This why I'd rather read Michael than anybody else on the internet.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
Sunday, March 30, 2008
The New York Times Magazine has a great piece today by Virginia Heffernan on how the Internet has changed the world for the obsessive collectors, or as I refer to myself, those with collection affliction. sigh.
I don't know if it's museums or seeing a representative body of work or identifying a trend statement in American retail but ... I am afflicted. With collections.
Yeah, you know about the Starbucks mugs; I've told you about them. Some bastard over at Mike's Mugs actually catalogued every mug Starbucks has ever put out, which is like a mondo red flag for people like me. Man, I gotta get back to the mugs and get serious. Serious? you ask. Well, yeah. How can anybody take me serious with only 244 mugs?
Then there's the Hermes scarves. OmiGOD, I love those things. I love to
buy them. I love to wear them. I love to take them out and play with them, rearrange all those acid free boxes on my close shelves. I love to go to Paris in January to buy them on sale. My favorite is probably...Couvee d'Hermes, which I have in several colors, but I like the shell pink the best. I just bought five new scarves in Las Vegas; it's The Year of India in Hermes time--of course, I had to get them all! The colors are so gorgeous. My Holy Grail scarf, which in the vernacular of wizened Hermes Scarf Collectors, YES WE HAVE A USER GROUP OVER ON YAHOO , means the scarf that we want, we want, we want, but cannot find, is 'Alpabet'. It a set of 26 vignettes of French country life, with a big block letters of the alphabet identifying each by name. It is a primer in letters, images, living and sensuality. I have been looking for this scarf for 
five years; to no avail. I remain undaunted and encouraged. I will find one to bring home to Bellemaison. The Chows will dance and do back flips. We will cut up extra turkey hot dogs on that night and gorge, gorge, gorge in our good fortune, the Chows and me. We will overcome. We will twist and knot 'Alpabet' around our necks in this lifetime. Wait and see.There's the vintage Catholic Parish calendars. I used to see these on the walls of the houses in my old neighborhood and was
fascinated by them; didn't know what they were and what they meant. Remember, I'm a convert. I found some of these same type of calendars in a Quonset hut in Worley in the '80s and just started collecting them. I LOVE these things. I have the St. Al's Parish 1929 calendar, with all the Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent represented by a fish.There's the art collections; two, actually. The regional contemporary art collection, which if I do say so myself, is magic. No, really! It is. Makes me smile even thinking about it. It's magic. I just acquired some lovely VietNamese pieces that are just, well, not describable in the big scheme of things. Then there's the antique botanical print collection, but I have told you about that before, too. It' s lovely, lovely, lovely. Peaceful. Wonderful. With collections inside the collection, like the pine cone prints. Those pine con
e prints are fabulous.Actually, I have another art collection: the most valuable one I own. Done by my children when they were in grade school, this collection hangs in our den on Easter/Alleluia walls and I love it more every day. I love it. Back in the day, Peedy Pupperelli specialized in furious marker art; nobody could put more marker strokes into a picture than The Pup. Jammer did the ubiquitous yet highly convincing self-portraits. When you've seen that tongue sticking out in your direction a dozen different ways, you know it anywhere. Beni Hana's pieces are few, but exceptional. He explores the dark side of his gene pool with ease, persuading you that the Celts might not have been cave people after all. All Beni, all the
time.Then there's the Wedgwood. I thought only grandmothers collected Wedgwood. I went to the factory in Stoke-on-Kent once and despite fierce internal protestations, became quite attached to Wedgwood. But collected it only here and there until I discovered it on eBay. Now it' a whole new ballgame. This stuff make me crazy with joy. I'd rather open up a box with colored Jasperware by Wedgwood than just about anything. In the last month, I've indulged a fettish with the covered boxes; God, they are just cunning. I am looking for the bean-shaped covered box in pink, if you see one. I need it to go
with the others. The pentefoil collection is coming along nicely; there should be a black one in the mail to join the others as we peak. Hooray for eBay! Rah! I say!There's the JMS Early Pottery Collection and the AMH Early Pottery Collection, both in the galleries of our downtown offices. I think a lot of the clients think it's Pre-Columbian art and don't realize The Pup and Jammer had well-known clay careers at The Spokane Art School back in the day
but chose instead to go into soccer and Scouting. But I have the evidence of their primal talent. There's the umbrellas; they bore me these days. The birdhouse collection has been in storage for at least 5 years; when we moved out of the lofts downtown I had no place to curate them. sigh. I bet there's other collections in storage, too, things that I have just forgotten about. Just as well, because clearly, they bore me. too.I have never done a drive by on a flea market; I always stop in. I can blitz two estate sales in the morning and still be at work by
7:45. I can sort 7000 items on an Internet search in seconds flat. I can look straight into the heart of every dealer out there and spot the larceny. It's a gift, this collection affliction, because beauty is all around. The face of God is everywhere as Ignatius would put it and I see him talking to me in just about all things.JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
I like the snow. Here in The Kan EWA we received four inches yesterday and it's snowing hard again today. Hurray! We get just a little more before it gets hot and the mosquitoes and aphids battle for sovereignty in the gardens 
of Bellemaison.
