On some level, I've always had a problem with manners. Not that I think it's wrong to thank people when they help you out and things like that, although I have had some lapses, more from exuberance than coarseness.But manners have also meant that I have to be patient with Products of Their Time(TM) saying hideous things in front of me because the wheelchair means I don't understand.My whole life, I've been told I "have to understand" people that do this, that when they were young crips were shut away, and blah blah, so relating to me with courtesy is some kind of insurmountable etiquette challenge.I have learned to accept that people do that, but I still don't understand. For instance, I don't really understand marriage, being that I've been a girlfriend for a lifetime total of about twelve minutes. But if I went up to some old couple and said, under the guise of "curiosity" or "trying to learn" and said "Hey, how long after you got together did you start letting yourself go?", they'd treat me like I was rude, and I would deserve it.(or worse, they could treat me as a non-threatening repository for their secrets and tell me---I get that a lot, too.)
We face a crisis in our national moment. This is a disturbing realization, which might make it easy to be comforted by pattern and ritual. We have to resist this impulse, especially since the institutions, and the highly-paid spokespeople doing all the tsking, are not doing their jobs right now(Maybe they've never done what we needed, but let's take time to ponder that on another day.) Definitely vote and step up your volunteer commitments. Give up a creature comfort or two to donate--it helps a worthy cause, and, as a secondary benefit, allows you to step off the hamster wheel of acquisition for a bit.(Some of you can do one of these things, some can do both...mileage may vary. We all need to do what we can while we can. But if you have a word or two for Mitch McConnell in whatever despotic Cracker Barrel the traditional Supreme Court-seat-stealing bastard likes his cream gravy from, know that I'm here in the desert cheering you on(try not to physically hurt him, even though turtles tend to live forever.) Give Meghan McCain the "View" from the ground--some exposure to the little people and our problems is vastly overdue. Let's not just slip gently into a fascist state...our forebears are fighters and radicals...let's pretend that Glinda, the Democratic Socialist Good Witch, showed up in her pink dress with the red roses on it(or maybe it's red white and blue) and tells us the power was in us all along--let's fucking click our heels together, shall we?
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