Tim & Joe's House
My New Neighboors
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Frigid Sunday! I'm not waiting for measurable snow. My thermal underwear are back in use. The wind whistled all night long. The mixture of rain and snow fell steadily at an angle. Didn't want to get out of bed but had promised Tim and Joe (Joaquim) my new neighbors that I would show them around town this morning and especially get an early start at the flea market (7:30).
They still technically live in San Francisco and only visit their new house on their time off work to work on projects. They hope to be settled in before Christmas. They are lovely, lovely people and a one in a million chance that one of them would be Portuguese. I actually think they have been sent to me as an apology from the former owners, also a gay couple who for a year and half terrorized the neighborhood while living here.
I have enjoyed watching them make the house their own. Painting, etc. It's nice to see young people appreciate beautiful old houses like this. Works of art. The craftsmanship...oh! If I get started, I will never stop.
In the afternoon, I partook in something that was very difficult for me. During my absence to Arizona, my mother, who hangs on to broken garden tools, decided to give away my father's old sports car that had been parked in the garage for 25 years. A collectors item. It's not the monetary value of the car, but I was crushed because that car was my father's love. It was beautiful! Just beautiful! My nephews had wanted it but since they lived cross country and never followed through, my mother disposed of the car. This is the same person who will not allow me to throw away old string!
I hated to see that car hauled away! I know that it is just a thing, an object, but it was like there was no longer any room for my father in our lives.
Perhaps this is a crossroad. If we can dispose of something so meaningful, it is time to let go of so much more. Time to release not just things, but emotions, feelings and so much grief that I thought was already resolved.
A new beginning. This time for real.
They still technically live in San Francisco and only visit their new house on their time off work to work on projects. They hope to be settled in before Christmas. They are lovely, lovely people and a one in a million chance that one of them would be Portuguese. I actually think they have been sent to me as an apology from the former owners, also a gay couple who for a year and half terrorized the neighborhood while living here.
I have enjoyed watching them make the house their own. Painting, etc. It's nice to see young people appreciate beautiful old houses like this. Works of art. The craftsmanship...oh! If I get started, I will never stop.
In the afternoon, I partook in something that was very difficult for me. During my absence to Arizona, my mother, who hangs on to broken garden tools, decided to give away my father's old sports car that had been parked in the garage for 25 years. A collectors item. It's not the monetary value of the car, but I was crushed because that car was my father's love. It was beautiful! Just beautiful! My nephews had wanted it but since they lived cross country and never followed through, my mother disposed of the car. This is the same person who will not allow me to throw away old string!
I hated to see that car hauled away! I know that it is just a thing, an object, but it was like there was no longer any room for my father in our lives.
Perhaps this is a crossroad. If we can dispose of something so meaningful, it is time to let go of so much more. Time to release not just things, but emotions, feelings and so much grief that I thought was already resolved.
A new beginning. This time for real.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair In The Moonlight
Galway Kinnell
poem
1
You scream, waking from a nightmare.
When I sleepwalk
into your room, and pick you up,
and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me
hard,
as if clinging could save us. I think
you think
I will never die, I think I exude
to you the permanence of smoke or stars,
even as
my broken arms heal themselves around you.
2
I have heard you tell
the sun, don't go down, I have stood by
as you told the flower, don't grow old,
don't die. Little Maud,
I would blow the flame out of your silver cup,
I would suck the rot from your fingernail,
I would brush your sprouting hair of the dying light,
I would scrape the rust off your ivory bones,
I would help death escape through the little ribs of your body,
I would alchemize the ashes of your cradle back into wood,
I would let nothing of you go, ever,
until washerwomen
feel the clothes fall asleep in their hands,
and hens scratch their spell across hatchet blades,
and rats walk away from the cultures of the plague,
and iron twists weapons toward the true north,
and grease refuses to slide in the machinery of progress,
and men feel as free on earth as fleas on the bodies of men,
and lovers no longer whisper to the presence beside them in the
dark, O corpse-to-be ...
And yet perhaps this is the reason you cry,
this the nightmare you wake screaming from:
being forever
in the pre-trembling of a house that falls.
3
In a restaurant once, everyone
quietly eating, you clambered up
on my lap: to all
the mouthfuls rising toward
all the mouths, at the top of your voice
you cried
your one word, caca! caca! caca!
and each spoonful
stopped, a moment, in midair, in its withering
steam.
