Rational rationale

I have thought about guns a great deal since my father committed suicide by handgun when I was in ninth grade.

I say that not to elicit sympathy, but as a starting point for this essay. A little background: my parents were divorced when I was an infant; I had little contact with my father before he died; and my mother provided such a rich community of elders that his absence seemed incidental. Nonetheless, his death has affected me in ways I am still discovering.

All of this is by way of explaining the very personal relationship I have with gun control efforts, especially those around handguns. Not long before my father died, the "Brady Bill" brought national attention to gun control efforts. I supported the movement then; my conviction was deepened by my father's death and has been cemented over time.

That said, as distasteful as I find them, I am not against gun ownership. My husband has rifles and uses them. My son has practiced marksmanship with his Scout pack. A number of my friends enjoy a day at the shooting range. I respect that. I have even surprised people in the past -- those who have heard (or read) me rant about gun control -- with my ardent support of hunters, albeit from the perspective that they play a vital role in wildlife management.

I am aware that the basic regulations for which I advocate would not have saved my father's life. He owned his weapons legally and had a permit. I know also that his suicide was really a symptom of a lifetime of alcohol abuse. If he was truly intent on ending his life, he would have found a way.

The thing is, with suicide by gun there is very little margin of error. There are plenty of statistics (yes, yes, I know -- lies, damn lies, and statistics) tallying gun deaths. What many people don't realize is that two-thirds of those are suicides. Having a gun vastly increases the odds of someone attempting and succeeding in trying to kill themselves. Especially, unfortunately, people under the age of 18. It is so easy. 

As for other deaths? Looser laws in any one state vastly increases the homocide rate there as well. Locations with regulations around gun storage (locked up and unloaded) see far fewer accidental fatalities. I'm not going to turn this into a numbers game -- there are plenty of much better researched and dedicated pages for that. What I am going to say, after nearly 30 years of thinking about it, is that I truly believe that most of these deaths -- suicide, homocide, accidental -- were preventable with simple, common sense measures. I don't intend to strip guns away from people. I do believe that we can ask them to be responsible -- much as I am required to prove a certain level of responsibility before owning or operating a vehicle. Growing up in my little valley, getting a hunting license and going on your first hunt was a rite of passage. I remember all the kids excitedly talking about signing up for the hunter safety courses their parents required before going into the woods. That step was part and parcel of growing up and being a "good" -- as in moral and ethical -- hunter. I don't know why that has changed.

I have heard at length (from my husband, among others) the argument that people rely too much on the government to keep them safe, and that it's a "nanny state". You know what? We as a nation have proven that necessary. After struggling to keep eight-year olds calm and quiet through lockdown drills, after mourning too many mass shootings, after seeing pictures of men and women carrying firearms through Target, I don't trust my fellow citizens to act in our collective best interest. The roughly 32,000 gun deaths last year are my measure of why I believe the following basics should be implemented:

• Require all gun owners to take a use and safety course. I'd encourage them to go further and go through some simulation training. This would be for everyone's safety. I have been in enough mildly emergency situations that I don't trust people to behave well under stress, let alone a situation where gunfire might be needed. I really, really, really don't want an untrained, panicking person trying to use a gun.
• Require background checks for ALL sales. Period.
• Restrict large capacity ammunition clips.
• Restrict multi-weapon sales, especially through unlicensed dealers. This is where many of the weapons used unlawfully come from.

I'm sure there are more, but I didn't start this post with the intent to list out my solutions. As I said, there are better and more passionate sites for that. All I wanted to do was tie the political back to the personal. So many folks cry out for RKBA (the Right to Keep and Bear Arms). I think, sometimes, they forget the people behind the calls for regulation.

I was not close to my father. I may never have been, even if he had lived. Nonetheless, his death affected me profoundly. Most immediately came the knowledge that I was "half an orphan". My mother's mortality was highlighted by my father's death, deepening a sense of the fragility of family which had been instilled three years prior with the death of my maternal grandmother.

The longer-lasting, more complicated impact came from my imagination. Here's what I think I know: as a result of his alcoholic behavior, his third wife left him. She found him when she returned to the house sometime during the week. 

From there my vivid imagination takes over, filling in the gaps. I can see him angrily drinking while watching the Broncos lose. I smell the oil as he breaks down the gun, wiping it clean, reassembling. Repeating, maybe, as he drinks more. Easing toward tears, frustration melting into an overwhelming sense of failure. Walking to his bedroom. Lying down on the pastel bedspread. The shot, and a fan of chunky blood on the wall. 

I have carried those images in my head for more than twenty years now. I have no idea if they are even vaguely accurate. I don't care to find out.

All I want, really, is that no one else have to live with their version of this sorrow.

I-95 to Baltimore

We must have been

The very image of

White trash that night

Battered truck

Holes in the knees of

My tattered jeans

I was barefoot

We had an upright piano

A toilet

construction tools

And two hound dogs

In the bed

My feet hung

out the window

to catch the breeze

We were headed

all the way to Vermont

in one long shot

That trip has become family

Legend: the first time we

traveled together

I-95 North was, then,

a wasteland between

DC and Baltimore

where drug smugglers baited

state troopers

in nondescript cars

Which might be why

a thousand cars

had passed the Toyota

sedan on the side of the road

But it was probably

because they were

Six young Black men.

