Narrative Nonfiction: Some Beatings are Worth Taking, Brolly Lady, aka Standing in the Gap…

      …  Memories of a “Brolly Lady” …

—

     There it was again.  I knew that sound.

“Oy, they’re having a fight down there!”

     That was what Mona thought.  I knew better.  That was an old sound, from a lifetime ago.  One I thought I’d finally escaped.   I should have known better.

     I looked out the window, counting five men holding smart phones up toward the screams.  Then my feet moved of their own accord.  It was only from hearing a muffled shout as the door slammed behind me that I knew I’d left the flat.  The rain had just ended, and the pavement was still wet.  My feet pulled me to the source of that sound.  Not the shouting, not the screaming, but the one I remembered so deeply that it still hid under the table with my inner child.  The sound of a head hitting a wall.

     There it was again, but this time, I could see them.  Both of them.  The woman’s head sounded like a watermelon when she slammed against the wall, sliding down those slimy bricks to finish crumpled on the filthy paving stones.  Her eyes were open wide, looking stunned and frightened, as a giant advanced on her from the ten or fifteen feet from where he’d launched her.  My stomach churned as the pain of that impact coursed through my own body, as if I had been the one tossed like a sack of rice into that wall.

     Looking at the giant, I wanted to flee, abandon this woman to her fate.  But my feet had a will of their own, carrying me right into the one spot where I didn’t want to be:  about 5 steps between each of them.

     I realized that I’d carried an old umbrella with me out the door.  At least those Kung Fu lessons had had one result: they kept me from rushing in where angels feared to tread entirely unarmed.  Then again, my next thought was that this flimsy brolly was more like a liability against that big drunk guy.  I took a second of comfort in hoping that as a foreign PhD student, at least the NHS would cover my hospital stay if I didn’t manage to duck fast enough.

“Move!”

     I flinched as the sound wave from the giant’s lips struck me.  It felt just like the impact of furniture breaking against the wall that night.  When the giant stepped closer to me, my feet moved me back the same step, but my body refused to budge.  That brolly, I now realized, was balanced in my left hand behind me, just like a short staff.  My stomach had turned into a solid ball, no longer churning.  As I saw him look at me, the giant’s eyes suddenly grew wider.  If he hits me, it is going to hurt.  But then why did he seem to be afraid of me?

“Move!”

“No.”

     Who said that?  Oh, wait, that was my voice.  So why did the giant look confused?

“Thank you.”

     I risked a glance backward.  That sobbing voice had come from behind me, as the woman I was foolishly blocking wept, her tears mingling with the rain on the wall as she’d stared up at me.

Focusing on the giant as I’d learned to do in so many sparring classes, I drew a deep breath, preparing.  But the giant stood frozen himself, staring at me with some odd drunken mixture of contempt and fear.  Both were clearly written in his face, as well as the frustration of being denied another chance to strike the woman on the ground behind me.  What was he waiting for?

“You prick.”

     He was treating me like a man?  He really must be drunk.   Then I realized that I’d dropped into an automatic fighting stance.  He wasn’t that drunk, then.

“Ok, but you should be ashamed of yourself.”

     As those words tore themselves from my throat, I began to tremble so violently that I thought I’d begin crying like the woman at my back.  The giant looked so confused that I could practically see the gears turning in his drink-addled mind.  Then, a tall woman stepped between us, her back to me, placing a hand flat upon the center of the giant’s chest.   I found myself letting out the breath I’d not known I was holding, and heard movement behind me.

     I turned to see the two young bar girls helping the woman, finally, up off of the pavement, and taking her inside the pub.  As I looked back at the giant, he had backed away, the tall woman’s arm guiding him to the curb.

     I stood straight, now in tears myself from the relief, and from the shock.  I was still four years old, still hiding under the table, while furniture still shattered, as my mother screamed in the other room.  But this time, I had not stayed hidden under the table.

     This time, I had come out to help.

