by sheila morris
A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground. Then it is done. No matter how brave its warriors or how strong its weapons.
Cheyenne proverb
We cannot be distracted by the noises that surround us. The Republican Party seeks to conquer our hearts by controlling our bodies.
I Voted this week to say Not on My Watch. Plan your vote. We are not done.
?? – October 22, 2022
I am a seeker
A poor sinful creature
There is no weaker than I am
I am a seeker
And you are a teacher
You are a reacher
So reach down
Reach out and lead me
Guide me and keep me
In the shelter of your care each day
‘Cause I am a seeker
And you are a keeper
You are the leader
Won’t you show me the way
I am a vessel that’s empty and useless
I am a bad seed that fell by the way
I am a loser that wants to be a winner
You are my last hope
Don’t turn me away
Oh, you are a mountain
From which there flows a fountain
So let its water wash my sins away
‘Cause I am a seeker
And you are a keeper
You are a teacher
Won’t you teach me the way
Reach out and lead me
Guide me and keep me
In the shelter of your care each day
Pretty and I shared many tears as we stood next to Carport Kitty when her brave heart came to rest yesterday. Congestive heart failure was the culprit, but this first and last visit to a vet confirmed what we suspected when she first appeared in our carport during the fall of 2021 – frail, limping, exhausted but adamant in her refusal of our attempts to touch her – equally determined to avoid the crate we borrowed from our friend Francie to try to get her to the vet.
And yet she survived with us in her own way. Pretty began her rescue efforts with a bowl of fresh water every day; I told her I was definitely against any cat rescue since we had three dogs in the house plus my cat allergies. Anyone could see (except Pretty) that we didn’t have a place for an urban feral cat. Sigh. That’s about the time I started feeding her Meow Mix and named her Carport Kitty. Meow Mix moved on to Temptations which led to the canned food delights of Fancy Feast and Little Friskies. CPK became a celebrity to our cyberspace friends through her adventures on Cardinal Street during the changing seasons. Carport Kitty had a following. Never a loser to Pretty and me – always a winner.
Carport Kitty moved through three other neighborhood homes this summer – I thought she was following the sun to avoid the extreme heat but in retrospect I think she was following the instincts that helped her survive on the streets for who knows how many years or the circumstances that created her journey. One neighbor told us when we first asked last fall if the calico cat belonged to him that she had been roaming this neighborhood for years. He had given her and her friends food, water and shelter from the cold. The calico cat was a stray.
Over the months Carport Kitty gradually began to trust Pretty and me. I often sat on the kitchen steps outside with her at night to give her last meal of the day – usually her third! Lately she had seemed to want more than her typical head pats from me, a few meows, rubbing against my legs, longer visits than we shared in the summer heat. The black Tuxedo cat, the Bully Cat, the Yellow Cat – all her friends came around at dinner time now but were afraid to come close to her turkey and giblets because the old white woman chased them away to protect the calico cat.
Somehow in the vicissitudes of life as my daddy used to talk about, I heard Lauren Daigle sing “The Seeker” for a Dolly Parton tribute the night before we lost Carport Kitty. Dolly wrote the song for an album released in 1975 – her words haunted me during these past painful hours because I do believe Carport Kitty was a seeker who came to our home searching for keepers. She found these keepers brought much more than water, food, places for her to reign supreme in her carport kingdom. They gave her their love.
No matter what time Pretty and I drove up the driveway we both looked for the little calico cat who stood guard over our carport, waiting for us to come home. I’d like to think she might still wait for us…somewhere.
For all our friends in cyberspace who have been with us longer than a hot minute (or at least a year) you will recognize changes in our family photos for our second annual Riverbanks Halloween Boo at the Zoo experience. Taken last night, the first night of the 10 night Boo extravaganza we find Pretty in a very large witch’s hat standing behind me in my disguise as an old lady with white hair; to our right the witch family with Pretty Too as Mama Witch holding baby witch Molly now almost 9 months old, 3 year old witch Ella being held by Number One Son Daddy disguised as Gamecock fan minus gear. To the left of Pretty and me Pretty Too’s twin sister Pretty Also (with fangs) plus Super Bro in Law Seth and their 3 months old adorable Cousin Caleb.
The night was a perfect one – not so cold as we had thought – mild 60s. Most of the animals had wisely stayed in their sleeping quarters as the hordes of costumed children and frazzled families descended for utter mayhem. Or, as Ella told me when I wasn’t quite quick enough to lift her to see the one brave black monkey stick its head out for a peep at the crowd, I think he had to go potty, Naynay. Brilliant.
As I let Ella slide to the ground, she said, I think you’re too heavy to carry me. Her legs are almost as long as mine!
Thanks to the thoughtfulness of Pretty Too and Pretty Also combined with the commercial acumen of the Riverbanks Zoo, we have a few pictures to remember the night. (Luckily, or unluckily, videos of my ending dance (following a mug of witch’s brew spirits) with Ella to my all time favorite group Abba’s Dancing Queen were unrecoverable. Pretty forgot to hit the “record” button. Ella will one day thank her for that, too.)
A few noticeable differences in the Boo experience this year, the most obvious the addition of two children who still qualify for free admission. Two strollers required this time with related diaper bags containing well, you know, what diaper bags all over the world contain. With the little girl who now required a ticket to enter, a decided shift in focus from being mesmerized by the millions of lights outlining ghosts, goblins, witches, bats, pumpkins that had so thrilled her last year – to wait for it, candy acquisition and consumption. The war with sugar has begun.
