October 27, 2005

• Chapter 9 – War (cont.)
  Click here for previous chapters

  I have so few records from this time. It kind of all blurs together – school, the children, near poverty, drinking. Besides going to school, I must have been still working at some kind of job, because a letter mentions earning $375/month. In the summer of 1973 that I turned 34, Jane spent her first of two summers in Oregon with my parents who were overjoyed to have her, something I can now totally understand as a grandmother myself. It must have also been a sign of my gradual decline in coping.

  That fall Jane began her third year of grade school and Josh began kindergarten. So we were all in school. I have no memory of how I paid for it. And it was some time during that winter that I fell into a brief romance with one of the musicians we had lived with in that big house in San Anselmo when we first moved to Marin. For the third and last time in my life, I became pregnant. Consulting a counselor at the College, I was encouraged to have a therapeutic abortion, which had just become legal in California late the year before (Roe vs. Wade had passed a few months later in January 1973). I went to the local hospital alone and came home alone the same day. I told almost no one, not even the father, who was soon gone from my life. I carried this secret for the next 11 years until it became the main item in a recovery fifh step with a sponsor in a sunny back yard in Oregon in early 1985. It was a great sadness and that is all I have to say. (to be continued)

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  Deep Thought: “ “It’s easy to sit there and say you’d like to have more money. And I guess that’s what I like about it. It’s easy. Just sitting there, rocking back and forth, wanting that money. “
  Today I am grateful for: Giving birth to a perfect daughter 40 years ago today
  Guess the Movie: “ It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”
  If You Believe in What You Are Doing, Give Me Your Stiffest Sentence. If You Don’t, Then Resign
  by Cindy Sheehan
  “If you believe in what you are doing, give me your stiffest sentence. If you don’t, then resign.”
  – Gandhi
  Yesterday, started off with a “bang” when we went to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath in the section where the Iraq War dead are buried. In our group yesterday morning were 3 other members of Gold Star Families for Peace. Juan Torres was with us and his son, Juan, was murdered in Afghanistan. (Rest of article here.)

  • 8:44 pm
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