Yes,
you cling because
I, like you, only sooner
than you, will go down
the path of vanished alphabets,
the roadlessness
to the other side of the darkness,
your arms
like the shoes left behind,
like the adjectives in the halting speech
of old men,
which once could call up the lost nouns.
4
And you yourself,
some impossible Tuesday
in the year Two Thousand and Nine, will walk out
among the black stones
of the field, in the rain,
and the stones saying
over their one word, ci-gît, ci-gît, ci-gît,
and the raindrops
hitting you on the fontanel
over and over, and you standing there
unable to let them in.
5
If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
where white wine stands in upward opening glasses,
and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,
learn,
as you stand
at this end of the bridge which arcs,
from love, you think, into enduring love,
learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come – to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth
which tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.
The still undanced cadence of vanishing.
6
In the light the moon
sends back, I can see in your eyes
the hand that waved once
in my father's eyes, a tiny kite
wobbling far up in the twilight of his last look:
and the angel
of all mortal things lets go the string.
7
Back you go, into your crib.
The last blackbird lights up his gold wings: farewell.
Your eyes close inside your head,
in sleep. Already
in your dreams the hours begin to sing.
Little sleep's-head sprouting hair in the moonlight,
when I come back
we will go out together,
we will walk out together among
the ten thousand things,
each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages
of dying is love.
Galway Kinnell
poem
1
You scream, waking from a nightmare.
When I sleepwalk
into your room, and pick you up,
and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me
hard,
as if clinging could save us. I think
you think
I will never die, I think I exude
to you the permanence of smoke or stars,
even as
my broken arms heal themselves around you.
2
I have heard you tell
the sun, don't go down, I have stood by
as you told the flower, don't grow old,
don't die. Little Maud,
I would blow the flame out of your silver cup,
I would suck the rot from your fingernail,
I would brush your sprouting hair of the dying light,
I would scrape the rust off your ivory bones,
I would help death escape through the little ribs of your body,
I would alchemize the ashes of your cradle back into wood,
I would let nothing of you go, ever,
until washerwomen
feel the clothes fall asleep in their hands,
and hens scratch their spell across hatchet blades,
and rats walk away from the cultures of the plague,
and iron twists weapons toward the true north,
and grease refuses to slide in the machinery of progress,
and men feel as free on earth as fleas on the bodies of men,
and lovers no longer whisper to the presence beside them in the
dark, O corpse-to-be ...
And yet perhaps this is the reason you cry,
this the nightmare you wake screaming from:
being forever
in the pre-trembling of a house that falls.
3
In a restaurant once, everyone
quietly eating, you clambered up
on my lap: to all
the mouthfuls rising toward
all the mouths, at the top of your voice
you cried
your one word, caca! caca! caca!
and each spoonful
stopped, a moment, in midair, in its withering
steam.
Yes,
you cling because
I, like you, only sooner
than you, will go down
the path of vanished alphabets,
the roadlessness
to the other side of the darkness,
your arms
like the shoes left behind,
like the adjectives in the halting speech
of old men,
which once could call up the lost nouns.
4
And you yourself,
some impossible Tuesday
in the year Two Thousand and Nine, will walk out
among the black stones
of the field, in the rain,
and the stones saying
over their one word, ci-gît, ci-gît, ci-gît,
and the raindrops
hitting you on the fontanel
over and over, and you standing there
unable to let them in.
5
If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a café at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
where white wine stands in upward opening glasses,
and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,
learn,
as you stand
at this end of the bridge which arcs,
from love, you think, into enduring love,
learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come – to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth
which tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.
The still undanced cadence of vanishing.
6
In the light the moon
sends back, I can see in your eyes
the hand that waved once
in my father's eyes, a tiny kite
wobbling far up in the twilight of his last look:
and the angel
of all mortal things lets go the string.
7
Back you go, into your crib.
The last blackbird lights up his gold wings: farewell.
Your eyes close inside your head,
in sleep. Already
in your dreams the hours begin to sing.