And being a gardener, my outlook is definitely odd. Maybe because I don't shovel, worry about getting around or otherwise am not burdened by the snow I can just enjoy it at face value. And I do enjoy it. I sit and look out the window now, memorized by the fluid white windowscape that is nothing but pink and blue with hydrangeas in July. In a minute, I will get up and get more coffee and the entire south wall of the kitchen will be a windowful of winter. The garden is as beautiful and lush with quiet, white mounds of fluff today as it is June when the roses and rhododendron bloom or in October, when the asters, chrysanthemums and viburnums take the final bows of the season. The winter garden holds no second place in my heart. It's clean, soft, peaceful and content.
Red Dorothy stuck her head in my lap just now and said she'd like to go out. She likes winter, too. Of course, she's got a good coat.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
of Bellemaison.And being a gardener, my outlook is definitely odd. Maybe because I don't shovel, worry about getting around or otherwise am not burdened by the snow I can just enjoy it at face value. And I do enjoy it. I sit and look out the window now, memorized by the fluid white windowscape that is nothing but pink and blue with hydrangeas in July. In a minute, I will get up and get more coffee and the entire south wall of the kitchen will be a windowful of winter. The garden is as beautiful and lush with quiet, white mounds of fluff today as it is June when the roses and rhododendron bloom or in October, when the asters, chrysanthemums and viburnums take the final bows of the season. The winter garden holds no second place in my heart. It's clean, soft, peaceful and content.
Red Dorothy stuck her head in my lap just now and said she'd like to go out. She likes winter, too. Of course, she's got a good coat.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
So Gonzaga is one and done in Carolina. Oh my.
There is not much I can say that hasn't been said and said by keener wits than me, cleaner analysts than me, more astute observers than me. But I will say this: Few should sharpen up his resume. It'd be my preference that several of the people he recruited do the same. Because they just don't get it any more. They just don't get it.
Matt Bouldin made a startling remark last weekend, in hyping the match up with Davidson this week. He was referring to somebody or something Davidson-related as reminding him of Gonzaga, back in the day. Back in the day? BACK.IN.THE.DAY?
What the hell is he talking about, back in the day? This is the day! This is the day and we made it! It is all ours, because it was us who painstakingly put pieces together whose sum is greater than its parts. Where is the world is Matt Bouldin's head and more importantly, his heart? As I watched Gonzaga fumble around against a tightly bound and solidly unified Davidson team on Thursday, it was quite clear where Matt's, Mark's, and the rest of the team's heads and hearts are: up their tailfeathers.
These days the entire Gonzaga basketball organization is so taken with themselves, so intent on monitoring their own headlines, believing their own spin, that they have forgotten, this IS the day. And it's our day, born of ambition, hard work, and unwavering commitment. But pride, team, community and school are not what GU is playing for now. They are playing for themselves.
They butt each other for position and prominence, for stats and stardom, they are playing to lay the groundwork for that shoe contract and that glittering NBA career that surely lies in their future. They aren't playing for their fans. They don't play for pride. They don't play to honor the legacy that built the Mac or the common sentiments and beliefs that make us a community along the north banks of the river, just past the I-90 off ramp. They are playing for themselves. And when their "efforts" bear no fruit, they are bewildered. Flat gobsmacked. Some fall to the floor and sob. It is just not supposed to turn out like this!
