"...because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles..."
The longer I am silent the harder it is to begin writing again. Today I find myself reflective, one year out from the Joplin tornado, I've only written twice since then. I was not even in Joplin when the tornado ripped through, but left the day before and arrived back the day after. Still, even here in the Arizona desert, safe from twisters and their deadly damage, I still hear my heartbeat race during a dust storm, as the sky turns black and the wind picks up. I think of the phone call I received from my dearest friend, her tears as she panicked, not knowing where she was- all the street signs, houses and landmarks had been erased. This sends my thoughts through a deep whirlwind...
Here I am one year later and I feel so foreign from the girl who was leaving Missouri in her little red car with her new boyfriend, launching a new adventure in the wild west. I feel old, and a so... quiet. I have one thing that has kept my life stable and moving forward, one thing that has kept me glued to the me I want to be, one thing that gives me a feeling of freedom and passion: the love of my husband. This love that reminds me that we live for and belong to something bigger than ourselves. I read back over the blogs I've written, glance over the essays I researched, pass over the books I devoured, and I realize... I've lost something. I haven't written a song in a year, my piano has a layer of dust and cat paw prints I can't seem to sit on the bench and remove. I haven't written words driven straight from my heart to the paper in a year, only barely been able to scratch out monotonous school essays. Instead of charging into the thick of what I see and feel is unjust, I am unmoving, paralyzed. Where have I gone?
Seasons. I remember a conversation I had with my lovely friend Jordan about how seasons so quickly change, how a summer can so easily slip into a winter. Here as I move into a brutal June in the valley of the sun, I realize I am in a bone chilling January. The voices and spirits that brought words to my dreams, and form to my passionate ramblings are so very far away. I have this anchor of human stability that is Justin, reminding me what deep, unending love is, what life means at its heart. Yet, I am alone aside from him. I have taken a separate paths from those I once walked with, and can find none who compare to the vision they gave me. This desert has dried my unquenchable thirst for taking action, for being the voice of those who do not have one. I have lost my own.
From down somewhere inside of me there is spark when I hear the stories from Syria or read articles of those haunted by the unforgiving death of those they love. But just as in my nightmares, as sleep paralysis leaves me helpless and desperate, I cannot move. It's not that I do not want to, I do, so urgently! But, instead a great sadness, an unnavigable fog descends and surrounds leaving me to search the endless, sandy desert only to find my expectation of seizing hope scorched. I feel as I did in Scotland, disabled from my fight with tonsillitis as I stumbled into strep throat, landing me crippled into scarlet fever, unable to leave my bed for weeks. And here I lay, waiting for the spring to thaw the ice that entraps my feet from fulfilling all of the longings that are just waiting to be embodied and carried out. I sometimes feel dizzy from days of having nothing to do and then Justin holds me steady and reminds me it can't be winter forever as he inspires me.
There is not a single person in the United States who has not heard the fire of the immigration debate. Perhaps you are one of those who have been on one side or the other. For many patriotic Americans, this is a fight to protect our country. It is a matter of keeping the resources we have fought for being received by those who deserve to receive them. It is holding onto rights that belong to Americans, not to Mexicans, Guatemalans or Cubans.
For others, it is economically advantageous to allow the immigration laws to relax. It means the start of their business or company can be supported by loyal, hard working employees. It means more hands in the work force; it means a boost in revenue. It means more American dream for those of us on top.
However, for those in the middle, this is a nightmare. Especially those in the middle of the middle. They have sunk below eyesight, disappeared off the radar… and there are thousands. They are the citizen children of illegal immigrant parents. What happens to them? I would love to present that as a country who claims to stand for the rights of their citizens, we have a system and net set up to catch these little ones who fall through the cracks. But, we do not. In fact, we are fighting to strip them completely of their citizenship, which was earned by their birth on US soil, their participation in our school systems, their natural rights.
It is a hellish tale, what some of these children live through. The video below is the story of 2 sisters who had between them both 3 children. It is not one of a kind. Their home was raided in a drug bust gone wrong, and they were both put into detention, and rights to contact their children were stripped away. These citizen children were put into foster care for almost a year as the sisters were transferred from one detention center to another, awaiting results as to whether or not they would be deported. The children disappeared.
