió, buscando comprensión de mi parte.
Ella, protagonista de todos mis sueños pornográficos, amor de mi vida, participante principal de todas mis fantasías (sexuales y no), quería comprensión. Ella, que sabía como yo odié las indiscreciones de mi padre y a quien yo le juré jamás serle infiel. Mi Beatriz, mi Julieta, mi Penélope—¿Cómo explicarle que me dolía más? No era tanto que le diera el cuerpo, porque eso no se gasta. Me dolió mas que aun sabiendo cuanto me dolía no podía esconder esa ilusión en sus ojos cuando me contó todo.
El pendejo fui yo. Un mes traté y no pude quedarme. Por supuesto, en ese mes, sabiendo cuanto la quería y mas que todo como para pagar la indiscreción se me entregó completamente—una orgía para dos mas por culpa que por ganas. El cuerpo no se queja, pero el corazón no aguanta. La que lo usa como paga no se da cuenta pero se convierte en puta, y nadie quiere una puta antes de apagar la luz.
Mi hija tenía tres años. Todavía se acuerda del último día. Ese día no peleamos. En la mañana me levanté, lavé mi ropa, cociné un pequeño desayuno para los dos. Mi mujer no se levantó hasta las diez (típico, diría yo, de la nueva vocación que estaba desempleando). Todo listo, me subí a mi carrito y me fui. Recuerdo la imagen de mi niña llorando, solo moviendo su manita en el aire en mi retrovisor.
Al final de ese mes, la que fue mi mujer me llamó para avisarme que estaba embarazada y para decirme (de su propia cuenta y sin que yo le preguntara) que era mío. En todo caso, en California no importa de quien sea. Estando casados cuando el niño nació, era mío sin importar quien fuera el padre.
Al principio, pensé que no era mío. La enfermera me enseño un paquetito bien apretadito, ya limpio; solo se veían su pelito café claro y sus ojitos grises. Su carita, todavía hinchada por las hormonas a las que el parto lo expuso, lo hacia parecer si no blanco, chino. Dicen que casi no lloró al nacer. No importa—al cabo yo ya había llorado suficiente por los dos. Siempre ha sido el tranquilo. Así nos pagó Dios por todas las noches sin sueño que le dedicamos a la niña y su cólico. Ella, con sus decisiones, sus órdenes, sus demandas—él, siempre dispuesto a ver que viene, complaciente y tranquilo. Ella la mandona—él dispuesto a ir al cine a ver que película se nos antoja ver. Y si no hay ninguna, nos vamos a Starbucks a tomar un café y platicar un rato. El que aprendió a comer cebollas solo porque le gustan a daddy.
Ayer fue el día del padre. Mis hijos me lo celebraron en la manera normal: con regalitos baratos que compraron con el poco dinero que habían juntado, con tarjetas hechas a mano en la escuela, y con besos y abrazos. Fuimos al cine; vimos tele. Platicamos un rato y tomamos café.
No soy muy buen padre. Es casi injusto que siendo tan descuidado como soy me quieran tanto. Pero me quieren. Siempre he dicho que no hay mejor redención que la otorgada por los hijos: uno vive su vida lo mejor que puede, pidiéndole a Dios que sus hijos lo perdonen. Los míos ya no son tan niños, a pesar de su edad. Ayer, así aburrido (dirán) o tranquilo (tal vez), y tal vez sin querer queriendo, mi hija y mi hijo me dieron el mejor día de los padres que uno pueda querer.
Lo saludé y le di un beso. Traté de hablarle usando el nombre que habíamos pensado darle, pero no funcionó. Después de meses de entrenarnos, mi hija nos había convencido darle otro nombre—traté el nombre nuevo, y ese si lleno mi boca bien: Andre, dizque fuerte, y aunque no físicamente, ha demostrado que su temperamento es así. El niño es un santo, calmado, aguantador y al mismo tiempo travieso y juguetón. Le doy mil gracias a Dios por traérnoslo, aunque trajo con él tantas dudas.