Instead, every one of those players and coaches needs to fall to their knees and pray to remember where they came from, and pray to be able to believe in each other and in us, and to remember where we all, all of us, came from. Our basketball boys of GU need to acknowledge that they wander the wilderness aimlessly and are likely to continue to do so unless they turn away from the golden idols that success sometimes brings.
I think a page from Billy Donovan's playbook is in order; for the non-basketball among you, Billy Donovan is the coach of the Florida Gators. The Florida Gators were the National Champions last year and this year, didn't even make it to play offs, getting knocked out in their conference tournament. So Donovan ceased allowing these "players" to train and practice in the state of the art gymnasium/workout/entertainment facility that that been built for them on the Florida campus. Instead, he now holds practice across campus in the old gym, where they are forbidden to wear anything logoed or lettered with Florida Gators. They go there to work. Work at playing basketball, work at earning the honor to represent Florida and the Florida Gators community. He believes, properly, that it's a privilege, not a right and it's earned, not handed out on a silver commitment letter.
So Mark Few has everything to gain and a whole lot more to lose by continuing to forget where it all started and who it all came from. These days, looks like much of the GU legacy has picked up and moved on to San Diego.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
There is not much I can say that hasn't been said and said by keener wits than me, cleaner analysts than me, more astute observers than me. But I will say this: Few should sharpen up his resume. It'd be my preference that several of the people he recruited do the same. Because they just don't get it any more. They just don't get it.
Matt Bouldin made a startling remark last weekend, in hyping the match up with Davidson this week. He was referring to somebody or something Davidson-related as reminding him of Gonzaga, back in the day. Back in the day? BACK.IN.THE.DAY?
What the hell is he talking about, back in the day? This is the day! This is the day and we made it! It is all ours, because it was us who painstakingly put pieces together whose sum is greater than its parts. Where is the world is Matt Bouldin's head and more importantly, his heart? As I watched Gonzaga fumble around against a tightly bound and solidly unified Davidson team on Thursday, it was quite clear where Matt's, Mark's, and the rest of the team's heads and hearts are: up their tailfeathers.
These days the entire Gonzaga basketball organization is so taken with themselves, so intent on monitoring their own headlines, believing their own spin, that they have forgotten, this IS the day. And it's our day, born of ambition, hard work, and unwavering commitment. But pride, team, community and school are not what GU is playing for now. They are playing for themselves.
They butt each other for position and prominence, for stats and stardom, they are playing to lay the groundwork for that shoe contract and that glittering NBA career that surely lies in their future. They aren't playing for their fans. They don't play for pride. They don't play to honor the legacy that built the Mac or the common sentiments and beliefs that make us a community along the north banks of the river, just past the I-90 off ramp. They are playing for themselves. And when their "efforts" bear no fruit, they are bewildered. Flat gobsmacked. Some fall to the floor and sob. It is just not supposed to turn out like this!
Instead, every one of those players and coaches needs to fall to their knees and pray to remember where they came from, and pray to be able to believe in each other and in us, and to remember where we all, all of us, came from. Our basketball boys of GU need to acknowledge that they wander the wilderness aimlessly and are likely to continue to do so unless they turn away from the golden idols that success sometimes brings.
I think a page from Billy Donovan's playbook is in order; for the non-basketball among you, Billy Donovan is the coach of the Florida Gators. The Florida Gators were the National Champions last year and this year, didn't even make it to play offs, getting knocked out in their conference tournament. So Donovan ceased allowing these "players" to train and practice in the state of the art gymnasium/workout/entertainment facility that that been built for them on the Florida campus. Instead, he now holds practice across campus in the old gym, where they are forbidden to wear anything logoed or lettered with Florida Gators. They go there to work. Work at playing basketball, work at earning the honor to represent Florida and the Florida Gators community. He believes, properly, that it's a privilege, not a right and it's earned, not handed out on a silver commitment letter.
