I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

For any who want more, complete list of all posts by month since 2011
  • The Innocent Conversations of Children at Play

    The Innocent Conversations of Children at Play


    January is our granddaughter Molly’s birthday month – she’ll be four years old on the 26th., but if you ask her when she’ll be four, she often says “on my birthday” with a withering look designed to stop any follow up questions. Molly is her own person, the second child in birth order.

    During the winter school holidays recently, Nana overheard Molly talking with a little girl and boy she had been playing with on a neighborhood playground. It was a gorgeous sunny afternoon in South Carolina – a day that makes you want to forgive almost anything in the state. Almost anything.

    The play time had paused while the three children appeared to be in deep conversation. Molly was clearly upset when her older sister Ella joined the small group.

    “I asked Mia to marry me,” Molly blurted. “She told me no because girls can’t marry girls.” She was almost in tears when she looked at Mia who nodded as Daniel chimed in.

    “That’s right,” Daniel said in a louder voice. “Girls marry boys. They don’t marry other girls.”

    “My Nana did,” Ella told the threesome with the authority of a taller six-year-old child whose wisdom was not to be disputed.

    Mia and Daniel stared at Ella while Molly’s expression brightened. Then the little group dispersed and ran off to play on the slides together. Molly knew she was right because her big sister Ella said so.

    The Beginning.

    (image of children is AI generated)

  • Joyce Vance: Speaking Truth About January 6 Events

    Joyce Vance: Speaking Truth About January 6 Events


    One of my personal sheroes, Attorney Joyce Vance, speaks truth to power today in her piece in Civil Discourse on substack.com. regarding the events that took place at the Capitol of the United States five years ago today. Lest we forget…here are excerpts from her essay.

    Donald Trump is the President no one has ever said “no” to in a big way. Not Congress, not the Court, and certainly not the people around him in the executive branch. It didn’t happen even after January 6, 2021, which seems to have greenlit the fact-averse, law-free, and profoundly antidemocratic behavior that has come to characterize his second term in office…

    Now, with the fifth anniversary of January 6 upon us, we live in a world where the president has pardoned the “patriots” convicted for planning an insurrection and storming the Capitol. Trump has made sure that no one faces accountability for January 6, least of all himself. He has nothing but praise for the people who overran the Capitol—they’re the good guys, the heroes. His people.

    On the very first day of his second term, Trump granted pardons to some of the most dangerous among them, convicted felons like Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, beginning with these words: “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.” In all, more than 1,500 people received pardons or commutations on Trump’s first day in office…

    …there was no moment where Donald Trump was forced to face the truth of what he had done to the country. He has never publicly apologized or even acknowledged he was wrong. There was no moment like the surrender at Appomattox or the withholding of restoration of citizenship for a time for Trump, as there was for leaders following the Civil War.

    That’s no way to fix a democracy and keep it whole.

    So, we will go through this same painful exercise every year on the anniversary of January 6, remembering and reciting the facts, until we get it right. The people who mobbed Congress are not praiseworthy people, heroic victims who fought a last stand for a lost cause. Trump is not the leader of a legitimate American political movement. We must keep on saying it. We have to refuse to let Trump’s narrative prevail. In the time of Trump, be a warrior for the truth…Take people out to lunch and talk about it. Refuse to sit on the sidelines.

    We’re in this together,

    Joyce

    *******************

    I vividly remember the attack on our nation’s Capitol on January 6, 2021, because I watched it in real time – a reality show orchestrated and directed by Trump, with a worldwide viewing audience. Ratings out the roof of scenes never imagined in the minds of most American citizens. And yet, we are asked to suspend belief, forget what we saw and heard, forgive the person responsible even though that person never once asked us to forgive him.

    Not this American.

    I’m in it with Joyce. I hope you are, too.

  • Shedding Old Skins: Embracing New Beginnings in 2026

    Shedding Old Skins: Embracing New Beginnings in 2026


    “We move through our lives shedding skins – kissing older versions or ourselves goodbye and kissing newer versions hello.”

    Wish I had written this, but the quote was a line delivered recently by the main character in the TV drama series, Bull, which I watch occasionally at Ion television when I have exhausted my other streaming possibilities.

    The Dr. Jason Bull quote I could relate to especially on the beginning of the New Year 2026. I liked the idea of shedding skins, kissing the older version of myself goodbye and kissing a newer version hello.

    I will be 80 years old in April, 2026, which means I can look back to several lifetimes of skin shedding in those decades spilling over from one century to the next.

    Some skins were painful to shed, and some were full of joy because that’s how “shedding” works. Some fell somewhere in between on a continuum of not understanding whether the skin I was shedding was one step forward and two steps back or two steps forward and no steps back. Shedding isn’t necessarily crystal clear.

    As the New Year 2026 begins, I hope our Resolutions include the possibility of kissing our new skins hello and kicking our old skins to the curb. Yes, that definitely was my quote – sounds just like me.

    Happy New Year!

    ******************************

    Nana and Naynay, Kitty and Kaka on the playground

    New Year’s Eve with four grandmothers, three granddaughters

    (and one random child along for the ride)

    the little girls growing up too fast – and reluctant to say goodbye

    (how many skins will they shed in their lifetimes)