La historia viene así:
Lo debí haber sospechado desde el principio, pero se me escapó. Ella nunca fue muy romántica. Aun cuando nos casamos y después nació mi hija, ella quiso ser una mujer muy liberada, lo cual no era suficiente para sospechar nada. Queriendo yo mismo ser progresivo, acepté su manera de ser. Trabajé como idiota para pagarle su escuela. Cuando salio de la escuela, le di trabajo. Según yo, todo iba bien. No me di cuenta hasta que la niña tenía tres años.
Un día, salí del trabajo temprano para llevar a mi cuñada a visitar a su novio. La muchacha era amable conmigo y siendo el jefe, yo tenía mas que suficiente tiempo libre para llevarla. El muchacho, también árabe, me caía bien; en aquel entonces, él estaba trabajando en construcción a mas de una hora de distancia, y el carro de mi cuñada no aguantaba el viaje. Durante el viaje, ella le habló tres veces para avisarle donde estábamos, y para platicar un rato. Por supuesto, la plática siendo en mi carrito, me era imposible evitar oír todo lo que ella decía y la mayor parte de lo que él le contestaba. La mayor parte de lo que dijeron era el usual intercambio entre enamorados, con besitos y otras caricias verbales—pero un par de los comentarios me hicieron un poco sospechoso. El le preguntó de mi mujer, de su horario, de cómo puede ser que yo tenga tanto tiempo libre, que si no le preocupaba que pudiera yo aparecerme sin avisar, y esas cosas.
Para la tercera conversación entre ellos, yo ya sabia de que estaban hablando, y sin mucha interrogación, conseguí que mi cuñada me diera los detalles de la infidelidad de mi mujer. Resulta que un hombre preocupado por proveer lo que su familia necesita y trabajando hasta dos turnos al día no le da suficiente atención a su mujer—y mujeres que no reciben atención en casa la buscan en la calle.
Un año. Después de cuatro, estaba dispuesta a tirarlo todo a un lado por las caricias y un poco tiempo de un extraño que conoció una vez que salio con sus amigas a un TGI Friday’s. Atendían la misma universidad. Mientras yo trabajaba para pagarle sus estudios, ella andaba de manita sudada por toda la ciudad con su nuevo novio. Todos nuestros amigos sabían. Toda su familia sabía. Todos. Esa noche me lo admitió, buscando comprensión de mi parte.
Ella, protagonista de todos mis sueños pornográficos, amor de mi vida, participante principal de todas mis fantasías (sexuales y no), quería comprensión. Ella, que sabía como yo odié las indiscreciones de mi padre y a quien yo le juré jamás serle infiel. Mi Beatriz, mi Julieta, mi Penélope—¿Cómo explicarle que me dolía más? No era tanto que le diera el cuerpo, porque eso no se gasta. Me dolió mas que aun sabiendo cuanto me dolía no podía esconder esa ilusión en sus ojos cuando me contó todo.
El pendejo fui yo. Un mes traté y no pude quedarme. Por supuesto, en ese mes, sabiendo cuanto la quería y mas que todo como para pagar la indiscreción se me entregó completamente—una orgía para dos mas por culpa que por ganas. El cuerpo no se queja, pero el corazón no aguanta. La que lo usa como paga no se da cuenta pero se convierte en puta, y nadie quiere una puta antes de apagar la luz.
Mi hija tenía tres años. Todavía se acuerda del último día. Ese día no peleamos. En la mañana me levanté, lavé mi ropa, cociné un pequeño desayuno para los dos. Mi mujer no se levantó hasta las diez (típico, diría yo, de la nueva vocación que estaba desempleando). Todo listo, me subí a mi carrito y me fui. Recuerdo la imagen de mi niña llorando, solo moviendo su manita en el aire en mi retrovisor.
Al final de ese mes, la que fue mi mujer me llamó para avisarme que estaba embarazada y para decirme (de su propia cuenta y sin que yo le preguntara) que era mío. En todo caso, en California no importa de quien sea. Estando casados cuando el niño nació, era mío sin importar quien fuera el padre.
