Thursday, November 02, 2006

Drew Quotes of a Few Moments

Some recent quotes from emails I've sent to people I love and care about.

From one:

My situation is really good right now. I'm very much in love and feel well-matched, well-met, wonderfully challenged and enthusiastically cared for in my relationship with r. We are having a lot of fun together and I couldn't be here with any semblance of sanity without her. Geographically, I am where I am because my family is here and I wanted to be physically closer to them while some transitions were taking place. My mother is getting older and trying to stabilize herself with respect to her rheumatoid arthritis, cardiac arrhythmia and 79 years of living lovingly. She is in the process of moving from living on her own to living with my younger sister. My younger sister and her husband have recently adopted his two granddaughters (4 & 5), who until about 20 months ago had been living with their drug addicted, non-parenting parents. My brother-in-law's son was, just a couple of days ago, persuaded by his circumstances to enter a detox program. Anyway, it all means lots of drama in my daily life with family issues pervading almost every moment of my day. 20 years ago this would have made me crazy, today it feels like I'm right where I need to be. The larger culture in which I am living is misogynistic, racist, homophobic, militaristic, materialistic, fundamentalist/evangelical christian and republican. It does little to nurture my spirit. The outdoor places here make up for some of it, though they are rapidly being developed/destroyed.

from another:

I've been doing lots of reading lately, but very slowly. Right now I'm reading "Losing It All To Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape." It's funny, but depressing. It's also helping me to process some of the emotions I'm having over seeing so much of the area I'm living in being "developed" so rapidly. It's startling! One day there's a bunch of beautiful beach wildness, the next it's all bulldozed and they're creating residential roads for something called "Sage Beach" with "homes starting at $999,999." All of this on an area of non-beach front land that can't be 300 yards wide with the ocean (and road) on one side and the intracoastal waterway on the other.

and another:

Temperature wise things are cooling down here, which means much of the outdoors is becoming accessible again. R and I have a camping trip planned for this weekend at O'Leno State Park. The last time I camped there I was a kid and there with the girl scouts. (I wasn't actually a girl scout, merely a sibling of one.) It's a fun place. The river there, the Santa Fe, disappears underground for about three miles. I hope to do some canoeing, but I don't think I can actually canoe the underground part of it.

Halloween was interesting here. Kids actually trick or treated. Their parents all idled nearby in SUV's with bumper stickers bearing right wing slogans, including NRA stickers, but kids came to the door and R and I dispensed candy. More trick or treaters in one night than in 11 years in a downtown Berkeley apartment.

Politics are interesting here, as well. I think I've found one race wherein I will be voting for a candidate who shares at least 10% of my sociopolitical values. He won't win and my vote for him won't cause a right wing extremist candidate to win, so it's kind of like a victory.

and another:

This has been an interesting week or so for me. I've reflected a lot on our move to Florida. Yesterday was the anniversary of my arrival. I'm starting to begin planning for whatever is next and likely far away from here. I think the next big change is 6 months to a year away. I'm also trying to be creative in my thinking, plotting and scheming and hoping not to be drawn back to any place by nostalgia. It would be nice to be somewhere where the Dixie Chicks aren't banned from the movie theaters.

posted by Drew @ 8:26 AM | link to this post