I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Category: Lesbian Literary

  • Maya Angelou: wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now


    “Being a woman is hard work. Not without joy and even ecstasy,

    but still relentless, unending work.

    Becoming an old female may require only being born

    with certain genitalia, inheriting long-living genes

    and the fortune not to be run over by an out-of-control truck,

    but to become and remain a woman command

    the existence and employment of genius.”

    Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014)

    The words of Maya Angelou never cease to create feelings of admiration and awe for me… to the extent that my gosh- why- couldn’t- I- have- written- that paranoia kicks in. The little paperback I randomly picked up yesterday afternoon on an end table in our living room which Pretty now uses as her Rescued Books sorting room caught my attention because it was (a) small and (b) written by Maya Angelou. The book was titled Wouldn’t Take Nothing for my Journey Now.

    As I read the book yesterday afternoon, I was grateful to Pretty who always leaves priceless gems around for me to discover, pick up and savor. She knows my love for Maya Angelou and her works so I suspect it was no accident the book was in a conspicuous place.

    This book captured my attention and immediately reminded me of my book The Short Side of Time for a couple of reasons. Both books acknowledge the influence and importance of Oprah Winfrey. Ms. Angelou dedicated her book to Oprah Winfrey “with immeasurable love” and I began my preface with “I can actually thank Oprah for this book.” Both books contain a collection of previously published short essays/articles – mine from this blog and Ms. Angelou’s from articles appearing in Essence and Ms. magazines. And it’s right there, my friends in cyberspace, that the similarities end.

    My daddy used to tell me to avoid making comparisons to anyone else because there would always be someone who could do something better than I could or someone who wouldn’t be able to quite catch up to my abilities. Needless to say, Maya Angelou is in a category all by herself when the subject is personal essays, and I will never be able to quite catch up to the sheer poetry of her writing in these intimate stories. I can, however, read them with delight.

    Many of her brief essays resonated personally with me probably because she published them in 1994 when she was 66 years old. The topics she covered as she described her own journey took me with her, and I cheered for her courage and power displayed vividly on every page. My mind meandered to the person I was in 1994 and how I would have reacted to this book when I was 48 years old. Would that white middle-aged lesbian activist understand what a blueprint Ms. Angelou’s journey could offer me when the storms of life were raging over the next quarter century of my life.

    Whether you are a youngster setting off on the journey, a middle-aged traveler  making plans for the next twists and turns, or in the third act of your life seeing the final bends and bumps in the road; I strongly recommend you treat yourself to Maya Angelou in this book or any other writings she’s done. I leave you with her thoughts on people.

    “I note the obvious differences

    between each sort and type,

    but we are more alike, my friends,

    than we are unalike.”

    Stay tuned.

     

  • behold the frog log


    Our first summer last year with a swimming pool was a real adventure – our yard is a frog mecca teeming with loud nocturnal noises, and unfortunately the frogs can’t distinguish a chlorinated pool from a perfectly wonderful fresh water pond. Therefore, every morning during the frog summer season last year I rose early to check the skimmer basket for our pool and usually found a frog, sometimes two, battling the effects of the chemicals.

    I had a little net that I used to pluck them from the skimmer and release them to make their way to safety far away from the poisonous fake pond. I was always so happy to see them hop away and hoped they remained part of our nighttime chorus which continues to be noisy this year.

    This year is different, though. At some point during a dinner conversation with friends several months ago I talked about my remorse for the frogs who lost their way and ended up in our skimmer basket. One of the friends at the table told me about something called a Frog Log that was an escape route for creatures caught in their frantic search for a way out of their precarious situation as they were engulfed by an overwhelming tide that had betrayed them.

    She went on to say I could order one on Amazon…which is exactly what I did. Behold, the Frog Log.

    such a simple, yet brilliant idea 

    So now I am wondering if we could invent a People Log that would offer us a rescue route from our worries, problems, angst, nightmares, depression, sorrows, panic attacks…a way out when we found ourselves in the wrong pond overwhelmed by the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say when he was at a loss for describing personal turbulence.

    The good news today is that this summer I have had only one frog in the skimmer basket. The loud frog choruses still pierce the summer heat with their deep bass voices – Pretty and I see the frogs hopping in our yard and around the pool at night when we walk outside with Charly and Spike, but the Frog Log apparently is the real deal.

    If anyone comes up with that People Log invention, please let me know.

    I promise to stay tuned. I hope you will, too.

     

     

  • don shequixote tilting at windmills? where is the moral outrage?


    “Where is the moral outrage in this country,” MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle asked yesterday (August 01) on Morning Joe in referring to a discussion Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D – Rhode Island) led earlier in the show about the hearing the Senate Judiciary Committee held Tuesday, July 31st., on the status of the immigrant children forcibly separated from their families in response to the zero tolerance policy of the current administration in previous months.

    Indeed, where is the moral outrage in America? Where is Don Quixote de la Mancha when we need him…come on, all you would-be Cervantes fiction writers out there. Give us a champion, that character who is brave enough to undo wrongs and bring justice to the world. Give us a Wonder Woman who penetrates the No, No, Get Out signs at the federal detention centers around the country, goes inside the facilities, gives us the real pictures of the detainees’ circumstances and rescues them from harm.