Al principio, pensé que no era mío. La enfermera me enseño un paquetito bien apretadito, ya limpio; solo se veían su pelito café claro y sus ojitos grises. Su carita, todavía hinchada por las hormonas a las que el parto lo expuso, lo hacia parecer si no blanco, chino. Dicen que casi no lloró al nacer. No importa—al cabo yo ya había llorado suficiente por los dos. Siempre ha sido el tranquilo. Así nos pagó Dios por todas las noches sin sueño que le dedicamos a la niña y su cólico. Ella, con sus decisiones, sus órdenes, sus demandas—él, siempre dispuesto a ver que viene, complaciente y tranquilo. Ella la mandona—él dispuesto a ir al cine a ver que película se nos antoja ver. Y si no hay ninguna, nos vamos a Starbucks a tomar un café y platicar un rato. El que aprendió a comer cebollas solo porque le gustan a daddy.
Ayer fue el día del padre. Mis hijos me lo celebraron en la manera normal: con regalitos baratos que compraron con el poco dinero que habían juntado, con tarjetas hechas a mano en la escuela, y con besos y abrazos. Fuimos al cine; vimos tele. Platicamos un rato y tomamos café.
No soy muy buen padre. Es casi injusto que siendo tan descuidado como soy me quieran tanto. Pero me quieren. Siempre he dicho que no hay mejor redención que la otorgada por los hijos: uno vive su vida lo mejor que puede, pidiéndole a Dios que sus hijos lo perdonen. Los míos ya no son tan niños, a pesar de su edad. Ayer, así aburrido (dirán) o tranquilo (tal vez), y tal vez sin querer queriendo, mi hija y mi hijo me dieron el mejor día de los padres que uno pueda querer.
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Por Paulita.
There is always a disaster, somewhere. Happy lives are cut in half by man or nature, and hard lives are made the harder by the aftermath of devastation—pieces left to be picked up in loneliness or in quiet, vacant-eyed communities left stunned by the surprise. And yet, almost as if divinely commanded, soon after there will be another disaster. What senseless human hope makes us think that this one disaster will be the last? Why are we so surprised when the next one comes? All life needs to go wrong is time. True, the same applies to the happy moments, but we are so good at remembering ones and forgetting the others.
Strictly speaking, I don’t remember, though the images are well implanted in my memory from so much repetition. God shivered the day before Christmas Eve: the earth wouldn’t stand still; doors opened and closed, banging and clanging in an odd, offbeat applause; dishes and toys flew through the air and fell together into a broken mass on the floor; the ground roared; wind blew where before it had been calm. People who make a living counting the dead later said there were 10,000; the ones who make their living measuring devastation said it reached 6.5 on the Richter scale. Before the week was out, they’d increased those numbers to 20,000 and 7.2. With every telling, the numbers were different, but death and destruction are hardly quantifiable past a point where the brain simply turns them to multitudes—beyond, lies madness.
I was in my crib, or whatever those things are called that hold kids too big for cribs but too little for beds. My brother was in his bed, in the same room, but at the opposite corner from me. We were both away from the window. When the shaking started, the window exploded into a million tiny pieces and fine dust, covering the floor, but not quite reaching either of us. The ceiling collapsed; my brother was buried almost completely under it—only his skinny, long, left leg stuck out from under the rubble. I was fine, if a bit shaken. My mother was asleep in her room, at the other end of the house. Between us, the kitchen had become an impenetrable barrier of broken glass, fallen furniture and buckling floorboards. Gas leaked loudly; water poured from broken pipes. Electricity was out, but for the occasional blue lightning of exploding transformers up and down the street. My father was away; he would not return until the morning.
The maid, bless her heart, a young kid somehow related to my dad (probably a bastard child from one of many indiscretions), saved us. She was a tall, strong, young woman who couldn’t be bothered with panic or surprise. She dug my brother out of the rubble, pulled me from my crib, and literally elbowed and shouldered her way past the toppled refrigerator and dining-room table to the front door, where my mother sat sobbing. My brother and I were in our pajamas; my mother was in night gown; the maid was fully dressed, her hair pulled into a tight and tidy pony tail, her long, flowery skirt snugly and prudishly tied around her ample waist with a rope. She was ready for battle and a little shaking wasn’t going to get her off balance.
