Category: History

Haiku & Other Poetry, History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

The American Way

Tina Stewart Brakebill

Is This the American Way?

Enough is enough!

But Freedom Ain’t Free They Scream

Now Ready Aim Fire

And Slaughter Just One More Child

It’s the American Way 

Yesterday, the March For Our Lives: Road to Change Rally  came to town. Students from local Pinellas County high schools joined with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas to demand their voices be heard. They spoke eloquently about their continued anger, sorrow, fear, and frustration. They reminded us that guns kill nearly 100 people a day in the United States. That’s 13,000 people a year! Every day we lose seven kids and all their potential. Each month fifty women are shot and killed by their intimate partners. And it’s not just homicides and avoidable accidents. Over 60% of gun deaths are suicides.

They also reminded us that the vast majority of Americans support gun control in some form. They are rightfully angry and frustrated because they understand that money and politics and money IN politics has stymied efforts for change up to this point. But they also know that they are the future. They believe that their voices and their will to change things is stronger than the NRA’s stronghold on policy. They warn policy makers that if their demands for change are ignored, they have the numbers to vote them out. Their passion is undeniable. They rally like their lives depend on it.

And I want to believe change is coming! I am moved by their passion. But my cynicism has proven to be remarkably resilient. I want that cynicism to be washed away. I want to have that just-dunked-evangelical-cleansed-of-my-doubts-oh-so-fresh baptismal feeling. But dirty thoughts keep rising to the surface. Like, for example, the horrifying reality that between 1998 and the fall of 2017, the NRA spent over 203 million dollars on political activities. And that spending has spiked significantly since 2012 (in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre). Dirty thoughts about a lot of dirty influence.

Those dirty thoughts lead me to doubt and the doubt tries to lure me into apathy because, if nothing is going to happen then why try. Right? But then I look at a picture of the young people fighting. Or I think of the seven kids that are going to die today. Or I wonder how many of those fifty women that were gunned down last month would still be alive if guns weren’t so easy to get. These thoughts demand attention, so I push back against the apathy and cynicism. I pledge my support to the kids, my vote to the least NRA corrupted politicians, and my money to forces for change.

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This is My American Way

Enough is Enough!

Freedom Claims A Road to Change

So March for Our Lives

And Save Tomorrow’s Future

That’s the American Way

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Stats courtesy of Everytown for Gun Safety and Politifact

Thanks to Hello Giggles for a great article on gun control organizations, if you’re looking to donate your time and/or money.

And finally thanks for the “Enough is Enough” Writing Prompt Putting My Feet in the Dirt

Haiku & Other Poetry, History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

Haiku & History: In the Summer Following My Birth

Tina Stewart Brakebill

The World Changed In The

Summer Following My Birth

Nothing Changed at All

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In the summer following my birth, the world changed.  

  • Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday Mr. President.”
  • Marilyn Monroe died.
  • Adolph Eichmann was hung.
  • Spider Man was born.
  • Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart in Arkansas.
  • Doctors inserted the first silicone breast implants.
  • Diane Nash’s defiance forced a Mississippi court to back down.
  • Cpl. Roman Ducksworth was murdered by a Mississippi policeman.
  • Andy Warhol opened his first solo show.
  • William Faulkner died.
  • The Rolling Stones played their first gig as a band.
  • The Shirelles hit number one with “Soldier Boy.”
  • Court ordered Ole Miss to enroll James Meredith.
  • Ole Miss blocked James Meredith’s enrollment.
  • The Jetsons premiered.
  • The Beverly Hillbillies premiered.
  • The Red-bellied gracile mouse opossum became extinct.
  • The Earth’s population hit 3 Billion.

In the summer following my birth, nothing changed at all.