     Lost in these thoughts, I turned down the bar girl’s offer of a drink.  As Mona came over, saying something I couldn’t hear, I wondered where she had been during all of this.  Recalling her nights of coming home drunk, I realized that she had been standing there, 20 feet away, the entire time.  Now I could see her in my mind’s eye, standing off to the side, just watching.  As the five men and two bar girls had stood by and just watched.  

   All standing idly by while…   And all but the young bar girls were bigger than me.  Including my lover, who had let me stand alone.

     Then, I resolved to get her out of my life.  

Because some lovers aren’t worth keeping.

—

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this anecdote may encourage finding ways to prevent domestic violence, how to deal with or prevent C-PTSD, and how to build inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or comment here that uses those thoughts.

3.)  This was the third time in my life that I felt I was given the same respect, ironically, as a man usually gets.  The first time was at the USNA

after refusing to bilge out voluntarily, and the second time was when I worked in Izmir, during Pesach/Passover at the home of a Sephardic family who (after seeing in shul that I knew everything about the service, as people commented around me in Ladino) treated me as a man 

 during the Seder.   Links to both of these narratives are available here.

Fellow Thinkers, have you got ideas on learning, especially multiple LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to EndPoverty, EndHomelessness, & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

 

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest site menu above this narrative, please, to read more if you like learning via:

Holistic College Algebra & GED/High School Lesson Plans,

           or 

 Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about Project Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

short narrative nonfiction: Some Tours are Worth Marching

      …  Memories of an UnSat Plebe’s Cost Benefit Analysis…

—

     I was chopping down the hall after breakfast, almost to my room.  No upperclassmen around.

 

“Miss Jones!”

     Him.  And of course, I’d not had time to memorize that damned menu for tomorrow’s evening meal.

 

“Yes, Sir!”

“Hit a bulkhead!

“Ay, ay, Sir!

     Before I had even gotten to the side of the hall, he was standing there, waiting.  What did this guy do, camp out in his classmate’s room by my door?  F***’in-A!

 

“Miss Jones, did you try to hip-check Mr. O?”

     That fat Firstie I ran into on the way to Morning Meal Formation?  Seriously?  He’s twice my weight!  Actually, almost every upperclassman was twice my weight.  This one probably weighed three of me.  Why on earth would I ever try to hip-check the guy?

 

“No, Sir!”

“He says you tried to hip check him this morning!  What the hell, Miss Jones!”

     Mr. Dizane stared at me with open contempt.  He was Marine Corps option, with muscles on his eyeballs.  I was 105 soaking wet, which was 5 pounds and several weeks below my “allowed” weight.  The day he’d jumped up on the scale with me to shout that I was “screwing up, Miss Jones, you’re not eating, Miss Jones!” was a study in stupidity.  How on earth was 10 minutes in the Wardroom, while hefting tables and singing Anchors, Away, followed immediately, of course, by the Marine Corps anthem, supposed to be enough to eat anything?  Being the only plebe in my company not getting chow packages was a serious problem.

 

“I didn’t see him, Sir.”

“Bullshit, Miss Jones!  Give me a Form 2!”

“But Sir -”

“Are you being a Sea Lawyer, Miss Jones?!  You are not getting Liberty until you graduate from this place!”

     That was it.  I knew he wanted me gone, but this took the cake.  My fist curled around the edge of the demerit form as I pulled it from the lining of my cover, placing it back on my head just so, before handing over the form.

 

“Permission to speak freely, Sir.”

     He’d looked me up and down, taking his own sweet time, my frickin’ study time, to answer.

 

“I bet you want to hit me, don’t you, Miss Jones.  Don’t you?”

     He stepped closer to me, his nose nearly touching my forehead as he looked down at me.  I gritted my teeth harder as I stared straight ahead, forcing myself to un-clench my fists.

 

“Go ahead, Miss Jones, let’s hear this one.”

     By the time he’d stepped back, I was shaking with anger, my jaw nearly locked closed.  I looked him in the eye, imagining him swallowed up by the Atlantic.  I could even smell the salty air beyond the Severn.