Parents are deported, and children are left behind. Perhaps, they are lucky enough to be left with relatives. Or perhaps, they have friends to care for them. But, many end up attempting to return to their parents’ country of origin, only to find themselves strangers in a land that we in America claim they should go back to. These American immigrant children do not speak the language of their parents’ country, they do not know the culture, and the education is not going to give them the opportunities of their own homeland. And, many return. Some live with a sibling who is over 18 and can claim guardianship, some are homeless. But, still the opportunities for them here outnumber that of those in the country of their parents.
What about those children who have no one, who are sent into foster care? They may be put up for adoption when they have parents of their own, who are more than willing and capable of caring for them, but who have been deported and have no way of returning to take their children. There is no system for reunification and the odds are very slim in these cases. Even more tragic are the cases of children being removed from the home of their illegal immigrant parents because these parents are not eligible for federal welfare assistance, and therefore deemed incapable of giving their children the care they need. Their income may combined remain below the poverty line and therefore they lose the right to raise their children, and often are deported shortly thereafter.
But, the implications for these families are the most grievous issue at hand, besides the obvious lack of a country so proud of its care for children, to care for its own children who are born of parents without the same citizen rights they have. These families are shattered. At times, only one parent is an illegal citizen. Perhaps the father is deported back to Mexico. A mother and her 3 children are left in the United States with one income, and a missing father and husband. The family may return to Mexico, but they may not because for their children the choice is a life of opportunity and ability to live out of poverty and hunger, or a life with a father in a country where they wonder where their next meal may come from. This is a choice a family should not be forced to make.
Shortly after the immigration laws became much stricter, there was a bill proposed that would give judges of immigration cases power of discretion to decide what was in the best interest of the children: deportation or the permanent ability to be with ones’ family. It was never passed. And although ICE has power of discretion in deportation cases, it also is rarely used, and all to often ignored in favor of abuse. There are too many stories of parents who were pulled over for a traffic violation and immediately deported (despite ICE’s power to allow them to remain under patrol) and not allowed once to contact their children or families. These could be single parents, wives, mothers, husbands, or fathers.
We fight so hard for our children. And these are our children. Why do they continue to fall through the cracks? I recently spoke to a man who works for border patrol in Arizona along the Mexican border. I mentioned this issue to him and asked his experience. His face became deeply saddened- he is a father, “There are so many, so many. I’ve seen parents run off when we’ve caught them and just leave their child with us.” Of course, this is parental neglect, but what about when it is not? What about when it is our neglect to care for those who our government has sworn to protect as its own? It is ironic to me that in a country where children are so valued assigned so much opportunity and compassion, that our hearts are hard to those whose parents’ citizenship does not belong here. It is ironic to me that compassion is given boundaries of citizenship, of patriotism, of prejudice. For the cause of “protecting our country,” we have let these little citizens disappear. For the rights of this country so many worship, we have sacrificed the lives of those we are so allegiant to protect.
In the name of politics, we have lost our humanity.
It has been over a month since I last blogged. Another hiatus from the world of writing- unintentional I assure you. It has been a whirlwind month to say the least, and yet, it will soon be winding down into the grind of life. Which, to be honest, is really the essence of life. Special events and occasional bouts of adventure do not make up the true substance of our daily lives. That is where the details, the small little whispers of each of the 24 hours that our days exist in, become the adventure in and of itself.
So, I find myself about 2000 miles from home, if I can really call New York home, surrounded by sand. But, waking up to the mountains every day isn't something I can complain about. It's been the last two months of nothing but inspiration to be honest, and here I find myself with very little to write about. Shouldn't it be pouring out of me? I'm in love, I'm on an adventure, I'm in my own apartment for the first time, I'm in the beginning of something entirely new. But, sitting in the still my mind is truly overwhelmed with all of the elements that go into such a transition as this. As I observe my new apartment, I see the first place that I've been on my own that I can say I will be indefinitely. I see the one closest to me, and I see the first person I know will be in my life indefinitely. I see the classes I'm taking next year and I see the career I'm going to be in indefinitely. Life has taken a strange turn for me... unsettled, runner, adventurer, independent... and here I am, loving looking at the future and knowing that at least for a little while, I have some time to breathe. Time to breathe and learn how to live day to day, instead of running town to town. Time to learn how to love every day, instead of running from the love I have. Time to build from the ground up, put my time in, and make my dreams happen.