The man who became

my husband pulled over

white knight to the rescue

without thought

to race or peril

I fell a little more in love

watching him cheerfully

offer a lift to the nearest

filling station.

Their astonishment speared

my heart as I squeezed over

to fit four into a

three-person bench seat.

Two for safety:

we could have been

crackers on a joyride

in rural America

We managed.

Me shifting the gear knob

between my knees

while he steered.

They prattled on

about their schooling

and their jobs

as if we needed proof

that they were harmless.

We left them under

sizzling fluorescents

two miles down the road

with a gas can and an

assurance that they’d

be okay from there.

It was just

a kindness between strangers.

The moment sticks in my mind

because I’m still waiting

For that to be true.

Theme Park

I'm at the amusement park on the 4th of July. We came late, The Boy and I, because we are staying for the fireworks. He can handle any ride; I am more selective. My time waiting on benches affords me an unusual opportunity for people watching.

The Boy sits alone in a car on a spinny ride. I once delighted in them as well, but my inner ear has aged to the point of extreme nausea. I see him chattering to himself before the ride begins. A giant grin builds across his face, soaring and whirling above me. This. This is why we came here. He sprints toward me afterward, shouting his joy before racing off to the roller coaster. I overcome my fear and ride with him, eating my stomach as it rises to my throat, breathing deeply afterward. We ride two, then three, and finally I point him to another spinner so I can sit and calm myself. My eyes--and my ears--turn again to the people around me.

The air swirls with the scents of chlorine from the water park, beer, and sunscreen. I hear surges of screams from the thrill rides, mostly drowned by top-forty hits on the piped music. The wave pool surprised me with twenty minutes of lively classical tunes. I may have been the only person to appreciate it; the cheerful gasps and splutters of swimmers were more noticeable.

I remember that it's the 4th of July. Once, when I worked in a grocery store, a woman asked me "I know it's Independence Day, but independence from what?" I like to think I answered kindly, explaining simply the roots of the celebration, but I was young and cruel then. I don't remember what I said. Now I see that same cruelness ripple across the internet, slicing and mocking those who think differently and I strive to set a better example. I often fail.

Right now, though, my heart swells with a universal love of my country and my compatriots. My fellow Americans. The phrase has more meaning here in a small typical theme park. Mixed with the scents of popcorn and corn dogs is the sound of Spanish and African languages I don't recognize. I catch the cadence of Arabic, Korean, Chinese. I watch and see an idealized cross-section of the United States. Women in burkas shepherd their children past white teeny boppers in minute bikinis. Latinos chat with the black families waiting next to them in line. A mulleted white man in a sleeveless tank top, a flag and cross tattooed on his bicep, ushers a lesbian couple and their children into a line ahead of him. It's a tiny courtesy, but the sweetness of it causes a hitch in my breathing.

We are here, all of us, together. There's a harmony of purpose and pleasure. We share the exasperation of parents with over tired children. Adults smile knowingly at the charged flirting of teenagers, who glance sidelong at each other from the safety of their packs. We cross our usual boundaries to comment on the weather, the day, querying each other on where best to see the show. Here, today, we are all the same. We are enjoying a holiday with our families and friends. We all holler with delight at the fireworks shattering the sky above. Whatever our differences, right now, here, we all are Americans.

My Rights

So there's the hostage situation just blocks from my kids' school and they're on lockdown. I'm glad they have such procedures in place, but really, what the FUCK is wrong with people? And don't you dare tell me that guns aren't the issue. I live in Colorado. I know what guns are for. I grew up in a rural part of the state. I've gratefully eaten venison shot by neighbors. I also know that good hunters don't take down a deer with a handgun.

Fuck the gun rights lobby.

My kids' safety is at stake at school, at the movies, on the street. We don't need more handguns. We need safe, sane, regulations that keep 19 year old punks from trying to rob a store and then totally fucking up and killing people with their guns. Or buying absurd numbers of weapons and incalculable amounts of ammunition and playing comic villain in a movie theater. Or getting all xenophobic and blowing away people at their place of worship because they look different. Or getting fed up and murdering American citizens at a political rally. There's no good reason for high-capacity clips or semi-automatic weaponry outside a war zone.

I am going now to get my kids and pretend that everything is okay, that it was just a precaution, but in my heart I'm just a little more afraid to go anywhere with my babies. Because I can't jump fast enough to get in front of a bullet, and losing them would rip my soul out.

Fuck "gun rights". What about MY rights to be safe and free of fear? That's in the Constitution, too, you know.

Leave a Corner

I am a patriot. Today I honor the decision 236 years ago to declare independence from Great Britain. Like my fellow citizens I will celebrate with fireworks and barbecue and a parade, and my eyes will well with proud tears at the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence.

Ours is a powerful and proud country. We have a history of faith in divine providence and a firm belief that we have a destiny to lead the world. But we also are kind and generous and have a tradition of aiding those who need our help, both individually and nationally.

