By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Mama, what do angels look like?

This, my small kiddo asks. In the throes of divorce. Of making a game of beans and rice. Of sorrow. Of innocent query and wonderment. This she asks.

How shall I answer? What can I say that would not be a lie passing my lips?

In the speckled dark of a sleepless, starry sky, I sit on our hill as she chases shadows in the warm breeze and a coyote pauses beyond the fence that separates us.

The hill is ours because we love it. I think it loves us. It makes paths for us around the rabbit holes, the tarantula borrows, the grainy mounds of queens and workers in constant toil.

The People say it is a holy place; the altitude puts it a peedy bit closer to the gods.

But I am distracted from the possibility of clutching a deity’s apron strings by whispered anguish calling to me from places I cannot pronounce and some I can.

Will sea turtles discover crude oil lends their shells a fine sheen? Will tar balls become the tender of shrimpers and oyster folk? Will children who play with spent artillery shells transcribe the booming rhythm of war into the next amazing rap sensation?

I search for hope amidst the moonlit carpet of rabbit turds, brown and rich, the prickly stubble of deer grass, recently shaved by a peon’s scythe, the manzanilla, its soothing ways unrecognized in the wild by those who buy it by the box.

The moon catches my girl, catches her dark curls and darker eyes, twirling into a glowing tornado, spiraling up toward the night, up into a future I fret I cannot affect, and my fear pulls her back to earth.

The coyote howls across the hill, and answers echo from a distant canyon. I peer through the grasses to watch her, stymied by the impassable chain-link fence. A border to me, it cuts her world in half. And so she paces, her prey on the other side.

And I chew a manzanilla bud, and rub the tender skin beneath my skirt. The grass makes me itch. It makes me itch because I love to scratch. And so I scratch as I look out over my little town. Indeed it is mine, because we scratch each other.

Why do I love it so here? How dare I raise my child in this place? This place of bitter anger and sweet Peruvian chocolate. Of testicle trees, our avocados, and shocking scarlet bottlebrushes. Of well-repressed, grey-green groves and lusciously chaotic words wending their way behind closed doors, between tussled sheets, into fearful hearts.

The heat of conflict radiates from our bodies, our beds, our lands, entangling the legs of a bawdy blend. And I wonder, what’s not to love?

I lie in the dry grass, caressing the stars, eyes languid and wet, and I sense the loss of something, something I might not have ever wanted.

The coyote, impatient with human encumbrances, glances at us and trots across the border to dine and commune with her own. I applaud her hopeful vision.

My kiddo, delighted with discovering her ability to dance, moves deeper into the dark.

Angels? I call.

Oh, never mind, Mama. I just saw one!

And she spins, spins into the sweeping night. Soars out of reach. She is gone. Gone.

Love,
K-B

© 2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

This piece is crossposted at The Progressive Post.

Note: Painting by Kate Gressitt-Diaz.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

The book was a struggle, but I felt duty bound to stay put in my yard chair and honor the author’s effort to finish the thing. Consequently, even a trail of ants, Fallbrook’s ever-present organic waste abatement crews, distracted me from the chore of reading. I watched the good little refuse engineers tidily toting to their nest the remnants of a mourning dove egg, probably dropped from its cedar nest by a murderous Blue Jay. I’d heard a ruckus the day before and ducked inside to avoid its calamitous end. But damn if fate didn’t catch up with me! At least the ants were swift and effective. Perhaps too effective.

I remembered the gift my father sent to my kiddo when she was small enough to still handle insects as though they were playthings. It had been a surprise, a special grandfatherly treat. And, according to the accompanying literature, we all — yes, children and adults alike — were in for hours of entomological fun as we played audience to the life’s work of the inhabitants of Uncle Milton’s Ant Farm.

Actually, said inhabitants of the green petrochemical-based farm were shipped separately, which meant a wait for all that fun we knew was coming our way. In the meantime, we filled the bottom couple inches of the farm with the lily-white synthetic sand provided, and eagerly anticipated the ants’ Herculean feats, their mind-bending commitment to earthmoving, their fastidious exercise of home economics — all the requisite behaviors of a proper ant.

The estimated day of arrival drew near, and we tacked the ant poster that came with the farm to my daughter’s wall. Together, we reviewed Milton’s ageless discourse on the wondrous world of ants. With a couple of honored bugologists in the family, I thought this might prove a prophetic science experience for the kid, soon to graduate from daycare to real school.

At long last, our ants arrived — as expected, only soldier-workers of ambiguous gender. Queens were prohibited from travel. In we poured our new housemates to their escape-proof quarters, while I considered the years of effort I’d previously expended to keep the little bastards out of our home. Nonetheless, gave them a welcoming honey-water spritz and set them in a place of honor at the dining room table.

Thankfully, Uncle Milton had adequately forewarned us, so we were not surprised when a few ants died the first day or two. This was to be expected. What was a bit disconcerting was the ants’ method of disposing of their dead: They broke down their brethren and, piece by piece, added their teeny black body parts to the white synthetic hills. And, to my maternal dismay, the ants continued dropping like, well, flies. Every day, we awoke to a grislier scene of death and dismemberment as the lily mounds became speckled with the black grains of dissected ant bodies.

In fear for my daughter’s psyche, and not a little grossed out, I poured through Uncle Milton’s brochure, a desperate review in search of advice I might have missed, critical guidance for keeping ants alive and well, but to no avail. The ants continued their unthinking hill building and their dying, only to be recycled as pepper to the sand’s salt by their surviving peers.

As the ant population rapidly dwindled and the hills darkened, I wondered about the significance of the ants’ unnatural existence on my table. Even when confronted with increasing mortality, the soldiers just plodded along, following the mandate of their biology — until the sad day when but one ant remained alive.