Writing Prompt Thanks to Putting My Feet in the Dirt

Haiku & Other Poetry, History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

This is Not a Haiku

Tina Stewart Brakebill

Haikus Calm my Mind

Structure and Form Soothe My Soul

With the World Gone Mad  

OK. I lied. That IS a haiku. But this post is not just a haiku. It’s about writing. Specifically it’s about how creating haikus is helping me practice self-care in a chaotic world. As a control-freak, I thrive on structure. I’m not as bad as I used to be but, at best, I’m in semi-recovery. And the current state of the world has not been good for that semi-recovery. Every day—or more accurately—every hour something deeply upsetting is revealed, uncovered, announced, posted, tweeted, or shouted from the rooftop. Children ripped from their asylum-seeking parents. Oh wait, it’s worse. They’re being kept in pins. Kennedy is retiring. Oh wait, it’s worse. His son was involved in a billion-dollar deal with trump. Trump gave Kim-Jong Un a photo op and got nothing in return. Oh wait, it’s worse. North Korea is expanding its nuclear capabilities. If I listen very carefully I can almost hear Heather Locklear telling me: “and so on and so on and so on ….” (Oops, showing my age. What ever happened to Faberge shampoo? Is it still a thing? Note to self—google it.)

[Side note for your pleasure: Still don’t know if Faberge still exists, but this gem is still out there! And so on and so on …

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Where was I?

So in the midst of this non-stop horror train that we’re on, I am trying to find equilibrium. I’m setting mind boundaries. I’m staying informed but I’m not immersing myself in the 24/7 cycle. I’m reading a variety of sources, but I’m no longer trying to keep up on the Fox “News” or Infowars-style version of events. Their distance from reality and constant reverence to Trump, as if he is some sort of god-figure, is too surreal for my brain to process. I will engage with people seeking to have an informed discussion but I no longer engage with people that just want to argue or want to insist that “being civil” means that we should ignore the blatant racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, and classism that underlies much of this administration’s actions.  I have chosen to protect (control!) my space for the sake of my sanity.

Because sometimes, on bad days, I’m afraid that we have gone through the looking glass. The Mad Hatter has taken control. Too many people have drank the tea. On good days, when I’m feeling optimistic I want to believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” (As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently noted when he paraphrased a sermon by the radical abolitionist, Theodore Parker.) But I’m also an historian (and I can do basic math!) so I know that arc has been bending for a damn long time! Too long. It’s been 165 years since Parker’s 1853 speech and over 5o years since Dr. King’s 1965 Selma speech and justice still seems far in the distance. And if we continue to ignore the very real social, judicial, and economic effects of that delay in justice, it will continue to be only a fuzzy idea, always out of reach.

I’m going to get back to haikus and writing. I promise, but as long as I’m quoting Theodore Parker, I’ll throw another one into the mix. “The domestic function of the woman does not exhaust her powers… To make one half of the human race consume its energies in the functions of housekeeper, wife and mother is a monstrous waste of the most precious material God ever made.” And another one: “But I confess I mourn that where her work is as profitable as man’s, her pay is not half so much. …. It is so in all departments of woman’s work that I am acquainted with.” Once more I remind us, this was 165 years ago! These are not new ideas people!! And again I say, if we continue to ignore the very real socio-economic effects of the mindset that prioritizes women’s roles as wife & mother to the exclusion or marginalization of all others, then true equality will continue to be only a fuzzy idea, always out of reach.

So … I’ll hop off my soapbox for now.

And come back to the supposed subject of this post. Haikus. The deceptively simple haiku. To comply to its rules while still saying something has become a process that calms me. If feeds my need for control and it forces me to think big and small at the same time. I must be concise. I must convey meaning. Bringing those two things together has become the perfect writing challenge to balance my shaky equilibrium in this time of twitter wars and infowars and real wars. So thanks to Matsuo Basho and Ezra Pound. Perhaps I should apologize for diminishing the art form with silliness and politics, BUT …without apology, this is a haiku.

Haiku as Self Care

Might Sink Art for Ego’s Sake

But I Plead the Fifth   

What calms your soul??