Little sleep's-head sprouting hair in the moonlight,
when I come back
we will go out together,
we will walk out together among
the ten thousand things,
each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages
of dying is love.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Life is spinning around me. I have known for a long time that it is out of my control. The end result, that is. Having just said that, perhaps I still have a bit of difficulty swallowing it. Perhaps my Monday child is right after all. Could I be a control freak? I thought about that just this moment when I tried to figure out why I decided to chop off my hair today. It has been long for several years now. I have never been particularly attached to it one way or another but I believe that subconsciously I needed to control something. And that I did. A nice pile of hair was brushed from under my chair as Mary Jo pushed it along to the hole on the floor. I stood up and felt ten pounds lighter.
Was it the weight of the hair or the satisfaction of having been the one controlling the end result?
Mary Jo wanted to dye my gray hair. I did that once before. I told her that if I dyed it I would have to go around singing "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen"....(I actually sang it out loud ). She said, you're right. With that voice, no one wants to hear it. Then we are agreed. I will have to keep my gray as a testimony to the troubles I've seen....
We both laughed like crazy! I pulled out my laptop to show everyone pictures of my precious Sunday's child (granddaughter). I bragged shamelessly like a true grandmother.
Was it the weight of the hair or the satisfaction of having been the one controlling the end result?
Mary Jo wanted to dye my gray hair. I did that once before. I told her that if I dyed it I would have to go around singing "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen"....(I actually sang it out loud ). She said, you're right. With that voice, no one wants to hear it. Then we are agreed. I will have to keep my gray as a testimony to the troubles I've seen....
We both laughed like crazy! I pulled out my laptop to show everyone pictures of my precious Sunday's child (granddaughter). I bragged shamelessly like a true grandmother.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Spent the morning at St. Joseph's Imaging with my mother having a battery of tests. Most of them routine. The staff was especially kind today. They are usually very professional, but today they were so sweet and gentle on how they handled her. that I actually talked to the manager and expressed my gratitude. So often now days we are treated with indifference that it warmed my heart to have this tenderness shown.
Got back home around noon and as I sipped what should have been my morning coffee, Luisa called. Luisa is a woman about my age, part of the handful of Portuguese families that live in this area. She was updating me on her mom. D. Lurdes fell about a month ago and broke her hip. This tipped the scale of her condition; Alzheimer's which has been progressing rapidly and forced Luisa to institutionalize her mother in a nursing home. It became impossible for Luisa to care for her mother at home any longer since she has no siblings and has to work from three to midnight. She goes to the nursing home every morning to feed her breakfast and lunch at noon. I went along with her today. D. Lurdes and I are old friends. We share the same birthday.
I have been there before. I have been at other nursing homes to see other people. The shocking factor wore off long ago. The empathy I have for the residents and staff though can never wear off. It is such a sobering sight. I almost feel that it should me mandatory that all young adults go visit a nursing home. A mandatory course in humanity. Perhaps then we would value more the people who work there. Perhaps then we would try to be a little bit less materialist and help our parents die with dignity at home, although in my friends case as in so many, she is the only one working to support the household. So, it is understandable that that option is not always possible, but when it is not, we should have a nursing home where there are more than 4 assistants for 62 residents on a floor. Today it's our parents. Tomorrow it will be our turn.
One of the assistants told me that there are people there for years already and although they have families, no one ever comes to visit. No one cares if they live or die. There were other residents in obvious semi vegetative state, others screaming uncontrollably. I realize that euthanasia is a full loaded subject, but then again, is it not constantly treating these people, like D. Lurdes infection after infection, with higher and higher doses of antibiotics while her flesh is already deteriorating playing God?
As we got ready to leave she had a clear moment. She knew who I was. I had been holding her hand the whole time. I kissed her cheek repeatedly and she did not want to let go. She told us she wanted to go with us. Her daughter told her she had to stay. She said she had to come with us so she could say farewell to everyone. Why? asked her daughter. I'm going on a long trip. Do you want to go to Coimbra? I asked. No, she said. I want to go to Gouveia. I want to go to Gouveia.
Clear as a bell. She gave me a sweet smile.
I feel so privileged to have had the chance to care for my father at home during his illness and have had him die peacefully at home.
Please God, Be Gentle with D. Lurdes. Take her to Gouveia.
Got back home around noon and as I sipped what should have been my morning coffee, Luisa called. Luisa is a woman about my age, part of the handful of Portuguese families that live in this area. She was updating me on her mom. D. Lurdes fell about a month ago and broke her hip. This tipped the scale of her condition; Alzheimer's which has been progressing rapidly and forced Luisa to institutionalize her mother in a nursing home. It became impossible for Luisa to care for her mother at home any longer since she has no siblings and has to work from three to midnight. She goes to the nursing home every morning to feed her breakfast and lunch at noon. I went along with her today. D. Lurdes and I are old friends. We share the same birthday.