So Mark Few has everything to gain and a whole lot more to lose by continuing to forget where it all started and who it all came from. These days, looks like much of the GU legacy has picked up and moved on to San Diego.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Riding my bike through Vietnam was, hands down, one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. Each day was a high mass in the most sacred of all cathedrals, and I was the acolyte serving the liturgy in the holiest of holies. And I'd go to bed exhausted. And then get up and have it all again. Every day. A spiritual feast everyday for three weeks. I still can't believe it happened to me and that I got to do this. I rode on the highways, roads and paths of Vietnam, from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi. I rode through the frenzy and tangled snarl of the cities, by the bustling markets and harbors of the villages and over the mud paths of remote areas. People riding expensive bicycles dressed in spandex are a novelty in Vietnam still and I can only imagine, quite a sight for all to see. So as I rode, anywhere I rode, I was greeted with shouts, smiles and big waves, as if I were Lance Armstrong riding through the villages of France. While it pleased and charmed me endlessly, the comparison of me to Lane Armstrong still makes me laugh. So it was a delight on so many levels and the Vietnamese people quickly became to dear to me. So, so very dear. And I laughed and laughed with the parents and the children, all the way from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi.
But as I rode on in the buffer zone outside of My Lai that day, I cried for all of us. All of us that were there at My Lai, then and now, and all of us that will be there; fully absorbing that war is and always has been a piece of civilization, even though it is deeply wrong--on all so many different levels. And at the base of my tears was the grief and shame of being an American. We know better; we know better. We're the people that kicked Hitler's ass; we're the English-speaking people who stand up in the face of tyranny and oppression. Where did it all go so wrong for us?
After about an hour, I emerged from the buffer zone around My Lai that serves as a remembrance to those killed that day and the rice paddies began to pop up everywhere. Although the tears had stopped by now, I was still deeply sad as only one with a real knowledge can sometimes be. I heard a voice, way off in a rice paddy, directed to me: "huuuuuuuuh-llloooo!" I turned and waved, almost surprised that anyone would be speaking to ME. I saw someone in a conical hat with a huge grin, giving me a two-armed wave, from three rice paddies over. Amazing.
Without warning, I approached a little village and collided with the changing of the shifts at school, as I did quite often. School starts at 7 am in Vietnam, goes until noon and then another group begins at 1pm and goes until 5 pm. The kids ride their bikes and skip along their mothers' sides back and forth to school and it's magic to be among them, as they laugh and giggle and wave, with big shouts of "huh-loooo!" They are happy, clean, well-nurtured children, each with hats to protect from the sun and many with masks, as is common these days in most parts of Asia. They are never far from their parents and their
sunny, shiny spirits pick you up and carry you to heaven. This day was no exception; they kids were so excited to see me and the mothers laughed and waved and let their children stand by the side of the road and hold their hands out to be slapped, as true athletes do with each other. The older kids turned their bikes around and rode beside me, practicing their English: Howareyou? Iamfine? Whatisyourname? Iloveyou! Their smiles and giggles are infectious so it's impossible to be anywhere around the children of Vietnam without being in your best and finest self. But at a point, they all were safely at home and in school, as I rode on alone. 
I watched the people toil in the rice paddies up to their hips in muddy water and marveled at how those kids turned my mood completely around. I rode on, so deeply grateful yet again, for generosity towards a stranger. And then I almost ditched the bike as I realized what was missing: fear. hatred. These kids nor their mothers were afraid of or hated Americans. They had nothing but hospitality and friendship for me, even in the face of what had happened to their entire village, only a generation ago. Utterly amazing.
It was the mothers of My Lai who never taught their children to hate Americans and never taught them to be afraid of Americans; instead showing them how it is we open our hearts to each other, particularly strangers among us. I was washed clean by the hands of the mothers of My Lai and on that day during Advent 2007, I felt the true and sweet measure of reconciliation and redemption, at the hands of Buddhist people of My Lai, Vietnam.
