While I'd been out to start cutting grass in front of the barn a while back; rain, scorching temps, and the on and off lethargy of sadness was settling in from time to time. As one of my friends put it, "you are in a time of huge transition."
All of which is true, but yesterday's overturn of Roe v. Wade knocked me off my feet. Too many disasters, pandemics, and white supremacist threats of aggression; have distracted too many from the many many other issues that have been rolling around.
Roe is one. We have known. We have seen. We have heard what people have promised to do, and now have delivered. While the House has passed a bill to codify Roe, the Senate has let it languish.
Its hard NOT to think we have fallen down on the job.
As a rabidly, pro-choice feminist; I have talked the talk and walked the walk for at least 46 years of my life.
I was graduating from high school when Roe was passed. During 1978 after receiving my MSW from Tulane, I was one of those who ushered women into the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Illinois.
Our patients had to walk past a priest playing tapes of screaming babies.
He was not alone.
He was accompanied by a pack of women holding up posters of bloody fetuses while they juggled their own baby(ies) in their arms, on their hips, or in a baby carriage.
No one should have to face that alone.
Shortly after I returned to New Orleans to work, I learned that our clinic Doctor had been kidnapped by a rabid, radical, pro-life group who I believe were called "Operation Rescue!" I was devastated.
Yesterday, I heard from friends and family from all over the world. We cried. We commiserated. We remembered. This is only the beginning. I don't have the energy to go there at the moment. I am despondent and heart-broken that our country has arrived at this place. This is one of many layers of dismantling of many hard fought and hard won battles for so many. Too many I love are rolling over in their graves today, including our Mom and Dad.
So, I cut grass. I took pictures. I explored the floor of my barn again, that appears to have more gorgeous stone than I had even realized when I first started digging and cleaning. There is peace and comfort in my barn, even though it is a time of regrouping and reorganizing to fight these fights again.
Back when I was working in HIV/AIDS, I went to see a client at a residential facility regularly. I would always ask him how he was.
His response was always the same:
"I'm upright and moving forward."
Honestly, that's exactly how I feel today. We're putting one foot in front of the other, upright, moving forward, and doing the very best we can with the hand that has been dealt.
Here's to being upright and moving forward!
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