The house, however, had fallen to one knee, leaning heavily on the building beside it—itself quite weak and loudly complaining at the extra weight.
As I recall, that was the end of the weak, wooden construction in the city. Houses were built out of concrete blocks from then on, with rebar reinforcement—solid, strong. The skeletons of old buildings were left in place, as morbid monuments to the hubris of a people building a city where five different faults intersected. They say the skeletons are still there, having survived their former occupants, that disaster, and the many that came thereafter. Death, it seems, endures.
We moved with my dad’s aunt, in another city, a humbler city full of simpler people and proud, stout little buildings put together when Spain was not the enemy but the motherland—colonial, they called it, as if one’s own slavery is anything to proclaim. We were there a couple of years, while the city (there is, after all, only one city when one is that little) was being rebuilt. In the meantime, we traveled a little; we studied a little and spent time with family. Those were restful times. Life took a little pause. The destruction, the death, all the evil, terrible things that happened were in the past and far away. Young minds do put such things aside so quickly!
Paulita, my dad’s aunt, was a single woman in her sixties, a retired teacher with impeccable manners and perfect handwriting. Used to quills and blotters, back when fine, linen paper was expected when mailing personal notes to one’s friends and relatives, she took life gently, slowly, carefully, deliberately—she did not rush it but rather lived it. I was her favorite. Dark and ugly like my dad—by far the darkest of the litter—she adopted me as her personal child, the one she never had. She cooked with me, for me; she baked the most delicious cookies; she took me on long walks along the lake and bought me candy. She taught me long words and long division. She taught me to slow down in a fight and to smile even when I am angry. We made whole armadas of paper boats of all sizes when it was raining, so we could release then into the flooded streets when the rain stopped. We finger painted. Despite having dedicated her entire life to the care of her older sister, left bed-ridden by a series of strokes in her early twenties, and despite having thus given up any hope of starting her own family, she was the happiest person I have ever met. She was completely at peace with the world and thanked God every day for each glorious sunrise. More than anyone I’ve ever known, I miss her.
The war came and the war went, leaving ten dead for every one that died during the earthquake. But we survived. My roses and my friends, we left. Home and country, we left. We traded all the dreams of life and future there for the uncertainty of this new land. It was the greatest gamble. My father bet his life that he could make it here, and he lost. My sister, sick and weak, and sweet and gentle, did not choose this harsh, unwelcoming world and she succeeded. This is the way of the world, that despite the greatest odds in favor, the strong will sometimes lose, and the weak will sometimes win. We want the weak to win, from time to time, for we see our weaknesses in them, and their strengths in us. Rivers flood, winds blow, rain falls, earth trembles, forests burn, and yet we build again; we try again; we do not shake our fists at God and curse Him, but rather pray for the wisdom to understand His way and endure yet one more trial—for trials are always coming.
Let them come, I say. I am made of stronger stuff than rain and fire. I will not simply live; I will not just survive; when the sun rises again on this wind-swept, desolate wilderness that seeks to engulf me, I will persevere!
Strictly speaking, I don’t remember, though the images are well implanted in my memory from so much repetition. God shivered the day before Christmas Eve: the earth wouldn’t stand still; doors opened and closed, banging and clanging in an odd, offbeat applause; dishes and toys flew through the air and fell together into a broken mass on the floor; the ground roared; wind blew where before it had been calm. People who make a living counting the dead later said there were 10,000; the ones who make their living measuring devastation said it reached 6.5 on the Richter scale. Before the week was out, they’d increased those numbers to 20,000 and 7.2. With every telling, the numbers were different, but death and destruction are hardly quantifiable past a point where the brain simply turns them to multitudes—beyond, lies madness.