I believe the mothers of My Lai should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, for giving peace a chance, for turning away from fear, for walking toward a new future in forgiveness. I now know how it feels to be truly forgiven and I pray with the deepest of all gratitudes, that I, too, will always be a person with a smile and an open heart. I also know now that nations will never resist the seductiveness of war and that as since the beginning of time, our nation, like many, will make war with other nations. But I know that between people, peace always stands a chance. And that true Peace really can happen, one person at a time.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
But as I rode on in the buffer zone outside of My Lai that day, I cried for all of us. All of us that were there at My Lai, then and now, and all of us that will be there; fully absorbing that war is and always has been a piece of civilization, even though it is deeply wrong--on all so many different levels. And at the base of my tears was the grief and shame of being an American. We know better; we know better. We're the people that kicked Hitler's ass; we're the English-speaking people who stand up in the face of tyranny and oppression. Where did it all go so wrong for us?
After about an hour, I emerged from the buffer zone around My Lai that serves as a remembrance to those killed that day and the rice paddies began to pop up everywhere. Although the tears had stopped by now, I was still deeply sad as only one with a real knowledge can sometimes be. I heard a voice, way off in a rice paddy, directed to me: "huuuuuuuuh-llloooo!" I turned and waved, almost surprised that anyone would be speaking to ME. I saw someone in a conical hat with a huge grin, giving me a two-armed wave, from three rice paddies over. Amazing.
Without warning, I approached a little village and collided with the changing of the shifts at school, as I did quite often. School starts at 7 am in Vietnam, goes until noon and then another group begins at 1pm and goes until 5 pm. The kids ride their bikes and skip along their mothers' sides back and forth to school and it's magic to be among them, as they laugh and giggle and wave, with big shouts of "huh-loooo!" They are happy, clean, well-nurtured children, each with hats to protect from the sun and many with masks, as is common these days in most parts of Asia. They are never far from their parents and their
sunny, shiny spirits pick you up and carry you to heaven. This day was no exception; they kids were so excited to see me and the mothers laughed and waved and let their children stand by the side of the road and hold their hands out to be slapped, as true athletes do with each other. The older kids turned their bikes around and rode beside me, practicing their English: Howareyou? Iamfine? Whatisyourname? Iloveyou! Their smiles and giggles are infectious so it's impossible to be anywhere around the children of Vietnam without being in your best and finest self. But at a point, they all were safely at home and in school, as I rode on alone. 
I watched the people toil in the rice paddies up to their hips in muddy water and marveled at how those kids turned my mood completely around. I rode on, so deeply grateful yet again, for generosity towards a stranger. And then I almost ditched the bike as I realized what was missing: fear. hatred. These kids nor their mothers were afraid of or hated Americans. They had nothing but hospitality and friendship for me, even in the face of what had happened to their entire village, only a generation ago. Utterly amazing.
It was the mothers of My Lai who never taught their children to hate Americans and never taught them to be afraid of Americans; instead showing them how it is we open our hearts to each other, particularly strangers among us. I was washed clean by the hands of the mothers of My Lai and on that day during Advent 2007, I felt the true and sweet measure of reconciliation and redemption, at the hands of Buddhist people of My Lai, Vietnam.
I believe the mothers of My Lai should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, for giving peace a chance, for turning away from fear, for walking toward a new future in forgiveness. I now know how it feels to be truly forgiven and I pray with the deepest of all gratitudes, that I, too, will always be a person with a smile and an open heart. I also know now that nations will never resist the seductiveness of war and that as since the beginning of time, our nation, like many, will make war with other nations. But I know that between people, peace always stands a chance. And that true Peace really can happen, one person at a time.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
The day was beautiful and sunny, with no humidity or other distracting annoyances so I was completely focused as the driver pulled into a beautiful complex with a lovely simple building. I got out of the car in tears and with a horribly wrenched up stomach and quietly went into the building and climbed the marble stairway up into the principle monument that is now My Lai. At the top of the stairs, the exquisite, extraordinary art work began. I stopped dead in my tracks and was fascinated, delighted, dumbfounded and soothed; I immediately relaxed and thought, this is going to be just fine. This I can do. Who knew there would be ART at My Lai? The exquisitely rendered depictions of the horrors of My Lai somehow calmed me and oddly, gave me courage to absorb what lay just around the corner. And so I was deeply grateful for the first time that day.
