Purple America

And other meditations on Overcoming Differences, Relationships, Politics, Fear, and Peace.

I’m starting up blogging again with a vengeance. This is the new me. The blogging me. The blogging without fear me. I am going to try something new for the rest of 2009. I’m going to get over my need to polish my work before I publish it, if only for a blog. I know it might seem odd to y’all that someone like me, who has published a book about her personal life, would be reluctant to “reveal” herself, but there it is.

The truth is Love in Condition Yellow is actually a fairly polished view of my private life. By polished I don’t mean “gilded,” but rather that I worked long and hard to get it “right,” in the sense of tone and three-dimensionality.

But I’m not going to worry about that here! You will get to observe the process of me honing down to an idea I might write a longer piece about. (There is a saying by Confucius related to sausage-making that may apply here…)

But enough blowing smoke. The writers among you know that one way to figure out what you want to write about next is to do “morning pages.” These may or may not happen in the morning, but morning is a good time to do them. Actually anytime you can get your sorry butt to do them is a VERY GOOD TIME to do them. Morning Pages are a sort of data dump of your thoughts. You put on a timer for five or ten or fifteen minutes and then you type. There is only one rule. You are not allowed to stop typing. You cannot lift your fingers from the keyboard. You cannot let them stop moving. Even if you are typing, “blah blah blah.” Or “oh my god, who wants to hear this? this is so naïve, what are you thinking, going into the maw of American politics, and talking about Purple America, trying to explain the left to the right and the right to the left. Girl, they are going to chew you up and spit you out!”

From the blog I will refine a nugget or two for a column that I am hoping they will still want me to do over at www.military.com. The Editor invited me but that was back in July and although I notified him I couldn’t start till September, I haven’t heard back. ‘Course out of about twenty emails I sent Ed., he only answered one or two and both of our phone conversations got cut short because of calls from the White House. BTW, Ollie North will be my fellow-columnist. But (I'm pretending)I’ve got no fear. Purple America, baby!

From Iraq to Oakland

I feel like my family is beginning the healing process from the shock of the police shootings in Oakland. Of course the families of the fallen have infinitely deeper trauma and our first thoughts and prayers must go to them. But still, 3/21 hit B. and me hard, harder than when people he knew were killed in Iraq. That makes sense, of course, because everything that happened on 3/21 was “closer to home” in all senses of that phrase: B. was there, on duty when it happened, B. was close friends with two of the four officers killed. It hit me hard too because even I knew Erv and had met Dan, and because but for random chance, it could have been me standing next to a coffin with a flag over it. Have I said that a bunch of times? I'm sorry to belabor. It haunts me...

It made me think about a couple things. We as a society have come such a long way in recognizing that the troops need our support whether or not we agree with our country’s foreign policy. But the immense outpouring of support after the Oakland shootings notwithstanding, in many circles, the respect for the difficult dutiful job of the soldier in wartime has not been extended to the difficult dutiful job of the police officer every day.

I am not trying to say police officers are perfect and never make mistakes, or are never mean and scary, or even that blatant misconduct doesn’t occur. And I – shamefully – understand better than most the flat, cardboard cut-out view of the police because while I was an activist in college and the years after, I largely shared it. In Love in Condition Yellow, I describe my attitude “Barrett is part of a monolithic bloc of impassive guys with bristly mustaches and mirrored sunglasses that I generally try to avoid.”

What I’m trying to say is it’s worth digging under that stereotype to the rich complexity underneath, and it would be worth it for our community to do that vis a vis the Oakland Police Department, just as it’s worth it to dig below racial stereotypes to the rich individuality.

What I find particularly upsetting is the notion that by humanizing one side, we are somehow against the other side ie. by humanizing police officers, we are somehow in opposition to low income communities of color. This is not right. In fact I think it is just the opposite: the gentler we are with ourselves, and with others, the more impact we can have for positive social change.

I dug around a little on-line and found an interesting article about how back in 2003, the Madison, Wisconsin police force invited Thich Nhat Hahn to provide a five-day retreat for the city's emergency workers. It was called “Protecting and Serving Without Stress or Fear.” How cool is that?

The lady that organized it, herself an officer and a practicing Buddhist, was drawn to action because she saw the day-to-day toll police work took on officers and their families: higher than average rates of divorce, higher than average rates of suicide. I wonder if I could contact her and find out how it went. That led me to poking around to see if there are any organizations to support police families much in the way there are to support military families. And the brief answer is: virtually none. When a police officer is killed, the Oakland Police Officers Association stands by them and advocates for them. In fact, Renee Hassna of the OPOA is incredibly dedicated hard-working lady and I take my hat off to her. But I’m talking about day-to-day support, networking, community-building for families of working officers.