Today, I watched a storm roll in over the desert in Arizona. It poured over the mountains and I stood outside with my arms outstretched like one of the ancient cacti next to me. The sand hit the back of my legs and my hair whipped around my face while I laughed and looked into the eyes of my partner in crime. Our adventure here may some days consist of making dinner after work, running errands, or cleaning up my apartment. But, the essence of adventure has a hold of us, transition and all. It is storms in the desert, road trips across the country, and weekends in the wild west that will sustain us and give us life for the monotonous, remind us of the extraordinary. And, they will provide the words to inspire a new blog.
I hate the the reason I will awake my writing from a solemn slumber is the scream of a storm that decimated my college town, a place I called home until Saturday afternoon. Joplin has never been a place I was fond of and now my mind will think of nowhere else. It is this storm that opened my eyes to her beauty. I stand humbled at the feet of this town of people that I know and love.
Saturday afternoon was sunny and humid. I walked outside of the gym at Ozark Christian College in my graduation robe to look for my boyfriend and my dad. Smiles. Smiles that lasted until that night when I left Joplin for the last time to move up to Kansas City until I leave for Arizona. Smiles that lasted until Sunday night when my best friend called me in tears. Her words will forever haunt me as I sat in Kansas City trying to picture what she was seeing. She didn't know where she was, it was unrecognizable. She sat in her car a block away from where the tornado ripped through the middle of town. I slept only a few hours and then drove the 2 hours back down to town. About 5 miles outside the city, debris began to appear on the side of the highway. Pieces of metal and insulation.... shoes, plastic bags, rubble. I dropped off medical supplies, water and some dry food at the local university that is currently functioning as a Red Cross shelter and went to my old church where I was dispatched with a group of volunteers that I knew from town. We went to the middle of the damaged area to check on a family. As we got closer to the middle of it all, cars littered the roads, sheets of metal were wrapped around trees, plywood and pieces of homes were by the side of the road where only businesses had stood. The hospital looked as though a bomb had exploded, no windows were left. The busiest road in town had been flattened, and signs from the stores could be found wrapped around trees in adjacent neighborhoods.
We stood in the rain on the top of the hill of 17th street looking out over Rangeline. All of us were residents of Joplin at one time or another, and we said very little. Repeated over and over was that we couldn't believe that we didn't recognize our own city. We had to count the streets to know which numbered road we were standing on. Orange X's were painted on every house to decode that the Fire Department had excavated this area- letting people know if anyone was found in the house. We walked silent through the street, smelling the gas lines. I watched a little boy step and jump across a pile of broken boards and pipes that used to be his house. He picked up a book too water damaged to read, and set it back in the rubble. His parents limped across the debris, looking for salvageable pieces of their lives. I sat in the car as my friend received word that his friend had been confirmed dead. His heart broke, as did mine. The city itself shook with sobs for people who had gone missing. Story after story emerged of parents searching for their children, finding only a shoe and a rumor that perhaps he was at one of 50 area hospitals.
Yet, amidst the horror, I began to see life. As we approached where Walmart used to stand, a disheveled woman offered us water. It's unlikely she owned anything anymore, but she provided for us. I watched neighbors of people who had lost everything help them dig through rubble. They too had lost their homes. Every church we passed that was still standing had opened its doors as a shelter or a volunteer dispatch center. Locals took teams to check on every person they knew and family members dug out their own from the piles of what used to be their lives. For all of the years my friends have begged me to say something nice of Joplin, here it is. I have never seen a city disregard its own needs for the needs of the people around them like this. Never before have I seen such vibrant humanity emerge from the grave of destruction. I wondered if Joplin would ever recover. How do you stand back up from something like this? The answer:
Joplin never fell.
She staggered, she stumbled, she was bruised and beaten, but Joplin stands. Joplin stands because the people of this place are leaning on each other. People with nothing are rescuing people with nothing. No one abandoned anyone. News anchors with no homes to return to worked late into the night broadcasting the story of their wounded town. Radio announcers with not even a change of clothes sat in the studios all day to do anything they could to re-connect families and direct bewildered listeners to help. Electrical repair teams came parading into town from Kansas City. Police cars from counties I had never heard of flooded into the city to help organize, search, rescue and maintain order. The National Guard brought order to our chaos. I watched as cars of people passing by on the highway stopped when they heard of the damage and began to transport injured residents to emergency triage centers. On scene weather announcers pulled people and pets from piles of rubble, staying out for hours in the rain. As I organized supplies in a distribution center in south Joplin I watched truck after truck of blue collar good ole' boys show up to help. Everyone found their voice on Sunday, May 22. Joplin in her tears has outshone the rubble in her town.