 

“Sir, I suggest we take our rifles, and both run the sea wall.  Let’s see who drops in first.”

     Had I just said that?  Oops.

     Cost of “correctly” insulting an upperclassman:

          1. yet another 15 minute full military briefing on the Pheonix II missile system,

           2. blowing yet another calc or chemistry exam, and

            3. likely going to the Ax Boards, if my GPA fell enough.

 

Benefit: the look on his face was priceless.

—

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

(P.S.:  too bad I didn’t think of the new title, or the handshake and ‘brain-dumping’ C-PTSD symptoms I arrived with, until after posting this, and partly thanks to commentors…

S.)

 

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this anecdote may encourage out of the box thinking about our military, and might also help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.  Writing is my personal contribution to Project Do Better.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

   This, btw, was the first time I’d been given the respect that men generally only give to other men.  The second time was when I lived and worked in Izmir, in 2005, and the third time was when I was a PhD student in Bath.

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

-we can learn from the past via Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

        by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plan list) in the present, to

                     We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

Peace    

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

( 5 month GED lesson 17 of 67 plans…),

  Ranger M.’s Babylon 5 review posts, because story inspires learning.  There is also my historical fiction series  Ann&Anna.  I  hope that these stories will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools….

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can.

Shira 

Shira Destinie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

short narrative nonfiction: “I Shouldn’t Exist?”

      …  Memories of visiting mid 1970’s NYC from NJ…

     We were in one of those tunnels, smelling the stink of the city.  Was this the Lincoln, or the Holland?  I could hear Suzanna calling the gas station owner a putz, again, over the cough of her little VW’s engine.   I thought I’d seen a flash of blue light for a second, but then the engine stuttered.  I hoped we wouldn’t break down.   She’d said that he watered down his gas to make more money.  How did they put water in the gasoline, anyway?  Wasn’t it all closed up somewhere?    I turned to Suzanna.  She knew so many interesting things, and never told me to stop asking questions.  

She wouldn’t look at me.

     My stomach started to get upset, the way it did with other people, when they got mad.  But I’d never seen Suzanna mad at me, even when I peaked in her room at the Wonder Woman poster she was saving for my seventh birthday.

“Look.”

     Her voice was wrong, not hers.  I tried to look over at her, but I couldn’t move.  What did I do?     It was like …   Why were we pulling over?

     Suzanna looked up at the rear view mirror, at something behind us.  When she turned back, leaning to look me in the eyes, her face wore a mask of fright.

     “Alright, that cop is going to think you’re my daughter.”  

     She looked at me in a weird way.  Like I scared her, and went on,

“So he’s going to think that I’m dating a Black guy.  So don’t go making any of your smart alec remarks.”

     She turned back to her window, working the hand crank and pushing on it to finish rolling the window down.  Just then, a big white man with a very pink face appeared in her window, looking over at me, then back at her.

     It was that same look I’d seen every time a kid was about to beat me up.

—

I look forward to your thoughts.

Shira

Action Prompts:

1.) Share your thoughts on how this story may encourage empathy-building cooperation, and might help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness, & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Learn 

 

        via  Lesson Plans: Algebra, Empathy Building, and HiSET/GED/High School EquivalencyTeaching and Learning (Lesson Plans ) in the present, to

                     We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

Peace    

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

( 5 month GED lessons in 67 plans, see website menu…),

  Ranger M.’s Babylon 5 review posts, because story inspires learning.  There is also my historical series  Ann&Anna.  I  hope that these stories will move you to learn more ways to help use our history to build new tools….

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

 

Shira 

Shira Destinie Jones is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

His Jaw

 

 

What had I just done?  It was as if I was awakening from a bad dream, but the bad dream was still there, looking at me in what seemed to be stunned silence.  I was still more stunned.

 

-I guess you really were mad.

 

As the look on his face began to change, the full implications of what I’d just done began to dawn on me.  My stomach churned with the knowledge that there would be hell to pay for that punch, even if he had been teaching me to throw them, just like that.  Telling me how soft I was, how I needed to learn to fight, not let the kids at school walk all over me.