When I get a chance – because book promotion is taking almost all my time right now – I want to interview a few people to get ideas on how to translate some of the military family support ideas to the police. I also want to explore how we might better equip our police officers – and their families - from a mental health perspective, to manage the challenging emotional aspect of their work. I would love to hear your ideas!

Now, for Love in Condition Yellow news: the book is shipping from Amazon, and should be hitting bookstores any day! If you are inspired, I need Amazon, B&N, Indiebound, and goodreads.com reviews.

I am excited to announce I will be participating in a Book Club roundtable on Slate with two lovely and talented military spouse writers: Lily Burana and Alison Buckholtz!
Got a glowing review in the magazine ForeWord, but it’s not quite out yet, so I can’t quote specifics. I look forward to seeing Bay Area people at the Book Launch party at Books Inc. in SF on Friday, May 1st. I am deeply grateful for your support!
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Post 9-11 Moment for Oakland?

You have all probably guessed the reason I have not blogged for a rather long time. Let's just say it wasn't the ski trip I took with my son on March 19th and 20th, which was lovely Mom-and-Niko bonding time. That ski trip seems like a hundred years ago now, in a totally different era. Which of course it was, the pre-3/21 era, before four Oakland police officers were shot and killed. My husband knew all four men; even I had met two. Erv Romans was an old friend of B's; Dan Sakai was one of B's patrol sergeants. Our emotions related to this are so raw and difficult that I don't even care to delve into them here. I do thank all my dear friends and family for their calls and support. Our thoughts and prayers go to the families of the fallen.

What B and I have both acknowledged is that this event is like 9/11 for Oakland. It even has a catchy date: 3/21 or "three-two-one." The post-9/11 moment of unity, as we all know, was squashed, squandered and frittered away. But let's hope the post-3/21 is not.

I often wonder about applying the lessons I've learned from my marriage - that even vast differences, of beliefs, politics, and culture - can be overcome and conflict replaced by deep respect and understanding. Note this is not the same as agreement. Without even agreeing, respect softens the space between parties and builds a solid foundation for problem-solving. Obviously larger conflicts are infinitely more complicated.

One of the elements of overcoming differences is both sides have to be willing to listen, and both sides need to express themselves civilly. That may leave out certain extreme elements in this particular conflict. Still I'm trying to imagine. A community discussion between the Oscar Grant protestors and police supporters - what would that look like? I know that Thich Nhat Hanh conducts something along these lines at his retreat center, Plum Village, in France. It also might be something like the Truth and Reconciilation process in South Africa. I promise to learn more about this and report back here.

Of course there would also have to be a leader. Mayor Dellums does not seem up to the task - whether due to age or infirmity, I'm not sure. Some have called for Obama to come, but the economy seems to be keeping him pretty busy. Keith Carson? Barbara Lee? You and me?

I haven't reported back on our meeting with my son's teacher related to her singling my son out for criticism in front of the class and criticizing the portrait of his father in Iraq. Bottom line it went well. The hardest part about it was the anticipation and imagination of things going bad. In the 3/9/09 New Yorker(little guy in big suit on cover, a line from David Foster Wallace's most famous work, "Infinite Jest" was quoted. The character Don Gately thinks "everything unendurable was in the head, was the head not Abiding in the Present but hopping the wall and doing a recon and then returning with unendurable news."

So it was with the meeting with the teacher. When we got there she agreed to stop singling him out, tried to explain it as a technique to exert peer pressure when he had not followed initial instructions, but when we insisted, she apologized and backed down. As far as the art, she explained that early in the school year, my son had told her that he was "a terrible drawer," and she had responded by saying, "I can teach you to draw." And that's what she was trying to do.

While this exchange didn't make everything absolutely perfect in the classroom, it is again, amazing how much it softened things when the teacher 1)responded to our request re the singling out; and 2)gave a reason for the art criticism that wasn't meanness or spite. It's also interesting to me how VITAL it was for my son that we go through this process, how important it was for him to see that his parents listened to his hurts and addressed them. All I'm saying is sometimes the process of communication goes an amazingly long way to solving a conflict. The actual solution part is almost EASY once their is mutual respect and understanding.

