Writing again

I know, I have said it before. I just haven't been ready. I am ready now. Written word is too important to sacrifice out of fear. We must be, at all times, aware of the need to document the events of the day. Further, we must be committed to provide context for those events, so that we can understand why these things happened, who they affected and how, how we reacted and why. This is no mean feat, given that the President of the United States is prone to say and do things that demand our constant attention. Who can keep up? So, I am back. A lot has changed for me personally and professionally since I last looked earnestly into the glowing screen of the laptop and wrote. I went to law school. I ran for office. My mom died. I flunked the bar exam. Twice. My dog died. My marriage died. My career died. But I didn't. I am not sure how, or why, because there were days when I hurt so much that I didn't think that a living being could survive it. There were times when I hoped I wouldn't. So out of necessity, because I had to survive it I made myself get really brave. I kicked dirt over the scrapes and moved on. I got a job, after months of searching. It was an hour and a half away from my family by train, one way. The pay was marginally survivable. Marginally. I got an apartment near the train station, because the kids didn't want me to be so far away. As it turned out, however, the length of the commute prevented me from seeing them regularly anyway. I wasn't able to attend school events, parent conferences, be there when my kids were sick, or sad, or just needed me. And I couldn't be with them when I needed them. I have found that 49 year old women need their teenagers far more than their teenagers need them. But I plodded along. And I met someone. A kindred spirit who had also been kicked around by life and love a bit, a romantic, adorable, sexy man with broad shoulders and snuggly arms. A man who thinks I look like Sophia Loren or Dorothy Lamour. A man who made up a word to describe me and had it published in the Urban Dictionary. I'm not kidding... So, the love part of me that had been broken for so long was fixed, just like that. A good friend of mine once told me, in the middle of all my brokenness, that in order to succeed at something you have to be willing to take a leap. He was so right. It's terrifying, but it has to be. I took a leap, reached out to someone I thought had much in common with me. I was brave. It paid dividends. Really fun, cool dividends. I want to write. I am a writer. (As I typed that my left hand kinda spazzed out in some weird twitch. Right hand is calming left hand down.) I studied politics my entire life. Literally from birth. My dad was a Republican of the era when Republicans were progressives. He sat me on his lap and made me watch the presidential debates and party conventions. He wanted me to have an understanding of broad concepts of political vision, diverse world views. He told me, "Cara, you can be anything you want to be. You should want to be President." He raised me to be a feminist, and he is why my fist is raised. I began my career at 20, working as a volunteer for a state legislative race, then a Congressional campaign and the Presidential race as well, in 1988. I began school, got derailed a bit by life, and went back at 40 to finish my BA in Political Science. After my first couple of semesters, in my Junior year, I was approached by the University of New Mexico to compete for the prestigious Truman Scholarship. I had no illusions that this would be a tremendously challenging undertaking, as the nomination process involves demonstration of your interest in and ability to advocate for policy. It tests your ability to pull in data in order to support a policy proposal. It tests your ability to sit through a very contentious panel interview and remain poised, confident and committed to your proposal. Competing for the Truman is no joke. I knew that as a non-traditional student I had a compelling story to tell. I knew that my background demonstrated a commitment to public service and leadership. I knew I had the grades. I leaped. And I got the scholarship. This allowed me to do something that I had dreamed of since I was a child, yet had become convinced that it would never happen. I went to law school. I didn't really want to practice law, to be honest. I had no interest in the corner office, the courtroom seemed like fun, but not a LOT of fun. Just a little bit of fun, surrounded by assholes, consumed by a life led in six minute increments. I didn't care about tax. I didn't want to wallow in other people's misery and profit from it. I had no interest in personal injury. What I wanted was to understand the law. I wanted to understand how the courts have interpreted how our law applies. I wanted to understand the policy reasons behind these decisions. I wanted to understand why it seems that so many of our laws are designed to punish and further disenfranchise the poor just for being poor. I needed to get to the bottom of these concepts in order to gain understanding about how people like me, by manipulating insanely technical procedural phrasing, can manipulate things to keep a few people really insanely wealthy, while letting the rest of us fight for crumbs. So I am not going to practice law. I am going to keep talking, writing, encouraging people to understand how and why the system is working so hard against them. I am going to advocate for people who I believe are willing to fight for change, and who have the expertise to fix the problems. I am going to push for sane policy by making an argument for it, in the hopes that we can all begin to have these conversations and realize that those that stand to benefit from keeping the system gamed are willing to do anything to preserve their handicap. If you don't believe me, just consider that they have already pushed us so far apart based on social issues, biases, racism, religious intolerance, and just fundamental distrust and fear of the other? They have already dismantled our social safety net to the point where crime of opportunity and property crimes are out of control, addicted huge swaths of our country to opiods on purpose, and incarcerated people for being addicted. They have turned us completely against one another. They did this on purpose, to distract us from their real agenda, and it worked. We must resist. We must. Yesterday, when I heard that feces-flinging orange primate had another poo in a meeting and referred to a few brown countries as "shitholes" I must confess I lost my mind. I don't think I am alone, since it is the only thing on my newsfeed, the only thing my friends are talking about, and apparently all of the tv news people. World leaders around the globe are condemning his obvious racism and I wonder when they will start talking about accepting refugees from the US. So I am going to be writing. And posting, and cross posting and trying to get my point across. So here is what I am promising. I will always be honest. That may mean, from time to time, that my language will get a little fuckbombery. I will be frank. I really think that we need to be talking to one another more as candidly and openly as possible. Fear is in the unknown, power rests in truth. I will be talking about my life. How can we trust one another if we don't know one another? Yeah, this means you will hear me bragging about my awesome kids and wonderful man, and from time to time I may provide an anecdote about the past. Did I mention swearing? I will answer questions. I will pay attention. I will listen. Talk to me.