 

He’d taught me to block, and to throw a punch, demanding that I learn to be harsh, not to care if I knocked someone down, not to care how that person might get hurt.

 

Then, after a phone call from a boy, he’d demanded to know who it was, what the boy had wanted.  When I told him that I’d had to push off the boy’s attempt to kiss me, he’d asked me something, moving closer.  My grandmother was out of the house, out shopping.  I felt that warning pain in my gut, and I had tried to move away.  This man, my step grandfather, was my guardian, but not my kin, not safe.  I wasn’t fast enough.

 

He put out a hand, then the other, pulled me toward him, pressing his lips against mine.  I had twisted and blocked, just like he’d taught me, then backed away, shaking in my disgust, and he had laughed, saying I couldn’t be angry.  Just like my mother had laughed, after she’d told me not to tell, so long ago.  Then, it came out of no where.

 

He had been teaching me, and taunting me.

 

-Hit harder, don’t be such a sissy.

 

Teaching me to throw a decent punch, then a block, and then another punch.  He’d taught me how to throw a good punch, for a girl.  A hard punch, alright.

 

 

But at his shoulder, not his jaw.

 

 

 

–

 

Action Prompts:  

1.) How can we protect kids from adults, especially those in their own families?

2.)  Do you think that Project Do Better’s Phase IV (described in chapters 5 and 10 of the book) might help?

 

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

*****************

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, La Casa De Papel/Money Heist, & Lupin & Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector Reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Plans, & Historical Fiction Serial Stories

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

 

Turkish Tuesday, walking as self-health care, and Glad I shared a Smile that day

Two people now have told me that this shared smile (during the 14 months I worked in Turkey) was indeed a contribution to society, even though no monetary exchange and no formal recognition was involved. Time to readjust my thinking on what makes a contribution to society, and my ability to contribute (more compassion for self and others allows greater contribution).

I walked alot, but the bus system is also pretty good in Izmir…

Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

Short story: glad I smiled at someone I did not know -who thanked me, and made me grateful to be alive, back in 2005. And also today.

Less short version of the story:
Ok, so after a useless day yesterday of only 1100 words written, and desperate fears of 8 more days zero, (I have another 10k words to write), I was reflecting on the use, or lack thereof, of my life.
moving morose meditation on beauty to bottom…

When I lived in Izmir, that summer I took long walks on Saturday afternoons. I had the habit of smiling, or at least nodding, to every person I saw because frankly, I hoped someone would smile or nod back at me. At least acknowledge me as a fellow human being, as I tried to do, even passing the homeless people lining the streets as you go into the Metro (DC).

So…

View original post 407 more words

Thoughtful Thursdays, writing, and community vs. self-Health Care

This post dates from almost exactly five years ago, during NaNoWriMo, while writing a mere 50k word novel (more like a novella) which I am very appreciative to see being read and even enjoyed by a fellow blogger of much loved virtual acquaintance. The process of writing this short novel took me through some introspection that I hope will be helpful to others. It also makes me wonder about the role of community versus individual work on trauma recovery, and … I am a plotter, by the way! 🙂 Planning out the timeline and locations was enjoyable, and a bit cathartic, as I brushed the dust of the setting off of my feet, emotionally.

The tension between writing for myself and writing for others hangs over my head as I plan my current WiP (now, in 2020), rather far removed from this, my second NaNo novel, in 2015, in both time and mindset, given that I’ve escaped the situation that gave rise to this particular novel(la).  Yet that tension between over-sharing of emotional elements vs. writing for an audience remains, as trauma leaves its indelible mark, in the themes that return over and over again, even when settings, genre, and characters are all different.