Public places and monuments in Vietnam remain a principle place for the Communist Party to sustain and uphold manifesto through propaganda and My Lai is certainly no exception; however, the propaganda is quite easy to isolate and set aside and so it was with me that day. Once in the exhibit hall of the monument, I focused on the maps, the pictures and the transcripts from from the US Army court martial proceedings. My worst fears were not confirmed; my worst fears did not come close to the atrocity and malevolence that were in fact visited upon the heads of the children, women and men of the village of My Lai at the hands of the soldiers under Lieutenant Calley's command. They were mostly black and latino, these men of the US Army who slaughtered family after family in a manner that would have made a butcher flinch. What no one bargained for of course, was the Japanese photojournalist who got
it all on film and who backed the howls of outrage from the American helicopter pilot who ultimately became the hero of the Vietnamese people. Hugh Thompson is the thing that this country is really about; and he was a baby. Twenty four years old he was, when he stood up for, all the way to the very top, what is really right and what is really brave. He is an extraordinary man who did an extraordinary thing and all he had in his pocket were his values and convictions. Really think one guy can't make a difference? And so I was unexpectedly grateful for the second time that day, so deeply grateful for Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, United States Army, protector of freedom, guardian of the precepts upon which the United States of America was founded. It's the Hugh Thompsons of the American war efforts that keep our country safe.
I wandered through the garden of My Lai, ashamed and humiliated, indescribably sad and troubled, but finally beginning to understand, having glimpsed demons with whom Tim and Butch and Dick and Marc went mano a mano, nearly 40 years ago. I didn't linger.
I climbed on my bike and began to ride through the exquisitely beautiful Vietnamese countryside. So much about war and its horrific mystery had begun to crystallize for me. As I pedaled through the buffer zone that now cradles the former village of My Lai, where the monuments sits, I became ever more troubled and angry as I thought about the United States of America and this irreactable, despicable, horrific, unforgivable war we wage in Iraq. God, will we ever, ever get it right?
And what we did to these people in this little tiny town in of My Lai shamed me in a way I have never been shamed before. I pedaled on, in solitude.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
Public places and monuments in Vietnam remain a principle place for the Communist Party to sustain and uphold manifesto through propaganda and My Lai is certainly no exception; however, the propaganda is quite easy to isolate and set aside and so it was with me that day. Once in the exhibit hall of the monument, I focused on the maps, the pictures and the transcripts from from the US Army court martial proceedings. My worst fears were not confirmed; my worst fears did not come close to the atrocity and malevolence that were in fact visited upon the heads of the children, women and men of the village of My Lai at the hands of the soldiers under Lieutenant Calley's command. They were mostly black and latino, these men of the US Army who slaughtered family after family in a manner that would have made a butcher flinch. What no one bargained for of course, was the Japanese photojournalist who got
it all on film and who backed the howls of outrage from the American helicopter pilot who ultimately became the hero of the Vietnamese people. Hugh Thompson is the thing that this country is really about; and he was a baby. Twenty four years old he was, when he stood up for, all the way to the very top, what is really right and what is really brave. He is an extraordinary man who did an extraordinary thing and all he had in his pocket were his values and convictions. Really think one guy can't make a difference? And so I was unexpectedly grateful for the second time that day, so deeply grateful for Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, United States Army, protector of freedom, guardian of the precepts upon which the United States of America was founded. It's the Hugh Thompsons of the American war efforts that keep our country safe.I wandered through the garden of My Lai, ashamed and humiliated, indescribably sad and troubled, but finally beginning to understand, having glimpsed demons with whom Tim and Butch and Dick and Marc went mano a mano, nearly 40 years ago. I didn't linger.
I climbed on my bike and began to ride through the exquisitely beautiful Vietnamese countryside. So much about war and its horrific mystery had begun to crystallize for me. As I pedaled through the buffer zone that now cradles the former village of My Lai, where the monuments sits, I became ever more troubled and angry as I thought about the United States of America and this irreactable, despicable, horrific, unforgivable war we wage in Iraq. God, will we ever, ever get it right?
