We Still Miss You, Paul
Saturday's weather: moist and rainy; strong winds giving way to a cool heavy damp air. If you were shooting a movie, today would be a "sad day" sky.
Saturday's drink: none.
No link today other than this video. It was six years ago today that Paul, Sheila and Marcia Wellstone went down in a plane crash in northern Minnesota, ending their lives. Also on board were Tom Lapic, Mary McEvoy, Will McLaughlin and the two pilots; they also all died.
I had the great honor of working not once but twice for Senator Wellstone here in Washington DC. I was far from the best staffer, but he always saw the good in what I and all our staff did.
Don't mistake: Paul had a temper. Every senator does. And I think the thing today that might make him angriest is if I just threw up my hands, said "We Miss You Paul" and left it at that. No, there's no leaving it at that with Paul. If you're sad about something, go do something about it. If you're mad about something, fight to fix it. If you miss someone, pick up their work and carry it forward.
In my time there was no other figure in the U.S. Senate like Paul Wellstone. I always used to say: "If Paul didn't exist, they'd have to invent him." Truth is Paul invented himself, never stopped giving what he had to help others, and never ever lost faith that people are good and that collectively we can do better by each other.
The Wellstone/Domenici mental health parity act finally passed this Congress, albeit attached to the $750 billion bailout bill. Whatever, it's done and it would have never happened without Paul and Sheila, and their work carried on by sons David and Mark.
I still miss you, Paul. And today your memory reawakens all those things I know I need to do. I hope it does for others, too.
And that's a pretty damn good legacy.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Dream Time
Monday's weather: Canadian high pressure settled over us for several days has brought cloudless skies, crisp mornings down near 45 and cool abundant sunshine hitting out around 60. Herbs and garden are drying out, but there's probably only 30 days tops growning left anyway. For a month the windows have been open (more in a later post), but now they're getting closed at night.
Monday's drink: None, really. A Bordeaux with dinner, and maybe a little of the beer that goes into the cassoulet I'm making. (A ragout, more aptly, but whatever.)
Monday's link: My Flickr PhotoStream. Nothing to write home about. Just a little bit of life from where I sit.
Therapy has taught me several things. It's too expensive. It's slow, it's highly valuable. And pay attention to dreams. Not the little winglets that circle around, but those that land you back into consciousness with a thump.
I have a whole storybook of recurring dreams that are as familiar and useful as falling autumn leaves: I know exactly what they are, I like looking at them, but apart from making compost they really don't serve any purpose. These mostly occur in about six or seven distinct settings: a town that's supposed to be East Lansing (but of course isn't), a complex that' supposed to be WKAR Radio (and, again, isn't), a house that's an amalgam of the homes I lived in growing up...you get it. In each case they're instantly familiar not for their relation to reality but as recognized symbols for the actual things they represent. ... wait, it's really not that confusing. Think of it like this: they're stage sets I rotate in and out from the theater's wings. I see the set for what it represents in my dreamlife, recognize that I must be in a dream, and just carry on to enjoy the play.
A play which, obviously, I also authored. Fun! But then...then there are dreams so big, and often for me so frightening, they can only be from another's pen. There's nothing fun about watching these, or worse playing a role in them. They're too big and too bad for me to want any authorship. Dreams I don't so much have but feel are inserted into me.
Last night was one of those dreams. Rare for me, I can't recall any detail other than being in what was an NBC skybox, crummy awards lining the shelves and shallow people filling the room. The next thing I can recall is a feeling...I can only call it obliteration. Like being erased; a physical sensation of being pulled backward into a void which would swallow me if I couldn't hang on. So I reached out to the only two things I felt were keeping me in this world: the feeling of the sheets in my hands and the sound of C breathing. I'm convinced those two things saved me.
Clearly I avoided obliteration. But not the lingering feeling which hangs over me this day. Now I'm writing this because ususally, when I have one of the big bad dreams, I get what's going on in a flash. The dream where mature tree was cut from the sun by someone putting a roof over it, the dream where an unknown man was hanging outside the window of every room I stepped in, the dream with the faceless family and the door that no longer existed to the basement even though I know it was there...my language is unambiguous, the emotional residue is decisive, the meaning is a clear and urgent warning to me. From me.