    Give us a Sherlock Holmes who is up to the task of searching in Central America and Mexico for the parents of 711 children whose families were basically stampeded out of our country, according to the testimony of Commander Jonathan D. White who is in charge of the reunification efforts of the United States Public Health Service. Commander White went on to say at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on July 31st. that the separation policy had not been in the best interests of the children. I’m thinking that Sherlock Holmes could use the assistance of several IBM Watsons because he will be looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack while 711 children remain incarcerated.

    Television writers, give us a Law and Order prosecutor Jack McKoy character who will speak truth to power and bring charges of deliberate cruelty or cruelty by incompetence to those responsible for the creation and implementation of the zero tolerance policy because no one gave any federal agency prior notice before Attorney General Sessions announced the policy. And Hollywood screen writers, hurry up and give us another Chief Trial Judge Dan Haywood who ruled the military court in the film Judgment at Nuremberg presiding over the trial of four judges that served on the bench during the Nazi regime for crimes against humanity.

    Come on, media moguls. We need Don Quixote – like heroes… hopefully more successful than his character which tilted at windmills he believed to be ferocious giants. Sigh. Oh well, you can’t have everything in a fictional hero.

    Speaking of tilting at windmills, I visited the campaign headquarters of the Congressman from my district yesterday. The purpose of my visit was to hand deliver a letter I wrote asking for his immediate intervention in the migrant reunification process. I included a copy of a previous blog on this issue (see my blog adding to the hue and cry on July 19th.) which I was fairly sure he hadn’t read before. What I found interesting about his campaign poster on the front of his headquarters  was the family portrait.

    Representative Joe Wilson and his family

    I had to wonder whether this man would be glib in his response to the zero tolerance policy if it had applied to the children or grandchildren of members of Congress. I’m just saying.

    As I drove to Zaxby’s to get a basket of toast after I left my windmill tilting, I saw another sign next to our West Columbia City Hall.

    Indeed, Mike Barnicle, where is the moral outrage of a nation blessed because their God is the Lord – referring to the same Lord who said in Matthew 19:14 (King James Version of the New Testament) “But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

    If only we could treat the migrant children as the kingdom of heaven.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • forget Chelsea? never


    Spike’s bark was loud, much louder than his usual warning bark for the intruder who dares to walk past his house on Cardinal Drive in the early morning hours before Pretty, Charly and I have roused ourselves from sleep to greet another Sunday.

    But then Spike’s bark became a long higher-pitched wailing sound as he raced into our bedroom and jumped with full force on Pretty as if to say wake up, wake up, you Sleepy Head. I need you.

    The impact shook the bed and brought us all to full alert. Charly rose with a menacing growl toward Spike which is what she likes to do anyway. Then she joined in the barking to form a chorus that was way too much for Pretty and me.

    I asked Pretty what in the world was going on outside our bedroom so Pretty got up and opened the blinds in time to see a man walking a large black lab up the street as he rounded the corner of Wren and Cardinal. Mystery solved. Spike had remembered his best friend Tennis Ball Obsessed Chelsea, his and our favorite black lab, who left him and the rest of her earthly family two years ago now.

    When Spike found us, he became the fifth dog in our home. Unbelievable to think back on that time. How did we manage with five dogs? Very well, thank you for asking.

    Out of that pack of five dogs, Spike chose our black lab Chelsea to be his best friend. Spike adored Chelsea but alas, his love for her was unrequited. She didn’t object to his devotion, but she rarely returned it. Chelsea sort of tolerated Spike with good humor.

    Now whenever Spike sees a big black lab walking past his house, he thinks it must be Chelsea wagging her tail at him as she passes by. I’d like to think he’s right.

    Spike relaxing with his best friend Chelsea at Casa de Canterbury

    Stay tuned.

     

     

     

     

  • precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul


    While I angst over the children still illegally separated from their families in my home state of Texas and begin to plan another series on letters my father wrote me while I was in college at the University of Texas in Austin in the 1960s, I looked through hundreds more photographs and came across a few that brought back words from an old gospel song we sang at church: precious memories…how they linger…how they ever flood my soul.

    little me, my grandmother, family dog Scooter

    This picture was taken by my mother who captured a definitive moment in my life which she surely imagined at the time she snapped it was simply “cute.” Now 70 years later if ever there were one image I could say conjured up my entire childhood, it would be this.

    My grandmother was clearly on her way home from work because she held two packages in her arms which meant she had brought something we needed, but she stopped to hug me outside our house before she went in. She may have been on her 30-minute lunch break from the general store where she worked as the only clerk 10 hours a day six days every week. Since she had no car and didn’t know how to drive, she walked the short distance down the dirt road from our home to work. Her lunch breaks were always too short, she said.

    Or she was home after standing 10 hours on her feet at the end of her work day at 6 o’clock. Regardless, she must have been exhausted as she stopped to show me some love. Now what I was doing with a golf club that was as tall as I was remains a mystery to my memory, but my grandmother Dude’s love for me will always be crystal clear for as long as I have memories.

    Here’s another one of my favorites, but no explanation is necessary, right?

    the hat has been with me from the beginning 

    (not sure who the little boy is)

    Stay tuned.