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Haiku & Other Poetry, History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

A Haiku of Hope

Tina Stewart Brakebill

Like so many of you, I am reeling. Dread keeps washing over me wave after wave after wave. Dan Rather encourages me to stay #steady and keep up my #courage. John Lewis reminds me of the importance of #goodtrouble. And Rebecca Solnit demands that we not fall into despair. Instead we must ACT and create that “Hope in the Dark.” I value those voices and I am trying to heed them. Still, I woke at 4AM with my brain spinning. Sleep refused to release me from the turmoil in my brain. So many bad things happening already. And so many bad things that seem certain to come. I’m trying to see that hope in the dark! But all I  can manage today is a humble haiku to hope.

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Present Becomes Past

A River of Fortitude

Can Sweep Hate Away

 

Prompt Thanks to Putting My Feet in the Dirt

History, Random Rants, tutto e niente

Seeing Like a Writer: How Do I Separate Facts for Fiction?

Tina Stewart Brakebill

Living in a city provides a constant stream of interesting sights. A thirty-something white woman walks down the street wearing only an oversized t-shirt and a pair of Converse high tops. A possibly biracial teenager on a skateboard rolls past me and I hear him say (in a rather joyous tone) “fuck you” to whomever he’s talking to on his phone. At my gym, an African American man works out every morning by himself in khaki pants and work boots. An elderly white woman orders a coffee and a muffin and then spends the next hour reading a hardback copy of Stephen King’s “Misery” An Asian man in a cowboy hat stands at the bar drinking an IPA at the local pub. Two white girls (hair and make-up nearly identical in style and application) stride effortlessly down the sidewalk in their platform heeled sandals while they both stare directly at their phones.

I have a writing friend / accountability partner / bitch session buddy that thrives on sights like these. She sees them as a this kind of inspiration. I often find myself wishing that I saw the world more like her. In my mind, her perspective on the world is how a “real” writer looks at things. I know that most fiction writers see these random sightings as more than just “hey look at that” moments. They’ll take note in their mental (or actual) writing notebooks because they know these glimpses can be used as a muse on which to build characters and/or stories. I envy those writers and their ability to mine reality for fiction’s sake. In my prior life, I was a history professor and a writer of history. Historians don’t make stuff up. I’m still a writer and for some of my work, truth still reigns—personal essays and biographical sketches, for example. But I have also started writing fiction. So for the first time in my writing career, I’m grappling with the notion of seeing a person as a character in my story, rather than their own.

More than once, this struggle has led me to doubt whether I can make that leap from nonfiction to fiction. Some days it feels too far. As an historian, I see the woman in the t-shirt or the black man in the gym and my first thought is to understand their context. How did they get here? What events and experiences led them to this place and this moment? What role does their race, their class, and their gender play in how their story unfolded? How do they represent themselves as individuals while also serving to illuminate something bigger? In short, I want to understand THEIR story. Which is why I became an historian. I wanted to tell other people’s stories.

But now? Now, I also want to tell my own stories. But, can I be an authentic fiction writer if I don’t see people as potential fuel for MY stories. To succeed, does my perspective have to change? Must I extract the person from their own experience to serve mine? Must I look at that old woman in the coffee shop and see her impeccable style and horror-story tastes only as a perfect character in my latest manuscript? If the answer is yes, then I need to find a kaleidoscope in my mind. Just a little twist and I’ll see things differently. I will be able to separate a bit of fact for the sake of fiction. I’ll observe that old woman in the coffee shop and take what I want for my story. I won’t need to understand her story. I’ll have my own. Just a little twist.

But I’m still waiting.

I write, but I also wait. Wait for the kaleidoscope to twist. Wait for my brain to quit doubting. Waiting to quit wanting to understand.

Other days, I write but I also worry. Am I failing? Failing to think like a fiction writer? Failing as a fiction writer? Failing myself by concocting a clever procrastination ruse? Failing as an historian by making stuff up? Am I failing?

Maybe someday, I’ll quit waiting and worrying and just write?!