–

Now I know why I avoid writing. And Frida’s story.
People came up to me after every production of that play to tell me how amazed they were, how I looked like the splitting image of Frida, and was I Mexican or Mestisa. Well, yes, as an African American of light skin with Cherokee blood, yes, I am technically a mestisa. And the splitting was happening in my own head (maybe more afa my roommates were concerned).
It’s not just to be more practical, find paying work, mend the shirts and weave a few more belts to give as birthday and holiday gifts. Those are all ‘legitimate’ reasons to avoid my writing, but I know deep down why I avoid it. Just as much as why I am compelled to write, anyway. On chapter 9 of my 50k word story, I feel the same pain, but emotionally mostly, that I felt when I played Fridah Kahlo in a community theatre for a few months. And I didn’t even have a speaking part. I just danced with furniture and la-la-lahed a bit. Nevertheless, by the end of the 6 week run, I was having back aches and depressions that made my roommates ask if acting was not a bad idea, and whether I had multiple personality disorder (sorry, now they call it Dissociative Disorder, which actually is more accurate…). And I had to ask if they were right.
Writing this damnable novella makes me feel like I am right back there, stomach cramps and all, and it is liberating yet terrifying at the same time. Can I now face what I was not strong enough to face then, and do it in a way that is not too terrible for others to read, even others who have not lived through such things? Can I write a book that other folks will actually want to read, yet that will move them so that they can understand the perspective of someone who grew up in various types of pain, and more importantly, so that they will be moved to want to learn more about how to help all of our society, by learning how to help all of us work through our individual and collective pain and help each human being reach his or her full creative potential? Can I overcome my own fear to even get to a place to really really want to do that, and then, can I do it?
Thanks for reading this, and even more thanks my friends, if you can add your pebble to building the new edifice that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr spoke of, when he said that the structure that produces poverty needs to be rebuilt.
Here’s to rebuilding, pebble by pebble,
let our mourning not be in vain,
Peace,
Shira
16.11.12015 HE

–

I think that this post dates from the day after the Bataclan attacks, in Paris.

So, it turns out that I did finish writing the 2015 book, rewriting twice, then throwing out part of the third rewrite.  More on my continuing striving with my thought next time, if you don’t mind?

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of community inclusion that you can take right now:

1.) Consider the dichotomy between individual trauma recovery (with the attendant need to share that trauma in order to feel heard) and community tranquility.

2.) Share your thoughts on the role of the community in helping trauma survivors to feel fully included in community with us in the comments, here, please.

(Did I mention that Universal Health Care with extensive early childhood severe trauma therapy would really help many individuals, and thus, society as well??)

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write

About me, and my hopes for Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

NaNoWriMo 2020 CE

November, 2020 CE = 12020 HE

(See the menu on the website for links to 67 free GED lesson plan sets with reading, writing, math, science, and history tied together into most lessons…)

Shira Destinie A. Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. (2023…)

What I learned from my last NaNoWriMo about Writing

I’m still finding notes from earlier story and novel projects, and think it is a good idea to review lessons learned from drafting and editing my previous two practice novels, before I start drafting my next WiP, which I think (or hope) that I’m nearly finished planning.

My second practice novel, started on Wattpad,  was easier to track the deadline on the NaNoWriMo2015 website before I set up my own spreadsheet.  It taught me several things about managing Depression (actually PTSD -> anger->depression…).

First: Making a deadline feels good, even if it is Just/Only YOUR deadline. You DID it.
Second: Physical activity every day, like running  or dance, etc, is, at least for me, imperative (and also read, and have a sun lamp, if you live farther from the equator than the 35th parallel…).
Third: Making a deadline a second time, better than you did the first time, proves you can repeat the feat, thus showing discipline and perseverance. This helped me feel like less of a waste of oxygen while I can looked for a way to use that to help other folks.
Fourth,  the actual writing lessons:
Writing 1.) When writing your first/second/fifth practice novel, be sure to have a physical workout routine, preferably involving boxing gloves, AND several people to talk to about all of the crap your writing will drag out of you.  (Remember NOT to use the gloves on the people…)

