"sufferin' til sufferage" - schoolhouse rock

i've started this post several times already. it seems i've got alot to say on this subject. i've deleted and started over... then deleted it all again. i'm afraid to offend. yet i keep coming back to the fact that i write these words weekly for my own benefit. to purge my own thoughts and hopefully you {the people that read me here} will somehow in some way find peace in them the same way that i do.
i realize that this is being plastered everywhere already. that i'm sure you've heard it all before. but i must say my piece before it eats me alive. this topic has been big discussion in my family as of lately. and let me remind you that we are a family of free spirits. i've been on a bit of a news fast {i'll tell you more of this some other day} for the past few months and i now seem to find myself back in the throws of debate and discussion after deciding to let some of this stuff back in.

a*love has a habit of patting my cheeks. when we first started dating i thought this was the sweetest thing ever. driving in the car. watching a movie. the first thing he does when he sees me. the sweetest thing ever until i realized that he would pat anyone's cheek that would let him. ask my sisters. he's well wore his cheek patting privledges. he says that he's done this since he was a baby. patted his mommas cheek to fall asleep at night.

i've never met her. we only have one picture of her. and no pictures of andrey as a wee boy. i imagine him as a baby snuggled up in bed with her patting her cheeks with chubby baby hands that look just like lukey's as she sings him a sweet ukranian lullabye. i imagine that she was some woman, as my husband has a heart of gold. he is bursting with a compassion that i'm sure she instilled in him. i also imagine her... armfuls of babies and blankets and all that she could carry, arriving in the united states with great excitement and a heart full of hopeful that this would be a safe place to rear her children in freedom and peace and love and god. and here andrey is now. asleep on my couch with a babe of his own and we are allowed to teach luc whatever we wish and however we'd like. and that lucas can grow up to be whomever he wishes because she was brave enough to leave everything she knew...everything... for someday babies that she'd never meet.

i can't help but feel the excitement at the upcoming change this election will bring to this country. what it means for us as a nation that we actually have a woman, a woman! running for president. what would susan b. anthony think???! and martin luther king? did he know 40 years ago when he boldly shared his dream that someday we'd see a black man on our ballots? it's so disappointing to me to see that this exciting change is still divinding us. that we're still pulling apart from eachother. don't we all want the same things? a safe place to raise our babes? a place of freedom and peace and love and even god, if we choose?

we get to choose.



come on. do the work, folks. study up. make up your own minds. go out and vote for heaven's sake. do something. there is a bigger picture. bigger than us even. {gasp!}

last night lucas was squirming around in his sleep. mumbling funny words that i didn't understand. trying to find me without opening his eyes. when his chubby hand finally found my face and sweetly patted my cheeks he quickly went back to sleep. i thought of andrey's momma and the gift of him that she gave me by being brave and how lucky i am that i get a voice in this.