But this one...I've never had this before. No memory of anything but my annihalation. I do know that it's clearly telling me - I'm clearly telling me - I'm at a fulcrum moment. I am tipping to one thing, or another, and I need to pay attention and decide to what's true to my heart and spirit. Or else...what? I'll cease to be?
This makes no sense. Unless it's a warning so dire that my existance depends on answering the riddle correctly. Which, you know, nothing like a little pressure to make the intuitive juices flow.
So I'm asking a question. What does this mean? Guess. Take a stab ... er, not literally. I don't know anything that could be wrong because I have no sense of what's right. But maybe I'm too close. So you tell me. What does it mean to have a dream where you actually feel yourself dying?
Monday's weather: Canadian high pressure settled over us for several days has brought cloudless skies, crisp mornings down near 45 and cool abundant sunshine hitting out around 60. Herbs and garden are drying out, but there's probably only 30 days tops growning left anyway. For a month the windows have been open (more in a later post), but now they're getting closed at night.
Monday's drink: None, really. A Bordeaux with dinner, and maybe a little of the beer that goes into the cassoulet I'm making. (A ragout, more aptly, but whatever.)
Monday's link: My Flickr PhotoStream. Nothing to write home about. Just a little bit of life from where I sit.
Therapy has taught me several things. It's too expensive. It's slow, it's highly valuable. And pay attention to dreams. Not the little winglets that circle around, but those that land you back into consciousness with a thump.
I have a whole storybook of recurring dreams that are as familiar and useful as falling autumn leaves: I know exactly what they are, I like looking at them, but apart from making compost they really don't serve any purpose. These mostly occur in about six or seven distinct settings: a town that's supposed to be East Lansing (but of course isn't), a complex that' supposed to be WKAR Radio (and, again, isn't), a house that's an amalgam of the homes I lived in growing up...you get it. In each case they're instantly familiar not for their relation to reality but as recognized symbols for the actual things they represent. ... wait, it's really not that confusing. Think of it like this: they're stage sets I rotate in and out from the theater's wings. I see the set for what it represents in my dreamlife, recognize that I must be in a dream, and just carry on to enjoy the play.
A play which, obviously, I also authored. Fun! But then...then there are dreams so big, and often for me so frightening, they can only be from another's pen. There's nothing fun about watching these, or worse playing a role in them. They're too big and too bad for me to want any authorship. Dreams I don't so much have but feel are inserted into me.
Last night was one of those dreams. Rare for me, I can't recall any detail other than being in what was an NBC skybox, crummy awards lining the shelves and shallow people filling the room. The next thing I can recall is a feeling...I can only call it obliteration. Like being erased; a physical sensation of being pulled backward into a void which would swallow me if I couldn't hang on. So I reached out to the only two things I felt were keeping me in this world: the feeling of the sheets in my hands and the sound of C breathing. I'm convinced those two things saved me.
Clearly I avoided obliteration. But not the lingering feeling which hangs over me this day. Now I'm writing this because ususally, when I have one of the big bad dreams, I get what's going on in a flash. The dream where mature tree was cut from the sun by someone putting a roof over it, the dream where an unknown man was hanging outside the window of every room I stepped in, the dream with the faceless family and the door that no longer existed to the basement even though I know it was there...my language is unambiguous, the emotional residue is decisive, the meaning is a clear and urgent warning to me. From me.
But this one...I've never had this before. No memory of anything but my annihalation. I do know that it's clearly telling me - I'm clearly telling me - I'm at a fulcrum moment. I am tipping to one thing, or another, and I need to pay attention and decide to what's true to my heart and spirit. Or else...what? I'll cease to be?
This makes no sense. Unless it's a warning so dire that my existance depends on answering the riddle correctly. Which, you know, nothing like a little pressure to make the intuitive juices flow.
So I'm asking a question. What does this mean? Guess. Take a stab ... er, not literally. I don't know anything that could be wrong because I have no sense of what's right. But maybe I'm too close. So you tell me. What does it mean to have a dream where you actually feel yourself dying?
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