Writing 2.) For me, at least, plan the ending first…
Writing 3.) Plan setting, time and weather for each scene, not just the plot!!
Writing 4.) Outline by scene, not by # of words (I outlined by 300wds, which ended up driving me nuts toward the end…)
Writing 5.) Do not write a chapter per file, it is a formatting nightmare to insert 18 files (one for each chapter) into one ‘book’ file on an exhausted day 28!
Writing 6.) Lay out the chapter plan on one large calendar in the same notebook (if at all possible) as the planning notebook (and resist the temptation to plan each chapter on small scraps of paper!! You cannot believe the number of scraps I now have floating around…).
Writing 7.) Start on day one, and don’t punish yourself for not planning ahead. A planner is not a pantser, and I, a planner, felt annoyed trying to write stream-of-consciousness just because I had 2000 words to finish That Day.

Better, I learned, to take the day to plan out the next two scenes and write them the next day, at least for me.

I found that when I knew the time of day and year and weather as well as what the MC was supposed to do in the next couple of scenes, I could just imagine the flow and zap, 2000 words came out of no where (I did NOT say 2000 Good Words, but that is for the next 3 or 4 re-writes!!!).

and

Writing 8.) Set a new notebook aside for the 30-Day 50k challenge, because it will turn into at least a year, and probably 80k words. Before it goes back down to 60k again.

In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,

modified from original 2015 post,

some Action Items in support of literacy and writing that you can take right now:

1.) Download some advice on novel writing, maybe from two different websites,

2.)  Share your thoughts on the value of each person writing a book,

3.) Write a novel that references a classic book, tells a good story, and makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Other ideas welcome on how to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness, & #EndMoneyBail, starting with improving these four parts of our good #PublicDomainInfrastructure:

 September 2020, High Holidays of 5781, 12020 HE

***************** 

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, La Casa De Papel/Money Heist, & Lupin & Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector Reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or My Long Range Nonfiction, & Historical Fiction Writing

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Moody Mondays, and your own story as motivation to work for Justice for All?

Everyone has a story.

Everyone also has some motive for what one does in life, quite likely shaped in some way by previous life experiences, every one of whose is unique.

Racism started my quest, but as I learned that racism is merely a tool used to divide all of us to more easily rule, I looked to our legal structures for the change needed to keep all of us safe in equal measure. This particular experience, first recounted in an essay (below), later got far more interest when rewritten as a narrative short.

Here is where much of my motivation for doing my part to change the world comes from:

–

 

Injustice Essay, UDC´s David C. Clarke Antioch School of Law

I must admit to finding this essay one of the most unsettling and emotionally difficult to write pieces in my writing career. While there are certainly more cutting incidents and more superficially significant incidents which I have experienced in my forty two years, I have chosen to share this event for two reasons. First, this incident strikes me as an example of the subtle damage done by fear, bias, and the perceptions and uses of power in the absence of mutual trust and full voice in decision-making processes. Second, this particular instance seems to have set in my consciousness a deep understanding of the need for cooperation not only between oppressed communities, but also of the need for each of us to understand the stories and ways of communicating of other people.

I was about seven years of age, a fair-skinned girl of African-American descent, riding through the Lincoln or the Holland tunnel in a car driven by a young Jewish woman, who happened to be both my mother´s roommate, and my defacto babysitter most of the time. As we came to the entrance of the tunnel, a pall of fear came over her face. We were being pulled over by a police officer, a barrel-chested white man, who appeared both unhappy and menacing as he got out of his car. Although I did not comprehend the issue at the time, she certainly felt that being pulled over was an injustice to her on the part of the police officer. She turned to me, the fear palpable in her voice, and said

“now look, this cop will think you are my daughter, and that means he will think that I am dating a black guy, so keep your mouth shut and don´t make any Smart Alec remarks.”

By that age, based on the treatment I regularly received from my classmates in school who took me for a mixed race child, I was well aware that interracial relationships of any kind were unacceptable, even in the New Jersey of 1976. I found myself as full of fear as my visibly nervous guardian. All I could do was to sit and watch, mouth clamped firmly shut, as the officer approached.