I got a nice review of Love in Condition Yellow in Kirkus where they said: "Besides a clear understanding of who she is and what she wants, Raday has a solid sense of humor, an ear for dialogue and an eye for telling detail."

I have seen an actual advance copy of The Book, so it will soon EXIST! Please mark your calendars for the May 1 launch party at Books Inc in San Francisco.

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Alley Oop!

It’s time to really blog. Actually, with Love in Condition Yellow coming out this May, it’s actually past time. I’m late. So I’m going to start. ANY MINUTE NOW. I am on the very BRINK of blogging. I am putting my toe over the edge. I am doing what skiers do before sliding over the lip of a cornice into a steep chute. I am taking off my skis, venturing toward the edge and whacking my ski pole over, to see if the edge will hold or crack.

Thwack. Thwack.

It’s just that… that… I’m not sure what will happen. Even though my writing group has given me no less than THREE MILLION good ideas on what to blog about, something is stopping me. One expert blogger said, “It’s simple. You blog three times a week. Monday about your marriage and family, Wednesday about politics, and Friday about the process of writing and publishing a book.

Sounds great. In theory.

Here’s all I think about lately: my son’s teacher, the fact that she hurt his feelings on a Thursday back in late January when she questioned the proportions in a drawing of his father. The next day, when I phoned the school office to ask for an appointment, I learned she’d gotten rear-ended on the freeway. I squelched my decidedly unchristian feeling of relief, when I heard she would be out for at least four weeks. This week I heard she will be back, definitely, in two weeks. And while I am glad to hear she is doing better, I am TERRIFIED. Because this means I am going to have to follow through on the appointment and talk to her. What if she gets angry and hostile? What if she can’t see my son the way I do? What if I have to transfer him to a new class? What if I have to take him out of school, start a letter-writing campaign, give speeches in front of the School Board? I’m looking over the edge, What if it’s icy? What if people don’t like my blog? What if people don’t like my book? What if people don’t like ME?

So you stand there while the wind comes up the ridge in swirls and you yell something to your buddy, “are you going?” and he nods and yells “just about” in a garble and takes a turn at Thwack, Thwack. This is supposedly checking for avalanche but really it’s just a cool way to stall. To be honest, I feel a confidence and freedom on skis that I have never felt stating an unpopular opinion to another person. The fear at the edge of a cornice is not nearly the shaky gut-sick feeling I have imagining telling someone something that might make them angry.

Maybe that’s why I married a police officer/soldier with whom I hardly agree about anything. So I can practice. Also because I love the way he is not afraid of interpersonal conflict, the way he stands up and says, “STOP! Or you’re going to have to deal with ME.”

Through our marriage, I’ve come to see that it’s not differences that are the problem but rather, the way we express them. We don’t have to agree. We both just need to be heard. I got a neat email today from Kidpower, about communicating with integrity, about overcoming the tendency to speak badly to other people about the person you are in conflict with, instead of confronting the problem directly. So I’m not the only one who finds this difficult! My husband is kind overall about my fears, but occasionally gets frustrated. “Troop!“ he steamed today, “That meeting’s going to be fine. And if it’s not, we’ll handle it. For godsakes, wrap your shit tight!”

Another way to say, “Wrap your shit tight!” might be the way Ambrose Redmoon put it, "Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear."

I have a memory that sparkles around the edges: a bluebird day, sunny skies, fresh dusting of snow. My friend Ethan and I tucked off the Alpine Bowl chair, stayed high along the ridge, and hiked up the knoll to where we could drop into Keyhole. Two young men were standing at the edge just below us, skis off, thwack thwacking. I’d seen the conditions when I traversed the ridge, and everything looked perfect to me. I saw the beautiful run I was going to have, pictured it in my mind. And I didn’t even take my skis off. I didn’t even stop. I just launched right over.

When Ethan caught up, I pulsed with calm exhilaration. “What about the landing?” he asked. “Weren’t you worried you’d miss that first turn and hit the rock?” I told him what for that split second I had understood: that I could make a conscious choice to look toward the possibilities, instead of toward my fears.

I talked to the principal on the phone today, and she is arranging the meeting. Here’s to embracing it as an opportunity. Who knows, maybe the book thing will go well too. Maybe I can even blog. Two, even three times a week. So no more thwacking. I’m walking back to my skis and clicking in. I’m giving the thumbs-up sign to my buddy as I re-arrange my goggles. Deep breath, the snow is perfect wind-blown, a push and a half-skate to get some momentum, and here I go, flying over the edge.

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