The kindness of strangers moved us all when we entered the zoo last night. Somehow in the frenetic pace of parents getting home from work to dress children and themselves in festive Halloween costumes, no one brought Ella’s candy bucket. As Pretty turned to make an emergency run for the candy container in the zoo store, a young mother stood nearby pushing a stroller herself with another child by her side. She gave Ella a bucket with the words, we have two and only need one. Sharing is caring, right? Ella saw a very good example of what those words really mean, and we did, too.
From our family to yours, have a safe and Happy Halloween.
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Slava Ukraini. For the children.
Oh well, gosh, golly. Now that you mention it – nothing, unless you count the one vote thing in the upcoming elections on November 8th. Each one of these American singers has one vote in the election which is now fewer than three weeks away.
Sorry, everyone. In a democracy we all get one vote. No matter how talented we are, how sophisticated or erudite or ignorant – we each get one vote. Our votes are our voices. Use them, people. No excuses, no regrets.
inflation, gas prices, gun crimes, too
bring us the headlines we all must view
but one thing’s for sure in 2022
the supremes took away our right to choose
Your vote, your opportunity to vote for a party that will respect a woman’s right to control her own body. Restore Roe.
A 22 year old woman named Mahsa Amini died on September 16th. in a hospital in Tehran, Iran while in the custody of the Guidance Patrol a/k/a the morality police who arrested her three days before for a violation involving “bad hijab,” the headscarf required by law for Iranian women. Amini was on holiday visiting relatives with her brother when she was arrested and, according to eyewitnesses, severely beaten. Police took her to a hospital where she was reported to be in a coma before her death.
The official statement from the police was that she died of a heart attack as a result of an underlying condition (remember George Floyd?), but her family said she had been in good health prior to the incident. They also said her head and body were covered in bruises, according to an article in The Guardian by Kamin Mohamaddi on October 8th.
Regardless, the death of Mahsa Amini has ignited a firestorm of protests by primarily women and children against not only the hijab law but also the ongoing repression of women’s rights under a hardline clerical regime. The slogan Zan, Zendegi, Azadi which translates to “Women, Life, and Freedom” has become the rallying cry for women’s rights that has now bubbled over to include other economic and social justice issues plaguing Iran. The Indian EXPRESS Journalism of Courage posted this AP photo with an explanation of the slogan on October 15th. The woman’s image on the banner is Mahsa Amini.
The connection between women (Zan), life (Zendegi), and freedom (Azadi) is not coincidental. Women are the creators of life and life itself cannot be free unless women are. (AP)
I hesitate to write about people, places, or events that have the potential to (1) display my ignorance of the world outside my life with Pretty or (2) unintentionally do more harm than good to the universe or (3) some combination. But the story of an Iranian Kurdish woman named Mahsa Imini is one I can’t ignore because it tears at all my senses; I feel for her family and for the thousands of women, men, girls and boys who today protest her death, who ask for a better country – who are dying in the streets by the beatings and bullets aimed to stop the uprising.
The BBC News says Iranian Human Rights Activists estimated this week that 222 people including at least 23 children have been killed by Iranian security forces in the uprisings. From the youngest identified as a 12 year old schoolboy to the oldest known death, a 62 year old woman, tracking the identities of the victims is made more difficult due to the closing of internet access by the Iranian government.
With the Dobbs decision by the Supremes this summer which takes away a woman’s right in the USA to control her own body’s health, I see parallels in the struggles for the rights of women in Iran. Author Kamin Mohamaddi’s article in The Guardian on October 8th. makes the argument that what is happening today in Iran is really the frontlines for feminism in the 21st century:
“There is a power and energy to these protests. The sight of young girls with flowing locks taking down pictures of the two elderly ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, the current supreme leader, that brings tears to my eyes and makes even my cynical heart burn with hope. It is as if the Furies have been unleashed in Iran and these extraordinarily brave young women, who are prepared to walk into bullets for the sake of the right to choose how to live, have lost all the fear that has kept previous generations repressed.
I say cynical heart because, as a member of Iran’s huge diaspora, as a proud British-Iranian, I have spent a large part of my adult and working life trying to introduce my countries to each other, and it has seemed to no avail…
It seems that the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini has not captured the world’s imagination in the same way as the death of George Floyd did, and the subsequent global protests in solidarity with the Iranian uprising have had few column inches, in spite of mobilising some 500,000 people around the world in one day alone (1 October).
But now, as I watch the unity in Iran and the cry of this generation which carries within it the stifled cries of all the generations gone before, for the first time in many years I am allowing myself to dream that one day I too can enter Iran without fear gripping my heart and accompanying every step I take there…
I am quietly resurrecting the long-buried wish to one day walk down Vali Asr Boulevard in Tehran (the longest street in the Middle East) with my hair loose under the Iranian sun and to lean in to kiss my man without fear of being arrested or shouted at or slapped on the street, or taken to be beaten to death in the back of a morality police van. This is a fragile hope that I keep tucked in my back pocket.
Meanwhile, I hope that the world wakes up to understand that what is happening in Iran is the frontline of feminism right now: the simple expression of desire for equality, for dignity, for life without fear. And as such, it touches us all. Say it with me: Woman Life Freedom.”
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Women Life Freedom. Say it with me, and stay tuned.
I'll Call It Like I See It 
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