To this day, I have no recollection of the events after her fateful words to me, but I will always retain the memory of the chilling effect those words had on me, as I realized that not only my schoolmates, but even adults whom I would never meet, hated me for my mere appearance. I came to admire the courage and patience of this young Jewish woman who took the time to introduce me to both her culture and even to my own, as we listened alternately to Jewish music and to records by African musicians. She emphasized that I should learn about both my own heritage and about the heritages of others. She opened to me a world of possibility, while reminding me that I must always be cognizant of my own origins, and that no person´s origins were without both pain and responsibility. The damage of both self-hatred and discrimination caused by fear of and bias against those who appear to be different from ourselves can best be overcome through inclusive sharing of stories. That kind of openness between communities can create space for cooperative communication. Out of this process can emerge new and creative applications of shared power which enable all parties to safely contribute to building structures which both protect the dignity of all members of society and enable each person to rise to his or her full potential. These processes require high levels of both mutual trust and mutual respect which allow for the differences in power levels to be negotiated in participatory venues which deliberately include the voices of all who are affected by such decision-making processes. This inclusion both requires and generates cooperation between individuals and communities as first stories, and then problems, and then potential solutions, are shared and debated. While solutions must begin in the community, sometimes the end result of such discussion must be finalized in the legal system via reformulation of the legal codes, discovery of already existing codes, as in the case of DC´s “Lost Laws”, or simply providing voice for those who cannot make themselves heard. All of these processes require a sense of shared values and mutual respect. As citizens of a democracy, “we the people” must work together “to form a more perfect union” where the interests of all are protected and promoted equally.

Fear and distrust are most effectively dispelled by building upon our shared values, emphasizing the egalitarian ethos upon which our founding documents are based, and working to make those ideals a practical reality. Cooperative understanding of stories and concerns is a key part of the process needed to banish hatred and bias on the road to building full participation and voice for all. To paraphrase a song we sang frequently in school, our origins carry both a patient faith that the difficult past can be overcome, and a roll-up-your-sleeves type of hope that the present brings us ever more opportunities to repair this pain-filled world. As I reflect upon this incident, there is no way in which I could or even would have responded differently at that time, but I carry forward from thence a fervent faith and hope that through cooperation between communities we can help to lift every voice so that all are clearly heard. Through the kind of legal training provided at the UDC David Clarke School of Law, I hope to serve as a more effective facilitator of both short-term and long-term cooperative empowerment.

(re-reading this essay, it occurs to me that it showed my interest in history and Cultural Change/Cooperation (sociology?) more than Law, which is actually an Adversarial System in our society…)

(Shira) Destinie Jones

Read, Write, Run, Teach !

ShiraDest
18 February, 12016 HE

–

So, it turns out that I guess I have to agree with the saying that everyone has a story worth hearing is true: each story motivates some action, does it not?  More on my continuing striving with life next week, friends:

Yassas,   γεια σας!    Salût !  Nos vemos!  Görüşürüz!     ! שָׁלוֹם

Action Items in support of literacy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Search for two different reasons to tell your story.

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please.

4.) Write a blog post or tweet that tells part of your story, tells a different good story, or just makes a difference. I’m working on that through my historical fantasy #WiP, #WhoByFireIWill. Once published, donate one or more copies to your local public library, as I intend to do.

Dear Readers, any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking for CCOVID-19:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport
Read, Write, Ranked Choice Voting and Housing for ALL!!, Teach and Learn (Lesson Plans)!

ShiraDest

October, 12020 HE

– Remember Patty Hearst, anyone?

Sorry, not to defend them in any way shape or form, but terrorists are not all psychopaths.  This is a crucial distinction to make because most of those kids who blew themselves up recently were brainwashed, just like Patricia Hearst, just like the people in Waco, TX, and just like the 600 followers of Jim Jones.    They were all people who felt, maybe felt too much, even had compassion, and got that compassion used against them because they did not know how to ask questions and keep asking where the answers to those questions came from.  Just like when I was in a cult group.