A lousy way to start the morning, I groped my way to the kitchen for day-old coffee and the eye dropper of honey-water, and returned to find the sole survivor atop the tallest hill peering skyward. I was grateful that the poor thing was too brainless to experience the bitter isolation of such utter aloneness, too rudimentary to beseech some great ant god in the artificial green sky to end this brutal abandonment. Unwilling to expose my daughter to such angst, I shattered the plastic and dumped the last ant outside in the garbage — to eat himself to a happy end.

I was certain then, as I am now, that we are not intended to keep ant farms on our dining room tables. Any more than we are intended to live in petrochemical plastic and perpetuate our soulless behaviors into our own extinction — our reckless Wall Street finanigans, our natural resource guzzling, our political demolition derbies, our hate-mortared border walls.

But, hey, it was just a bunch of ants, you might say? Yes, and if we don’t do any better than Uncle Milton’s ants, the species in my yard is likely to outlast us all, tidily toting our remnants back to their nests.

Love,
K-B

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

We’re tootling down the 15 Freeway to Coronado, my husband and I, and I’m subjecting him once again to public radio. It goes something like this:

A reporter announces that President Obama has declared the H1N1 influenza outbreak a national emergency, which should improve treatment and prevention of the flu.

Me: Finally!

He: Hmmm.

Me: I wrote about that months ago — caught flak for being a Biden.

He: Hmmm?

Me: For over-reacting. Apparently, the VP and I were fear mongering — in contrast to stating the obvious, which the president has now done.

He: Hmmm.

Then there’s a report on a Saudi female journalist who was sentenced to 60 lashes for her involvement in a Lebanese TV show, “Bold Red Line.” The show featured men discussing their sex lives, a taboo in Saudi Arabia. One of the men was sentenced to five years and 1,000 lashes; two others received two years and 300 lashes each.

Me: Saudi Arabia, now there’s a great ally for the United States, because we abhor cruel and unusual punishment — except when we don’t like the culprit.

He: Hmmm.

Me: Or when the culprit’s Muslim.

He: Hmmm.

Me: Or African-American.

He: Hmmm.

Me: This is nuts!

He: Hmmm!

We listen to a story about the search for Everett Ruess, a beloved 20-year-old poet wanderer who disappeared in 1934. Earlier this year, his remains were erroneously reported as having been discovered — based on inaccurate DNA testing.

Me: Bad DNA testing, jeez! That’ll show up on CSI.

He: Hmmm.

Me: And in plenty of appeals courts. Yet another hit on the taxpayers.

He: Hmmm.

As we approach our destination, we listen to one last story. It’s about the 350.org International Day of Climate Action events that are occurring around the world this weekend. They are intended to remind folks about climate change and the need to work together to decrease the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm).

According to the story, though, public interest in climate change is shrinking a lot faster than the carbon dioxide ppm. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found a “very sharp drop” since April 2008 in the percentage of Americans who believe there is “solid evidence the world is warming.”

Me: No evidence? What additional evidence does the public need? How many more polar bears have to starve to death for lack of habitat before they get it? How many more times do scientists have to report increasing temperatures and shrinking glaciers? Can’t they understand it doesn’t have to happen in their backyards to make it real?

He: Hmmm.

Me: Are you listening to me?

He: Turn right on Orange and left on First. Then show your ID at the sentry gate.

We’re there, and I see the telltale double take when the Navy sentries notice the “Don’t Be Gaycist” sticker on my windshield. Then we pull into a parking lot at Naval Air Station North Island, for the commissioning of the USS Makin Island LHD 8, the Navy’s newest amphibious assault ship.

A few thousand of us make our way to the shuttles or stumble over crane tracks, and find our color-coded seating sections. Along the way, we stop to shake hands with all the uniforms my husband knows, but we make it to our seats without my doing anything else overtly liberal.

But then I flip through the program. The cover image appears to be a Photoshopped model ship imposed on a crested sea stock photo. Even the military is cutting costs, which is both reassuring and disconcerting. The ship’s motto, “Gung Ho,” is emblazoned across the image — working together, it means. Inside, color photographs of senior military and government leadership smile at us formidably, starting with the Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama.

Me: Look, Honey. They’re all men. President Obama’s a man. And then there’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a man. Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, another man. Naval Operations Chief Admiral Gary Roughead, a man. General James Conway, Commandant of the Marines Corps, definitely a man. Commander, Fleet Forces Command Admiral John Harvey Jr., a man. Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet Admiral Robert Willard, a man. And look, keep turning the pages and it’s man, man, man, man, man, man, idiot actor man — our governor — man, man, man. Where are the women in senior leadership?

He: Hmmm?

Me: The women, where are the women?

He: Hmmm.

The ceremony starts, saving him, and the speechifying begins, although most of the folks keep it thoughtfully short. Congresswoman Susan Davis (D-San Diego) offers a quickie, touting the jobs the newly commissioned ship has brought to San Diego and enthusiastically welcoming the Navy’s first green ship, with it’s way-cool hybrid electric-drive propulsion system.

Me: The Navy invested $2.5 billion in a hybrid amphibious assault ship? That’s pretty damn Gung Ho! What more evidence of global warning could the public possibly need?

He: Hmmm?

The audio system fails, so the band kicks in, to calm the restless natives. And, at last, the flag is raised aboard the ship.

Me: Good marching band, Honey.

He: Yes, that’s the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. They’re out of D.C., called The Commandant’s Own. There’s none better.

Me: Hmmm.

Love,
K-B

©2009 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Survey results chart courtesy of Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

USS Makin Island photos by Kit-Bacon Gressitt.