My brave little city, despite the death and the disaster, she has opened her heart. If there is a place where we will see the love of Jesus, it is in this little southwest Missouri town. The community of the Trinity lives here. The church has risen to meet the challenge of pain, and as panic returns to residents this evening as another storm rolls in, I am sick to my stomach. But the hope that Joplin has given to me I will give back to Joplin. You will stand. There will be a day when you will drive down the streets and snapped power lines will no longer lay across the road. Your schools will be mended, and textbooks removed from the grass outside. You will have a place to lay your head, and though your heart will still bleed for loved ones lost, you will learn to love again. So, do not give up dear Joplin, you are stronger than anyone thought. You have rebuked me with your courage and taken my bitter words away with your selflessness. I ask forgiveness at your dirty and bruised feet for the things I have spoken against you- in your hour of darkness, you have brought light by resurrecting your humanity. One day Joplin, I hope to be as brave and selfless as you have been.
This view is so familiar. The drab corner of the Kansas City airport feels just as much like home as my personalized dorm room. You know, frustration and detours always seem to make people a little more human. Delayed flights, for example. As I stood, staring out the window, (as if my eyes would make our plane come down from the sky) racked with anticipation at the incoming news of whether or not our flight was going to land, a woman sat behind me. I saw her wipe her eyes. She was crying… attempted to pass it off as a yawn during the late hours. But I knew better. I asked her if she was going home, and she just launched into a story about her life.
At work this week, I asked question after question of my coworker, just digging for stories about his life, a picture of who he is. He then overheard me do the same to someone else working the same shift. He cocked his head and said in a monotone voice, “Kaitlin, you really love to hear stories about people’s lives, don’t you?” Absolutely. These are the essence of our existence! They deserve to be told! Back in the airport, I asked the woman, as she described that she flies just as much as I do, what it is she does. She replied, “Oh… I’m just a housewife. I mean, I’m not just a housewife…. I’m a stay at home mom.” I looked at her and in character I said, “Say it with pride!” “Okay! I’m a stay at home mom! Well my baby’s gone and grown up, but…” Me: “You’re still a mom. Always a mom.” She nodded happily and went on to tell me about her witty granddaughter.
I’ve had these conversations before. And I have been the one to degrade the unpaid, at times unglamorous, tread upon position of the woman who puts her family above her career. I’ve thought so deeply about these issues, and now I stand on the outside and wonder why… not why I came to the conclusions that I have come to, but why I had to analyze the idea of motherhood so much. What was I missing?
If so many women internationally give up their own careers for the lives of their children without thinking twice, why am I still thinking about how my independence is actually a hindrance to being able to do so? My mind, longing so deeply to understand what it means to be a woman, cannot stop asking questions, trying to understand who a mother is. Mothers are most often the primary face in the life of their children. It is through the mother that many children will learn their first word. Without my own mother, where would I be? Certainly not able to write any of the words that are typed here. She spent hours upon hours with me, kneeling on the yellow carpet of our New England basement, while I sat in a little wooden desk, pencil in hand, scratching out the alphabet. She poured into me my first two years of school. How could I ever possibly say that it was degrading for her to do that? To give up her own noble career of nursing to care for me? How could there have been another choice? Even if there was, she would never have thought of it. She was with me. She was a mother.
And so, my heart breaks at my own former opinions, and at the voice of downtrodden housewives who feel ast though they are inferior to the career women of our world. This is tragic. There is nothing more detrimental to a society than removing or destroying the identity of a person. Why are there so many children without mothers? We have taken away the value of motherhood. If we told mothers who they are, we would not have to take them to court to tell them what to do. So, women: stand with pride. You are mothers, whether or not you have your own children. It is apart of your lovely spirit to nurture those around you in your own beautiful way. And men: help her to understand who she is. If you are man, she can be the woman. A graceful dance of union and balance. Children: I know you will not understand for years what she has done, but love your mothers, in the best way you know how.
Let us stand and repair society, repair people, repair families, one identity at a time.
Today is World Water Day.
Probably, that means nothing to you.
It means a lot to someone though.
Actually, it means a lot to a lot of someones... about 1 billion people.
You have all heard the rundown from all the speakers at your schools, and the videos you've been sent.