I have been there before. I have been at other nursing homes to see other people. The shocking factor wore off long ago. The empathy I have for the residents and staff though can never wear off. It is such a sobering sight. I almost feel that it should me mandatory that all young adults go visit a nursing home. A mandatory course in humanity. Perhaps then we would value more the people who work there. Perhaps then we would try to be a little bit less materialist and help our parents die with dignity at home, although in my friends case as in so many, she is the only one working to support the household. So, it is understandable that that option is not always possible, but when it is not, we should have a nursing home where there are more than 4 assistants for 62 residents on a floor. Today it's our parents. Tomorrow it will be our turn.
One of the assistants told me that there are people there for years already and although they have families, no one ever comes to visit. No one cares if they live or die. There were other residents in obvious semi vegetative state, others screaming uncontrollably. I realize that euthanasia is a full loaded subject, but then again, is it not constantly treating these people, like D. Lurdes infection after infection, with higher and higher doses of antibiotics while her flesh is already deteriorating playing God?
As we got ready to leave she had a clear moment. She knew who I was. I had been holding her hand the whole time. I kissed her cheek repeatedly and she did not want to let go. She told us she wanted to go with us. Her daughter told her she had to stay. She said she had to come with us so she could say farewell to everyone. Why? asked her daughter. I'm going on a long trip. Do you want to go to Coimbra? I asked. No, she said. I want to go to Gouveia. I want to go to Gouveia.
Clear as a bell. She gave me a sweet smile.
I feel so privileged to have had the chance to care for my father at home during his illness and have had him die peacefully at home.
Please God, Be Gentle with D. Lurdes. Take her to Gouveia.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Maria
Not good news from the lab results.
Friday we found out my mother has diabetes. Today doctor H. called me to discuss an even more alarming result from the repeated lab work. I will not even allow myself to print it because I refuse to acknowledge it becoming a reality. Have to find a way to get her into the specialist's office without scaring her. It won't be easy.
I often hear it said that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle". I really have a problem with this one. I don't like to write about these type of things because they are of such a personal nature and they tend to give the impression of self pity, which I detest.
Those who know my personal history, very few, since I did not publicize this blog to friends or family know that I have had enough trials and tribulations to last a few life times.
I am holding my breath, trying to ignore this knot on my stomach and once again I say:
This too shall pass, this too shall pass
Friday we found out my mother has diabetes. Today doctor H. called me to discuss an even more alarming result from the repeated lab work. I will not even allow myself to print it because I refuse to acknowledge it becoming a reality. Have to find a way to get her into the specialist's office without scaring her. It won't be easy.
I often hear it said that "God doesn't give you more than you can handle". I really have a problem with this one. I don't like to write about these type of things because they are of such a personal nature and they tend to give the impression of self pity, which I detest.
Those who know my personal history, very few, since I did not publicize this blog to friends or family know that I have had enough trials and tribulations to last a few life times.
I am holding my breath, trying to ignore this knot on my stomach and once again I say:
This too shall pass, this too shall pass
Friday, November 7, 2008
TGIF
Finally showed up on the correct date for my mother's appointment with Dr. H. This being her yearly physical took longer than usual. Some of the lab work came back abnormal, so back to the lab we went for further analysis.
Without skipping a beat, my mother pulls out of her pocket a brochure for her antique sewing machine and reminds me that the lady in Marcellus told us about a store where she could find the part that she needs. Not bad for the person who swears with every other sentence that she is "losing her mind". I remember vaguely the conversation, only I cannot remember if it was Burnett Ave. or Butternut St. I've always had difficulty distinguishing those two. They run in separate parts of town. Also, I have no idea what the name of the shop might be. No obstacle for my mother. Quem tem boca vai a Roma! Literally translated: If you have a mouth you can reach Rome! So, off to reach Rome we go.
Feeling somewhat awkward I stopped at Ralins, a store that has been on Burnett Ave. as long as I have lived here, and sincerely have no idea how they have survived, being that they charge ten times more than all the chain stores. But they were extremely helpful. Called a repair shop on Erie Blvd. and asked if they knew of such a place. As it turns out, they did. And it was indeed on Burnett Ave. I was on the right road; didn't have to backtrack.
