“Declaration of Arbroath” inscribed on a wooden door at Edinburg museum.
When I grew up, in the 60’s and 70’s, there were no cell phones, answering machines, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.), reality shows, social media and the internet. We left our houses in the mornings and didn’t return until dinner time, no questions asked. Unless of course you didn't come home in the same shape and with the same amount of items you left with. Then there was an inquisition.
We rode bicycles everywhere until we could drive and had access to a car, walked to school and church unchaperoned, and if we needed to know about people or the world, we looked it up in the Encyclopedia Britannica or at the library. But encyclopedias were very expensive and only for the well off, so the library was it. We played clapping games, hide and seek with the kids on the block, impromptu baseball games with anyone who showed up at the school field, joined in jump rope, hopscotch, chalking up the sidewalks with our “street” art and most of all, we all looked at and talked to each other. The mantra for conversation, which I heard over and over from my mother was, “Look at me when I’m talking to you”. And you looked at them, eye to eye - no exceptions. When I got older, it was board games, dare games, spin the bottle and the occasional trek into the other side if you were brave enough to sit at the Ouija board. And of course, the neighbors pools and jumping off the roof. Like I said, no adult supervision.
Businesses were closed on Sundays, (Blue Laws), Halloween was not tricked or treated out of a trunk, and drive-in movies were my favorite. Personal matters were private and kept that way. I watched people protest, demonstrate, speak freely, move about the country and most places abroad until the mid 70’s when at least 150 planes in the US were skyjacked. I saw flags burned, riots reduce city blocks to rubble, assassinations and the forearm of the unions, all without public caning or execution. This is the life I knew, that I understood, that was wide open, a “freedom pass” for the most part and all within reach. That is until my mid-twenties, when I took my first trip to Germany to visit my best friend.
I remember passing one of the borders between Luxembourg and Germany. I had never seen a border crossing between any geographic location and there, standing at attention, were a line of uniformed soldiers in camouflage, holding semi-automatic weapons, but not at their sides, in their hands. And I would hold that image in my head for a long time, way after I began to understand it. As I grew older and traveled more and more for the companies I worked for, first domestically but then internationally, I began to see the restrictions, limitations, hardships of rule that those in foreign countries existed under. Before I got on any plane to leave the US, I was given cliff notes for behaviors I could get arrested for, things that were not respectful, accepted or tolerated. Some as simple as spitting in public, prison time, compliments of Singapore. When it came to the Middle East, women were not safe and so only my male counterparts were sent there. And as I came to understand and know more of those things, my gratitude deepened for the country I was born and grew up in, having more freedom than any person on the outside could ever imagine or even know.
Never have I ever
Thought about anyone invading, boots on the ground, my country, my state, my town.
But there are people in the world who live with this daily.
Never have I ever
Been awakened by air raids whaling in the night, portending the incoming bombs.
But I know co-workers who are supporting the civil wars their brothers fight.
Never have I ever
Had to find a safe place to hide, take refuge, because of a mortal threat.
But I know survivors who have.
Never have I ever
Had to flee my home, under the cover of darkness, with just the clothes on my back or a single suitcase to hold everything dear,
But my friends who escaped Castro’s work camps and imprisonment did.
Never have I ever
Had to be forced into a foreign country, not knowing the language or the people, and living in uncertainty, praying for a miracle,
But some of the people whose stories they have shared with me, have.
Three and a half years ago, “the girls” took a long weekend trip to Paris to celebrate a milestone birthday. I was surprised as we walked up to Notre Dame to see it heavily guarded. And I was taken back, once again, and reminded at this place and in this space that I do not encounter this at home. But there are people all over the world that do everyday.
Never have I ever
Cried so freely, prayed so devoutly, felt so deeply, rooted so firmly, kept watch so
diligently, shined more powerfully and believed so profoundly that light will prevail.
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