And what we did to these people in this little tiny town in of My Lai shamed me in a way I have never been shamed before. I pedaled on, in solitude.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
I was in My Lai, Vietnam in December and have thought much about that day, as it was one of the most profound experiences in my life to this time. I went to Vietnam to try and understand; to try and get it-- what happened there that irrevocably textured the souls and spirits of so many people I have know and love. There is Tim from the old neighborhood, the Navy Seal, who came back a bona fide drug addict. There is our cousin Butch, the infantryman, who suffered 
from Post Traumatic Stress his entire adult life. There is my best friend's husband, Dick the Air Force pilot, who was not able to emotionally connect with his wife as she fought and lost her battle with lymphatic cancer. There was my own brother, who doesn't talk about it to this day, saying only, I don't want the FBI showing up here. And it was not only them, it was us. Every college campus in this country was ravaged by the differences of opinion around war. Parents and children were alienated and estranged; families underwent separation as children moved to Canada; neighborhoods became awkward for the families left behind. It was a time of routine chaos, strife, and violence. And it became as normal in the cities, towns and communities of the USA as it was in the villages and cities of North and South Vietnam.
Maybe because I was a girl, maybe because I was younger, maybe because I just don't get it, I just didn't get it. I just didn't understand. And everyone, everywhere was talking about it; mostly in passionate, disturbed rhetoric. And my unfailing intuition, fully formed even then, failed me as well as the logic and rationale of the whole thing. I just didn't get it. And after, when it was all over, beautiful, gorgeous boys who were now men came home, caricatures of themselves, taking years and years and years to heal. I was extremely sensitive to the prevailing conflict of the time and the hurt and pain this conflict caused stayed with my for most of my adult life.
So I've always wondered about Vietnam. In your life, it's completely true that everything has its season. If you would have told me the spring that my little boy Ben was born, that after I raised him and his brother and sister, I'd set out to see the world, I would have laughed. I would have been charmed and interested, but I would have laughed. I'm from Tenth and Penn Ave; we don't vacation in Southeast Asia. We jump in the moho and our husbands take us to the Oregon coast for vacation. But Vietnam
has haunted me always and I wanted to face it and see for myself, because I wanted to understand. How could this have happened to The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave?
So I ended up in Vietnam by myself. And I knew I'd be going to My Lai and I dreaded it from the very moment the plane touched down in Ho Chi Minh City.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
from Post Traumatic Stress his entire adult life. There is my best friend's husband, Dick the Air Force pilot, who was not able to emotionally connect with his wife as she fought and lost her battle with lymphatic cancer. There was my own brother, who doesn't talk about it to this day, saying only, I don't want the FBI showing up here. And it was not only them, it was us. Every college campus in this country was ravaged by the differences of opinion around war. Parents and children were alienated and estranged; families underwent separation as children moved to Canada; neighborhoods became awkward for the families left behind. It was a time of routine chaos, strife, and violence. And it became as normal in the cities, towns and communities of the USA as it was in the villages and cities of North and South Vietnam.Maybe because I was a girl, maybe because I was younger, maybe because I just don't get it, I just didn't get it. I just didn't understand. And everyone, everywhere was talking about it; mostly in passionate, disturbed rhetoric. And my unfailing intuition, fully formed even then, failed me as well as the logic and rationale of the whole thing. I just didn't get it. And after, when it was all over, beautiful, gorgeous boys who were now men came home, caricatures of themselves, taking years and years and years to heal. I was extremely sensitive to the prevailing conflict of the time and the hurt and pain this conflict caused stayed with my for most of my adult life.
So I've always wondered about Vietnam. In your life, it's completely true that everything has its season. If you would have told me the spring that my little boy Ben was born, that after I raised him and his brother and sister, I'd set out to see the world, I would have laughed. I would have been charmed and interested, but I would have laughed. I'm from Tenth and Penn Ave; we don't vacation in Southeast Asia. We jump in the moho and our husbands take us to the Oregon coast for vacation. But Vietnam
has haunted me always and I wanted to face it and see for myself, because I wanted to understand. How could this have happened to The Land of the Free and The Home of the Brave?So I ended up in Vietnam by myself. And I knew I'd be going to My Lai and I dreaded it from the very moment the plane touched down in Ho Chi Minh City.
JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA
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