I was in my crib, or whatever those things are called that hold kids too big for cribs but too little for beds. My brother was in his bed, in the same room, but at the opposite corner from me. We were both away from the window. When the shaking started, the window exploded into a million tiny pieces and fine dust, covering the floor, but not quite reaching either of us. The ceiling collapsed; my brother was buried almost completely under it—only his skinny, long, left leg stuck out from under the rubble. I was fine, if a bit shaken. My mother was asleep in her room, at the other end of the house. Between us, the kitchen had become an impenetrable barrier of broken glass, fallen furniture and buckling floorboards. Gas leaked loudly; water poured from broken pipes. Electricity was out, but for the occasional blue lightning of exploding transformers up and down the street. My father was away; he would not return until the morning.
The maid, bless her heart, a young kid somehow related to my dad (probably a bastard child from one of many indiscretions), saved us. She was a tall, strong, young woman who couldn’t be bothered with panic or surprise. She dug my brother out of the rubble, pulled me from my crib, and literally elbowed and shouldered her way past the toppled refrigerator and dining-room table to the front door, where my mother sat sobbing. My brother and I were in our pajamas; my mother was in night gown; the maid was fully dressed, her hair pulled into a tight and tidy pony tail, her long, flowery skirt snugly and prudishly tied around her ample waist with a rope. She was ready for battle and a little shaking wasn’t going to get her off balance.
The house, however, had fallen to one knee, leaning heavily on the building beside it—itself quite weak and loudly complaining at the extra weight.
As I recall, that was the end of the weak, wooden construction in the city. Houses were built out of concrete blocks from then on, with rebar reinforcement—solid, strong. The skeletons of old buildings were left in place, as morbid monuments to the hubris of a people building a city where five different faults intersected. They say the skeletons are still there, having survived their former occupants, that disaster, and the many that came thereafter. Death, it seems, endures.
We moved with my dad’s aunt, in another city, a humbler city full of simpler people and proud, stout little buildings put together when Spain was not the enemy but the motherland—colonial, they called it, as if one’s own slavery is anything to proclaim. We were there a couple of years, while the city (there is, after all, only one city when one is that little) was being rebuilt. In the meantime, we traveled a little; we studied a little and spent time with family. Those were restful times. Life took a little pause. The destruction, the death, all the evil, terrible things that happened were in the past and far away. Young minds do put such things aside so quickly!
Paulita, my dad’s aunt, was a single woman in her sixties, a retired teacher with impeccable manners and perfect handwriting. Used to quills and blotters, back when fine, linen paper was expected when mailing personal notes to one’s friends and relatives, she took life gently, slowly, carefully, deliberately—she did not rush it but rather lived it. I was her favorite. Dark and ugly like my dad—by far the darkest of the litter—she adopted me as her personal child, the one she never had. She cooked with me, for me; she baked the most delicious cookies; she took me on long walks along the lake and bought me candy. She taught me long words and long division. She taught me to slow down in a fight and to smile even when I am angry. We made whole armadas of paper boats of all sizes when it was raining, so we could release then into the flooded streets when the rain stopped. We finger painted. Despite having dedicated her entire life to the care of her older sister, left bed-ridden by a series of strokes in her early twenties, and despite having thus given up any hope of starting her own family, she was the happiest person I have ever met. She was completely at peace with the world and thanked God every day for each glorious sunrise. More than anyone I’ve ever known, I miss her.
The war came and the war went, leaving ten dead for every one that died during the earthquake. But we survived. My roses and my friends, we left. Home and country, we left. We traded all the dreams of life and future there for the uncertainty of this new land. It was the greatest gamble. My father bet his life that he could make it here, and he lost. My sister, sick and weak, and sweet and gentle, did not choose this harsh, unwelcoming world and she succeeded. This is the way of the world, that despite the greatest odds in favor, the strong will sometimes lose, and the weak will sometimes win. We want the weak to win, from time to time, for we see our weaknesses in them, and their strengths in us. Rivers flood, winds blow, rain falls, earth trembles, forests burn, and yet we build again; we try again; we do not shake our fists at God and curse Him, but rather pray for the wisdom to understand His way and endure yet one more trial—for trials are always coming.
Let them come, I say. I am made of stronger stuff than rain and fire. I will not simply live; I will not just survive; when the sun rises again on this wind-swept, desolate wilderness that seeks to engulf me, I will persevere!
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