Found the small shop full of old Singer machines. The only type like my mother uses by peddling with her foot. Electric? Heaven forbid! After buying the pieces she needed we went next door to a knitting shop, her other passion.
She was in heaven! Talking up a storm with the two ladies in the shop. Bought some afghan needles even though I have recently found a sight and ordered Portuguese knitting needles. It's more than needles though, she loves to socialize in any form being as gregarious as she is. After all, I have heard all her stories and no longer react with the same enthusiasm as those hearing them for the first time.
Four hours after we initially left the house, she still wanted to make an additional stop. I begged for mercy. I needed to call it a day.
I no sooner settle in when the phone rings and I am being asked to volunteer at the community gardens, a group my father volunteered for many years and taught young people, if I can spend tomorrow with them. I muster up the courage to say NO, which is difficult for me. Feeling proud of myself and already enjoying being able to sleep in tomorrow morning the phone rings again. Short lived illusion. My mother has told Matt, a professor from SU who has fallen in love with her property and the gardens that he may come over to learn how to make the marmelada!
Melly will do it, because she is getting too old....
Without skipping a beat, my mother pulls out of her pocket a brochure for her antique sewing machine and reminds me that the lady in Marcellus told us about a store where she could find the part that she needs. Not bad for the person who swears with every other sentence that she is "losing her mind". I remember vaguely the conversation, only I cannot remember if it was Burnett Ave. or Butternut St. I've always had difficulty distinguishing those two. They run in separate parts of town. Also, I have no idea what the name of the shop might be. No obstacle for my mother. Quem tem boca vai a Roma! Literally translated: If you have a mouth you can reach Rome! So, off to reach Rome we go.
Feeling somewhat awkward I stopped at Ralins, a store that has been on Burnett Ave. as long as I have lived here, and sincerely have no idea how they have survived, being that they charge ten times more than all the chain stores. But they were extremely helpful. Called a repair shop on Erie Blvd. and asked if they knew of such a place. As it turns out, they did. And it was indeed on Burnett Ave. I was on the right road; didn't have to backtrack.
Found the small shop full of old Singer machines. The only type like my mother uses by peddling with her foot. Electric? Heaven forbid! After buying the pieces she needed we went next door to a knitting shop, her other passion.
She was in heaven! Talking up a storm with the two ladies in the shop. Bought some afghan needles even though I have recently found a sight and ordered Portuguese knitting needles. It's more than needles though, she loves to socialize in any form being as gregarious as she is. After all, I have heard all her stories and no longer react with the same enthusiasm as those hearing them for the first time.
Four hours after we initially left the house, she still wanted to make an additional stop. I begged for mercy. I needed to call it a day.
I no sooner settle in when the phone rings and I am being asked to volunteer at the community gardens, a group my father volunteered for many years and taught young people, if I can spend tomorrow with them. I muster up the courage to say NO, which is difficult for me. Feeling proud of myself and already enjoying being able to sleep in tomorrow morning the phone rings again. Short lived illusion. My mother has told Matt, a professor from SU who has fallen in love with her property and the gardens that he may come over to learn how to make the marmelada!
Melly will do it, because she is getting too old....
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Bone Tired
I have to to slow down and do a thorough self examination. I have been scattering myself in all directions and my body and mind are showing it.
Took my mother for a doctor's appointment only to get there and find the office closed. I was early. Extremely early. The appointment is not until tomorrow. I felt foolish. It's hard to get my mother out of the house. I thought I was so organized because I made an additional appointment for her at the pain clinic so that she would only have to go out once and take care of two issues. Only problem now was that we had four hours to kill.
So here I stood, looking at my mother, who was looking at me, confused, but with more a look of concern than confusion. I cracked a joke. So, you think you are getting dementia? By the time I reach your age, I will be lucky to remember my name!
Took my mother for a doctor's appointment only to get there and find the office closed. I was early. Extremely early. The appointment is not until tomorrow. I felt foolish. It's hard to get my mother out of the house. I thought I was so organized because I made an additional appointment for her at the pain clinic so that she would only have to go out once and take care of two issues. Only problem now was that we had four hours to kill.