But do you get it?
Let's paint a scenario here:
You wake up in the morning on the floor of your small home in India.
Today, you wanted to go to school, girls.
But you can't.
The well in the village is broken again, you have to go somewhere else to find water.
There's not water to drink. Again.
You can feel the scratchiness in your throat, and the ever invading thirst that has become reality.
The baby is crying.
Dehydrated. Again.
You haven't showered in weeks. It's not even a thought that crosses your mind anymore.
You look outside to see the neighboring child pass by.
Naked. Dirty.
Stomach protruding.
NO water.
There is a well.
It's just broken. No one knows how to fix it because someone from the outside built it.
No one should have to live like this.
4000 children will die like this.
Today.
But... someone does get it. The Adventure Project has begun a campaign to train women and men in their own villages to repair broken wells. Because 1/3 of all the drinking wells that we have built in the last 2 decades are broken. Hear that? We ARE doing something. We ARE building wells. And they are broken- probably a simple fix, like tightening a pump. But no one is equipped to do it... yet. Do you know how much money it takes to train these people to fix their wells?
$10,000.
That's about a semester in American university to equip people to turn water back on for 300 people each month. That's 3600 a year. We are making progress...
Help if you can. To take the Toms approach: one for one. Save one today. That's all. Save one naked, dirty, dehydrated, beautiful, valuable, incredible child from death by giving. www.TheAdventureProject.causevox.com
Hello from 30,000 feet. I look down over my spanning country and see an emerald green, creeping lake dug into the land of Kansas. It trails off at the end into the tail of a river that feeds the brown land just enough to get by until the next spring rain. I should be relaxed right? Up here there’s not a deadline. Up here there’s no traffic (at least for the eye of the passenger), there’s nowhere to be, there’s only endless sky. Above the line of horizon there’s no start or finish to where I’m going. And, to be honest, holistically I am relaxed, but through the hassle of security and the rush of trying to stay organized through pulling things out of my bags and getting them through the x-ray, my ID fell out somewhere. I guess I’m no one now… at least until they find it somewhere in the terminal after the barefeet of thousands of green Americans traipse through to catch their spring break flights to somewhere not Kansas anymore.
One small thing like that can cause an entire change in the atmosphere of my day. We’re so small and fragile, humans. And I’m completely uninspired to elaborate on that loaded statement because I feel so scattered. But, the reason I feel scattered is futile. I want everything in my life to follow on a nice straight line, even my insane adventures. I don’t want them to be monotonous. My idea of a “put-together” life is made of spontaneous leaves-of-absence that cause me no trouble in leaving, and are never a little on the uneventful side. Should those things happen, I’m suddenly spinning out of control. On my way to being the kind of “out of control” I long to be, I need my life to remain structured or I cannot get there. An interruption like losing my ID causes me to be stuck in the world of structure longer, looking for a way to replace or find it in the chaos of business and organization so I can be free from the concrete walls of the airport.
The airport is the no-man’s land between two border checks. It’s here that I wait to make my break, all of the inspiration in front of me, and all of the heaviness behind me. A slip-up in paper work leaves me stranded here in no-man’s land… but here I am on the plane. So I brought a little bit of the concrete world with me to LA with the loss of my license. You see people boarding planes in suits, with family, with kids, with spouses, lovers and friends. I’m always by myself, and I wonder not so much where their final destination is, because that’s entirely missing the point. But, why are they leaving? I have to escape the world of responsibility that I live in most weeks of the year. Class, class, class, break, class, break, run, clean-up, work, study, sleep, repeat. On a lucky day that word “work” is replaced with study. Even luckier “seeing my friends and pretending to be human.” I’d never be able to get on this big bird without those things though. I’m not foolish enough to think that I could just jump from town to town and expect that I’d be able to accomplish the other dreams I have in my life living as a nomad. No. And, so there’s a sacrifice made. But that sacrifice of time into understanding life more, into developing my responsible side and supporting myself financially breaks the chains of that cycle itself and grants me an open door to get as many kicks on the road as I want.
gentlemen of the Generation
Even the Beats had that side. Some had PhD’s, some full-time jobs, some various manual labor, some were authors, scholars or even shiphands. And from these spurred an understanding of the two worlds, the in-between of the no-man’s land, the mad break at the border, and a lifestyle of straddling reigned responsibility and reckless passion.