Which is why I am so saddened by the current state of our political discourse. In the Declaration of Independence our forefathers stated "we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" as they set forth to "institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect [the] Safety and Happiness" of the American people.

Today, instead of working together toward the greater good our politicians snipe and cut at each other, standing more on soundbites than principles. Above it all, wealthy people and corporations collect more money and more power, leaving the poor behind. We seem to have lost sight of the lofty ideals which have given our country such strength and endurance.

I have friends and family who like to tell me that the United States is a Christian country. I could dispute that, but instead I'd like to remind them of Leviticus 19:9-10: “And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger.”

On the anniversary of the launch of this great experiment, I pray that we, as a united people, remember the spirit in which our country was founded – that the government is a tool for securing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all its citizens.

A conundrum

I think, if conservatives really stand for marriage, they ought to support health care bills that cover mental health, including marriage counseling.

On Marriage

I have been pondering marriage a great deal lately, mostly because I fear mine has fractured like a bone china cup, still intact but crazed by fault lines, any of which could cause the whole to collapse into pieces. We have been married ten years, together for nearly thirteen. We have moved across country, bought and sold houses, invested, had two children, acquired a new car, adopted a dog. We have, in short, lived the american reality, if not the dream. We are married. But what does that mean? I have a dear friend whose support of “traditional marriage” makes me unspeakably sad, especially since right now I don't even know what marriage means, except that my gay friends and acquaintances long for it as a near unattainable dream.

Thinking across the various stories of marriage that have built the idea in my head, marriage was never about sex, or children, or even love, but about alliances. Us versus them. United we stand. Think about it – Disney princes rescue their unknown ladies (Snow White had never even met her prince) from poverty, evil, enchantment, all by offering a shield against these things. In return, they get a kiss. Isn't that what wedding vows promise? Not “I will love you” but “I will take care of you even if you're sick or poor”. A couple might as well write a legal contract specifying individual obligations. That is traditional marriage. It doesn't sound so romantic when you realize it's a negotiated bargain, sealed with a ring.

Historically, traditionally, marriages were bulwarks against warfare, destitution, the neighbors. The kings and queens of Europe didn't fall in love, they negotiated for the most advantageous match. And that bargaining wasn't limited to nobility. Even peasants had dowries, and girls with more goods were more desireable. If they could breed well, all the better. Many healthy children meant more swords in a fight. Lots of workers meant a better retirement for the elders.

The mythology of marriage is that it begins with love. I don't agree. Love is what happens quietly after years of marriage. After fighting and making up, after traveling and staying in, grieving and celebrating. Love is not just wanting to share the good with your partner. It is cleaning up bedpans and vomit; dealing with annoying habits that you never can embrace; seeing the beauty inside the ugly. Only when you know the whole of a person – beginning to end – can you truly love. I say marriage begins with sympathetic resonance, a sense that this one person will stand with you against all foes, and will help you achieve the highest heights.

My college roommate was married last spring. In attendance was a gay man I know and his partner of fifteen or so years. They are comfortable with each other in the way that long-married people are; I was warmed by their affectionate smiles and eye-rolling at each other's foibles. At the very beginning of their relationship they weathered the storm of a life-threatening illness that still must be managed on a daily basis, and they told me a little about how that affects their long-term plans together. For them, that future is an unquestionable fact. The strength of their union is awe-inspiring. I think often about my morning spent with them and what a marvelous example they are of what a marriage should be. It's ironic that at a “traditional” ceremony, the two people united hope to have a relationship as strong, loving, and long as that of our gay friends – two men who still had to be careful not to touch or say anything publicly that might indicate their relationship to an outsider.

My husband and I are stuck in silence right now. Looking back, I see the flaws in our earliest alliance, and wonder why we ever walked down the aisle together. I have leaned heavily on my friends for consolation, and they, in turn, have given me absolution for whatever decisions I might make. For now, I am searching for solutions. I owe that to myself and my family. And by doing so I hope I honor my many gay friends who have shown me what marriage truly means.

A deep and abiding peace

I am at peace.  For the first time in years, I feel that my country is mine again, and I no longer have to wait for the next incident of horrific abuse of power to come to light.  I didn't know, until this morning, how anxious I was; how distressed our "leadership" made me.  Now, again, I can be proud to be an American.  I thank all the gods there are.

Waiting with bated breath

I'm having nightmares. Friends being kidnapped and murdered, children being hurt. My sleep is so deep I can't swim up, and the dream is past by the time I wake, so that I am only bemused and anxious, rather than free to cry and release the tension which shakes my bed. I believe I'm translating concern about the election into creative fear, but I don't know for sure where my anxiety comes from. I pray it is over soon. Forgetting the unpleasantness of the flyers in the mail (what a waste of resources and money, I think, as I dump them into the recycling bin), and the ceaseless ads, and the light political jabs over the dinner table, I just need to know what comes next. I don't like stories that never conclude, and this has been endless. I think I've been telegraphing my unrest to the children and the dog; we all have short tempers right now. Perhaps, after the 4th, we will sleep again, and find harmony in each other's company again. I wait. We all do.