First they love-bomb you, half a dozen bear hugs from people you do not know, and the leader and sub-leaders welcoming you with open arms into the family.  Kind of like the military, only generally fewer push-ups.  But just as much peer-bonding, belonging, and then starts the real pressure.  You help convert others to believing because you care about them, you want to save them from suffering, and in any case, a better life awaits them on the other side.  So almost no matter what you do TO the non-believer, you are actually doing FOR that person’s own good, whether they know/accept it or not.   This is USING a vulnerable believers Compassion against him/her, to obtain compliance and even active support when that person (who is neither a leader, sub-leader, nor even a psychopath) is made to feel guilty for not helpping the non-believers -help being defined as the leader defines it.  Pamphlets, tracts, harrasment, stalking, forced-conversions, exorcisms, even torture or killing are all justified by the leader as better-for-the-non-believers-and-you-as-a-True-Believer are A BAD Believer if you do not Help these unbelievers in The Way that the leader tells you to.  No Questions Asked.

And yes, I speak from experience.  Fortunately, I started having panic attacks when I could no longer swallow what my cult leader said, and left, but it still took my months to get out, and years to understand what had happened.  And that was with help!  These kids indoctrinated by DAESCH are being brainwashed in a similar way, and they also feel isolated, or they would not have been attracted to DAESCH/ISIS, which is essentially a very large, very well-organised and very sophisticated and yet still manipulative cult group.

So please, when The Canard enchaîné (p. 8 yesterday, 25.11.2015) says that Gerhard Roth in Brême is reporting a psyopath gene in an article on terrorism, please remember that the majority of terrorist foot soldiers are only dupes, manipulated to pull the trigger, and in need of help, not just tracking and certainly not torture.  It was the torture in Abu Garib and other American prisons that created this in the first place, remember (cannot find the show that re-aired on France television last week, but it showed all the top guys having met and ‘hardened’ in the big US prison in Iraq…).

Remember that Eisenhower ended segregation for similar reasons -to deprive Japan of potential progaganda against the US, which is what the terrorist leaders are now using to convert western kids into their pawns.

 

Bottom line, we need to walk our talk as a society and take care of the most vulnerable so that there is less to use against us.  We need to feed our hungry, clothe our naked, and comfort our sick.  Educating our folks for free would be even better, so they can ask the right questions, and create the cooperative jobs that will give us true democracy and equality.

Backk to trying to write 2200 words of climtic chapter, ughghhh…

In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,

ShiraDest

26 November 12015 HE

old Thankful for… and A Little Help with This IDentity Thing, pls?

The problem with thinking is that you start to ruminate, and that’s not good when a tractor comes by!   Today at least I got to finish my morning run before I started seriously ruminating.  (Kind of like the cows, but less smelly, I hope.)

But then I started, and Lo and Behold, my only good childhood memory came for a visit: Grandma Marie!

I must admit that I am thankful for my (adoptive) Great Grandmother, who taught me to fry chicken, to read, to write, and that “Cookin Lasts, Kissin Don’t.”

But the oddest part is that today I feel guilty for not dealing with my whole family of origin thing.  Not finishing my reading for the Latino Slaves research I started after looking up my 5xGr grandfather Miles Manzilla, for the WikiTree Slavery Project which, btw desperately needs someone to take it over, if anyone has time to volunteer (no, that for-profit version of a world wide family tree is not perfect, but it is more open than others, and claims to want to build a more inclusive human Family Tree).

And how do you figure out who you are, anyway?  My half-written climactic chapter  (which I need to finish by writing 3100 words Today -gack!!) is driving me crazy because the nutcase mixed-trying-to-escape-her-origins Protagonist  can’t decide between her origins and her husband’s culture.
Oh, and I haven’t eaten -probably explains that ‘burning from within’ in my stomach, and visions of cows becoming steak!! (sorry, cows, and Mr. Farmer neighbor…).
Ok, enough ruminating, sorry to have bored you guys, but I hope you all at least got a little laugh!

In Solidarity with All Kind People,
Peace via Cooperation and Non-Cooperation,
ShiraDest

26 November 12015 HE