Portraits and Footprints

 Wow, almost a year since I last posted here.  No wonder google made me answer a bunch of questions and texted codes to my phone.  The footprints I refer to in the title is the digital kind--my digital footprint is a bit of a mess right now, with this blog that is becoming more of a placeholder and two flickr accounts with ridiculous amounts of pictures of flowers.  Let's not even talk about the multiple email accounts...

But the main reason I'm writing is to tell you that Mr. Bookcharmer and I went into San Francisco today to see the Obama portraits at the De Young museum.  We haven't been to the De Young in well over two years due to covid.  It was a great day to visit the city--perfect weather and an uncrowded museum.  

I haven't written much the past year because the news has been just so awful.  The gun violence in this country is off the charts appalling.  Across the country the mass shootings have continued, seemingly each one worse than the last with innocents targeted including African American elders at a grocery store and children at an elementary school.  And while congress finally mustered legislation to strengthen requirements for gun purchase ( See https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/congress-sends-landmark-gun-violence-legislation-to-biden) the very flipping same week the Supreme Court went wild and reversed the decision on Roe v. Wade.

Throw in ongoing pandemic topped by public laxity about masking and vaccinations....well, it has been hard to stay upbeat. 

So these are the things I think about when I need to find momentum.  I think about the people that made change, despite enormous personal cost.  I think about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I think about Congressman John Lewis.  It helps enormously that I am listening to the audiobook of Senator Maizie K. Hirono's memoir, Heart of Fire.  I recommend this book to anyone interested in modern politics and women's history.  She reads the memoir, and her warm voice and detailed recollections are wonderful guideposts for her journey, the first woman Senator from Hawaii, also the first immigrant, Asian American, and Buddhist in the Senate.  She has fought hard for all of her wins and she fights for people.  Her memories of childhood, great in love but scarce in material resources, show her to be a woman who did not let the experience of poverty embitter her, but to rise to the challenge for making things better for everyone. 

One of the reasons we went to the see the Obama portraits today was to see those wonderful faces again, the faces of these two people that lead the country while raising a family, who brought new energy and values of compassion to the White House.  The portraits are stunning and captivating and I like knowing that when they finally go to the National Portrait Gallery, so many people just like myself have been able to spend a little bit of time with them. 

Another reason we went was simply to spend some time around art.  To walk through quiet galleries and peek into diverse minds and spaces.  To see scenes of the past and possibilities of the future.  To spend time just looking and thinking. 

It doesn't hurt that I'm 3 days into a four day weekend and feeling rested is one of the most powerful ways to manage to just keep going.  Our culture of caffeine, freeways, and fast food is not one geared towards healthful contemplation.  But me, I've been to the farmers market, I'm eating plums from a friend's tree, and I'm going to have my feet back under me when I head back to the library.  

The frenzy of request for political donations is going to be off the charts this fall, and for all kinds of reasons.  And it is a shame that money is the cost of participation but there you have it.  So choose wisely, and make your donations early so that campaigns can roll into full strength way before the fall deadlines.  The group I donate to is Sister District, and they are fighting in the trenches where the impact of decisions fall hard, on state legislature races.  And in doing so, they are building the bench of Democrats who will have the experience to serve on the national level.  Take a look here:  https://sisterdistrict.com/

So that's all I have for now.  I'll try to write again before another six months goes by.  Stay well and peaceful and hopefully you have some fresh summer plums where you live, too.

Love Thy Neighbor

Special election day edition of The Bookcharmer.

The Bookcharmer's thought for today is one she draws from religious traditions:  Love Thy Neighbor.  I will ask my dear friend Winston Delgado to expound on this for me, as his knowledge of the Bible is prodigious and impressive.

Friday was Halloween, which in America still means it is a day in the year when adults bring children to neighboring houses and events in delightful costumes to revel in sweets.  At my library, the annual Halloween parade is one of the best days of the year as the children's librarian leads a parade of costumed children through the building and the library staff joyfully admires their costumes and hands out candies (or in the Bookcharmer's case, pencils and plastic dinosaurs which were just as popular as candy thank you very much!)

We ached with delight to see children dressed as mice, bunnies, bumblebees, princesses, doctors, robots, Iron Man, and pumpkins.  We got to praise the creativity and fearsomeness of scary costumes and swoon over the sweet ones.  We loved our neighbors.

Today, if we can, we vote.  I am well aware that this was not always a privilege allowed my historical sisters.  Indeed, my paternal grandmother who lived to be 100 was a passionate voter as she was 16 years old when the 19th amendment was ratified.

There has been much in the press about the profoundly shocking amount of money dumped into campaigns by distant influences.  But I say to them, you cannot buy the experience of my neighbor coming to my door to ask for my vote in his or her election to city council or water board.  I open my door and we shake hands and I ask my neighbor how he or she will vote on issues I care about.  I thank them for running, ask if they would like a glass of water or other refreshment before they carry on and wish them well.  To meet the people running for office when they come to your own doorstep is a fine thing and I don't believe that can be bought, no matter how much money distant influencers throw at flyers, stupid advertisements, and outrageous editorials.  I know my neighbors.  I see them at the farmers' market, in line for coffee, or at the bookstore.  No one can buy from me the connection that comes from seeing people in office, city, state, or nationally, that I personally voted for.

On the back of my mind since my last post is Ferguson.  I am following several on the ground reporters on twitter, including St. Louis Post Dispatch photographer @kodacohen and St. Louis Alderman @Antonio French. If you aren't already following them, I hope you will and continue to signal boost the situation in Ferguson.

Why is your Bookcharmer, a librarian, writing about these issues?  Because libraries are in an even stronger position to be the repository of memory, we have new tools to document history.  These tools are so powerful that the phrase Activist Archivist is being used.  A fine example of this is the Postville Project in Iowa that documents the immigration raid that occurred in spring of  2008 at the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville. I hope that in the turmoil and fray of what is happening in Ferguson, that organizers know to set aside extra copies of papers and flyers, posters and press releases, and know that libraries can provide an archive to document your work and preserve it.  Ask the libraries supporting the Postville Project and I would bet they will have good advice on how to do this.

I am far from my Midwestern home, but I still love the people of Saint Louis and Ferguson.  What holds our country together isn't money but neighbors, and even states away I consider you my neighbors.  As a librarian, I know that we can come together to share and get to know one another.  This is expressed beautifully by librarian Scott Brown of the Ferguson library in Missouri who posted:



Thank you @ScottyBonner and thank you everyone who shows that you care by voting.

Your neighbor,  The Bookcharmer