So here I stood, looking at my mother, who was looking at me, confused, but with more a look of concern than confusion. I cracked a joke. So, you think you are getting dementia? By the time I reach your age, I will be lucky to remember my name!
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Dream
At eleven o'clock the news finally broke. The projection: Barack Obama the next President!
I took my first deep breath of the day. The phone rings and a loud scream on the other end. The scream is never ending. Even the dogs are screaming with all the excitement.
I truly never believed that I would live to see the day that a black man would be elected President of this country. I have lived here forty two years and know first hand how deeply racism runs in the veins of such a large percentage of this population.
I saw the tears running down Jesse Jackson's face.
I thought of Martin Luther King. I asked him, are you watching this Martin?
Your dream is becoming a reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I Have a Dream"
delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
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[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³
Book/CDs by Michael E. Eidenmuller, Published by McGraw-Hill (2008)
¹ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)
² Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because King's rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., "hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King's rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.
³ At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/free_at_last_from.htm
Also in this database: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence
External Link: http://www.mlkmemorial.org/
External Link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/
Copyright Status: Text, Audio = Restricted, seek permission. Images & Video = Uncertain.
Copyright inquiries and permission requests may be directed to:
Estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, JrIntellectual Properties ManagementOne Freedom Plaza449 Auburn Avenue NEAtlanta, GA 30312Fax: 404-526-8969
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Top 100 American Speeches
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I took my first deep breath of the day. The phone rings and a loud scream on the other end. The scream is never ending. Even the dogs are screaming with all the excitement.
I truly never believed that I would live to see the day that a black man would be elected President of this country. I have lived here forty two years and know first hand how deeply racism runs in the veins of such a large percentage of this population.
I saw the tears running down Jesse Jackson's face.
I thought of Martin Luther King. I asked him, are you watching this Martin?
Your dream is becoming a reality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"I Have a Dream"
delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
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[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio. (2)]
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.
We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."²
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that:
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!³
Book/CDs by Michael E. Eidenmuller, Published by McGraw-Hill (2008)
¹ Amos 5:24 (rendered precisely in The American Standard Version of the Holy Bible)
² Isaiah 40:4-5 (King James Version of the Holy Bible). Quotation marks are excluded from part of this moment in the text because King's rendering of Isaiah 40:4 does not precisely follow the KJV version from which he quotes (e.g., "hill" and "mountain" are reversed in the KJV). King's rendering of Isaiah 40:5, however, is precisely quoted from the KJV.
³ At: http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/free_at_last_from.htm
Also in this database: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence
External Link: http://www.mlkmemorial.org/
External Link: http://www.thekingcenter.org/
Copyright Status: Text, Audio = Restricted, seek permission. Images & Video = Uncertain.
Copyright inquiries and permission requests may be directed to:
Estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, JrIntellectual Properties ManagementOne Freedom Plaza449 Auburn Avenue NEAtlanta, GA 30312Fax: 404-526-8969
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Top 100 American Speeches
Online Speech Bank
© Copyright 2001-2008. American Rhetoric.HTML transcription by Michael E. EidenmullerAll rights reserved.
Needles and pins.
It's 8:39PM. I am glued to CNN. My arm is hurting because I have been on the phone all evening with my daughter in Arizona. She is even more anxious than I am.
She tells me that she has lit a candle for Obama's grandmother and for his success tonight. She made her roommate cross himself. She crossed all her three dogs and prayed that we can finally turn this country around. She even has the rosary beads out! I can't help it but start to laugh at her, and at the same time am charmed by her innocence. Then she almost makes me cry when she tells me that Obama's grandma is rooting for him with all the angels and even her beloved Daisy, whom she lost in January is helping him...
She asks me to light a candle also. And I do.
It's 8:39PM. I am glued to CNN. My arm is hurting because I have been on the phone all evening with my daughter in Arizona. She is even more anxious than I am.
She tells me that she has lit a candle for Obama's grandmother and for his success tonight. She made her roommate cross himself. She crossed all her three dogs and prayed that we can finally turn this country around. She even has the rosary beads out! I can't help it but start to laugh at her, and at the same time am charmed by her innocence. Then she almost makes me cry when she tells me that Obama's grandma is rooting for him with all the angels and even her beloved Daisy, whom she lost in January is helping him...
She asks me to light a candle also. And I do.
Monday, November 3, 2008
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