New moon in ten days. I feel a certain urgency to post again; I am making progress, aren't I?, despite my lack of posts?

There are so many stories I think about, that consume me and fill my heart in the waning of the last full moon. Went to a young client's wedding last summer--now, less than a year later, they may lose their house because they are three payments behind. My dear, dear friend is walking through lymphoma and the associated chemo/radiation with her lifelong best friend and sister. My special old friend is going to wrap up her 22 year marriage: domestic violence and lack of progress in court-ordered treatment. And of course, every one's holdings and earnings slashed in 2009. A new world order in less than six months! I look into the moon from my bedroom window, faint yet fierce, as it's slipped away from its late winter opaline fullness to only a tiny pale slit in the spring sky and think about my people. And their stories. And the stories of other people hungry, homeless, sick, addicted, disenfranchised and separated. Where is the hope in the new world order?

I find hope in the beautiful young bride who has yet to utter one word of frustration in regard to her husband who can't seem to make a go of his sales job; she just went out and got a second job. She now works days, nights, weekdays and weekends at two jobs and is confidant she can get the payments current by June, if the bank will hang on.

I find hope in my brave, stalwart friend who flies to the Bay Area nearly every weekend after work, to be with her sister. Her own son, the nephew, made the remark that it must be quite a spendy commitment, four plane tickets a month. My Hero, the big sister, snorted I don't care WHAT it costs. I don't care if my life's savings are reduced to nothing. Whatever happens, it will be worth it. I would never not be there. Her son looks away.

I find hope in my sweet, sweet faithful loyal friend who has undergone black eyes, facial rug burns, bruises, bruises, bruises, BRUISES, lies, betrayal and treachery. She had hoped that the flaming, festered prick she's married to would respond to therapy mandated by the court system and that somehow they could save their marriage. If not for them, maybe for their four children. Although it's not to be, she has been hopeful and faithful that Love Could Conquer All. She hung in there for an exhaustive run until she was positive her marriage had flat-lined. Only just now, despite the domestic violence that has been a mainstay in her life, has she called it. She touches my heart, and holds it, with her quivering perseverance and now, her truthful resignation and resolve. She's never been a big jewelry/vacation/car/clothes girl; but she was very big on the institution of marriage and she stayed faithful just beyond the bitter end. And has lost the one thing in her life beside her children that she valued. She inspires me deeply.

Inspires me to fight harder, to let myself feel deeper, not to remain resigned, to suit up for another inning and play hard. I don't know what curve is coming in my own life but I do know that if I can keep my people and their stories close, when my time comes, I can climb up inside them, lay my head on their hearts and rest.

Stay brave, my beloveds. Stay brave.


JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

For me, this is what journalism is all about. Two of my uberfaves. I'll stop doing anything to read either one. And on a very good day, I read them both.

Tim Egan

John Blanchette



JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA

Moon woke me up last night. It was the middle of the night and I had been asleep for several hours. I sat up, fully awake, summoned by the pale,thin light of a full moon spilling across my bed in a wide swath. I looked into the light and listened to the night, wondering which oceans of the world were splashing tall and high against a weary beach, themselves turned into something they might not otherwise be at the bidding of the Lenten Moon. I thought of camels crossing the desert, limos on Las Vegas Boulevard, and the volcano at Kona all under the spell of the faint, yet unmistakably seductive full moon. Craziness.

Only a few moments passed before my big, woolly black dog began to bark. He, too, gets connected to things he can't quit shake off but being a dog, will get just a little more wild than an accountant might when the full moon calls him from a deep sleep.

He barks. And howls and cries. Then sleeps in the sun of the day that follows.

JBelle
Bellemaison
The 'Kan EWA